The Alcoholic Mind and the Default Position – Sterling H.

Hi everybody, I'm Sterling Holmes. I'm an alcoholic. Wow! To God's grace this program is a sponsorship. I have not found it necessary to take a drink since the 2nd of June 1981 and for that I am truly, truly, truly grateful. Yeah. I don't know if you're impressed by that date, but I'm impressed. Since I've been hanging out with y'all, I haven't had to drink. And that's pretty impressive. So if you are new to Alcoholics Anonymous, it's possible. It's highly likely. If you hang out with these people, you know, and I know they look weird. I know sometimes they act weird, but they're good people. I'd get to know them if I were you. Thank you so much for having me. And thank you, the committee, Steve. Everybody that had anything to do with bringing me out here tonight. I am filling in for some big shoes that were supposed to be to kick this thing off. And, you know, so I apologize because I'm not Doug. So if you're sitting there looking at the program going, how do you spell Doug again? It's spelled right. It's just the wrong day. I'm a fill-in. But, you know, come tomorrow because you're going to hear something. You're going to hear something. But I am pleased to be here to start this thing off. I have been here with Roxanne. Thank you for bringing Roxanne and I both out. We give you greetings from Omaha, Nebraska. Yeah, there are alcoholics in Omaha, Nebraska. Got 500 meetings in Omaha Nebraska. A lot of drunks in Omaha Nebraska. My home group is the Fox Hall group of Omaha Nebraska. We meet on Tuesday night, 730. Yep, some people have heard of it. We're trying to franchise the whole thing. It ain't working. But we keep trying. 730, we start at 730. We have two speakers. We give away literature. We sing happy birthday all off key. And it's a mess. But in my opinion, it's the best home group in AA. There was an old timer that used to say, an old timey used to saying, if you don't think your home group is the best home group ever, stay there. Don't go somewhere else messing that one up. So I love my home group. I truly, truly do. I think it's the best AA in the world. But I got to say, Texas does show off quite a bit. I tell you. It's amazing how y'all can just come and annex a whole state. Just the convention. Everybody that called me had, how you doing? I'm from so-and-so Texas and I want to invite you to Colorado. I was like, huh? Are they pissed at Colorado or what? What's going on? But that's just the way y'all do it and I love the way you all do it. We've been fed. We've being taken care of. It has been really, really good and thank you so much. This is a very special, a week-long convention like this is something magical. 30 years of doing this and having this kind of enthusiasm and this kind of spirit something's going on here if you're a newbie like I am I don't have a red dot on my thing, it's my first time here. If it's your first time here, don't make it your last because this is something really something, there's something really going on here, really is, really isn't. I mean I've been to a lot of places and this is kind of woo, yeah I'm telling you the desserts alone, I tell you I am a very grateful member of Alcoholics Anonymous I am not in AA because I saw the light I'm in AA Because I felt the heat I was in trouble That's what got me here Now my full name is Sterling David Holmes III Isn't that something? Now when you got a Roman numeral At the end of your name You're supposed to get a country to run Louis the 14th, Charles the 5th I'm waiting for my country At 7 I got a little sister Moved to my room in the South Bronx Pissed me off So I'm aware of resentments from the get go You know I don't know The lady that was working the youth program She said wouldn't it be wonderful if you could reach them With the 12 steps The principles of alcohol I need a sponsorship in kindergarten I don' t know about y'all It would have been nice because when I went to kindergarten, there was two groups, me and all them. It would have been nice to be able to put a diamond in, what do I do? Eat the cookie, take the nap, that's all you got to do when you're in kindergarten. But I've always been an outsider on the outside looking in, you know, needed that kind of stuff. I mean, I grew up in the South Bronx, it really doesn't matter that I grewup in the South Bronx but, you I grew up in the South Bronx, and we had interesting things going on. It was in Fort Apache, one of the toughest police precincts in the South Bronx. There was a lot of interesting things going on there was some good things going on. There were churches and there were liquor stores. Now you know which ones I kind of adhered to, you know? I kind of moved towards them liquor stores, I like them liquor store. Did the lights go out or what? I've always been right-handed anyway. But, you know, I mean, it really doesn't matter where I grew up. But I was always a kid that was riddled with fear. I was always worried about how I came off and what was going on and what about me. Because I think about me all the time. My grand sponsor says I may not be much, but I'm all I think about. And I like that because I can relate to that. I can related to that, that's the way I am. So, you now, I was thinking about me, what about me? And unconditioned yellow constantly. You know, Now, I grew up in Catholic school. I don't have a problem with the Catholic doctrine. I really don't. Some of the nuns that taught it to me weren't wrapped too tight, but other than that, pretty much good program. Now,I remember asking a nun on a summer's day in New York, you know, sister, how can you have a virgin birth? And she was not prepared to discuss that profound theological concept with an eight-year-old. So she hit me and sent me to the principal. and while I was sitting there waiting for the principal to come hit me some more I realized to myself that you grown ups don't have all the answers now I've already set the stage for you I already feel different everywhere I go I don't want to believe adults anymore coming up with my own stuff and I'm riddled with fear so you know I was destined to show up here you know and if it hadn't been for Talk Antico 45 I probably would have been long gone from here So in a sense, the tall can of Co-45 on a summer's day in the South Bronx saved my life. Because I was 13 years old with that maelstrom going on in my head and something had to quiet it. Something had to change my perception of life on life's terms or otherwise I wasn't going to survive. And I thank alcohol for that because it did, in fact, change my reception. I took that tall can Co- 45 down on a Summer's Day and I felt like I could speak as well as Jesse Jackson, play sports as well as Reggie Jackson dance as well as Michael Jackson and if you're new at Alcoholics Anonymous you know the thing is if it was working that way for me today I would still be out tonight being one of the Jacksons I'd have been moonwalking all the way down Crested Butte that'd be the deal but it stopped working And if you're new at Alcoholics Anonymous and wondering, well, what is it about this thing? Well, even though it had stopped working, it became injurious to me. I couldn't stop working it. It was my solution, and it is still a solution for me today. There's a lot more stuff I can do instead. But if I stop doing that stuff, that solution rises with a bullet. And regardless of how long that I've been sober or how many things that I have had happen to me of a spiritual nature in and outside of the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, if I get angry, irritable, and discontented enough and there are no other solutions available to me, I default to my original position which is drunk and disorderly. That's it. That's what makes me an alcoholic because I still got the alcoholic mind. I still got it. It's running right between my ears. What about me? I always called alcohol my pimp. So you know what that made me, right? So if I don't do this program, I get that come on back baby. You know I love you baby. I won't hurt you this time baby. You know? That's what will come starting in my head. I know it. It's inevitable. So if you're new in Alcoholics Anonymous, I know probably somebody sent you here because they had a poor sense of humor or they just didn't. Just stay awhile long enough to be convinced that, you know, it's really not a solution for you. Because I realize today, after 32 years of sobriety plus, it's still a solution for me today. I started drinking at 13. I remember dating this girl and I wanted to impress her. And you always impress a girl with things you can do well. So I challenged her ex-boyfriend to a drinking contest. And we were drinking hot cheap gin in the South Bronx. Yeah, see? A lot of hot cheap gin drinkers out here. Get you there, don't it? Got me there. Passed me out too. We became a slumber party, you know. I woke up the next morning embarrassed and mortified after being told what had happened the night before, and I blamed it all on bad onion dip. It had to be the onion dip, couldn't have been that gin I was drinking or the three or four beers I had to get ready. Now if you're one of those kind of people that when you go to a to drink, you got to get ready to go drinking, stay here this week, okay, because there's something really wrong, you You know, you got to go have a drink to get ready to go drinking. You know? And that's us. We love doing that. But it was my solution. And because it was not my solution, I was not willing to give it up. And of course, I got in trouble. We all always get in trouble, we always end up doing bizarre stuff, you know? And I knew that, you now, I getting kind of weird but I still wanted to do it and I went to, I was a pretty intelligent kid, you know, with the four different colleges. Don't have a degree in any one of them. But my sponsor says I'm educated beyond my intelligence. You know? And I don't, you Know, I wanted, I Was really uncomfortable with my life because my family was kind of, well, you can look at me and tell mom wasn't Donna Reed, right? You know, I watched those television shows in the 60s and 70s where, you know, the engineer came home probably at 6. You know, she always came out with an apron on. Dinner started. If there was a problem with Junior they solved it in a half an hour, you know? There was always the split level A-framed house, manicured lawn, the whole deal, right? I lived on the 18th floor in the project so, you know, wasn't no lawn to mow. And I have been to thousands of meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. Thousands. Conservatively. Thousands of meetings and I've sat next to Beaver Cleaver and he's just as screwed up as i am so it doesn't matter but it always mattered to me i always wanted whatever i couldn't seem to have you know i was looking for that i was always like that that i guess carl jung characterized us as being an inordinate thirst for the spirit for god an inordinate thirst we had this desire to fill this hole and i found alcohol filled it temporarily but did it pretty well you know and I got into a situation where I knew I needed to I always wanted to join a gang because in my neighborhood some of the gangs were really they were really tight they had a really strong bond with one another looked out for each other they would show up if somebody was in trouble and I like that and I wanted to joined a gang but other friends of mine who knew that my parents are spending a lot of money to give me a good education wanted to joining me into a gang if they want if I was going to destroy my life I was going to have to do it on my own, because the gang members, friends of mine who were gang members were not willing to do that. You know, that's kind of the way gangs were back then. So I decided to join a big gang, the Department of Defense. If you're going to join the gang, join a gang that has nuclear weapons. So I raised my hand and joined the United States Air Force, and they did not know at the time that I was an alcoholic. See, because we knew what alcoholics looked like in New York. I don't look like an alcoholic, because I didn't have, we had the, alcoholics had the long overcoat and a puddle in front of them and a brown paper bag. That's an alcoholic laying up against the building. One guy had a little monkey, one of them little green monkeys. You know, he'd get drunk and the monkey would guard him. So I couldn't possibly be an alcoholic because I didn't have no monkey. So they thought they were getting a reasonably sane individual, you know, and I joined and I think that my alcoholism progressed not because the military enabled me. I think my alcoholism progressed because your alcoholism will progress if you do three things as far as I'm concerned. If you acquire these three things, your alcoholismo will bloom. And I always say that if you're going to do it right, you need an income. It don't have to be your income, but you need a place to crash. Again, it doesn't have be yours, but it's important. and then, you know, food in the beginning towards the end, no big deal you know and that's what they provided to everybody in the military along with the training and everything else and so of course my alcoholism bloomed and I started to do a lot of bizarre things and if, you now and people react to the bizarre things that we think are commonplace because most of us can understand the compelling reasons to being naked on your lawn most of us really not the subtleties and the nuances of you know maybe in doing just a little too much and you know knocking on the wrong door or you know ending up in the wrong house or you know those kind of things just happen they come along with the deal but people out there they react to that kind of stuff and they start giving you those looks you know and I knew that I was getting in trouble and I do have to do something about it so a selfish self-centered person like me on condition yellow always in fear looking for outside stuff to fix inside problems i knew exactly what i needed a relationship i need somebody to help me love me because alcoholics don't date we hunt down and we capture jack and i always thought we were pretty good hunters now i find out that the hunted would probably be doing the hunting too you know that's the thing They were faking being lame, you know, so we could pounce. I did find the object of my obsession. I found the her, and I pursued relentlessly. And I really, when I married her, I intended on being a good husband, a good dad, and a good father, a good member of the military. I had all the plans in the world of being a Good Person. but when you suffer from alcoholism alcoholism is a rapacious creditor it takes everything it has no room for you to have anything else in your life you're either going to do alcoholism or all this other stuff that's it those are your choices if you're new in AA and you don't think you're an alcoholic ok cool but if you go back out there and you start losing stuff come on back because you're going to have to lose everything because alcoholism does not make allowances for any of the other stuff And, of course, it was evident. Before she got sent overseas first, and I was still in school, and before I got a chance to go overseas to be with her, my mother got hit by a car, knocked about 50, 55 feet, put in a coma, and on the 2nd of September 1978, she died. Mom and I had a real difficult relationship. Every once in a while, Mom would get, you know, she got divorced when I was like 10 or 11, 12 years old, and, you know, so a single parent out there. She was also a narcotics officer. Yeah. Made me real popular in the neighborhood, let me tell you. But every once in a while, Mom would get a little on the depressed side, and on a Saturday night, you could find my mom sometimes passed out on the floor after drinking a few too many screwdrivers, listening to them all, Otis Redding and Gladys Knight and the Pibbs and,you know, all them old sad blues songs, you know, on the record. Yeah, for the newcomer we used to have these things called a record player it was a big bigger than a CD and it had a smaller hole and you used to put it in and play music but, you know. So I'd come home and I'd turn that thing off and I would put it in bed and I said I'll never do that and I never did I never passed out. I passed out on the couch and I played Earth, Wind & Fire records which is completely different completely different But mom was, mom had lost her Mobile, Alabama accent in Washington D.C. at Howard University probably one of the smartest women I ever met taught me how to read before I got into first grade and I treated her like crap, I was a terrible son so all the guilt and you know alcoholics with guilt we drink a lot because you've got to swallow that guilt and that guilt creates more situations that creates more guilt so you've gotta do more drinking more drinking creates more situation you feel guilty about and you're getting into that cycle and the last two years of my drinking were characterized by what started actually after she passed away And it was crazy, insane drinking. I got sent over to Japan, and in Japan they drive on the wrong side of the road. And sometimes I get so drunk I couldn't remember what side of road I was supposed to be on. So I dried out in the middle. That kind of bizarre behavior warrants some people getting interested in your life. I mean, you know, they start asking you questions. And if you're like, I drank, you can't answer those questions. So you respond in anger and frustration of blaming a lot of other people and all that good stuff that we do to try to stay out of trouble. and gradually we just keep getting in more trouble, you know. And it closed in on me. It was terrible. I mean, one time I reported the car stolen in the club and it was the only car on the upper level in the parking lot at that time. And normies take a very dim view. If you can't find it, they won't let you drive it. They really just, you now, they're serious about that. So I had gotten to a place where it started to cave in on me. And I got pulled into the commander's office, and he said, Sterling, I'm giving you two weeks to volunteer for inpatient treatment, basically. Well, the military version was called alcohol education. You've got two weeks to volunteer or I'm going to send you on my order, and if you don't make it out, you're out of the Air Force. So you know how long it took me to make that decision, don't you? There you go. See? I'm in a room full of people who understand. We are the only group of folks faced with the calamity and the associated attendant problems associated with alcoholism and an opportunity to find some peace, some worth, some happiness, some sense of purpose, and they ask us to choose. We're the only group in the world that's got to think about that. Insanity or death, happiness and usefulness. Ugh. Okay, dying in my own urine or coffee maker can I get back to you we're the only group because anybody else that's got a fatal illness and you tell them all they've got to do is read a book and call a guy and show up at a couple of meetings where some other people might and talk for about an hour, hour and a half and your disease is arrested they will sign over the deed to their house and you got to drag us to meetings don't you in my i don't know about here in in colorado or in texas but in in nebraska some of the people that get sent are uh they have the little three by five cards and i tend i tend to tell them that if they have a problem with the program they're already being sponsored if they Have a Three-by-five card see because that three-by five card signifies that the people who gave you that 3x5 card trust us, crackpots, fallen women, ne'er-do-wells, has-beens and never wases to verify that your butt has been in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. That's how credible you are at this point. So, of course, you know, now I'm on my way to treatment. You know, I'm going to get edumacated about alcohol. It took him about 40 days to edumicate me about alcoholism. I saw the Father Martin movies. I saw The Jelly Neck Chart of Disease and Recovery. I saw Serotic Livers. I felt so sorry for you people. I was willing to give a donation when I got back to the base because y'all were in bad shape. You really were. I was voted, it was 12 of us 12 angry men I like to call us and it was a vote three days before we graduated who was most likely to drink six months after getting out of there and if I had voted it would have been unanimous landslide victory we didn't even need Florida you know landslide victory for yours truly I came back to the base with a guarded prognosis and orders to make three, count them, three Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. And I walked into the room. That was when we still had the circle and the triangle with no AA in it, and it was, you know, ours. You know, we still have the copyright and the whole thing, you Know? And I went into this room, and I saw these people, and they were like, Hi, how you doing? Welcome to Alcoholics Acknowledged. It's so good to see you. Hi, have a cup of coffee? Here, have some coffee. We're about to start the meeting. Woo! I don't know if that was your experience, but that was mine. They were happy to see me. And I was not happy to see them. How dare you be so happy to see? I don' t even know you people. And then they got to it. They started with a prayer and they went past the basket and I went, ah, okay, I know what this is. You guys are a cult. You're going to try to jump me to Jesus. Make me shave my head, sell books at the airport, something like that. Little tambourine, orange outfit. Ding, ding, ding-a-ding, ding. Yeah. So I've got my arms folded waiting because I know it's coming pretty soon. The building fund donations or the missionary work y'all got going on in Africa. You know, something. I know what's coming. I know What I hear. You know? Because I've known all about God. I knew all about him. You know I went to Catholic school all the way up to my first year of college. You know. Left the Catholicism very early in that stage. Was practicing Islam for a while. sort of half measure in Islam, you know. Happy Ramadan, anybody's here? Not the way y'all would feed folks. I know it's true as hell nobody from there. They would not be with 100 miles at this place, I tell you. Especially after that barbecue I had. Ooh, Lord. Anyway. Say, at one time, there was this young lady that I was pursuing and I wanted what she had and I was willing to go to any lengths to get it. And she was in this Baptist choir and so I joined the Baptist choir and they got loaned because we were a young adult choir to a Methodist church, so on any given Sunday I was a failed Catholic who was a practicing Muslim singing in a Baptist choir at a Methodists church had the Book of Mormon at home had the English Transversion of the Quran two versions of the Bible I was the kind of guy that could stand in my doorway with a 36 ounce bottle of Colt 45 in my underwear and win an argument with a Jehovah's Witness they would leave so i knew all about god so i was waiting for that hard sell never came what i got instead was people telling their stories and they were telling the stuff about being naked on the lawn one lady blew a three five on her civilian job that morning they busted her and she hadn't had a drink that night before so you know these are the kind of people you know i'm like i was becoming embarrassed for them, because they were telling me this stuff. And they would laugh, they would just laugh, you know? I'm like, how can you laugh about this kind of stuff? But they were so matter-of-fact about the things that were tragic or ugly or disgusting, things that I had done that I wasn't going to tell a soul, they were just carefree about. And it was something about that that made it attractive for me to keep coming back. And you know, and I'll tell you, if you're new in AA, a group is cunning, baffling, and powerful. They will make you do stuff you don't really want to do, you know, because they came up to me and said, darling, we really need your help. And I go, well, sure, anything I can do for you people. We need a coffee maker. I said, okay, fine, you Know, so they gave me the key. Now I got the key, I got to keep, I've got to key. I'm coming two hours early for a 20 minute commitment to make coffee, you know, and I didn't make terrible coffee. I made coffee so bad. We were in Japan. I made Coffee one time with the Japanese and they liked it strong and it didn't, didn't like it they said no we'll send somebody in early from now on to make coffee there so you just stay in your own no don't do this anymore no you know so deal was i figured there were 16 people coming to the meeting about 16 of them little yeah yeah starbucks ain't got nothing on me i was making expresso back in the 80s you know i mean we used a lot of cream in two weeks i made coffee when we got in that circle three four people volunteered to be coffee maker next week that's for sure so so if you ever don't ever give up a service job and never give up a service gig you know because we hire the handicapped and alcoholics novels because they're fun to watch and you know if you don't know how to do it that's the prerequisite for getting the service gig not knowing how to doing it because once you get good at it we fire you and give you another job you don�t know nothing about so we can watch you do that one all wrong That's the highlight of our day I love that about AA I really do So I was chairing the meeting Sharing my experience, strength and hope Which wasn't much But they would spend the rest of the meeting 12-stepping me And it took those people a year But in a year's time I fell in love with Alcoholics Anonymous There was one big guy, George George was a big, tall, navy guy He liked hugging people And I'm from New York You're another man You ain't hugging me and George would chase me around a little room to hug me and one day he caught me and I started really liking them hugs so six months into sobriety I think I'm gay if you're new at Alcoholics Anonymous and you have crazy thoughts what we would love for you to do is share those crazy thoughts with an old timer they ain't got nothing else to do you know you could just walk up to her Joe, I think I'm gay. Well, really? Are you married? Yeah. To a woman? Yeah. Do you like girls? Yeah. Well, you're not gay. Oh, okay. All right. All right, because you've got more crazy thinking to do. Why get stuck on just one thing? You know, because he ended up taking actions on that one thing that really aren't going to work, you know? I'd end up moving to San Francisco somewhere hating it, you know? So the deal was, you know of course they were loving they were a really loving fellowship I had a loving experience in the first year of alcoholics novice I was in love with AA I loved a one small problem in alcoholics novice one small prop well couple but this one really glared at me because when I first walked in I saw these pictures picture them two away guys yeah them too right there yeah yeah and the three guys on the bed so I knew you know and from the numbers of people that were showing up at the meetings, I kind of surmised, just extrapolating to the United States. I'm going, hmm, there's a real shortage of African-Americans in Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm taking it upon myself to get thousands of black folks into AA. See, because I want another picture up on the wall. You know, Bill Bob Sterling right in the middle. AA the next generation, you know what I'm saying? I rewrite the book later because, you know, who knew anything about the Titanic, for Christ's sake, you know this is this is the 80s you know so i came to dc it was southeast side of dc as a matter of fact seemed to be thousands of black folks in that meeting and alcoholics not all sober longer than me kind of pissed me off but the deal was i pursued i went to a lot of meetings and i would say that the reason why i'm still in alcoholics namas even though my first five years of alcoholics namas were not stellar sobriety is that i went To meetings i went The meetings for all the wrong reasons, but I went to meetings. And I listened to people at those meetings and I watched the folks in those meetings and I could tell the difference between those that were going to stay and those that were going to go. Because simply put, the ones that were staying were the ones who were smiling. The ones that was staying with the ones that were glad. The ones who are staying with ones that we're busy. And the ones they were staying with was happy joyous and free. and all the other ones were going to leave. And I got to a place at five years of sobriety where I didn't think I could be happy, joyous, and free, but I didn' t want to go either. And I was stark raving sober. And I decided I'd either kill myself or get a sponsor. Equally tragic decisions. I decided to go for the more temporary of the two. I'd get a sponsored and kill myself later, you know? And God with a sense of humor sent me to Omaha, Nebraska, which does not sound like A.A. Mecca to you, but it was for me because I went down the stairs of this Catholic church to a Tuesday night meeting and I found some people Hi, how you doing? Welcome to Alcott's Anonymous. We're about to start a meeting. You want to sit over there? Woo! You know, I was so dry I could have started a forest fire and these people were just as enthusiastic and loving God and loving the program and just loving AA and it was just so great and it Was so wonderful and it's making me sick! But there was something about them. They had that freedom of being able to talk about stuff that was tragic and terrible, and even in sobriety, I was ashamed of, and they seemed to have no fear. And they were going everywhere, and they were doing all kinds of stuff, and they Were acting in a way and manner that was attractive to me. So I decided to get this guy for my sponsor. You know, I've been told in many a discussion meeting, and you may have heard this in a discussion meaning or two, you know, the person getting the help probably isn't getting near as much help as the person giving the help, you know? We like saying that kind of stuff. So I found this one guy who would give me a resentment just like that. I figured, well, I'll ask him. He kind of pissed me off at first because what he did, he circled some meetings and said, if you don't want to hide in Alcoholics Anonymous, I'll see you at these meetings. And I went, oh, boy, because I've been sober five years. I'm an AA icon. And this guy had the audacity to do that. So I took his inventory that day. I took its inventory the next day. I took it into, I think, three straight days. I recommend, if you've taken somebody's inventory that long and you don't have a sponsor and they're in the same sex as you, get them for a sponsor. Because at least they can clean some stuff up. They're not going to spend all that time on your head. Straighten the stuff and move the furniture around and get it all squared away. So I asked him, and he made me say, please piss me off. And then he gave me the marching orders. He gave me some instructions on what to do if he was going to sponsor me and I was going be an active member of his home group. And I complied with those dictates, rules, edicts, whatever you want to call them, because I was desperate. I had no other alternative. If I had had another card to play, I would have played it. But I was done. I was gone. And I think the difference between any of the people whom I met in this cerebral journey from then till now that left and has never returned is I didn't leave because I kept staying surrendered. I kept saying, okay. I never said no. And I Think that is the one thing that differentiates the happy, joyous, and free bunch, the rah-rah AA bunch, from the people that always have a problem with us, whether they're in our fellowship or not. because there are people that have problems with us and the deal is they're never happy and they're never satisfied and it's always a challenge to get them to do anything, anything at all but for the people that are happy, they're always doing stuff sometimes too much stuff. It's like herding cats sometimes getting alcoholics to sit down and shut up and sit still you know but the deal this has just been my experience And my sponsors verified that because there's a lot of people that we know that should be walking this journey with us. They ain't here. They ain'T here. I got in with a group of people that would caravan to another meeting and just take it over, you know, and just do these roundups and something, just do all kinds of service stuff, and it was getting really good. It was getting real good. I got to about 10, 11 years sober, and I think I'm just about to get that AA brass ring. You know, just got it all coming together, getting awards at work you know still in the service doing well she wasn't happy and my sponsor forced me to ask her that all-important question and never ask a question you don't want to know the answer to and i didn't really want to answer but i had to ask the question do you want to stay married to me she said nope so that kind of decided what we were going to do moving forward you know so and i was i was mortified i mean i was just and you know how we do pain you know i'm walking around with a jaw tight throbbing at the temple anything wrong Sterling? no I'm fine so my sponsor put his arm around me and he said we're so blessed in AA to have the only man ever to get a divorce in our fellowship they're wise but they're not kind so i got a chance i had to make an inventory i had to get over that i had to do what i needed to do in order to stay in the middle of alcoholics anonymous and i can tell you that throughout my sobriety it's been that way throughout my sobriete there have been ups and downs there have been challenges that happen to all the earth people out there but because i'm alcoholic i take it real personal sometimes i sponsor a lot of guys and none of their problems seem near as important as mine I mean they would call me with some stuff and I've always got an answer for them and I'd hang up the phone and I go well what about me and I'll start down that road another one will call you know and that's just God's way of just reminding me you ain't all that Sterling you know you're just one of the many it's hard for me to do that but we got a divorce and I decided that I really didn't want to be the way I was in that marriage and my higher power with his sense of humor gave me an opportunity. I was working two jobs, going into the military. I was sponsoring guys, doing service work and last thing I needed was a relationship. So that's exactly what I got. Got an opportunity to meet a woman and spend some time and we dated and we hit it off and we've still been hitting it off and y'all paid to bring her out. Roxanne, would you stand up for me please? I don't get to do that often so when I do it really embarrasses her and I just love it she will get me back but that's okay, I live on the edge what the hell but the deal was we dated and I got shipped out to California and I didn't really want to go but I knew that the reason why I was going to California is because, obviously, there was something I needed to do out there. I must have a mission, you know? And I've got a message, so I must be, ooh, yeah, okay. I'm going to go through the Rocky Mountains and come out of Reno, Nevada and come into Sacramento and save everybody, you now? And God with his sense of humor broke that car down in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Transmission fell out of that four-banger Nissan Stanza I had. And I found three things in Cheyenne, Wyoming that day. I found the La Quinta Inn I found an Amco station for the car and a Quonset hut right at the end of Main Street there was a picture of these two old white guys the orange ashtrays remember the orange ash trays oh weren't they so cool we never emptied them either didn't we they just piled up the whole pyramid of cigarette ash but man we had the orange ashes it was a guy named Jim there's always a guy name Jim you know so I spent a couple of days in Cheyenne, Wyoming and then ended up without a car in Sacramento during one of the worst rainy seasons in Sacramento history, and I was a weather forecaster in the military, so it was really funny. I spent five years in Sacramento, and a lot of things happened to me in Sacramento that helped me to develop a program that I can't be proud of, but that I can rely on. Because I'm not a great example of Alcoholics Anonymous, but I can be very effective when I get out of my own head. See, because I know the game. I used to play a lot of basketball, and they say if you want to play well, you've got to play people that are better than you. And I was always hanging around those that were better at this than me, the ones that were walking ahead of me. I tried to focus in on them. And in the five years that I was in Sacramento, I had an opportunity to sponsor a lot different guys from a lot of different perspectives, from a whole lot of different places. And I had to climb back in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and we had to look at the solutions as they were outlined in the book. because that was not worth the dispute. They could argue about my experience, they could even argue about my attitudes and opinions about things but if it was down in black and white written in 1934, okay, we'll have to go with that. We'll haveと go with dat. And that was the default position and I was involved with and privy to helping a lot of people. Not because I'm a great carrier of the message of Alcoholics Anonymous but because I was available and God uses what's available. I always say you've got to have a God to live with a drunk. Whether you be the drunk or you live with the drunk, you've Got to Have a God. And climbing in that book and being willing to help these men helped my sobriety because it enhanced my spirituality. I grew in my understanding and my effectiveness. And that's my responsibility today in Alcoholics Anonymous, to care as much as I possibly can for a person that is trying to stay sober because I can't do anything about my own sobriety. I can' t do anything about my recovery or spirituality but I can do something even if that's just sitting there until 3 o'clock in the morning listening to you ramble on and on about your problems. I can do that. I may not really want to but I can do it. I can do the service work. I can rewrite the bylaws as much as I hate doing that all the time. We always seem to need to rewrite bylaws in the intergroups. I don't understand it but deal is I can do that I can step up and do what I need to do to help this program move forward in carrying the message to the still-suffering alcoholic. You know, I can do that, and I'm responsible for doing that. And that's what I got taught in California. I got out of the service, got out OF the Air Force, honorably discharged, gave me a couple of medals even. It was great, fantastic. And I came back to Omaha, Nebraska to live with my wife and my new family and the fellowship I crave and got a job, got a pretty good job, lost that job, broke my leg. All kinds of interesting things started happening because I was in life, life on life's terms. And life on Life's Terms really doesn't care how long you've been sober. I have told life many times, listen, I've been sobre over 30 years. And life goes, so? You know, I mean it just doesn't matter. Life is going to be life. And that's the challenge today in Alcoholics Anonymous. I sponsor a lot of men that are going through challenges. I have watched people in my home group, I have watch so many people in our home group in situations where they are falling apart. Their lives are in shambles and they walk into the meeting of AlcoholicsAnonymous and they hand this new guy to chicken with a half a cup of coffee their phone number knowing full well the last thing they need is a call at 3 o'clock in the morning from this guy. But they do it anyway because it was done for them and because of that I know for a fact I got to keep doing this deal I gotto keep doing this deal you know because they inspired me inspiration is the greatest thing going on in Alcoholics Anonymous because what I can do or what is done to me by me seeing that is something has entered inside of me that will motivate me to do it for somebody else you know I have watched so many loving people pass on to the great big meeting we lost a lot of heroes lost a lot of heroes in Alcoholics Anonymous and now I'm thinking you know I was talking to another guy that's got 30 years and I was telling him I was going you remember when we used to be able to defer to the old timer you know yeah I remember we used do all they ain't no more it's us we are now them you know and I don't think I got the juice I really don't because I don' t have the kind of spirituality that I saw when I first walked in the doors of AlcoholicsAnonymous but I got the willingness to try to get there you know and i know that if i walk behind those those shadows i'll be i'll get there i really will get there I know that I will I know That I will we had some challenges I mean Roxanne I've had challenges she's had physical challenges I'm powerless over alcoholism but I'm also powerless over breast cancer and she got it and you know I had to go help folks because I couldn't do anything for her so I was in meetings trying to help people. Ain't nothing funnier than watching a drunk trying to help folks. Come here, let me help you. I'm going to read this book. I'll read this book. Yeah, you know, you're going to get some help. Because I got to fix her and I can't fix her so I'm gonna help you, you know. That's the way it was. I was on it. I was way on it, got a little broke. We had financial problems and I was, I had a car in Omaha, Nebraska. I had a car that didn't have any heat. Yeah see, Yeah, a lot of people do. That's real spiritual. Because I've been sober so long, I've got a car to go have to eat. I get a call from my sponsor one day and he says, you're a report to this place. There was a mechanic who was in the program and you're supposed to leave your car there to get it fixed. My brother Pigeon was dispatched to come keep an eye on me. It's not a question of who did it or who's done it. You just say thank you. And I said, yes sir. Now, when you're six months sober, you tell everybody about that. But when you over 30 years sober, it's a little embarrassing. And I've got to lessen and look good. See, I like looking good. And I like being in the middle of Alcoholics Anonymous because I've got a big mouth and I like to be seen. But I also know that I've got to remain in Alcoholics Anonymous. And in order to remain in Alcoholic Anonymous, I've got to be the right size. And the right size is I'm no worse or better than any other drunk in the place. I kind of love it when we bring wet drunks to the meeting because that, you know, old-timey kind of, oh, yeah. See? I got to remember that. I gotto remember that feeling of being in a room full of people that have a purpose and I didn't have one. I gotta remember what it felt like to be all alone. I've got to remember what it felt like to have no answers, and knew I had no answers but still had to step out here in the world and pretend like I did. I remember that. I remember the insane behavior and even trying to rationalize it in my own mind. I remember that. And if I ever get to a place where I get too big to remember that, then you people won't look that good. And come on back, baby. and I'll be going out that door to do it one more time and I don't ever want to do that I don' t ever want feel that way again so I will do my level best to stay the right size in alcoholics now it's my responsibility I owe it to all of those people many of whom didn't have nothing to do with this program I mean one of the Islamic prayers I did learn was that there is a general prayer that prays for all of us for all those who are suffering and it asks upon the God of their understanding to relieve their suffering. And I don't know of many drunks in the final stages that ain't dealing with the four horsemen, terror, bewilderment, frustration, and despair. And there are prayers for people like that all over the world. So there are people every day praying that I stay sober, and I don' t know their names. And the least I can do is to try to apply these principles at Kmart and Walmart and gas station, you know where it's difficult because I'm one of them kind of people I count how many items you got in the shopping basket 15 items or less you got 30 items you need to die I don't think a judge will convict me either I go 19, 20 bang you know and that's not what y'all taught me If it ain't polite in AAA, that's what y'all taught me. That's the deal. The never say no. That I'm responsible. I'm one of his kids. I'm supposed to keep the plug in the jug and not hurt any of his other kids. That's my primary purpose. Keep the plug on the jug, and I heard any results of kids. I'm included, but I take second your first. That's hard, but I keep going I keep playing with the people that play better than I do so that I can get better at this thing. I'll close with a story about a guy trying to paint his house. He was painting his house, he had a two-year-old helping him, and we all know two-years-olds are no help. He found a picture of all the continents on the planet and he tore it up into pieces and he told the child to go in the next room and put this puzzle together, thinking that it would keep the child occupied for a long time. About five minutes passed, she comes out finished. He goes how'd you do that so fast? because some of the continents, he wasn't sure where they would go himself. How'd you do it so quick? Well, there was a man on the other side. So you put the man together, the world comes together. I came into Alcoholics Anonymous with a lot of issues, a lot of issues. And AlcoholicsAnonymous said, basically, Sterling, we know there's some compelling issues for the world to die. But instead, why don't we set that aside? Let's give you a God that loves you desperately. Let's gives you a place where you can talk about the problems that are going on in your life, one day to the next. Let's give you a room full of people that are willing to listen to those problems and help you climb out of them and to help you develop a relationship with a God that loves you desperately. And then armed with that, let's go back out in the world and see if we can make some difference. So I would challenge any newcomer. You can do the 90 and 90, you can do 100 and 100, you can doing whatever you need to do in order to stay here. But give us everything that doesn't work in your lives life and let us help you let us allow God to help you get that stuff all squared away I am looking forward to the rest of this week I know who are going to be here this week, I know these people and they are inspiring and they are good people and I would strongly recommend that you interrupt your feeding to give them all a listen to. I'm grateful to be hearing so but thanks Thank you very much.