The Agnostic Approach to a Higher Power He Couldn’t Define – Joe M.

My name is Joe and I'm an alcoholic. Good to be here this morning, it's been a great conference up till right now. I had a good time so far. I'm reminded this morning of a little story that I I used to talk about, and it was about these three boys, about like Charlie and Don and I. They were about 22, 23 years old. They were in the sixth grade. You have to get the picture here. And the principal wanted them out of the sixth grade desperately, so he called them into the office one day and said, boys, I'm going to ask you a question. If you get the answer to this question, you can move on to the seventh grade. So he asked Charlie, he said, Charlie what is it women have two of that men like to get their hands on? And he thought for a long time and he said well uh women like to get their hands on a man's billfold, one of them. He said well that's good Charlie you can move on to the seventh grade so they asked Don, he says Don what is is it that women have two of that men like to get their hands on. And he thought for a long time, and he said, well, men like the whole women's hands. He said, that's good, Don, you can move on to seventh grade. He looked at me and he says, now Joe, I'm going to ask you a simple question. I said, God, I hope so. I missed those first two. The main problem in the alcoholic center is in the mind rather than in the body, and of course I didn't know that for many years. I'm glad to be here this morning and glad to being hopefully in my right mind. I've been quite sick for a year. I was supposed to be her last year and got in the hospital for what kind of pneumonia was that? Bacteria. Bacterial pneumonia and a virus of some sort that affected my hearing and I was in the hospital for quite a while. And I come out and I knew we were supposed to come over here and Phyllis asked me one morning how I slept. I said, well, I was awake all night. She said, how come? I said well I was trying to remember my story. And that's when I remembered, was aware that I couldn't remember. And I mean, I couldn t remember nothing about anything. And so it affected my memory too and it's come back slowly. And so I had to call, I think it was Don and tell him I couldn' t be here because I couldn t remember. But anyhow, I'm better this year. I'm not as well as I'd like to be but I'm better than I was. So I'm going to try to tell my story, at least as much of it as I remember happening. And I like this theme of the conference came to believe because that's pretty much my story really. And on page 18 or actually on page 29 of this book, It talks about people's stories as a way in which the individual in the personal story describes in his own language and from his own point of view how he established a relationship with God. And that's what I'm going to try to do here this morning. And on page 18, this book tells my whole story. It's one paragraph. and it says this, it says an illness of this sort we've come to believe that an illness involves those who are bouncing away no other human sickness can if a person has cancer all is sorry for him and no one is angry or hurt but not so with the alcoholic illness for with it goes annihilation of all things worthwhile in life it engulfs all whose lives touch the sufferers it brings misunderstanding, fierce resentment financial insecurity disgusted friends and employers, warped lives of blameless children, sad wives and parents and anyone can increase the list. In other words alcoholism is a family illness and if you live with one of us very long you're gonna be affected by it. And I look back today into my life and I realize that my my dad was an alcoholic he had an obsession to drink and my mother had an obsession to see that he didn't drink. And I grew up in that, just a young man, just a little boy. And they fought and they fussed and raised cane about his drinking all the time it seems like. My daddy was an ice man and he delivered ice to people's houses in those days, back breaking work six days a week. Saturday he'd come home with a pint of whiskey that he bought from my aunt, who was a bootlegger, and to have a drink. And I think he ought to have had a drink today looking back at that. But my mother saw those two dollars taken away food from her five kids that they had, and she was fearful not knowing that. And she raised hell with him about that, and he raised hell with her. And I grew up in this, and I was affected by it. We know that alcoholism is progressive illness and it progressed in my family. My daddy drank worse and my mother raised hell with him worse, and I was affected by this emotionally. They fussed and fought all the time and it was not very nice. And from time to time my daddy would pull out a gun or a knife and threaten my mother with it and scare the heck out of me. And, from time to time he would take her out on Friday and tell us boys that he's gonna kill her this weekend. And they'd be gone all weekend, and I'm sitting at home shooing on my fingernails. I used to do that down to the quick, wondering if he's going to do that this time. Wondering. And I was always relieved when they came home and And he didn't do that. Eventually, though, she had to have him arrested and put him in a committee at the Eastern State Hospital in Bonita. It was up the road here a little ways. And he would just stay up there until he got well. He was up there for three years and seven months and 13 days, and he was an alcoholic. They didn't have any alcoholism wards it beneath at that time that I'm aware of, but they had a Cremley Insane Ward. And that's what they did with alcoholics of our type in those days and they committed him to the Cremely Insane Award. And my brother and I used to hitchhike up there to see him once in a while, take him a couple of dollars and a carton of cigarettes, and we'd go back in there and build in three on the fifth floor and we would see my dad and many other things in that building that nobody's supposed to see it was pretty bad and coming home from there I would I began to get some ideas emotions and attitudes that was to going to become the the guiding force of my life and I didn't know it and one of the thoughts came to me along in there was that if God you know you got to blame it on somebody when you're seven years old you don't know any better i said god's gonna do this to me and us into hell with him now but not be talking to him anymore and if i ever get big enough they can't catch me i'm not going to church no more my mother spent her whole lifetime in church she lived her her religion and they tried to put that on me but i was never able to accept it so i said the heck well i get big and if they can'T catch me I'M NOT going, and I didn't go either. And one thought came to me one time coming back from up there. I said, boy, if it hurts like this to love people, I'm going to quit loving people. So I started putting people out of my life. And another thought that came to be was that if anything good is going to happen in my life, it's going to happened because I made it that way. So I didn�t need God, nothing or nobody. That's the way I felt. And I thought those were very brave attitudes for after I got into Alcoholics Anonymous. I lived my life that way. And as I grew up, got bigger, these things got bigger within me. Eventually, I was at school in junior high school, seventh grade. I never did get out of the seventh grade, and we would go to school there in the morning, and they'd play some records at noon and in the morning before school, and we would dance in the early 50s and the beautiful music that was coming through to us at that time. And I wanted to dance. I identified with this with a lot of alcoholics, but I couldn't get off the wall. I was a wallflower. I wanted ask those little girls to dance, but I just couldn't getting over there. I'd be embarrassed. I was thinking, and they wouldn't like me. And one morning my cousin brought in some whiskey that his father was selling at the time and wanted to know if I wanted a drink. And I said, sure. So I took a drink, and a little bit later I walked right over to that little girl that I'd been lying for a long time and asked if she wanted to dance, and she said, Sure. She said, I didn't know you could dance. And I says, Well, I did neither. so uh alcohol did for me what i couldn't do for myself and i've learned since i've been in aa that if you have a problem and you find a solution for it that's recorded up here on the hard drive so to speak primarily because if you having another problem similar to that you don't have and run around looking for another solution. You got one, pull it out, use it. And I used alcohol for a long, long time to help me do things that I couldn't do. Our book says that men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. I like the affect produced by alcoholic. It changed the way that I thought and the way that I felt. And I like that. And I use alcohol for along, long times. eventually I went in the army and I'd volunteer draft and I met a little fella on the bus going down there her name was George Gibbs a lot of y'all knew George he was a little black guy over there in Tulsa if you knew him you'd loved him you couldn't help it he was just one of those kind of guys and I meant George there I told him he could he got on the bust the bust he was late. George was always late and they had to stop the bus to let him on and he got on there and he had on a flat top straw hat and a pinstripe suit with a diamond stick pin and he's wearing spats. You'd have to see George, he was something. He always liked to dress well. And he come back through the bus there and I told him he could sit down there with me if he wanted to. And that's when Bubba and Forrest first met. That was us. And I liked George right away. And the next day, that night we went out to drink and drink the next day, and oh, damn near missed the plane going to Texas. And anyhow, we finally got down there, and George went AWOL the first night to go get some alcohol so we could drink, and he finally found his way back. All those barracks looked the same, he said. He like never found his own way home. So anyhow, George and I were good friends, And he had been to ROTC, and the sergeants had put him in charge of the platoons whenever they wanted to go take a little rest and left Georgia in charge. And he put somebody else in charge and called me out of the formation, and we'd go up to the air-conditioned room at that time down in El Paso, Texas, in Fort Bliss. And we'd Go up there and have a drink or two and rest while the rest of them were out there marching around. and i like that we finally got a got a uh pass and went over to juarez mexico that's a lovely place i'll tell you they told us uh when we left to stay away from a place called pig alley it's not a good place in uh juarez we crossed over that bridge and first question we asked somebody, where's this pig alley? And he'd go down this way a couple of blocks and turn right and you go down that way, and we did. And I didn't know it at the time, but they had a thing over there about putting soldiers in jail. They liked to do that so they'd come down there and bail them out. That was their thing. And they put me in jail that night. I went to jail. I didn't know what I was doing in there or nothing, and I was just a little 17-year-old boy in jail in Juarez, Mexico. And a lot of things in there you don't want to see either. And eventually I got out of there and come back to the base, and they transferred me out of THERE and sent me to 101st Airborne Division in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. and got out of that trouble that I was in. And eventually I got out of the Army and I decided what I needed to do was to find me a woman and I looked around the bar and I found this gal's mother and she had a daughter and we were introduced and we drank together and did the things that we all do together here and there. And one morning I woke up, and we'd gotten married the night before. I really hadn't planned on that. She said I'd ask her, and we did. And she had two little boys, and I thought, well, maybe, you know, it's okay. I'll try to make a good deal out of it. And I started to do that, and a year or so or two later, my money wasn't accumulating like I'd hoped it would. I'd always been kind of interested in making some money, and I was riding this motor scooter for delivering for a typesetting company, and there was a fellow there whose name was Bob. I liked him, and I thought he could help me, and another guy named Charlie who was a customer of ours, And we'd go down to the Fond du Lac Club, 11th and Denver there in Tulsa. It was a nice place. And we would be like Bill said in the book that we would chatter in thousands and talk about millions. We didn't have any money. We'd talk a lot about it. And that's what we did. And I spent money I didn't Have trying to impress people I didn' t like for a long time trying to get acquainted with some people. And we'd take a half a pint down there and split it between the three of us after 5, and sometimes I'd get home about 6 or 6.30, and my wife would be upset, raising hell for drinking and not coming home. And I told her I was out there trying to hustle up a living, and she didn't believe that. And sometimes I'd come home, and I mean, I didn't quit doing it just because she raised hell. I mean she ended up being kind of like my mother, raising hell with me, drinking and coming in late. And sometimes i'd come Home and she'd throw all my stuff out in the yard. Y'all know what I mean by stuff? Dirty t-shirts and dirty shorts. They never throw anything that's clean, I don't know. Only the dirty stuff. And then she'd file for divorce on me and put restraining orders on me, make off with what little money we did have and make me madder than hell after all I was doing to her. I mean, after all that I was going through. And she did that four times. And the fourth time, this is after several years, I mean I couldn't go home. I just could not go home, I couldn' t. I tried. Sometimes I did, but mostly I couldn't go down by the bar. And eventually I'd go home, later and later. Eventually she filed for divorce on me the last time, and this time I decided I was going to let it go through, and I did. And I said to myself that I'm going to drink when I want to as often as I want to, and really don't care who knows it. And I set about to do that. And I was sitting in the Zebra Lounge. That was a lovely place there in Tulsa. And I Was Sitting in the zebra lounge one night. I was like this, Phyllis told you. And she come in and PhyllIS was the queen bee of the Z. you know she's the one that took up collections for the jukebox you know played pool with the guys and everyone liked Phyllis and we were introduced and she looked at me said well Joe you look like my third husband I said my god how many of you had she said two kind of like that and I'd ask her if it hurt and she said what hurt I said when you fell out of heaven, you know, putting her moves on each other. But I wasn't interested in getting married. I was just getting over this other deal and I really wasn't interested. And I avoided her like the plague for quite some time. And like she said, eventually she, I was passed out in my car one night and she drove me home and I don't know if she took advantage of me or not, but I couldn't remember. I don't think she did, but I don't remember if she did. And so eventually we started dating and we got married and after a while her daughter decided she wanted to come live with us. Phyllis had lost custody to her. And I wanted Gail to come lived with us, I'd like Gail and Phylls I said, we've been drinking too much and we need to slow down or quit. And I said well it would be a good idea. I think I can do that because we'd been meeting after work and drinking until the bars closed and then we went to the clubs and drank there until wee hours in the morning and we'd go down by this restaurant and eat breakfast and then go to work and that's kind of the way I lived and we lived. And so anyhow Gail came to live with us and I liked Gail and she liked me and it wasn't that way for a long time. And so we set about to do that. I stayed sober, I think it was a month, I feel like I said two weeks, but I thought it was more like a month and I didn't drink. And every day I didn' t drink, my head felt like somebody had it in a vice and they were turning it down one squeeze at a time every day. Thought my head was going to come off. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore and I stopped by the liquor store and bought a couple of pints of whiskey and drank one of them before I got home, which was only about two blocks or so. And got home and asked Phyllis if she wanted a drink and she did. She needed one too. She'd been without one. And she took a drink, and we bought a place up here on Grand Lake, a little place, and took Gail up there with us on Friday. And we'd be drinking and drunk before we even got there and passing out by dark, and Gail was sitting there. She grew up this way. And Phyllis and I started fussing and fighting a lot. I don't know why, but we did. And it seemed like we couldn't hardly drink together. we'd go out to the bars and be fussing and fighting before we ever got to the bar so eventually we kind of made up a little deal she told you about it we split up Tulsa she had 41st and East South and East and I had 41th North and West and we'd meet at home and visit once in a while and you know what I mean by visit, don't you? Before I met Phyllis though I have to tell you about this one this other gal I was sitting in that bar stool one night and I was thinking either got to drink or think but it's going to get the two of them mixed up and I'm drinking and I got to thinking that old Rose the other one hadn't seen me in about three months, and I bet she's lonely. Well, wouldn't you be? So I said, I think I'll go over there and visit. And I went over there and knocked on my door, and she kind of peeked out, and what I did, I just broke in there in my house, and there sat an old boy in my recliner watching my TV. in my house with my wife, and I'm making payments on all that. Well, what are you going to do? I did. I jumped on that old boy, and he liked to beat me to death in my own living room floor. Throwed me out in the yard and told me not to come back. And I lived on that resentment, blackened my eyes, cleared down past my nose. Well, I lived On That Resentment for a long time even after I got into alcoholist anomalies. So I wasn't very good at marriage material by then. My mind raced uncontrollably, always. And that was basically what was my problem. So anyhow, Phyllis and I had to split up the town and I bought a mobile home out on the Keystone Lake west of Tulsa. I didn't think she knew anything about it. And I don't know how she found out. but I was out there one night and there was a big banging on the front door and I finally go to the front drawer and there stood Gail and Phyllis and embarrassed me in front of my girlfriend I wasn't having a good time and Phylis made off well the next morning I got up and all my stuff was laying out in the yard and she filed for divorce again and made all the money that we had and really upset me, took my car and I had to call my boss to come get me which was embarrassing and I said to myself I'm going to drink when I want to drink and do what I want and I don't care who knows but the truth of the matter is that really hurt me that gale especially it really hurt really hurt me. I was very much ashamed of that situation, and it caused for more drinking, and then I started drinking for another reason that I hadn't really drank before. I started drinking with, for oblivion. There's all kinds of drinking, but eventually I started drinking for the sickest effect of all, which was oblivion, but there's only one thing wrong with oblivion, though, isn't it? You wake up. And I would wake up and I'd start drinking all over again and I did that a lot. One night I'm laying there in that mobile home that I had out there and a big rat jumped down the ceiling about like this one. He jumped down on my bed and I kicked him around for about 30 minutes and got all hot and sweaty and finally got him off the bed, and another one jumped down. Big one rat, about that long. Teeth hanging down. And fought him around there for a long time, and eventually I went to a feed store, and they had some rat traps that were about that wide and about that length. And it's a wonder I hadn't broken my leg trying to trap those rats. and oh by the way if you're ever in a meeting and a new person comes in they're seeing and hearing things you don't see in here go along with them will ya because they are so I sold that place for half of what I paid for just to get rid of it hell it's full of rats then I moved to town 51st and Lewis and I started drinking a lot more i bought canadian club by the case or two so i wouldn't run out and i drank a lot i drank and uh one sunday morning i uh was a typical day in my life a typical morning in my life. I woke up that Sunday morning and Saturday morning and had a few drinks and some smokes and went back to sleep. I didn't realize I was passing out, but I was. And I pass out and wake up again in the evening and have some more cigarettes and some more smokes and took a handful of those speed pills because I was taking a lot of those at that time. My brother was a truck driver and was able to get those reasonably quick and take those things by the hand pull and eat them like popcorn. One reason I've got these teeth is all messing out of my head. But anyhow, that night I went out to my bars. I made my rounds. Couldn't stay anywhere very long. I was pretty quick, fast. They make you speed up. And I did that. Ended up over at a place called the Misty Dawn. It's a beautiful place, over in West Tulsa. And these guys that hated me, they owned that bar. In fact, a couple of weeks before that, I had to be escorted out of there by a friend of mine at gunpoint to keep these guys off of me. And this particular Saturday night, I'm back over there. I don't know what kind of insanity that is, but it's insanity. I'll tell you. And, uh, but I had a, I was sitting on that bar stool that night and I had a real sick feeling in my stomach like a, it wasn't a throwing up sick. It was just sick. And I didn't know what that was. And uh, I got off the bar stool and went out and laid down in my car for a little while and then I went back to my little apartment, got on the couch where I slept. I bought a new bedroom suit and was in the back, but I was too busy to get sheets and pillowcases and things for it. So I slept on the couch. Well, the truth of the matter is I slept on the coach because that's where the TV and the radio was and the lamp. Because I was scared and I didn't know that at the time. And that Sunday morning I woke up and I was sitting there reliving my life again like I'd done 10,000 other times wondering how in the world I got into this shape and how I come here never did plan on any of this it just happens there were some old boys over in West Tulsa we called them sots they walked around West Tulpa drinking all the time they didn't start out that way they worked their way down to that and they called them socks. I told myself, I'm probably going to be one of them, it looks like. Can't quit drinking. I tried to not drink and never could last very long. I knew that I couldn't. And I remembered back and one time I said, I've tried to quit drinking, I'm not going to try no more. Just not goingto try. I'm going to quit quitting. And I want to drink and when I wantto drink as often as I wanttodrink and that's what I did. I quit quitting. That was kind of a relief to me and I thought, well, I'm going to end up like one of those sops over there but that particular Sunday morning I was reliving my life again and I was thinking that I would sure like to be back with Phyllis and get that straightened out and get the thing straightened out with little Gail and I didn't know how it was going to do all. I just didn't knew how this was ever going to come about. I knew I was going to have to not drink but I didn' t know how to not drank And I tried that. And I don't know where this came from that particular morning, but it looked like that if I was going to get my life straightened out that God was goingto have me involved in it, which I didn't do. I didn' t depend on God at all. I told you that when I was 7 years old. And so I did two things that morning that I don' t do. that particular morning I got on my knees beside that couch and I asked God to help me find a way to not drink and get my life straightened out and if he would do that for me then I would do what I could for him from then on I made a deal I don't know if you make a deal like that but I did and an hour or so later it looked like God wasn't going to help me And then I remembered my little friend George, which I told you about, who had told me four or five years prior to this that he was going to AA. And I remember I felt sorry for George that he went to AA . So I called George that Sunday morning and I said, George are you still going to AAA? he said he was. And I was glad of that. I was glad he didn't keep his anonymity from me. And I said, well, George, I need help. Would you help me? Another thing I don't do, see, I don' t need God, nothing or nobody. I'd ask God for help and I asked George for help. And George came over to my house and he stayed with me the next three days. I weighed about 135 pounds and I was sick. I eat occasionally, eat a bologna sandwich once in a while because I knew that's what you're supposed to eat. And I did. And George, I started getting sober. George stayed there with me, wiping the sweat off my brow and talking to me and slobber off my lips and puke and stuff that I was getting over, getting well. So George stayed with me for three days. See, that's the best Alcoholics Anonymous has to offer. I know that today. I didn't then. And then George took me to my very first AA meeting, and that was on November 3rd, 1973, and I really hadn't had a drink since that Sunday morning by God's grace in the fellowship of AlcoholicsAnonymous. and I sit down in that meeting and get this Sunday I'm begging for help and George helps me Tuesday night I go to my very first day I begin to look around the rooms and I thought to myself what's a nice guy like me doing in a place like this with people like you I don't even drink with people like you so that But old ideas that I don't need God and nothing and nobody began to come back after three days not drinking. Therein lies the problem, see? Of course, I don' t know that. But somehow I made it through that, and George took me to some meetings. And a little bit later he took Phyllis and I down to Captain Shreve Hotel in Louisiana to the Christ State Conference, and that's where Phyllis was identified with that Marion. And she started crying, and I knew there was something here, but I didn't know what it was. I'd tried to make Phyllис cry for a long time and couldn't. And, yeah, we went to a lot of meetings, and after a while, I bought out a little Coney Island that Phyllis said she was bored. That'll keep you from being bored. Bought this little Coney Island and put Gail and her husband, she'd gotten married, she'd quit school, I'm not quitting, she graduated high school real quickly so she could get married. She graduated when she was 16 and shortly thereafter while she was 17 and she got married to get away from us for sure. Then I put them in this little Coney Island thinking that they could take care of it, and they couldn't. And Phyllis began to go out there and work and help them. I was going to a lot of AA meetings, and Phylls would go with me. After 13 months of this, I'd go out after a meeting and help her close up most of the time, and she'd be drinking, and I thought I could live with that, but I couldn't I talked to George about it and talked to Franklin about it. By this time, George had had some problems and he suggested that I get me another sponsor and I got Franklin Williams. I'd met him down in Apache, Oklahoma. And I met this... George took me to Apache, OK to this conference down there and there was a lady there who spoke that night whose name was Alabama Carruthers. She was from North Hollywood, California. Some of you may have heard her before she passed away. Horrific lady, I loved her right away. She was so excited about everything. She said a couple things that night that really got to me. One of them, she said she had a soul sickness. A soul sickness, and I identified with that. I was sitting on that bar stool, and that feeling I had that was going to drop out at me, that was a soul thickness. Finally heard a word that I could put to the feeling. soul sickness and then she said she had peace of mind peace of mind i said my god i don't think i've ever had peace in mind don't even know what it is and so i wanted to talk to alabama and so after the meeting was over with that night we were over in that old kenshin hotel over there in apache oklahoma by the way you can't get to apache oklahomapremier an end in guidance search warrant to get there out there in the middle of the prairie but there was about 700 people there at that conference and so it's about three o'clock in the morning and you have to we're sitting in the lobby of that hotel and old hotel and george was laying over in alabama's lap asleep you have to get that picture and i said alabam uh you said that you had peace of mind tonight How did you get peace of mind? And she said, well, Joe, tell me what's going on in your mind. Now, I never told anybody what was going on in my mind. If they knew what was going on with my mind, they'd think I was crazy. Which I was, but of course I didn't know it. And I began to relive to her some of these experiences that I had with Phyllis and with old watcher named Rose and the troubles that I had and how I would relive that stuff in my head over and over and she said well joe you're just full of resentments and i said well what is a resentment and she says resentment are old angers and old hurts that are re-felt over and over and all that anger that you intend to use on them you turned it on yourself you're making yourself sick and blaming it on them and she had to explain that to me i i knew it was their fault I mean, I always tried to figure out how you were going to get even with people. And I found out that night how you get even với people. The way you get evenly with people is you pray for them. And if you pray from your even and Alabama had a purse about that big and she began to dig down in there and come up with this big book. And she said, Joe, on page 551 of this book, a story about a lady who had a lot of resentments and she got rid of them the way the book says and maybe if you'll do what she did maybe it'll help you so I read this story and this lady said I've had many spiritual on page 551 I've been in the program I didn't recognize right away Therefore, I'm slow to learn, and they take many guises. But one was so outstanding I like to pass it on whenever I can and hope that someone else helps someone else as it helped me. As I said earlier, self-pity and resentment were my constant companions, and my inventory began to look like a 33-year diary where I seemed to have a resentment against everybody I'd ever known. All but one responded to the treatment suggested in the steps immediately, but this one posed a problem. it was a part of me as my breathing it had provided me with my excuses for lack of education my material failures, personal failures inadequacies and of course my alcoholism and though I really thought I'd been willing to part with it now I knew I was reluctant to let it go one morning however I realized I had to get rid of it before my reprieve was running out if I didn't get rid OF it I was going to get drunk and I didn' t want to get DRUNK anymore In my prayers that morning, I asked God to point out to me some way to be free of this resentment. During the day, a friend of mine had brought me some magazines to take to a hospital group I was interested in. And I looked through them and a banner across the front of one featured an article about prominent clergy in which I caught the word resentment. And he said, in effect, here it is. If you have a resentment you want to be freer of, if you'll pray for the personal thing that you resent, you will be free. If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free. Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness, and you will be free, even when you don't really want it for them and your prayers are only words and you don' t mean it, go ahead and do it anyway. Do it every day for two weeks and you'll find that you have come to mean it and want it from them, and you'll realize that where you used to feel bitterness, resentment, and hatred, you now feel compassion, understanding, and love. I went home after that conference and got in bed and my whole mind started racing again. And I said, I think I'll pray for those people. So I prayed for them, added some people to the list, and I prayed for them. The next morning I woke up and I said I think i'll pray for those people and I did. It seemed like I was in constant prayer there for a couple of weeks and one morning in the spring, beautiful spring morning, I was at the corner of 31st and Lewis in Tulsa, beautiful area there. Got stuck in this traffic light, just the length of a traffic light. And I looked over at that pretty house over there, big, big house. And they had tulips were blooming red and yellow. Beautiful. Grass was green. Squirrels were jumping around in the trees and birds were singing and sunshiny morning and the thought came to me, boy, that's beautiful. That is really beautiful. How long has it been since I've seen those things? And I couldn't remember. I couldn' t remember if I had ever seen those thing or not. And this book talks about being cut off in the sunlight of the spirit and I really know what that means. I know what that means, I really do. And that's the morning I knew this program would work for me because I had took some action and I'd gotten some results. And time went on, I kept going to meetings, kept going the meetings, but this time I brought that Coney Island for Phyllis and 13 months passed and she continued to drink and it was bugging me and by this time like I said I got Franklin as a sponsor and talked to him about this and he said I should pray what to do, and it would come to me, and you'll feel good about it. And after some time, I woke up sometime, and I thought to myself, well, I'll sell that Coney Island and I'll give that money to Phyllis and I'd be gone. And felt good about that, real good. And I did that and sold it and got a check for $25,000 and put it in my pocket. Finally that Saturday night and we went to our group, fellowship group at the time and they handed out those little desire to stay sober chips that they did. And Phyllis got up and got her desire to say sober chips. I had never threatened her with getting sober or nothing. I just didn't. And I left her completely alone in that area. And she got up and got a desire to sit sober. Now I stayed awake all night thinking about that. I was really mad about that." Well, how are you going to leave a woman who just got her desire to stay sober, Chip? How are you gonna do that? I couldn't figure out a way to do it. And so we stayed together day at a time and eventually why, did stay sober, and we got back together after nine months. Franklin said, wait a year. I don't know what page that's on in the book, but that's what he said. And we got together after nine month, and went to Hawaii on a little get-together trip, and had a good time. We were sitting around the Kaanapali Hotel over there in Maui. And Phyllis was still drinking, yeah. She had a Bloody Mary that evening for dinner, and I had a Virgin Mary. So I started pretending and acting as if I was drinking. And during that week, I had to leave whatever we were doing and go back to the hotel room and go to bed because they told me to stay sober between now and bedtime. And sometimes bedtime was 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and I thought I was going to take a drink. I didn't know they had AA over there. But that's what I did. Like I said, she eventually got sober, and we got back together, and she was sober a year before we got married again. So we stayed together ever since then, and she just recently celebrated her 30th year in AA, thank God. And we've had a lot of fun in AA. Her sponsor was named Elizabeth Earhart, and Elizabeth was the first lady delegate in Oklahoma, perfect writer. She wrote a lot articles for The Grapevine, very well-published lady in The Gravevine. And I liked her, and she was my service sponsor, and we went to a lot or service places together, there, Phyllis in the back seat and Elizabeth and I talking about service things. And eventually through our experience there, I got to become the state chairman of a delegate in Oklahoma and three or four years later Phylls was the state chairmen and a delegate at Oklahoma so we had a lot of service experience. And I went to a little place in Burlington, Vermont to speak in a group up there and I was rotating out of my part as the delegate in September. It's on Labor Day weekend and we rotate out in September, and Monday night after that weekend Phyllis said well you're gonna be rotating out soon what are you going to do? And I said I don't know but whatever it is it'll be good. And we came home on Tuesday and Wednesday night Charlie called me pretty quick you see and he said that Joe McQueenie was doing a lot of things in prison and very busy in his halfway house and stuff and he just couldn't go out with him anymore and would I do so? you know I did not want to do that for sure and but I said yes and that was we traveled together for 16 years I guess it's been now and had a lot of fun went a lot places and carried the message the big book to a lot of places all over we we went to Iceland here a few years ago and there was a guy there named Snorri who liked the big book and he asked us to come to Iceland and we went over there and there was Snorrie trying to start a big book and study there, and the old-timers in Iceland didn't like him for that. And we went over and did a big-book study and then I guess it was seven years later we went back over there. And from Snorie was one a little group trying to study the big book and today they had 67 groups studying the big book in Iceland. There was one guy there who rode a motorcycle and he had a patch on the back that said Bill W rode a Harley and he was riding a Harley, and so for three years. He was real operator. He bought a radio station over there, a defunct radio station and began to play AA talks and tapes 24 hours a day in Iceland because a lot of people out there could never get the record back to a meeting, so he was carrying the message through the radio. And they did a good job. They were just as busy as they could be over there having a good time. And that was very nice. That was a good experience for us, one of many that we've had. And I enjoyed that. But anyhow, way back after I'd gotten sober and George was my sponsor and I began to have trouble with this God idea because I was trying to have a relationship with God as my mother understood it and her preachers understood it. And I just couldn't do it. I was having a hard time doing that. And George said to me one time, he said, George, you're having a heart problem with this guy idea, aren't you? And I said, I'm having a terrible time, George. I just can't seem to get it, really. After all these miracles, now I'm having trouble. See, I don't know what kind of problem that is, but it was. And George said, well, maybe we'll go to page 46 of this book and do what these things, talk about these things. Maybe they helped him, maybe they'd help me. In the chapter We Agnostic, which has turned out to be one of my favorite, All the chapters are, I like them, but a chapter we agnostic especially, I, I like it. Agnostic, gnostic means knowledge and you put the ag in front of it means without. Those of us who are without knowledge. And Charlie told us that this chapter we're agnostics is not here to teach us any kind of religion. It's not a religious book anyhow. That chapter we agnosticate here to open up our minds to a point that God might teach us there's a God. And that's a whole different way of looking at things for me. And the book says here on page 46 it said, yes, we have agnocent temper and had these thoughts and experiences. Let's make haste to reassure you we found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice Prejudice means old ideas. And expressing a willingness to believe in the power of God and ourselves, we commence to get results. Even though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that power which is God. In other words, George said, why don't you go home tonight, get your pencil and piece of paper, and forget what you think you know or what you've been trying to be taught. And if you could make God realize that you can't, but if you couldn't, what would you want it to be? I said, I didn't know you could do that. Over there in Tulsa on the west side of the river, you go to hell for doing that. Still will, I'll guarantee you. But I did that. He gave me permission. I guess I must have needed the permission to do that, and I did. And I went home that night, and I laid aside all those old ideas that I thought I had, and I said now if I could make God what would I like it to be? And I wrote some things down, which I won't tell you. I wrote somethings down that I would like God to be and I showed them to George. And he said, that's good, you can start there. See, I didn't know you could do that. I had always tried to believe as they believed. I never was able to believe what they believed They always told me. I remember one time in my first marriage, I went to her preacher and trying to get back home. And I went up to her and I said, I went down to her picture and he looked at me and said, well, Joe, what seems to be your problem? Well, I don't know what my problem is. Not really. I mean, I told him what I thought it was and it was her. I said if you live with her, you drink too. And I believe that, see. and he told me that I must and boy they'll do that they said you must have faith in these things and he taught me and he showed me what they were and I just looked at him how can you have faith in something that you don't even believe he's asking me to start with faith, I couldn't do it thank God for the second step we could come to believe and that's what happened to me I came to believe through this process that I'm going through. And George gave me a starting point with those brief little things that I needed, and that was the beginning. He said, much to our relief, we discovered we did not need to consider another's conception of God. I'd always try to consider somebody else's conception until I got one of my own. And I know why that works so well today, you know. One of the things Charlie taught me The reason that having your own conception works so well today, I've never had any problem with my idea about anything. Have you? If it's my idea, it's got to be good. So I had my own idea, however limited. Our own conception, however inadequate, was sufficient to make approach and effective contact with him. And I said, George, you mean I've got to find God? and he said, Joe, God's not lost. He said, the book says as soon as we admitted the possible existence of a creative intelligence, a spirit of the universe underlying the totality of things, we began to be possessed by a new sense of power and direction provided we took other simple steps. We found that God does not make too hard a turn for those who seek him. It's not in the finding, it's in the seeking. and if I will seek God into my life he will disclose himself to me to us the realm of spirit is broad roomy, all inclusive, never exclusive we're forbidding to those who earnestly seek it is open we believe to all men so it's in the seeking it's not in the finding and I begin to seek God into my heart into my mind and one day at a time I stayed sober and one night at a moment my ideas about God were certain things and later on, a year later or so they would change and the longer I stay sober the more they change today I don't have any closed conception of God because I think if I just put God in a little box if I did that there wouldn't be more to it than that and if I could understand it it probably couldn't help me anyhow but to have a God who understands me that's the difference and on page 47 it's when therefore we speak to your God we mean your own conception this applies too to other spiritual expressions which you find in this book do not let any prejudice or ideas you may have against spiritual terms deter you from honestly asking yourself what they mean to you at the start this is all we needed to commence a spiritual growth to effect our first conscious relation with God as we understood him And then afterward, we found ourselves accepting many things which then seemed entirely out of reach. That was growth. But if we wished to grow, we had to begin somewhere. So we used our own conception, however limited it was. And certainly it was limited. And it was a beginning point, and I needed the beginning point. So we need to ask ourselves but one short question. Do I now believe? am I even willing to believe that there's a power greater than myself Franklin said if you can't find a power greater than yourself at least find one other than yourself as soon as a man says that he does believe we in fact assure him that he's on his way it has been repeatedly proven among us upon the simple corner a wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built and there's a little asterisk there please be sure to read Appendix 2 that's the third time they have referred to that little bit of asterisks because there was a people always used to write in to Bill and ask him what he meant by those terms and he wrote in the next chapter I mean the next book about the spiritual experience on page 569 has to do with change spiritual experiences, spiritual Awakening Psychic Change that Dr. Silkworth talked about, and I need to understand those things. It helped me to understand the beginning too, because like I said, my understanding was very limited when I came here. I tell a story a lot of times about my Aunt Mutch. She was much of a woman, and we used to have these revivals there in West Tulsa, and Aunt much would go and we would go. It'd catch me and make me go. they used to pray and she would pray and talk in strange languages and roll around on the sawdust floor and screaming and hollering and she was having a spiritual experience and I thought that's what I was going to have to have one day. So thank God that wasn't true. I wouldn't be here this morning if that was true, I guess. But so when I come When I come to AA, I had the spiritual knowledge of a seven-year-old boy. Coping skills of an eight- or nine-year old boy. Had the sexual knowledge of 12- or 13-year older boy. I remember one time my dad had gotten out of the nuthouse and went to California on an out-of-state release. And I got to be about 12 years old. And I've got to thinking about these little girls a lot. almost got brain damage from thinking about it. Probably did. And I went to my mother and I said, Mom, I've been thinking about sex. Oh my God, Benny Joe, that was my name. That's a dirty, filthy, rotten thing to think about she said and you ought to save it for the one you love. That's what she said. Somehow I didn't believe that. So I went to the only source of information that was available to me and that was in school. We had sex education then, too, but they called it recess and the corner of 21st and Southwest Boulevard and then is Quanah now, oh Quanah then is Southwest Boulevard now. was a little restaurant there called the Jenkins Cafe. And in front of the Jenkins Cafe, that was a bunch of wise, intelligent, experienced men and women who were about 15 or 16 years old. And they knew everything there was to know about it and more than happy to share it with us. And some of those guys were doing things with them little girls several times in the night, several different women. My eyes got that big. I believed that. The fallacy was that I was sober for two or three years before I figured out they were lying to me. At least, I hope they were lying to you. I never could live up to those expectations that I had. So I had the sexual knowledge of a 12- or 13-year-old boy, coping skills of an 8- or 9-year old boy and understanding of God over seven years. I needed some changes to be made, I needed some information. Thank God for sponsorship. I needed that. This book talks a couple of places about being ignorant and some people have us to believe that we were into denial. I've never been in denial. What I have been into is ignorance most of my life. I was uninformed other words, about so many things. And that was what sponsorship was about, to be informed by people who seemed to know better and they did. And I was very fortunate to run into the best people in Alcoholics Anonymous in my time in AA. And Charlie and Joe was one of the people we ran into way back and they helped us so much as they help a lot of other people. And I'll always be thinking, Charlie's my sponsor today. And George passed away and Franklin passed away, and now I'm working on Charlie. So things were good. We were in in the Camelot Inn I believe it was one time and we were went to Saturday afternoon went to a room and started looking at this book again as we did in those days and we would talk about the doctor's opinion and the doctor doctor's opinions are very important to me I learned there that I had an illness rather than a moral issue most people come into AA today and I think they think it's a moral issue, as I did, as most drunks do. And the doctor's opinion and the understanding of the illness changed my mind from that. It helped me understand these ideas, emotions, and attitudes that I had. It was beginning of change. So time went by and I decided that I was going to do these steps and I started about to do them. I'm going to close down here in a little bit. On page 62, it says our troubles we think are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves and the alcoholic and extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually didn't think so. See, I didn't know that. I didn' t know. I didn'' t know that I didn '' t know . . . I was uninformed. I didn'T know. Above everything, we alcoholists must be rid of this selfishness. We must or it kills us. God makes that possible. And I say only God makes it possible. I've tried to wish my way out of those things, but I never have been able to do that. God makes it possible and there often seems no way of entirely getting rid of self without his aid many of us have had moral and philosophical convictions galore but we could not live up to them even though we would have liked to neither could reduce our self-centeredness much of wishing or trying on our own power we had to have God's help so this is the how and why of it and here are some of the instructions that we sometimes missed He said, first of all, we had to quit playing God. It didn't work. I was playing God in my life. I didn't need God. So if you don't need god, you live upon your own understanding, which is what I did. And he says, next, we decided here after this drama of life, god was going to be our director. I was goingto let god direct my life He's the principal. Here's agents. He's a father with children. Most good ideas are simple. And this concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arts of which we passed our freedom. And what was that? Keystone of The New and Triumphant Arts. That he's the father, we're the children. He's the principal, we are his agents. See, I almost missed that. Early in my sobriety when I would pray, I'd pray God give me this and God giveme that and help me make more money, help me get my wife back, help me do all these things. and I use God like he would an errand boy and after I'd been sober for a while I was reading that other big, big book and it talked about in there that he worked for six days and then he rested. To my knowledge he never went back to work anymore. It looks to me like there's going to be work being done around here it's goingto be me. He's the father we're the children. He's a principal we're at the agent. Most good ideas are simple. see and I took that idea in page 63 it said when we sincerely took such a position that one all sorts of remarkable things followed we had a new employer being all-powerful he provided what we needed if we kept close to him and performed his work well see I'm supposed to perform his work well I thought he was supposed to my work well he has but it was after I'm performing his work well. More and more we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to life. I'd always been a taker. Takers are losers, not only in AA but in life. Takers or losers. See what I can contribute today. As we felt new power flow in, as we enjoyed peace of mind, as we discovered we could face life successfully, and we became conscious of his presence we began to lose our fear of today, tomorrow or the hereafter we were reborn and I used to hate that idea about being reborn they used to come over my house on Monday night in my little church up the street talk to me about being reborn and I'd run them off what the hell you guys doing over there talking to me this is Monday night football messing with me and telling me about that stuff i hated it and uh i was like the other guy i read in that other book his name was nicodemus dumber than a stump just like me and he went to that fellow who was talking about being reborn he said you mean i got to go back into my mother's womb and be reborn he didn't know He's like me. And he said, well, didn't you go to school? Didn't you? Didn't You go to university? Don't You know nothing? When I talk to you about being reborn, I'm talking about the renewing of your mind. The main problem with alcoholics is in the mind, what we think, the renewING of your MIND. And that's being reborn. Not in your body, but in your MIND. Old ideas cast aside, new ones accepted. Ideas, emotions, and attitudes that Dr. Jung told Roland are suddenly cast on one side, and these new ideas and emotions begin to dominate them. And that's what has happened to me over these years. I'm not what I used to be. Thank God I'm no longer like this. I'm now not in my body but in my mind. I'm não sou o que eu costumava ser. I don't think the way I usedto think. You see, thank God. I was ready to make this third step, and I knew what they were doing that little church up there on Sunday morning they're always doing it they're probably doing it this morning about an hour and a half from now about 11 o'clock so I waited until next Sunday and I got there about 2-3 minutes before 11 I didn't want to get there too early I might hear somebody help me you know so I got here about 2 or 3 minutes before 11 And sure enough, they'd ask people to come down there and do the third-step prayer, basically, is what they wanted me to do. And I couldn't wait. I went down there as humbly and sincerely and as honestly as I knew how. And this is what I did. I said, I got off myself to you to build with me and do with me as you will. Relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do your will. take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those that I would help of your power your love and your way of life may I do you well always and the book said we thought well before taking this making sure that we were ready that we could at last abandon self utterly to him and I did that as sincerely and honestly as I know how and I don't know what happened that morning I got up from there and went outside and my life hadn't been the same since from that day to this it's different i'm different i've been reborn in my mind not in my body and it started there that morning everybody always kind of wants to know what happens when things change in your life i went over to phyllis and i went back together so i went over that sunday afternoon to have dinner with my mother And she asked me, she said, what's happened to you? You're different. They always want to know what happened. And I told her about that experience that morning and she smiled. That's about all she ever wanted for her kids anyhow was to live a certain way. And I talked to her about it. And she was happy. And some time later I went over to see Phyllis and talked to here about some things. and she was curious as to what happened. She said it was, I was her ebby. She said there was something about his eyes. He was inexplicably different, what had happened. She was interested in what had happen. That's why she went to Shreveport, Louisiana with us. She wanted to see what was going on, I guess. And they always want to know what happened There was a story in that other book this guy was a blind man. And they asked him one day, said, what happened to you? He said, I don't know. He said I was blind and now I can see. I was a drunk and now I'm sober. That's what I know. It's the only thing I know and I'm not the same as I used to be. I've changed a lot, continue to do so. I love Alcoholics Anonymous. I had a call Friday morning before we came up. Phyllis was off getting her hair done and a little gal called and she's a little gal, she's 51 now. She's still a little gale to me and wanted to know if I was nervous about this. And I said, I am because I don't know if can remember anything or not. And she said she'd pray for us, Phyllis and I. And that's a long ways from way back. That one situation I used to wonder how I was ever going to get that squared away. A few casual apologies like, I'm sorry. That was fine, but I didn't get the job done. They moved off to Columbus, Ohio or Pataskala actually and they were up there a while and her sister-in-law passed away unexpectedly and left the kids with her husband and she and Jim got worried about the situation and called and And she said, Papa, if something would happen to Jim and I, would you and Mom take the kids? See, that's when I knew he was okay with us. And it weren't a few casual apologies either. It was some time of staying sober and living sober and doing the right thing. And we were there when her kids were born. We were always supportive of her and her family and still are. I don't know if they ever grow up that you don't have to support them in some way. But that's when I knew it was okay with us. And we've put our lives back together today, and we're family today, thank God. And this last year I've been very supportive of Phyllis. She's been real good to me this last years. Thank God she has. Gail has been too. And you folks in this room, a lot of you have been very supportive, and I appreciate it. I love our college anonymous more today than I ever had. it's changed my life and been sober and reasonably happy all this time I'm still not as well as I want to be but I'm getting better thank God anyhow thanks again for having me and fellas up here this weekend we've certainly enjoyed being here thank you Thank you.