The Actions of AA Never Fail – Dick M.

Good morning. My name is Dick Martin. I'm an alcoholic. By the grace of God, the actions of AA and sponsorship, I've been sober since September 15, 1965, and I'm very grateful for that. yeah i did that i uh i've been i've been known to do that and you know i've been known to do that a lot as a matter of fact not uh not to put people down but to wake them up because uh in order to get where we want to go in order for us to stay sober we have to be awake We have to be alert to the fact that alcoholism is a disease that will kill us, and it's fatal, it's permanent, and it can't be cured. And so we've got to do something about it. And Peg remarked last night, and she said that it seemed that those people who stay sober are those people who observe the grace of God. And I think that that's true, but I didn't observe the grace OF God when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn''t want God to know where I was because I thought He'd zap me to tell you the truth. But I'm going to tell you how i learned to observe the grace of god because you learn to observe the grace of god through the actions you take you don't learn it by sitting down and studying a book and you don t learn it listening to me or or any of the other speakers you're going to hear this weekend uh... that's a part of it but it's not the whole thing there isn't anybody that's going to come here this time this week weekend and get healed I mean, it just doesn't work that way because ours is an incremental growth. And just tiny little increments of growth and tiny little increment of observing the grace of God in our own fashion is what gets us to where we're going. And I can remember, you know, I've been sober for a long time. Not as long as some, and hopefully not as long as I'm going to be. But what I'm going to do is to talk to you about my experience. I'm not going to talk to you about my knowledge. I mean, I'm not all that bright that you want to hear what I know anyway. But the one thing that I do know is I've learned how to stay sober. And staying sober is not something that you just don't take the first drink or put the plug in the jug and that's the end of it because it doesn't work that way staying sober is a it's almost an occupation if you're an alcoholic like i'm an alcoholic and uh like the people that you have uh speaking here this weekend uh i know them all uh and i know the mall well and we're alcoholics of uh we're real alcoholics, as the big book says. We're alcoholics of our type, as the Big Book describes it. And those people seem to be the people who have to take the steps in order to stay sober. There are some people who come in here who just seem to blithely go along and live on the fellowship and, you know, stay sober You might be one of those. But if I were you, I wouldn't take that chance because alcoholism is, you know, we're talking about alcohol being cunning, baffling and powerful and it's liable to sneak up and bite you before you know it. So you have to do something about it. I have to doing something about that. And this isn't something that I do occasionally. This isn't some thing that I'd do yesterday and I'm not going to do it today. It's something that i have to on a daily basis because I get a daily reprieve based on my spiritual condition. My spiritual condition doesn't mean that I'm going to necessarily get on my knees and pray when I roll out of bed in the morning, primarily because I don't think God wakes up until 10 o'clock. I think he doesn't much care what we're doing when we're sleeping. And so he gives us a little leeway so we could even sleep in until 10 and be okay. Because he's busy doing something else then. And what he's doing is he's busy taking care of the people who are not asleep. And so for sleepers, you know, he just doesn't do anything to tend. And I'm very fortunate because he's awake now. I got to watch what I say and act better than I feel and go on from there. if you're new to Alcoholics Anonymous the way to start out is really pretty simple the entrance to Alcoholic Anonymous is by not taking that first drink being a member of Alcoholics Anonymous doesn't mean that you have to be in an A meeting all day every day what it means is that being a member of alcoholics anonymous is a matter of conception by you You're the one that says that you're a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. No one says that, okay, you've been to a meeting every night for six weeks. We're going to stamp your hand and you're an alcoholic. But what's going to end up happening if you go to a meet-up or a meeting ever night for 6 weeks, you're goingto end up getting rid of most of the alcohol in your system by the end of that 6-week period of time if you're not taking one drink one day at a time. And you'regoing to be clear enough of mind so that you can make up your mind what you're going to do. Make up your mind whether you're an alcoholic or not. If you're a alcoholic, you've got a pretty good run on staying sober and alcoholics are not. Because you've begun to take the actions which will give you the grace of God. I'm not saying that God's grace doesn't shine on everybody because God's race is just like the rain. He gives His grace on the just and unjust alike. But you're going to be able to observe the grace of God if you take the actions. If you take The Actions of Alcoholics Anonymous. Because there isn't any difference between AlcoholicsAnonymous and Heaven as far as I'm concerned. They're the same thing. You know, just like the principles of Alcoholic Anonymous and the principles that are set by God, they're the saying. Just like, you know, God and truth and love and kindness and good cheer and all of those things are all the same. they're synonymous, and AA is right there with it. It all means the same thing. It all is going to take everybody to the same direction. We're going to end up in the same place, dead. But Alcoholics Anonymous gives you a choice. Are you going to die with dignity and grace, or are you going to die screaming and hollering and complaining and whining? You've got a choice. AA gives you a choice, how you want to die. It gives you choice first on how you wants to live. And I didn't want to live the way I was living because I was thoroughly dishonest. I was not capable really of being much of a contributor to society. I was a rotten husband. I was rotten father. I was a rotten brother and son, I was a bad employee, I was a very poor citizen or neighbor and I was the poor friend. And I didn't want to be those things. I didn' t want to be anything extraordinary. I had no desire to do that. But I had a desire just to be a decent guy. I just wanted to be good guy.I didn't wanna be a wonderful person. I didn''t seek that which is Good thing I didn't, because I'd have been sorely disappointed. But all I wanted to do is, I just wanted to be a nice guy. I just want to be able to do what I said I was going to do when I said I was gonna do it. I wanted that option in my life. I wanted be able where I said i was gonna be when i said I was gunna be there. That's not much to ask for. It doesn't seem like to me. But that's all I it. And I've gotten so much more as a result of the actions that I've taken in AA. And people have asked me from time to time, and if you stay sober for a while, somebody is going to sneak up on you and ask you, well, you're sober, you've been sober a long time, how do I get there? And you can say, well if you do what I do, you'll get what I got. And what we have is sobriety, by the way. We don't have any scholarships to give out or anything like that. We're not going to make you mortgage payment or bail you out of jail. But what we are going to do is to give you an idea of how we stayed sober. And if you take that idea of How We Stayed Sober and run with it, you're going to be able to stay sober too. It never fails. The actions of alcoholics and non-analysts never fail. We as individuals fail, but I have failed many times. But I haven't failed to the point where I found it absolutely an absolute fact that drinking was the only answer because I found that the only answered to me is Alcoholics Anonymous. The magic of Alcoholics Aonolous, I think, is that it gives us the power to drink, even power not to drink, even when we want to drink. And that's the magic of Alcoholics Anonymous, that we can stay sober even if we want to drink? What a great deal that is because we could never do that before. Somehow or another we have been changed. There's something that's happened to us and I think that that thing that happened to US, you know, can only be described as we have observed the grace of god not thoroughly because we'll never be able to do that i don't think but we have been able to doing enough so that we've gotten a daily reprieve from taking that next drink and so what do we do i mean i've had people ask me well what do you do to stay sober what have you done you know well in the first place i don t take a drink a day at a time period no matter what it doesn't make any difference how rough my life is how tough my life is how endless it seems you know there are those days when things when I have a tough time just like everybody else does and on those days it's just hey come on midnight come on just so I can lay down put my head down and go to sleep because regardless of what's going on in my life, a good night's sleep will improve it by at least 50%. I feel 50% better the next day. So sometimes, you know, I've got to remember that you don't get too hungry, angry, lonely, and tired because if you get too hungry, you know I think everybody around me is an idiot. I mean, I don't know. They've been trained by some moron or something, you know. They know not what they're doing. Forgive them, Father, if I can get that out. And, you Know, when I'm angry, I think God wants me to kill them. And I just think it's okay. And, You know, I get lonely and it just seems like everybody else is invited to the party except me. And when I'm tired, all of those above, all of those feelings come to me. All of those feelings of rejection and sadness and loneliness and fear and anxiety, they all come and creep, just creep in bed with me. And I don't want to live that way. So what I do, what I try to do on a daily basis is to maintain an attitude of gratitude, as our old friend Hal Marley, who's very ill now, says. Because if you can maintain an attitude of gratitude you can't feel bad. You can feel good. You can feel decent about your life. So again, how do you do this? I think Jerry described it in part. He said he sat in the front row and he got his book and he He got his highlighters, and he started taking notes and so on and so forth. He learned to study the literature of Alcoholics Anonymous. He learned the big book. He learned To Study the 12 of 12. He learned The Practice of Alcoholic Anonymous I think more than anything else, we learn a day at a time. We learn to follow those people in Alcoholics Andonymous that we admire and respect. because when I came to AA, I didn't want to stop drinking. But I went to a meeting every night, and in going to a meeting every tonight, I began to see many of the same people over and over again. And I beganto know them, and I began to like them,and I began respect them. And these guys had stayed sober through some terrible times. They had gotten sober and many of them were worse drunks than I was. But regardless of that circumstance, what ended up happening is I wanted to be like those people were. And I looked at them and I thought, well, what's the difference between them and me? And the difference Between Them and Me is they had a desire to stop drinking. And so what I developed was a desire to be like them and that desire came along my desire to stop drinking came as a result of my mimicking the people who came before me and doing what they did because i didn't know what they were doing and i didn'T know what THEY WERE DOING WHEN I FOLLOWED THEM i JUST DID WHAT THEY DID AND THEY MADE MISTAKES AND THEY SAID OH i WAS WRONG THEY GOT UP AND HE SAID HEY i was wrong What can I do to make this right? And I learned to make my amends. I learned to put the steps into my life as an action, not as some sort of a thought because these are not thinking things. Alcoholics Anonymous, we're not looking for big thinkers. There's a few big thinkers around. Their breath smells like alcohol. So we don't need any thinkers around here. What we need are people who are going to take the action. And I'm oh so fortunate, because I went to my first meeting, and I was taken by a guy who had been sober for 12 years or so. And it was a service meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, and there was a guy at the door performing one of the greatest services that can be performed. he stood at the front door and he stuck out his hand and he said welcome to AA now I've been sober for a long time and somebody welcoming me somewhere is something that I'm accustomed to you know something that I don't necessarily expect but I certainly acknowledge the fact that it's okay and it makes me feel good but I don't notice it as much, but I really noticed it that night because all of a sudden I was wanted someplace. Welcome to AA. We're glad you're here. That guy's name was Reds Fanning, and he died sober. He was a sober member of AA when he died. And it was said it was a service meeting of alcoholics and analysts. Ernie, the attorney, was the area chairman at that time, and he was describing the service structure. They played a film strip, something like Circles of Love and Service. I sat there, and I learned what Alcoholics Anonymous was. I learned the structure of AlcoholicsAnonymous, and I'm sure his presentation was a half an hour or something like that. It wasn't very long. But I learnedwhat that was. And in learning what that was, afterwards, Ernie, the attorney, and the Monsignor and a guy named No-Growth McGee took me. We went to the hot shop, and I was 12 steps in the traditional sense of the word. And I say in the tradition, in the original sense ofthe word, they talked to me and told me what they were like, what happened, and what they're like now. And I identified with each one of them. And I think that that's the first threshold into Alcoholics Anonymous. It's a matter of one alcoholic talking to another alcoholic so that they can overcome these slight fears or big fears that we have of joining such a fellowship, being a member of such a society as we are today. They told me their stories and they told me what had happened to them and what they were like now. And I related to what they were saying. And I said, hey, wait a minute. You guys, how'd you find out about me? You know things about me that there isn't any other one person knows. But collectively, you guys are just telling the story of my life. Because it was one guy over here, my estranged wife, she knew one side of me. My girlfriend knew another side of it. My mother knew another side. My sister knew another. My employer knew another I mean everybody had a little you know Kodak moment of me but nobody knew the whole thing. I mean nobody knew that I'd been arrested 23 times for public intoxication except the police You know they knew about it but I sure as heck didn't tell anybody else That's something you do when you go to work in the morning and say, oh I was picked up outside the Mayflower Hotel for being drunk and disorderly last night. What'd you guys do? And twice for being in possession of a vehicle while intoxicated and once for urinating in public. I mean, as we get it all over again. That's not the behavior of an ordinary citizen, you know. But that's the behavior of this alcoholic. I had to get a sponsor. Getting a sponsor is not a very difficult thing to do. The guy that 12-stepped me I guess I've been around going to meetings and so on for about two or three weeks and we were going somewhere. We had been to the AA Businessmen's Lunch in Washington, D.C., where I got sober. And we were coming back. That Businessmen'S Lunch was kind of an oddity in itself. It still goes on. Jerry was telling me that most of the guys in there are over 70. They're old. Thank God I'm not that old. I've got eight days. I'm going to give it all I got for eight days. But we were driving across the 14th Street Bridge, and I had already been dubbed by this time with the name of Gloves. My sponsor's car timing chain had a few nicks in it apparently, and you'd push the starter, and it wouldn't necessarily catch. So you had to get out and turn the prop and adjust it so that it would catch. He had a pair of gloves in the glove compartment. I'd just get in his car and open up the glove department and get out the gloves and go around standing in front while he popped the hood open. And it just became kind of a natural sort of an act to me. You want to go for a ride? That's what you do. after I'd been sober for I think it was about five years they bronzed those gloves and gave them to me but as we were riding along I said you know you people in AA don't fool me I said you talk about not taking a drink a day at a time and just not drinking a day at a same time but what you really mean is forever and he said you're right that's what we really mean he said frankly if you don't make a commitment to stay sober for the rest of your life you're not going to stay over for the rest of life you have to make a personal commitment to your own self however that may be to stay so and you have to take the actions of alcoholics and you will stay sober and he's right he's absolutely right and I said what are these people in AA you know I've gone to these meetings and they're talking about their sponsor I said what's a sponsor and he said I'm a sponsor I'm your sponsor oh I said that's not unusual for that action to take place today by the way if you're not sponsoring anybody which is what we owe if someone went out of their way to help us then what we want to do is to go out of our way to helping somebody else not to compensate for what was given us but just to because that's one of the acts that we take where we're aware of the grace of God. That's one of the acts that we take, and as a result, we'reware of the great grace of the Lord. We're aware the grace of God, but we just feel a little bit better. Our backs are a little bit straighter, our shoulders are thrown back, and we can hold our heads up regardless of who and what we have been. We can feel a little better because we have done something actually it's kind of a selfish sort of an act that's why a lot of people say that AA is a selfish program because although we may be going out of our way to help you and you may derive benefit from it secretly down inside of ourselves we also know that the result is that we're going to feel better by taking those actions so it's selfish in that respect But you know, the odd thing about it is you can't be selfish unless you give it away. So I mean, it's almost a self-canceling act. But God, what a great thing it is to see somebody turn around. It was embarrassing when Jerry stood up and talked about that this morning to me. Because it doesn't seem that some act like that ought to bring about the way I feel today and the way he feels today. And for the result to be there, so strong even yet today, that he would stand up and say so. And that I would sit here in my own humility and feeling the embarrassment that I felt. A fellow came up to me last night, and he said, Dickie says, you remember me? I hadn't seen him for 25, 28 years, something like that. And I said, well, you're familiar to me. That's why I greeted you when I saw you. And he told me who he was. and he said it was in Washington that you knew me I just really didn't connect up for some reason and he took me to my first meeting of alcoholics and honest and he's sober today that's not what i see of myself but that's what i am that's what happens as a result of staying sober and being active in alcoholics anonymous and being willing to go out of my way to help somebody else regardless of what i'm doing regardless of the fact that i'm not going to be able to what my life is my life is really unimportant. As long as your life is important to me, I feel good. When your life is not important to be, I don't feel good As long as your life is important to me, I feel the grace of God and I don't say oh there's the grace of God because it doesn't happen that way. I just feel good I feel like getting up out of bed in the morning and going to get my wife a cup coffee and letting Duchess go out. She's my dog. No, I'm not going to go there. But she loves me with an undying affection and admiration. My dog. She thinks of me as her master. I feed her, I take her for a walk, throw the ball for her. I talk to her. I scratch her butt. I put fresh water out for her and you know that same thing happens to me every day. People feed me. They take me for a while. they'd scratch my butt if I knew it and I think that they're great and I feel good as an end result so I talked about getting a sponsor and using a sponsor. But also I would like to talk to you about the fact that when I had my early beginnings in Alcoholics Anonymous, I was actively sponsoring people when I was two months old, three months old. I sponsor a lot of guys now. Many of them, over half of them I would say, or half of whom have been sober over 20 years. The new ones I get are those that have been sober for seven or eight years and they're just goofy as a pet coon because they've been staying sober on the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous and have never taken the steps. I have one guy who was sober for 21 years here recently. He came over and asked me to sponsor him. I found that he had never gotten any further than the fifth step. He had taken his fifth step, and that's all he had done. And he'd had someone else for a sponsor, and the guy had never directed him to take his amends, make his amens. I don't think I felt like I was a member of AA until I actively, in person, made amends to my first person. God, I just felt a little bit better. I felt a Little taller. I felt A little more like I Was a member Of Alcoholics Anonymous. I felt Like it was A little better for me. I could breathe the air like the other people were doing, and I didn't owe somebody for it. I just felt okay. In doing so, what ended up happening with me is I, you know, the grace of God rained down on me. I didn' t know that. I didn''t know that that's what happened. But I just fell a little bit better. And I felt a little more kindly towards other people who were around me. But I had learned to go to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and pay attention to what people were saying, not to have side conversations. I learned that AlcoholicsAnonymous is a monologue situation. If there's somebody talking, shut up. You know, simple. Be polite. Because AA, if it's anything, is polite. And if it'S not polite, it's not AA. And that's all there is to it. Politeness comes in all forms. Poking somebody in the chest is one of them. Why? Because I saw something that needed to be done, and I did it. It's not because I was right, not because I'm wonderful, not потому anything else, but because something needed to been done and I didn't. it's just like taking a walk and seeing a piece of trash on the street somebody ought to pick it up I'm somebody, so I pick it up. It's not a big deal I just try to make the world a little better place now that I'm in it not because I'm wonderful but because taking the action makes me feel good it makes me feel like it's okay so in sponsoring others you know I'm not going to tell you I was greatly successful two of the early guys that I sponsored committed suicide one of them hung himself and blew his brains out and I thought there was something wrong with me, something that I delivered the wrong message or something. And I think what it was was a lesson to me, and I took it as a lesson to me that I've got to continue to do what I do so I don't do the same thing that these guys did. Why did they do it? I don' t have any idea. But they didn' t feel like I felt. I didn't feel like doing that. Not that some feelings of depression and anxiety and frustration don't come and visit me from time to time, because there are constant companions if you're an alcoholic. But you can really tamp those suckers down where they don't bother you. You can really get rid of them on a daily basis if you have that spiritual reprieve. And how do you get that? That spiritual reprieve is another grace of God, I guess. How do you get that? Take the steps. They're simple. There's nothing complex about them. They were written for alcoholics of my type. They werewritten for alcoholists like Tom. They werewritten for alcohols like Peg or Greg or Jim or Hugh. or you, whoever you are. And they work. They're simple. There's no argument about them. And they start off with such a polite statement. It is so polite. It says we admitted we were powerless over alcohol. How polite can you get? that isn't an accusation it doesn't say you're an alcoholic it doesn'T say that you're a rotten no good SOB it just says we admitted we were powerless over alcohol it's a big deal but it'S not a big deal because we have admitted it to ourselves internally we know the music if we didn't know the musIc we would have never come to Alcoholics Anonymous us? Well, we just didn't know the words to the music. I came to AA and they gave me the words, and I had the song. So paying attention is important. Making sure that it's a monologue is important because it shows the newcomer, if nothing else, that what's going on is important. It's important enough for you to listen. It is important enough for you give it your attention. I had to learn to become involved in my own recovery. I learned that my recovery was important to me and I had to take the actions, not necessarily because I wanted to. I didn't want to be a wonderful person. I just wanted to feel longer. I didn't want to feel great. I wasn't looking for that. I wanted to wake up and not be embarrassed for the fact that I was alive. So I had to learn to make commitments. I had to learn not to turn down an AA request if I was asked to do something in Alcoholics Anonymous I did it unless I had a prior commitment if I had a prior commit I would say I'm sorry I have a prior commitment I can't do it I had to learn to find and discover a home group and to find and discover a home groups wasn't hard because my first home group was my sponsor's home group. I just went where he went, you know. It was really a simple thing. I asked him and I said, what's a home group? And he said, for you the Annandale group. It's my home group, it's your home group I didn't know any better and it sure worked for me it worked for him and it sure as heck was working for me so I just kept on doing it I went to a meeting on Monday nights on a regular basis and it was North Arlington group five minutes before eight the meeting started at eight o'clock five minutes beforehand they shut the coffee off nobody got a cup of coffee that really made me mad I went to that meeting for a year and just sat there and resented the fact that I couldn't get a cup of coffee and then I learned if you get there half an hour ahead of time you have plenty of time to get a cup of coffee but the resentment was set in by that time and I didn't want to give it up so peg and i and buck and ernie the attorney and no growth mcgee started a started a meeting on monday night in washington it was a foxhole group and uh it was successful right from the opening of the doors and there were plenty of other meetings and alcoholics anonymous at that time but It was successful because they had a bunch of enthusiastic AA members there. Not because we drugged people in, but because people wanted to do what we did so that they could feel the way we felt. Because it was by the example that we set that they followed us. It's not because we aren't great leaders in Alcoholics Anonymous. We're just people. and people look at us they want to have what we have and so they do what we do I'd like to go on and say that Peg and I moved from Washington in 1975, moved to Nebraska of all places we live in a little town now it had about 20,000 and it has about 48,000 now, Omaha is our largest suburb. Missouri River runs on the border between Nebraska and Iowa. We live on the east coast of Nebraska. God, we've got to say something about it. It's a great place to live, it just isn't much of a place to visit, that's all. But we moved out there, and they had never had a successful speaker meeting in the community in Omaha. We moved to Bellevue, and we had one-and-a-half meetings a week. They had a women's meeting during the daytime, which was kind of a half a meeting. They swapped recipes for cookies, talked about child rearing and that sort of thing. So I'm told. I was never invited. She reported to me. And so after we were there for about six months, we started a speaker meeting. And remembering our roots, we called it the Foxhole Group. That started off with about 40 of our followers. Misfits and proud women. And people come up, this will never last. Ha ha ha, I knew it would. I knew It would because they said It wouldn't. I'm not a naysayer. I don't believe naysayers. I just don't play that game. I believe that things will work out, and they'll work out well if the intention is good. And the intention was certainly good. That meeting every Tuesday night has about 450 to 500 people in it. People have asked, well, how in the world did you do that? Well, it was really very simple. I went on a lot of 12-step calls. Peggy went on all the time. a lot of 12-step calls, and we said, you know, you've got to get a home group. Our home group is a foxhole group, and so it's your home. Does that make sense? I mean, I want the people that I sponsor, I don't want my pigeons to be at the meeting where I know I'm going to be because I want to see them. Sometimes I wantto see them because Iwant to see how they're getting along. Sometimes I want to see them because I like the next adventure in their saga of life. But I don't want to miss anything, and I want to see my friends, because the people you sponsor become your friends. You're their sponsor first, and you always got to let that be in there, and it's got to be set. but the secondary portion of it is they become friends I've got people that I sponsor who have been sober 25, 30 years or more who still call me sponsor whom I'm still in regular conversation with once a week to see how their life is doing I'm available to them I haven't quit although when I become 70 I might consider that I don't think that's time to slow down I think that is time to speed up because you ain't got that much time left So what we end up doing is we act better than we feel. Sometimes we don't feel like doing it. Sometimes we ache. Sometimes we have pain. Sometimes we just don't know what to do. We just don' t feel good, but we act better than you feel. There are people in this room that I know who have had serious ongoing illnesses that have been difficult for them and they still smile and they're still there and they feel better than they should. I know that sometimes I feel better than I should. I've gone through my share of all that kind of stuff just like everybody else does. It's just sometimes our turn. Sometimes we got to do that got to act better than we feel to be an example for somebody else who's going through what we went through. Sometimes that seems to be the only thing that we do. And sometimes we make a measure of that. I sponsor a guy, he's been sober for 25 years, I sponsored him ever since he came into AA. After he was in AA for about a year and a half he came down with MS and he's still alive. He's still live. Usually by the time they diagnose MS, he's got about 15-16 years. He'll be sober 26 years here, come on. And he still goes to two meetings a week in his wheelchair. You can barely understand what he says, but he is still grateful. He's still grateful to Alcoholics Anonymous and he's still grateful to me and he is grateful to his sponsor He's grateful to the guys that he sponsors, and he still does that. And every now and then I feel a little bit achy and arthritic and just not so good. I think of John. Damn him, he's going to be at that meeting tonight. And so I've got to go. I just get up and go, and I feel better as a result of doing it. I as well as the other chairman and the readers here this morning I'm wearing a coat and tie and the reason why I'm wearing acoat and tie is not to show off but to honor Alcoholics Anonymous you don't dress down to go to AA and you don' t have to dress up to go AA but you can dress cleanly and neatly and go to AAA because this is where I think God sees me most. This is where I appear before God because I learn about God through you. And if I'm going to appear to you then I want to, if I're going to appear before him, I want to look as good as I can look because looking decently, I think, shows respect. And that's, I respect alcoholic synonymous. In AA we pray. We pray to know what his will is for us and we pray that he will give us the power to carry them out. we don't have to pray for anything else we don' t have to pray for anything else our very actions are a prayer when I put one foot in front of another and go to an AA meeting I'm taking a foot prayer and with that foot prayer I'm going ahead and I reach out and I shake hands with the old timers and the newcomers just alike I take those actions as an end result. Every one of them is a prayer. Every action, every good action that I take is a prayer. It's an acknowledgement of His grace. I know that intellectually. I don't feel it intellectually. I feel it on the inside. I just feel like I'm a better person than I was. Not wonderful. I just feel better better, I feel better and I don't mean that you feel better I don' t mean that I'm going to have a halo glowing around my head because that's not going to happen yet not while I'm here I don''t think it necessarily would ever happen I think when I think what's going to happen is I'm gonna go to a place there are, you know, enthusiastic, happy AA speaker meetings. And then there are these meetings where people sit around and discuss their downfalls. And they look like they're posing for the main character in a Hush Puppy ad. And those people need some place to go. And I think that they'll go to a discussion meeting up there somewhere. And I think that I'll go and I'll be there I'll be there with Bob and Bill Franklin Williams old wino Joe Leaf Clarence Snyder a little guarded about him but you know But we all want the same things. We all walk in the same direction. The people who stay sober and alcoholic, synonymous, all do the same thing. It may appear that it's a little different one way or the other. Your speaker tonight, Don, when Don and I first met, we didn't like each other at all. I thought he was Satan. And he knew I was. The second time we met, we both acknowledged the fact that there was something wrong about this because we were staying sober and Alcoholics Anonymous and we were helping others. We were just doing it a little bit differently. And we've loved each other ever since. Period. We still do. God, that was years ago, Don. Back when we were young. So we've learned to do those things. We've learned to take step prayers. We've learn to get on our knees and ask Him for direction in our life and give us the power to carry that out. We don't pray to God and ask for answers. You don't go home at night and ask God, what's the answer to this dilemma? Should I get a divorce or should I stay married? God isn't going to tell you that. If God comes down and talks to you, I don't want to be around you. Because you belong to be locked up somewhere. I think if you pray, however, I think what might end up happening is that you'll go to a meeting or you'll see her or you're going to see him or whichever the case may be and as an end result you'll say, I don' t want to get a divorce. I want to stay married. Or, I do want to get a divorce. I don't like him or I don' t like her. I don''t like and respect them. And too much has gone by. And it just doesn' t make any sense to live miserably for the rest of our lives. You will learn the answer. You don' T have to take any action until you know what to do. And you will learn what to do if you go to AA and if you talk to your sponsor and you talk to the other people who are well-meaning and alcoholics and alums to you. You'll find out. They won't tell you to do it or not do it, but they'll give you all the measuring devices so that you can make up your own mind. And your prayers will give you the grace to be able to do It without being angry and without being bitter and without Being resentful and without Being afraid. Whatever the decision is, we pray for the knowledge of His will, which is going to come from others and the power to carry that out which is gonna come from God oh the grace of God people talk about being enthusiastic they talk about enthusiasm that sort of thing you know enthusiasm Greek derivation it means a god with it simple translation and if you believe that life is good then you act like life is good, and that's enthusiasm, you don't have to yell and scream and clap and holler and whistle, that's not enthusiasm necessarily morons make a lot of noise that's their amusement I had to learn to put alcoholics and alimony first in my life now that doesn't mean I have to go to meetings 24 hours a day every day or anything like that it's not a 24-7 deal staying sober is a 24-7 deal there's no doubt about that but putting AA first in your life doesn't mean you have to disregard your relationships with your family doesn't means you have to disregard your relationship with your friends doesn't meant you have to disregard work it just means that you put AA first and you're done with your life if you had a plate for an example there would be some sort of a center point where you could balance that plate with one finger and we've all done that sometimes carefully, sometimes not sometimes we drop the plate but there's still a centerpoint in there and that centerpoint if you make that center point AA remember AA and God are synonymous they mean the same thing And if you make that center point, Alcoholics Anonymous, AA is right there in the middle of your life. And then you can put other things on that plate. You can put family and work and play and friends and so on and so forth. And it stays in perfect balance. But the balance in your life is going to come from putting AA in the center of your Life. whatever you put in the center of your life is going to take over your life it's not because we're trying to get new members although we go to some strange acts to do that we end up combing the gutters of the world for our friends that seems kind of strange when they act strange we don't think that they're doing the right thing. I don't know what the heck we can expect out of them, you know. I don' t know what we can expect out each other. Occasionally we're not going to do so good. When you go to meetings for a speaker meeting like this, you shake hands with the speaker and thank him. You may not like what they say. You may not like them. It doesn't make any difference. Go thank them anyway. Because they're giving you the best they can give. Just thank them for giving you their best. Sometimes you go up and you thank them, and you thank them because they stopped talking. But all you have to do is stick out your hand and say thanks. They don't know what it is you're thanking. when you go to a meeting of your own home group or you go to other groups stick out your hand and shake hands with people go up and shake hands with a newcomer look for new people go out of your way for them I mean the others are going to be around and you're going to say hello to them and you you're not going to miss them at all but somebody needs to say hello to a new guy or a new gal that walks into a meeting because they don't feel like they belong and it helps them to feel like they belong, to be welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous I went up Tuesday night and I shook hands with a guy his sponsor was there i shook hands with him and i said hey we're glad to see you we hope you got something out of this we have and as i was walking away his sponsor said that's that's dick he he's been sober for 36 years and he still goes through these meetings and he's happy and i just kept on going i didn't want to hear the rest of it. That was enough. My feet stopped hurting then, you know. So we greet the newcomers. Talk to the newcomer. Don't talk to your buddies. Talk to them. Talk to your friends. Talk to the new comers. They need to be reassured because they don't know. They don't know. And they need to find out. Don't sit down at a meeting until five minutes before it starts. And that way you can go around and say hello to everybody. Do what you're supposed to do when you're supposed to be where you're supposed to when you are supposed to there. Remember the two cup rule, when you go get a cup of coffee ask someone sitting near you or by you or whatever, would you like a cup of coffee? It's called a two-cup rule. If you can get one for yourself, you can gets one for someone else. We have to learn to accept the seemingly bad as well as the seemingly good. When I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I thought it was the worst thing that ever happened to me. I remember walking across that parking lot in that gray, misty September night. It was a little chilly. And I thought, Jesus, look where you've come. What would your people say if they could see you now? What would you grandfather say? He was the governor of a state and special assistant to the Attorney General of the United States. My father had been nominated for a federal judgeship. What would they say if They Could See Me? I would like to think now they'd say hey go get it Dick that's great we're glad to see you doing that but I was so embarrassed about my life about the things that I had done but I think I was more embarrassed over the things that I didn't do over the acts of omission because I wasn't there for people when I should have been there and I was embarrassed about that I was ashamed of myself I wasn't there for my kids I wasn'T there for MY wife I didn'T fulfill life the way I appeared that I was going to I had to learn to become a friend among friends you know you know what a friend does they greet you and say hello I had to learn to do that I had to learn to be friendly and that you know it's not any big deal how would I want someone to treat me then I got to treat them like that that's what I got to do we learn in Alcoholics Anonymous that we must talk about the solution we don't talk about the problem in Alcoholics Anonymous the big book doesn't talk about drinking. It talks about the solution all the way through. That's why it's the basic text for Alcoholics Anonymous, because it talks about the Solution and so does 12 and 12. AA comes of age, gives the example of what happens if you do that. AA has grown, it's huge. It's a good place to be. I have a friend that I sponsor, sponsored for over 20 years. He talks about knowing that Alcoholics Anonymous was a good place to go. His grandfather was a member of AA and his mother said when dad went to AA our lives got better all over. Everything happened, we lived better and there was less fear. And AA is like a safe well lit room. we have to learn to wear alcoholics and all of us like a warm cloak in the water time not as a dagger or a sword not to hurt or to harm but to learn and set the example in your own actions that it's a good place to be and that the newcomer will be okay here and it's alright for the old timer too thank you very much