The Baffling Simplicity of Surrendering to the Program – Larry T.

I'd like to welcome Larry T. from Lakewood, please. Hi everybody, my name is Larry Thomas and I'm an alcoholic. And I want to thank Rhoda and you guys for inviting me up to be here. It's good to be in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. Congratulations, John, on your one year and the young lady who took her four years again. A repeat offender, I'm sure. And it's good to be with you guys. I used to live up here years ago. It's nice to go to a town where the favorite bar is the My Way Lounge. You know, there's got to be some Alkies up here, man, you know. So it's always good to me. It's good for me to be here. my sponsor tells me that i'm living proof that a man can stay sober for a little over 30 years and not amount to a damn thing really so if there are any new folks in here i don't know where you think you're going but the highest i've ever gotten here is sober basic human being active member of my own home group and the only thing that has been hard for me in my sobriety, the baffling feature about AA is its simplicity. It's just too simple for guys like me you know there's got to be a harder way to do this and by golly I'll find out what it is you know. It it's amazing because when I think of sobriete today the idea of drinking and using doesn't even enter my mind when I think of sobriety I think about the way I live how impossible it is for me to live the way I used to live and expect to stay sober I needed a brand new way of life every action of my life was up for grabs I had no idea how to live I was undisciplined I was selfish and I was self-centered and blame ran all through my vocabulary everybody was the reason why I was you know and because of you guys in a book called Alcoholics Anonymous see I didn't have any trust in my life when I met you guys because I couldn't be trusted but I remember being new and how I trusted the people that's why your commitments here are so important to me i found my power in alcoholics anonymous through service and i remember being new and how i trusted that you guys would be here and open your doors on time and how I trusted that You guys would have the coffee made and stuff like that and it was amazing because you never failed me you know and to be able to have a commitment in a meeting in all my meetings now is is it's very important to me to recreate that atmosphere I was born in Detroit I come out to California when I was about four years old I was brought up in a little foster home and my mom and dad got together and my moms I was with my mom today and she's a little Scandinavian lady and my mum loved diet pills so she was always running around the house around midnight you know or sorting the nuts and bolts in the garage all night long or rake in the neighbor's yard around midnight just a busy lady you know and she loved to eat speed and make Afghans you know and everything in the house had fresh Afghins on it chairs couches my dad's golf clubs had little poodle heads you know if there was any animals they had a fresh vest she just knitted for them you know and uh and we had a very small house and and she had a little room and you can just hear her all night just just going to town and and no matter what time you got up she was up you know cleaning stuff with your toothbrush or you know just just a busy lady and uh when you eat that much speed you have a lot of hobbies you know all at the same time you know and i had no idea it was my first tweaker i'd ever meet you know what i mean but i had a hell of a reference point you know and uh she used to love to eat that speed and make these big jigsaw puzzles you know these 30 million piece jigslaw puzzles of the mojave desert and she would get excited about that it's going to be a beige night tonight honey you know and she'd run down the savans and get her a carton of raleigh cigarettes she smoked those Raleigh cigarettes and save those goofy coupons on the back to buy more yarn it was a hideous cycle she was caught up in you know and she'd cash her prescription in and get her some peroxide to dye her hair and you know she'd come home and put on her one and only muumuu she had for 50 years you know and eat that speed and make this puzzle and if she got a piece that didn't fit well she had a big pair of toenail clippers then she'd snip that son of a gun you know wedge it in there and And she just plastered my room with all these almost done pictures, you know what I mean? But she was a heck of a lady and she still is. I love being with my mom. And I loved hanging around my mom because I could avoid my dad, you now. And what was to happen to me in Alcoholics Anonymous is you guys would introduce me to me. and uh and i think that's a monumental place for us to be is uh because number one if you're not drinking and you'renot in aa you are in a wicked place you arein a place that you're destined to drink you know what i mean if we could just not drink and everything would be all right well you know we wouldn't need to drive 50 miles to la crescenta that's for damn sure you know what i means but something happens to the alcoholic when they're not drinking and no matter how nasty that last drunk is and no mater how dirty and disgusting and how many days you've laid with the pigs and no matter what you're doing something happens to the alcoholic of our type that the memory of that last drink no matter disgusting it was and devastating we have the ability that the longer we stay sober the memory goes away and it's replaced by the pain that we feel when we're sober and the only thing that not drinking has ever squeezed out of me is this idea that maybe this time it'll be different there's got to be a way for me to keep this in my life if it's the last thing I do because I can't imagine life without it see alcohol I'm the type of guy that was always an answer it always was an answer even if I didn't have a problem you know it was an answer to that you know what i mean it was just a welcome mat to my head you know and uh and my mom like i said i come to alcoholics anonymous for this last time and my sponsor started taking me through this inventory and i got introduced to the guy i got introduce to the to my life is my fault and i started seeing how i carried these things in as a kid all the way into my adulthood And one of the things that I used to carry in to every group of people that I ever met was guilt and shame. It wrapped around my ankle like a weight, you know what I mean? And one OF the things that I brought in was these defects of character and one of them was is what I would do with people who would give me love and attention and affection. And it started with my mom at a young age and it stuck with me all the way and sometimes after I come, I played her like a fiddle. And that there would never be a time too inconvenient or an age too old for me not to put the tap on that lady. I never want to forget that. I never wanna forget what it's like to be a young man and be put away in an institution for a small period of time. And you're supposed to show, I'm not even out of high school yet. And I'm supposed to get out the bus and show up at Monday at the house. And I don't do that. I show up on a Thursday and I showup on my mom's place of business. On a cold April morning. I'm standing in a parking lot of a dry cleaners at nine o'clock in the morning and my mom's working in this dry cleanors and she's cleaning people's homes and I'm ashamed of her but I'm not too ashamed to show up that morning. I'm much too ashamed to shows up that morning with that rain hitting me watching my mom and I am about from here to those double doors and I wait for everybody to get out of that dry cleaner so I can make my move and I waddle in there with my drunken mud and my dirt and I asked that lady for a buck or two and she opens up that Woolworth wallet and the picture of me falls out when I'm eight years old on a little league team. And that would be the only decent picture she would ever have of me until I meet you guys. And without batting an eye she peels off one or two dollars and I grab that money and I run off to Wilmington where I'm going to die. Now the thing that brings it home to me tonight in Locker Center is you take this same man new and Alcoholics Anonymous with my so-called desperation and willing to go to any lengthness and you stick me in a meeting just like this where every action that I take my life depends on if you be an alcoholic. And I need to ask you something if you're new how come when my life depends on it, if you were to put Rhoda or somebody else chief of commitments or somebody that same distance as me and my mom in that parking lot, how come when my life depends on it. I can't walk that distance and ask this young lady for a job in a meeting that's going to save my life, but I can walk that difference and use my mom time and time and time again. And I'm here to share with you, if you're new, that it's been my experience that if my alcoholism doesn't kill me, my selfishness and my self-centeredness will make no mistake about that, which is why it's necessary for a man with over 30 years to still have a commitment in every meeting that I go to. And not because I can run around and brag about it, but for one reason only. I'll never get so sober that I can't get drunk again. But I can get so drunk that I can't make it back. And I never want to forget what that felt like. I never wanted to forget those years I was slithering around Alcoholics Anonymous looking in every window in town wondering if I'd ever be in the middle of this thing. The hell of a place to be looking for an answer and you're sitting in the middle of it. We got folks sitting like that tonight. They become complacent and discontented. They don't know what they're looking for, and they're sitting right in the middle of it. Hell of a place to be. And my dad was a happy drunk. My dad was a happy singing the blues, Nat King Cole, Bobby Darin drunk, man. He loved to get drunk and sneak into his own home, you know? Always through my bedroom window, which I think is a lost art in Alcoholics Anonymous. That old window climbing alky, man, that guy banging on that damn window for an hour, standing on that gas meter, you know, hoping that it's his own home, you know what I mean? Makes the big dive and hope he makes it over the kitchen sink, you know. And oh man, my dad was a happy drunk, you know, and his drinking didn't scare me. I knew he found something because he was a miserable man when he was sober. But man, when he was drunk, boy, he'd get drunk and sing those Bobby Darin and Frank Sinatra songs and get stuck on one verse all night long you know oh the shunk babe you know and I wanted to come out of my room and bump him so he can get to the next verse or something you know but uh man but he had so much high hopes for me and I don't know why you know what I mean because uh I'm a loser really my dad was strapped with a five inch belt of character he was a type a guy who started things and finished them. He's the type of guy that knows how to hang in. He's that kind of guy, that when things get tough, he can go down deep and get that little core of something that puts him through to the next. Not me. I'm strapped with a five-inch belt of lazy ass, you know what I mean? And there ain't nothing in me that says, hang in, let's work through this, you know What I mean. The only thing I think about when I get up is, when's my nap, you You know, everything is around 2.30, you know, and if I sign up for anything, it's the minimum. You know what I mean? Put me down for the minimum, man. And I don't have that thing that when times get tough, let's dig in, you know. I'm out of here. Don't even threaten me with a 401k, you know. I mean, I don' t want nothing to do with hanging in there, man, you know, because I don''t have staying power. You know what i mean i am at the whim of my head whatever my head says go my head's always had power over me man i got the type of head that no matter how tired i am it wants to chat right it could be 2 30 in the morning like last night we got back from wherever we were santa barbara talking i go lay my head down and 2 30 my old head just hey larry wake up let's chat let's talk about when you're a baby and bring you right up to date for God's sake. Hell, we just did it the night before. It don't care. Then I worry about such ridiculous things, leaving the important things just to go by the wayside. You know what I mean? I worry stuff that ain't even happening. They're not even on the map and I'm worried about it. We were getting some rain the other night I started worrying about the rain. I was someplace and I, you know, I started to, oh my God, you know, I hope Rosie's okay and it's raining hard and what about, you Know, where's the water go in my backyard? You know? You know, and what about the pool? Is that going to overflow and flood into the neighbor's yard or is the water going to go underneath the house, you know? Where does that water go, you know? Hell, I don't own a pool, you know what I mean? But we'd been thinking about getting one, you know? So I plugged into that, you know, but don't count me in to worry about my job and, you know, no, no. I'm going to worry about this stuff that don't matter, you know, and my dad, he wanted me to do well. He's a good man. He wants his son to do well and work hard and stuff like that, and I found myself people-pleasing my dad. Just, not because I loved him. No, what was to come out in this inventory is I pleased him so he wouldn't beat me up like I heard him moving other people around. I was afraid of him. I never had love till I met you guys, you know, and I didn't trust these folks that I was living with and I was so confused. I didn'T trust my mom because she's letting this happen to her and I didn't Trust my dad because he's doing it and I got so many questions and I don't know who to go and I felt ashamed for just trusting these folks I'm supposed to be loving and they put on a great masquerade you drive by the house it looked like every other house but man what's going on in there just scared the hell out of me and I couldn't stand to be in my own home I started running away at an early age I felt I was the kid that was sleeping over your house I was a kid that was you know making tree forts and hiding out than there and running away and hiding underneath the house or hiding on the roof anything but being in that home. I was more comfortable around a street light at midnight than my dinner table and I felt so goofy about that and at that young age of five or six, my dad comes into my bedroom and he says, you're going to have a baby brother. Your mom's going to be alone and I was so excited man. I'm not going tobe alone. You know what I mean? And I started saving up my baseball cards and oiling up my gloves thinking about my kid brother that's coming down, you know, and going to the drag races and stuff like that my dad takes my mom to the hospital to have the baby and he comes into my room says the baby died I don't remember having any compassion for my mom or my father I did what I would always do in a situation that I didn't understand I got mad at it went after the old man with all 70 pounds yelling and screaming you promised me blame that man for something he was totally powerless over became on the top of my list you know and and then it brought in this idea that stuck with me till years after I got sober and that was this thing about God. What type of God would create a baby and kill it? And I started having, I don't know, remember that old show on TV called Get Smart with the steel doors. Boom! Every time anybody would ever mention a thing about Jesus, God, church, religion, Jehovah, Joba, all these, boom! I closed my mind to it and I knew at an early age of 11 I've got to figure this stuff out myself And I had so many questions And my ego was satisfied at 11 I was good at sports and I had little girlfriends And I said, well, I'm not going to do that And I was like, well I had all the attention That an alcoholic of my type loves to have Recognition and kids that liked you and stuff like that But yet there was something in me that was so empty when I was away from you And I didn't know what that was At night, I'd be staring out the window and daydreaming and stuff like that. I didn't have attention in school. I couldn't concentrate. And at 11 years old, there was four of us in a garage, and we started passing around a bottle of Four Rose Whiskey. And I stepped into the safest place I had ever found. It made me feel better than any home run I'd ever hit. It made my feel safer than any hug I'd every gotten. Shut off that crazy head that tells you you're a loser. And because up to that point, I've been searching for an answer. I've spent my whole life searching for an answer to a problem I didn't know I had. I just wondered what, I mean, I grew up answering myself the same thing people were asking me. What's wrong with you? You know what I mean? And I didnít know. I had no idea, man. But I took a shot of that Four Rose Whiskey and I stepped into the safest place that had ever stepped into my life, man, and I didnít get drunk and lose my paper out and come to AA the next day. in fact what I did is I never laughed so hard in all my life man I never threw up so much in all my life, it was hurling stuff I ate when I was nine months old and I remember kissing my first Latin woman that night it was my aunt I went after her but man I thought when I wake up the next morning that the old man was going to give me the wood because he was always throwing me around At this time, he was taking me in the garage and having me choose a weapon. And I thought for sure I was going to get it this time. And I woke up that morning ready to face whatever he had in mind, and the only thing he did is put a big lock on his bar. That was it. He knew what was in the other room, man. And I took a right turn. I took the right turn for safety because it was so hard to be good than do good. I don't feel good doing good. I know it makes you happy, but I come away so empty, man. And I took a right turn and, man, from the time I was 11 or 12, like I said, I didn't drink every day and hit the bars hard, you know what I mean? But the older I got, the more I leaned on it. And it wasn't hard to find. It was all over the house. He had his Thunderbird wine and his port wine and his bourbon and stuff like that. But I can tell you about the time when I got into high school – I was a freshman in high school, and kids were going to their locker to get their books and stuff like that. And I was going to my locker to take some barbiturates to take away the shakes. The morning drink was very important to me as a freshman in high School. I remember hanging around this little Mexican girl. I started dating this Mexican girl, and she had some brothers, and they liked cars, and I love cars to this day. I remember getting a 62 Chevy Impala and dropping it right down to the ground I'm getting my hair up real big like a Bakersfield tumbleweed and, you know, listening to the Four Tops and the Temptations and Smokey Robinson. And God, I loved it, man. I was in my plumbing truck the other day, and I heard the Four Topps. I just started sinking in my damn truck, you Know? And I had a Mexican girl named Lupe. She curled her hair up really big, and her sister would use soup cans to curl her hair, and the noodles were stuck in there, you Now? and I had my hair up, I had my white t-shirt with my black khaki pants that came up to here her girlfriends were telling me that men who are well endowed had big feet I had a pair of 15 inch shoes I was driving around in and we'd drive around and drink that wine and wonder what the hell you're staring at had our frowns on because our asses hurt from bouncing around all night I ran into a kid like that when I was living up here in 95 I was over at the Glendale Mall and I ran into this kid. Kid goes walking by and he's got his mom's earrings on, you know, which is always macho, you know. And he had his ears drilled out, right? Not pierced. You could put a car rim in those things, you know what I mean? Put an AA triangle and a clock in there, you know? Now it's every sponsor's dream, you know What? Get back here. You know, just hook that son of a, you know how to do it. You know what do you mean? And he had all these ball bearings in his head. He looked like a voodoo doll, you know, and he had a ball bearing and a ring and a ball bearer in his nose, one in his tongue. And I walked by him and he goes, well, what are you looking at? And I said, I don't have a damn clue what I'm looking at. I wanted to squirt him with some WD-40 to make sure he keeps walking. Now I sponsor the kid. We started laughing and talking that day, and now I start sponsoring that day. and when he was new, Ronnie, he used to call me up, you know, what do you want me to do, Sponse? And I said, well, why don't you unlock yourself, you know, for God's sake. I go to these meetings and I feel so different, really. Maybe you're the only one wrapped up in a chain link fence, Ronnie. How about that? But that's the key. You know what? Whether it be Ronnie or anybody else, we all come here and this is the deal. Thank God for sponsorship and identification, buddy. identification and talking to these folks in these rooms man is we all come here with a little thing that makes us different whether it be who we are or what we do or where we're from or whatever we all have something that makes this feel a little bit different and if you can get together with some folks and get together with a sponsor and get that out of your way enough to apply these steps, you'll find that it doesn't matter. It does not matter. That the only thing that matters is that you suffer from this wicked malady called alcoholism. Because if you don't arrest that first, you will become obsessed with all these other differences and separate yourself from us. We know that there's stuff going on with you. The alcoholics of our type, man, once we get sober. I mean, we are some dancing people. I mean, once we get sober and you think everything's going to be all right, what happened to me is I got sober and I started, and I knew I couldn't drink anymore, and i knew i couldn't use, and I start growing this relief finder, and I start seeking relief, and it's usually from things that aren't AA approved, you know what I mean? And if you're not careful, and if you weren't around here unattended, you'll find yourself in a computer too long, or you'll find yourself at the racetrack too long, or you'll find yourself eating all the cookies at La Crescenta meeting. You know what I mean? And that's why I need to be around folks. And it's not that you do these things that make you feel different. It's that you don't tell anyone about them. And that is when they become obsessions of the mind. And that is where that little saying, you are as sick as your secrets come in. That is what they're talking about. And I used to live in secrecy. My little melody for life is, what you don't know won't hurt you. What they don't see me doing in private is none of their business. And you know what happens to people like me? That when I start doing things that are not AA approved and I'm thinking that what they don' t know won' t hurt them, I tell you the thing about that is when I started doing stuff like that, everybody's affected. especially the people who are close to me because what happens to me is a huge shift in my attitude and there's nothing more hostile than a guilty man because he begins to think everybody else is the problem and he becomes suspicious of everybody else when he's the guilty one and I can't handle that. My book tells me that I can live in peace and if I don't find peace of mind through these steps Alcoholic of my type will go back to where I once thought it was because we need to have something in our lives. We must have peace, and there's nothing more sadder than people getting time in Alcoholics Anonymous and not doing anything, and they begin to start searching for peace in other areas. It's a sad thing. But I started bouncing around with these guys for a long time, and I love being a lowrider, and I loved robbing houses, and I loved the life, you know. And around 1969, everybody was going places. Some of them were going to Vietnam and I thought I'd take my buddy and go back to Detroit and find my roots and I wound up in Phoenix and I'm over there off of North Central in Roosevelt at the Apache Hotel. It's about $80 a month and I don't have the money to get it. It's a nice place. Everybody has a TV. It's in the lobby. Everybody has an apartment. Everybody has bathroom. It's down the hall. You know what I mean? You've got a little Murphy bed that folds down and a hot plate and a little window about the size of that speaker where you get to peek out and you drink and you dream and you die. And you know one of these days it's all going to be different, you know. And I started fantasizing that maybe my life is this way. Maybe I need to have a normal life. I'm seeing guys drive by me and they've got lunch buckets and tool belts. And I begin to fantasize like the book says is that maybe if my life would be more normal, maybe my drinking wouldn't be so wild. Maybe I'd need to be more of a normal liver and everything would be all right. You know what? To the untrained eye, it seems like that's what happens in AA. People come here and they try to get normal. They stop drinking, they get a little room, they get another drink, they get somebody to dance with. And to the unt trained eye, It looks like the treatment for alcoholism is normal living. Nothing could be further from the truth, but yet they get hooked into that. And they think, well, that's sobriety. Well, you don't have to come here to get that done. That just takes hard work and good fortune. But the treatment to my malady, you guys have taught me, will be and always will be, me, you, and that book, and the perpetuation of this gift. That is my primary purpose. That is why I am sober. I am not sober so that I can have a job and a kid, and they're all great to have. But Bill's hoping that I do something with it. See, that's a beautiful story, Bill's story, where that guy is laying in that bed and his high school buddy comes in and he starts reading those proposals and he's laying in the bed and he takes those steps and he has this profound experience, the light, the wind, all of that stuff. And for years I used to think that that was the spiritual experience that I'm supposed to have. And by sitting in your book studies, I found by two paragraphs down that the experience that he hopes I have as a result of these steps is the same one he had ten seconds later after that flash he had laying in that bed. The thought came to me that maybe there are other alcoholics that I need to talk to. And that's what he's hoping happens to me. Not that I go get a job and become a plumber. He's hoping that as a results to these steps, I'll be inspired to carry this message. The most beautiful picture in Alcoholics Anonymous, that man on the bed and those two guys yakking to him. What do you think they're talking about? Hey bud, you need to work more overtime. I don't think that's what's going on there. He's hoping that I do something with this gift. That's what grace is. It's to realize what you have and want to share it. We all hear that so many times. I'm sober by the grace of God. What is the grace of God? He had this compassion for the suffering. He had this compassion to lead you into Alcoholics Anonymous. But I didn't really feel the grace at God because that happened to me. I felt the grace that God because one day I had compassion for a new man. And I started showing that compassion because you showed it to me and I brought that man to the answer. I'm not the answer, I'm not the miracle. Alcoholics Anonymous is a miracle and it's people are individually they're a pain in the ass but collectively there is a power here that you can't deny. You cannot deny the evidential power of Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm a stickler for evidence. Okay if there is a God I'll stare at that chair and you move it. You know what I mean? But when you come to Alcoholics Anonymous and you see some goof like him get a year, or you see some jackass like me get another year, or some of these other gals, that gal with four years, whatever, there is a miracle here. And you can't deny what you see. Your eyes won't play games on you. And I started believing in you. You became my evidence. Because I was shielded from this higher power. And i knew that something happened to me when I was with you, and you never let me down. And like I said, I'm sitting in that little hotel room, and I meet a guy down there. What time is this meeting over at? Eight? Oh, I'm going to get sober here in a minute. And I meet this guy at this wagon wheel bar, and he introduces me to some guy, and this plumber sticks me underneath the house, and He says, all I want you to do is hang copper. And he stuck me underneath a house, man. And he gave me a transistor radio. And I had a pint of bourbon, you know. And I'm crawling underneath this house and I see this stray cat. And I said, my God, I'm on top of the world. I got it made under here. I got a transistor. I got an instrument. I got my pint. I got pet. You know. I start drinking that hot bourbon. Nine hours later, I bust up through the floor and I robbed the lady of all of her jewelry. They dragged me out of the house. The cat comes running out with a bunch of necklaces on, you know? You know, it kicked me out of that job. I go back to the bar the next day and meet this guy named Ernie. Ernie says, I know what we're going to do. He says, there's a horse track not too far from here. I'm going to get you down to 95 pounds. You're goingto be a jockey. And I'm thinking, we're gonna start working out and stuff like that, you now? And he gave me a bag of speed and I don't do speed. I just drink wine and do heroin and mind my own business. He said, no, no I want you to take this stuff and in two months we'll go weigh you in. And he took off and he left me in my little motel room and he comes back two weeks later and I haven't moved an inch. I don't want to be a jockey Ernie and I'm busy chasing a little fly around my room and looking out my window every ten seconds, what's that, what' that, and seeing these black and white flashes and it was the sun going up and down. he comes back and he says, you couldn't have possibly taken that. Well, I did. You can put a saddle on me and ride me around, you know. Worst 28 days of my life, man. And I got another job with a plumber. I worked for him for about, I don't know, two hours. I found out that he was younger than me and I ain't working for a kid. I got my pride. So I did what every man would do. I faked a knee injury and I went to the county hospital and they wrote me a prescription for percadent and then the doctor left me a big box of blank prescription pads he wanted me to have I grabbed that thing and I went running down central and I ducked into the bar and Ernie made a call to some guy out in Tempe and we start writing prescriptions for second all and two on all and nimbutol you name it all we wrote it all damn near took it all you know and after about nine months they caught up with me and when you're loaded on wine and barbiturates there's no freeway chase, right? In fact, I was going nine miles an hour in my car. The cop was walking by and he's going, I'm driving. I'm going, my God, can this guy run? You know, and they threw me out of there. They arrested me. They threw me into jail for a while for writing prescriptions and forgeries and all that stuff. And I came out of there in 1974. They put me on a continental trailways back to LA. I showed up at the city hall. They Put Me On Antabuse. And for the first time in my life. Since I was 13, I don't have nothing in me. I'm in a little hotel room in downtown Torrance, the Greyhound Hotel, $40 a month. Everybody has a TV. It's in the lobby, you know, drinking and dreaming and dying. Now I'm not drinking for two months. My probation officer gives me a little piece of paper to go to a refinery to look for a job, and I'm going to be a janitor part-time. And when you take a bus, because I don' t drive until I'm 32, you're either two hours early or two hours late. And I show up at this refinery two hours early. I don't know what to do, so I go to a Little League field and I'm in this dugout and too much sober I go out of my mind. In between hysterical and maniacal, my paranoia becomes so intense I hallucinate and they stick. I become somewhat catatonic. They send me to the Harbor General Hospital. They look at my jacket and they seem to think because of the things that have been going on in my life that maybe I need to go to a nut house out by Oxnard for 30 or 60 days to be observed. And a year later they let me out and they gave me certain medications to take. And those medications work for certain things, but one thing that you can't medicate away in an alcoholic is this idea that maybe this time it'll be different. And after two months I run out of Thorazine and they find me over Rivero Street in downtown Los Angeles at the Chevron gas station, curled up like a dead dog. They arrest me and they send me up to Wayside. Public nuisance. No big-time convict here. I'm just a loser. And I'm in Wayside for about 50 or 60 days. They load up the bus and they take me to the South Bay Courthouse in Torrance where I'm betrayed and convicted and sentenced to two and a half years in the state penitentiary. And i'm in a holding tank like this. And four o'clock in the afternoon, everybody's gone. All the buses are gone, all the other guys are gone. And I'm wondering where I'm going next. And at four o'clock in the afternoon, a Scottish man with a patch came over there and he slid open that lime green door and he said, he said are you Larry Thomas? And I said yes sir, I am. He said come with me son, we're going to AA. And i said my god what's AA? I know what O-R and P-O is, but what's A-A? And who's this Scottish pirate all of a sudden, you know? And looking back well over 30 years, I know exactly what he was because we got him sprinkled in this room today. He's what they call a trusted servant. And what would make him a trusted servant is the same thing that would make you a trusted servant, that we're trusting you're going to carry this message. That's what a trust, we're trust that you're going to do that. And this man didn't have a panel. He wasn't part of H&I. He wasn' t a counselor. He wasn'' t a probation officer. He was a refinery worker. Just got the worst news of his life. His wife was dying immediately of a terminal disease, and he knew she was in good hands, but he knew he wasn' lt. But somewhere in his home group in La Crescenta, somewhere in this book study in Bellflower, that man was to sit with a group of people much like yourself and grasp and develop a manner of living that ingrained in him this. Practical experience tells us that nothing will ensure immunity from drinking than intensive work with other alcoholics, that this works when other activities fail. And he turned his little car around and he went to the South Bay Courthouse and he talked to Judge Foy and Judge Hollingsworth and they said, I think we got a guy for you. And that man came down there and took me to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1975. And I'm ready for a long drive up north and maybe some lunch. He takes me for a 15-minute car ride, rolls up to this dingy, stinky, filthy, disgusting Torrance LaMita Alano. What is an Alano? Is that like an elk or a moose watched for crossing Alanos? And he pulled up to This Alano Club, and there's all the Alanos walking around, man. Everybody had a nickname and a tattoo. Introduced me to a little lady named Moose, Indian Genie, Captain Bob, Tennessee Bill, Singing Sam, Serenity Sam, Bicycle Ray, Santa Claus Ray, Dancing Pete, Whistling Butt, all these other people. Little Moose come running across. Hi, honey, my name is Moose and I'm expecting a miracle. I said, I bet you are. I said. I'm not it, man. Some transvestite, he came out of the card room like a helicopter in Norwalk. He starts circling me, you know, and after about three times around, he comes walking over to me, and he says, I can't wait to take you to our candlelight meeting. I said, I don't think so, big fella, you now. Not until I get my year, you kno. And then I said my God does he have big feet, you kno. And from 1975 to 1982, I came in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous on a regular basis and the biggest lie that I was telling myself was that I would come in and out of AA. That don't make me a worse Alki or a better member. All that did is prove to me what my inventory brought out. That since the time I was 13 till the time I was 30, I sat in rooms from the state, the county waiting for a block of cheese or a check. I've spent my entire life sitting in rooms waiting for people to do something for me. I've had my hand out my entire life and I sat in rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous waiting for you to do something for me and what I was waiting to be done to me God was waiting to do through me if you're new there is nothing to get here you don't even get sober in AA you can do that in your Motel 6 there is nothing to get and you're getting days in a row the only thing you are going to get if you are new is be prepared to be divinely inconvenienced for the rest of your damn life, man. Because this is the longest thing I've ever done against my will, you know? I mean, I didn't get up going, yippee, let's go see Rhoda in La Crescenta, you know what I mean? People in town don't even want to see Rhodа in La Crescente, you know what I mean? But isn't it amazing for folks like us that we have to do the uncomfortable to get comfortable? It's not a matter of convenience. but yet every year that I was and it seemed like every time I came back it was easier for me to blow out and I would do the same old thing I would not drink get my life together and there was no spiritual defense against that thought there's no mental defense against that thought but once you start applying this book to your life you have that spiritual defense you know that it's insane to think that this time it's going to be different you'll put your hand on the flame and it'll burn you'll know that it's a bad deal you know what i mean and my cry when i was doing all that was aaa don't work for me a don't work for me and i'm here to tell you that after 30 years what i've experienced is this A, it don't work for me either. Doesn't work for Mike. Doesn't work for Rhoda. Doesn'T work for John and the other John. We work for it. We work for it and I had to get my head around that. We work for it there is something to do here anyone can talk we don't need any more cheerleaders for God we need coffee makers for God's sake you know we We don't need any more speakers. We need people to stay here consistently and recreate these atmospheres. On May 2nd, 1982 I'm at a beacon light mission in downtown Wilmington and I'm 120 pounds and I am yellow. And I'm looking in a Woolworth window going whatever happened to my dreams? And I had a bundle of cards from people in AA and I called this cowboy named Don. I said Don I'm ready to come back to AA will you come and get me? he told me the most profound thing I've ever heard in my life. He said, no. He says, you know where we are. You know what we got. Why don't you get your rusty rear down here yourself? I'm tired of chasing. And he hung up and I took the longest walk of my life but before I walked, I went over to that alley by the mission and I started crying and I came to believe that moment. I didn't come to believe in God. I Didn't come to believe an AA. I came to believe in the hopelessness and the futility of my life at that time. And I knew that I wasn't going to die, that I was going to continue to live like this again and again and I was so afraid I was going drink and everything in me didn't want to and I knew I was powerless to keep it from happening. I was like a tail on a kite. It was just a matter of the wind hitting me and I came to you on May 2nd, 1982 willing to do anything that ball-headed carpenter told me to do. I want to thank you folks for letting me be here tonight. If you're new, I don't know much about spirituality, but all I can tell you is this. You don't ever have to look for God anymore. You don' t have to wonder what he sounds like. Just come back and play in the evidence one more day. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Please help to arrange the hall and clean up after the meeting. Be sure to dispose of all the paper and trash, and leave the premises as we found them. Let's thank our speaker again for coming out to speak with us today. I have asked someone to read a vision for you. Hi, I'm Lynn and I'm an alcoholic. I'm glad I'm here tonight for sure. Vision for You. Our book is meant to be suggestive only. We realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us. Ask him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick. The answers will come if your own house is in order, but obviously you cannot transmit something you haven't got. See to it that your relationship with him is right and great events will come to pass for you and countless others. This is the great fact for us. Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the fellowship of the Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the road of happy destiny. May God bless you and keep you until then. And after a moment of silence, will you join me in the Lord's Prayer? Our Father. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread And forgive us our trespasses As we forgive those who trespass against us And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil For thine is the kingdom and the power And glory forever Amen Keep coming back at work You'll work it Alright Thank you.