The Best Looking Group of Sick People He Ever Saw – Joe M.

It gives me great, great pleasure to present to you Joe McHugh from Little Rock, Arkansas. My name is Joe and I'm a real alcoholic. alcoholic and through God's grace because this program works one day at a time in my life I haven't been found it necessary to take a drink since March the 10th in 1962 and for this I'm extremely grateful. I don't know what I've seen such a beautiful group but usually when I look a bunch like this it brings to mind you know this is the best looking group of sick people i've seen in a long time i was just sitting over enjoying the festivities of the fish fry and i was telling a guy at the table i said this has been the biggest fish fry since that guy fixed that one with them few fishes and them loads of bread i guess if we all sent up an extra prayer we'll get this in before the rain and remember that you're praying against a lot of people that are praying for rain, so remember that. I heard a wonderful story this week from a great friend of mine in the program. A few weeks ago we had a conference in Eureka Springs and he was able to go and carry his wife and he has a five-year-old son, a sweet little guy, and it was probably his first great experience in Alcoholics Anonymous at a conference and he was very much impressed. They came home after the conference and the first of the week they were having dinner at home and they had their little prayer that they prayed before the meals and it wasn't something like God coming to our house to be a guest and the little boy prayed this and he said, and we pray that this food be blessed. And his mother and father picked up the knife and fork to eat And the little boy jumped up and stuck his hands out And said, keep coming back, it works I think that's what this program is all about As we begin I always stand in awe when I think about The opportunity to talk about Alcoholics Anonymous In my life And the miracle of my life And I do feel my life is a miracle i feel very blessed being an alcoholic and having the opportunity that many alcoholics will never have you know really most alcoholics would never have the opportunity of alcoholics anonymous in their lives because even yet today when all the things is going on most alcoholists will never realize they're alcoholics and never come to alcoholics so i think it's the first great gift of my life that you know i've had the blessing that that to begin with to have the opportunity of alcoholics anonymous in my life because alcoholism is a very strange illness you know that's the uniqueness of alcoholism most alcoholics don't realize they're alcoholics in fact that's one of the main symptoms of alcoholismo you know you can tell who's an alcoholic because the one that swears he ain't got it's got it You know, you ask one of these social drinkers You say, you might be an alcoholic He said, I might be He ain't got it Just the one that ain't's got it's got him And that was the story of my life I had it many years before I knew I had I didn't know I was an alcoholic I took a drink in my life I was about 18 years old And I realized You know Something took place Some people work at this gradually I was an instant alcoholic. I never, I was very blessed to come to Alcoholics Anonymous and open this big book in fact it was the only place that I can find an explanation for my life. When I opened the big book up I read in there and he talked to this you know I said I was restless and irritable and discontent that's the way I was all my life and for the first time when I took a drink at night I experienced a sense of ease and comfort that came in my life that probably I needed at that time. And he said, I remembered that and I really did. I always remember the sense and ease and comfort of a few drinks. And I pursued this great illusion to the gates of insanity and death. You know something that was an illusion not true. I uh I remember my first drink and I I happen to remember my last drink, and I remember a few things that came in between those two drinks. A lot of things happened in between those two drinks. I got married, and I see a lot of people, and I talk about that constantly, that I hear people behind these podiums that lost life, you know, they lost opportunities, they lost businesses. Millions of dollars have been lost behind these podiums and opportunities, you know. And I feel very kind of ashamed because I really didn't lose anything from drinking. that might sound strange but drinking never didn't let me get anything you know i never i never got started you know I was I was one of them guys that never did get started you know um I uh went through a marriage and divorce and my home is in Louisville Kentucky and I came up uh moved to Indiana where we were married and this divorced couple kids and i came back to kentucky and i was about 25 26 years old and i was back home with my family you know that's where drunks drunks get back with the folks pretty quick you know uh we're really family people you know they say we we don't do too good in the family but we we hang with the family family can't get rid of us you know aren't there folks leave you know we i didn't i'll come back you know i didn t go too far where i couldn't come back and i would always go a little piece and i would always go home when i got broken in trouble you know whenever i got sick and lost a job or something i said you ought to go see about your father after all you know that's not right treating him that way and i would go home broke and get in trouble embarrass him and my father was getting up in age god bless him but But he would, I remember, you know how we are. We're all people. I thought I was a knew-it-all. My father didn't have much education. He was a little old dumb man with a fourth grade education. I had been in my college a couple years, so I looked down on him. But he was way ahead of me. I realize today as I look back, he would always lend me some money to leave. I was over two or three years before I figured out what he was doing I couldn't borrow a dime and I said, I ain't doing too good He said, how much do you want to borrow? He would always lend me some money So I made these trips in and out of there and I remember that finally I got into a situation and I was gone and I couldnít go back I didnít want to go back on him So I thought about a sister that I had in Little Rock and i remember uh the incident and i came to little rock it's been possibly close to 30 years ago i came a little rock on a drunk see my sister was living there and when nobody else had anything new with me i hadn't seen my sister for six seven eight years she went off to college down there and got married and stayed there so i couldn't want nobody else have anything to do with me So I said, why don't you go see your sister? You're not treating her right after all, you know. So this is the way I went to Little Rock. And I remember the time that I came to Little Rocky. I realized not today that it was a changing point in my life. As I look back on it, I think God intervened in my wife right there. And I think I took an interest in me because I was in trouble. And this special emphasis that all alcoholics don't really get and because as soon as i got a little rock you know things i was to know some people the thing began to start to lead to my recovery and i realized today that you know it's my work and my life is in little rock and you know i think god has given me many many things but the greatest gift that he's ever given me is a purpose for my life and i think that not only being sober but a purpose for my life working with other alcoholics which is my life now all of us were created or put on this earth for something and I think the happiest you're gonna ever be when you find out why are you here so I have been given this opportunity but it didn't realize the beginning of a great purpose and I remember that very night I never forget tonight I stopped through Memphis I made many many trip but I remember that trip remember tonight did I stop in Memphis in the bus station on the way to Little Rock. And I got to Little Rock like I did all other places. I was broke and I, you know, I watch alcoholics today and work with them every day and they come in the Serenity House the same way that I came in, you know? It hasn't changed. Accommodation for drunks, you know. I had a little drunk suitcase about that long. Wasn't too much in it. You know most of these drunk suitcases don't have two latches on. They have one latch and then you tie a necktie around one ear that's the way they make them for drunks uh guys kid me all the time but i saw a guy come to this pretty house about a year ago and i told the guys this guy never make it they said why i said hell he's got alligator luggage you can't get sober with but i had one of these little drunk suitcases and i i got there and i got me a job i had a lot of professions if you're a real alcoholic you can do a whole lot of things when I was sobered up I didn't need no training I needed some untraining I had too many occupations if you're a real alcoholic you've got to do a lot of things to make a town last I could cook and I could wait tables I could do a whole lot of other things so I got me a job and went to work and I was living there with my sister and now you'd have to really know her to understand this part of my story my sister's a very religious person has been all her life She left one of them steady, normal folks that bug the hell out of you, you know. I mean, this, I couldn't stand it. I'd blow my brains out if I was that normal. But she does, you don't know, they get up in the morning and go, you know, everything the same every day. Go to work, come home, no fun like I was having. You know, that Mr. Detox Simmers and the Nuthouse and the J.O.'s, you know they miss a lot of things, them normal people. But she would go to, they'd go to church every Sunday. Now you have to remember, now here I am, this is a hell of a place to be around them kind of people. You know, they go to the church and you try to get over Saturday night, you know. And I felt kind of embarrassed. So finally one Sunday morning I broke down and volunteered to go to Church with them. Because after all they was putting a little heat on me. And this is where I met my wife, my Al-Anon, today. She's a great part of my life. I don't know if I'd be here today without her, without the help and the things that we had to go through. She made me reflect on what was going on in my life Up to this time it wasn't no problem. It was just me. It didn't make any difference. So we met at church that morning and I always look back and think from her viewpoint she tells it different than I do. Yeah, you know how the Malinons are. They got a different version and everything. But, you know, I realized that how she was impressed by this nice-looking young man and I remember that was 30 years ago coming into this church and I had a good front because my sister was the organist of the church and the organists and Lubell was in the choir so you have to understand I don't know if the organistas or the choir members are pretty close. Then my brother-in-law was the lay speaker of the church so i had a pretty good front and i know how she felt seeing this nice looking young man come to church and we met there in the church that morning and and a few months later we were married you know how we alcoholics operate by selling fast conversations to them slow faking ladies you know i didn't let her think too long and she hadn't really recuperated from this yet i mean we still talk about it i think that's the topic at some of the alanine meetings you know that job i did on now you'd have to remember uh at this time she had a nice job for working ladies she's been on this job she just retired a few years ago 31 years so she had a nice little home a little modest two bedroom home we still live in the same home as hers i don't own anything uh she had her new car and i could thoroughly convinced her and i'm still working out this suitcase and i thoroughly convinced her how she needed me to take care of her and she's still trying to figure out how that happened yeah but we did we got married and and and uh i was married one week we married at christmas time you know and i took off to to celebrate you know she went to work i hadn't uh i was a go-getter i took her to work and went and got her but both of us couldn't take off for the honeymoon so i honeymooned there by myself about a week and after one week of a marriage honeymoon i made my first trip to the old state nut house now we didn't have treatment centers in those days we i came in just at the end of insane asylums they were still around when i came into early 60s and we had one live and well in little rock And that's a hell of a place to be A brand new married man Starting out in a nut house You know how she must have felt The first Sunday she went to church And someone says, how is marriage life? She said, that fool's in a nuts house She did me in in one week Every once in a while I'd tell her You know, you're going to run me crazy She said you're still an outpatient They ain't never cut you loose But there I was Setting up a nuthouse We're talking about alcoholics know it all. I was the smartest guy in the nuthouse. There was no program, no knowledge of alcoholism, I think about it today. No AA at this time in the state hospital. They just gave me some of that Thorazine while I had a Thorazin cell phone and we stuck around there with the rest of the nuts. And you know, you had a hard time figuring out who was alcoholic and who was nuts in that place. And I got out and did it, and I had a problem, they didn't know anything about it, I didn't knew anything about it but I had the same problem when I got out I had to same results. So I had a problem and I didn t understand and no one else seemed to understand it i'll continue to drink and uh you know in and out traveling back and forth i'm doing this prayer the next two years i was all drunk in kansas city i never talk about this until then i think about van van was another wino in a bar in kansai city and you know one morning i went in there to get a drink it was six o'clock in the morning and and i lowered it wasn't anybody in there so i lowered myself to drink with some wine hose that was hanging down at the end of the bar. Sure, and as I went there they were trying to get a drink together and after all I had four dollars. I think it was sixty cents and they was counting pennies and I said that's okay I'll buy so I bought a pint of wine helping my fellow man always did want to do that. And then these guys begin to drink and the girl would set the glasses on the bar and they wouldn't give the wine hose to bottles I don't know why but they would pour the wine up in glasses and then I could see her now that she threw the bottle in a big paper barrel. And when she poured the wine, you know you'd say give me a pint on three or a pint four, that's what you ordered it on glasses. Now I think it was three or four of us and she had poured the glasses and they were perfectly level but you know nothing is perfect for an alcoholic. The winos would get down and they'd, you know look at the glasses. And they would finally determine if one of these glasses did have a hair more than the other. And classy people, now you know Wynne was a very classy person. Classy people as they were, they would give that to the man who bought them. I remember that morning. And we were standing there and Van looked at me and I could hear the glass hit his teeth. If you're an alcoholic, you know the magic of the morning drink. There's not a chemical in the world like that first drink and as we as we took that first drank we begin to talk you know your ease off a little bit just some general conversation in van said Joe you're pretty nice guy well I knew that yeah that wasn't no new information and he says you're a lot different from me and he said you're allowed different from a lot of other fellas down here on the street I said I know that he said but joe you got one problem i said what's that man he said joe are you drinking too much yeah now i'd had the psychiatrist at the hospital tell me this i had a lot of educated well-meaning people tell me it is but i never heard it i thank god today you know for van oh why no come on i heard it from van now this is why today you You know, I try as hard as I can. It's very difficult for me to do, to keep an open mind. Because so many times, you know, I listen to the wrong people or I look for my answers in the high and the almighty and they come through small, insignificant people. And this is the way Van was in my life. A wino. Everybody in the world talked to me about my drinking a wino and said, hey man, you're drinking too much. And I immediately bought in because he was standing, probably because he were standing in the middle of the big, one of the biggest ones I ever seen. He had the evidence. It bugged me. I finished my drink. Drank for three or four more days. Then all at once, I had to get out of that town. I had said, I got to get outta here. Yeah, I gotta do something about this. Now this was the beginning. I have a problem and I knew I had a problem. I knew something about from van but i didn't know enough about it see i thought my problem was drinking van said i was drinking too much and if you've got a drinking problem and you're drinking too much then the solution is to just quit drinking right if that's all you but my problem was bigger than that i didn t know it in fact my problem wasn't drinking no way my problem was quitting in fact it wasn't quitting i could quit but i couldn't stop starting starting wasn't a problem human starting was my problem when i came on home and i quit drinking since that's wasn't the problem it didn't really work i quit drinkin for nine months but see i started up again i didn't do anything about my life i didn t know at this time i didn' t really know what my problem was and i see many alcoholics that really weren't about drinking and that's not the main problem our book says the main problem of the alcoholic is in his mind that's the starter not the body come on and you know i i um one morning i took a drink and after you know six week drunk went through the well-known spree one morning I was sitting on a bar on march 10 1962 and that magic thing you know that magic insight that great that gift that God gives us There's alcoholics So we're not capable of surrender Surrender's a gift You know Surrender is a gift I came to that magic moment Sitting on a bar And I just gave up on me And I think that's what This program's all about You know Giving up on yourself You know You really don't have to Find God God ain't lost You know He's been right here A long time You can't get lost If you've been here that long The job is to give up on ourselves. And I gave up on me that morning. I was sitting on the bar, and the next thing caught my mind about going back to this nuthouse. Now, for two years, I swore I'd never go back to that nuthous, and anybody with any sense would have did the same thing. This place was horrible. It wasn't like one of the treatment centers of the day. You know, and I remember I got back there and that Saturday morning on March 10th, and I remembered how they treat you when you go back in, when you're going to a mental institution. Now, when you went in the old asylums, people didn't talk to you because they know you were nuts, you know, when you came in. That's what you came, everybody was a nut. Now, when you got into the nut ward on our ward, there were about 75 nuts and about five alcoholics. Well, the, the nut, the alcoholics was a class of the ward. They were the upper class of the ward, it was the only place I've ever been where alcoholism was a status symbol. But in the mental institution, the alcoholics were the big shots of the hospital. We had the special privileges. The aides talked to us. See, some of those mental people had been in there for 20 years and never had a visitor. They were just nine individuals. But we alcoholics had company and we had other different things going. So when you ask one of them nuts what he was in there from, all the nuts would immediately say, Oh, I'm an alcoholic. See, they wanted to be in the big shots. And quite naturally, when you asked one of the alcoholics what he was in there for, he said nervous breakdown, which was crazy. So you couldn't tell who was who in there. I didn't know who was whom. They all acted the same way. So finally, I was on Saturday morning, and on Monday morning, when this guy watched me all the weekend, the little alcoholics, I could see these, I could tell the difference. But the alcoholic's watched me. And finally, Monday morning, one of them came over to me. And his name was Ora. And Ora was a great part of my life. I wouldn't be here today without Ora. And Ora wasn't a learned man in Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't need that. I love the work of Paul. Paul says God's grace is sufficient. That means just good enough. Ora was not a man found in the big book. He didn't have years of sobriety. He was enough for me. He had about two weeks of locked-up sobriety, and he had a big book, and he hade a carton of caramel cigarettes. That's all he had. Now, I'm broke. I had $2.50 when I was sitting on that bar, spending about $2 for a cab fare. Had 50 cents when I got there. Bought a pack of cigarettes, 35 cents. You know how long ago that's been. Blew the rest of it on a cup of candy bar. I'm stone broke. Now, when I say broke, I mean broke. I mean, I didn't have a car. I didn' t have no investment. I mean that was it. This guy's got... You know, no one in there had any ready-roll cigarettes. You'd have to really understand this. Cigarette was a premium in this hospital. Oh, they give you some of this roll-your-own tobacco. And I never did learn. I was coming off a drunk, didn't ever roll a cigarette in my life no way. Shaking. Oh, and I don't have any trouble talking about your life being unmanageable because mine was totally unmanegeable. All the way out to smoke was taking my tobacco and paper and giving it to one of them nuts and letting him roll it and lick it and give it back to me. Now, you know, I'm in bad shape. And this guy's got a whole carton of camels and the big book. So I listened to him. He didn't know a thing about the big books. and I used to think we read the big book but you know you really rethink these things and look back. We didn't read the big book. What Oral would always have it and I thank God for Alcoholics Anonymous, for the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. The program is fine but that book talks about the fellowship too I wouldn't be here without the fellowship with Alcoholics Anonymous You know and I think very important that i i myself individually as a person it's very important for me to live the program of alcoholics anonymous you know not just to work it but to be an example because this is why i'm here today because some guys were living their program of alcoholics synonymous and they came out on our ward and aura talked about these three guys from alcoholic synonymous he didn't talk about the book so they really had impressed him and he talked about what they said and what they did and they was like him but they sober now how long they been sober and he said they coming out to a meeting be here Wednesday night he said will you go and this is where I went to my first AA meeting I went out there because the guy had been nice to me because he told me that these guys would come out and they'd bring three packs of cigarettes and lay on the table and he'd say bring a pot of coffee and I left the back wards at our hospital 25 years ago you know and what I wanted was a real cigarette and a cup of coffee and God gave me a brand new life to talk about the grace of God a gift unwarranted that's all I wanted it was a couple coffee in a cigarette and I met these three guys from Alcoholics Anonymous is and I thank God they were real alcoholics no guy thought enough to send the very best he didn't send no chumps out there. You know what I mean? These were real alcoholics. And, you know, I went up there and I said, I know what these... You know how drugs are. They don't know nothing, but they know everything. And I already knew what AA was all about. Never heard of it in my life, but I had already figured it out. I said AA is something like a bunch of drugs, but I figured it was something like a plainclothes Salvation Army. It didn't have uniform, but same damn thing. And they was gonna preach and do all this stuff and beat on these tamarins and talk about the Lord, and I said, and meddle in your business. Them people kind of meddled, you need to do this. I said if they'd say that to me, I'm going to get them straight. Well, the guy didn't say none of that. This idiot got up and talked about himself. Didn't talk about me, didn't meddle into my business, and i was very offended that he didn't offend me. You know how we are. So I said after the meeting, he was standing over there drinking coffee, and I slipped around there where he was. Should have left him alone, but I had to mess with him, And he was standing up there. He was dressed nice, had on a tie and a shirt at that time. And this guy became my sponsor. He was my sponsor to that. And I said, Charles, I hear what you said about your life. Since he didn't mail it with me, I said What do you think I should do? I invited him. And I'll forget him. He looked down at me. But this is why I love that guy so much. It's that first statement he said. He looked at me with a big smile. And it was loving. but it was firm and he says fella i was telling you what i did he says frankly i don't give a damn what you do he said that's your business he said that's yo business he's there but if you would like me to show you what i did so you can do the same thing I will talk to you and it was right there it was right we came together that night human and this man changed my life this man changed my you know yeah I really can't talk about you so much he has given me so much over the years and he had a heart attack last year and I was able to see him three or four months ago and now you know how it is you really think about what the things you want to tell this person you know that I haven't told you that I really feel about you we began to sit down and talk about these openly kind of share my gratitude to him and he in turn you know he said well I need to tell you something and I said well what's that child and he said you know uh your work and what you do with what you have done with people since you've been sober uh and and your life and your work is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me in Alcoholics Anonymous you know I I stood in awe when yeah and I just didn't know where he was but you know i i came to Alcoholics anonymous and Charles started up to bring me remember this was in 1962 I got out of the hospital and I didn't drink didn't knock down the doors of AA but you know how we alcoholics are we get busy when we get a little sober yeah we work with people in treatment we get dizzy get a lot of business when you ain't drink it, you know. And I had a lot of business and I got involved in this and I didn't go to AA and Orr wrote me a letter June the 13th 1962. I got out of hospital April 30th. June the thirteenth I got a letter from Orr. I said Joe I don't have time to write you. It was a little, it wasn't even a letter, it was a folded piece of paper he'd tore out of his kid's tablet. I have it today and I framed it. It's one of the most important things that I own. And he said, Joe, I don't have time to write you. I'm coming back to Little Rock for the AA meeting on Ward E3. He says, I will see you there. Very positive. You know, like, come with me. And I wasn't, no, I didn't have any doubt. I said, well, I've got to be there. I've gotta see Ora. And i went back to that at my AA meeting to see and there were some things that happened there that night. It was right across town, and I had never been there in 30 days. This guy came 90 miles away, and I lived right there, and I could have missed it. You know how we drunks are. We can go to California on a drunk. When we get sober, we can't get across town to an AA meeting. We ain't got transportation. That's the way we do. But anyway, Oral was there that night And the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous came into my life Our book talks about this That's what's here today so beautifully The fellowship There's two things My book says there's two thing in the recovery Number one, you know The first step says that we're powerless over alcohol And I realize, you now, that I am powerless You know, alcoholism is a very strange illness it's a dual part of my problem is in my body I can't drink safely you know if I take a drink I experience a craving that's beyond my mental control I cannot safely use alcohol in any form at all and I will always be that way if I take the first drink I want to second the third and fourth and that's abnormal so I'm allergic to alcohol but you know the my main problem is I'm always trying to drink something that i could never will be able to drink you know so if you can't drink because of the body and you can quit because of the mind you're powerless now obviously if you're parlous the second step the first step shows us the problem and if you are powerless obviously the solution is power yeah and it talks about this you know on our book it talks about what this power is the fellowship of alcoholics anonymous is a very powerful thing you know it says we are we are average americans right here today many different occupations here today many different social religious economic and religious backgrounds are here today we're normally people that should not mix none of us should ever been here today none of us should have known the other you know hey this group here today is so beautiful but this is the most mixed up group of people you've ever seen go around out and check and see what they work, see what kind of work they do. They do all kind of work. They belong to all kind of religions. They're just a mixed up group of people. But I said amongst us, among this fellowship though, you know, there's a friendliness and an understanding, you know what I mean? That is extremely wonderful. There's something very close. And this is a support group. It's a support groups of the people that have the same problem. And That's power in the fellowship. There's power in us together as we support each other. This is what going to the meetings and doing all that is all about. But then my book said that is not enough. That would have not held us as we are now held. You know, there's more to this than just a fellowship of our co-examiners. And our book tells us that. It says this would have never held us together as we're now here. So the other thing that I don't know if we have the same common problem but we have the same common solution and my book tells me the common solution to alcoholism is a vital spiritual experience you know so there are two things, the fellowship and the spiritual experience that comes about as a result of working the step and you know I saw just like most alcoholics I went to the fellowship at night and I enjoyed it God I felt better, I went home and told my wife she said what kind of meeting is it I said I don't know, she said well what did they do I said they don't do a hell of a lot, they drink a lot of coffee smoke a lotof cigarettes But I said, so it makes you feel good I believe I'll go back next week And that's, you know And I just went And man, I got in that fellowship I started going to meetings Felt better than I ever felt in my life And that was all I was gonna do Yeah, I didn't need it I seen them steps and all that But I say, man, you don't And I think a lot of people get caught up In the fellowship of alcoholics They feel better than they ever felt For a long time Being part of You have part of that power But the real power of recovery comes through the vital spiritual experience. You know, if you want to become a recovered member of Alcoholics Anonymous, you've got to take some steps, some actions you've gotta take. You've gotta make some changes. Just like I tell people, you know, you can't go to PTA meeting every night for nine days and become a parent. You'd have to go through another process. You really can't. So I had to begin this thing, this change in my life. And my book says this is not easy, and it wasn't easy for me. You know, in the early days, and this was a time, so my sponsor, God bless him, he was a guy that loved me enough. Now remember, I realize today what he had done, the impact of what he did for my life. You know? This was in 1962. Now, those of us here remember what was going on in the country at night. This was a frame of the set-ins and the demonstrations. and this wasn't the best time to be the first black doing anything it was it was bad you know but this guy you know i wanted a day if i would have been in that position see charles's life was tied to a his sobriety but he took me and i wonder if i would take someone to a that threatened my a life but his aa life was threatened because of me but he carried me and I would go to this place in the morning a similar halfway house where alcoholic stayed and they would have a meeting there every morning I couldn't stay there but they will let me come to the meeting and finally you know after a few days the first week or so the manager of the place carrying me over and he said you know you welcome to come to these meetings and I want you to be back in the morning he says but when the meetings over you have to leave he said you can't stay around and you can drink coffee and you came fellowship but you can come to the meeting he said but be back in a morning and I came back I came back because I had a ticket to this thing now you got to have a ticket they get in AA. I see a lot of people around that ain't got the ticket. The only thing to get this ticket is a desire to stop drinking, and you gotta earn that ticket. You know, I see a lot people sitting around AA looking for a ticket. You can't get the ticket around AA, but my book says if you go out there and drink enough booze and get sick enough, you'll get a desire to stop drinking and I had it so it didn't make no difference to me I came back you know and they got to there and they I had to take they said now if you're powerless and your solution is power those are the first two steps say yeah this is that simple and I said if you have if you can see that then you ready for the program you're ready to take some action if you parlous and the solutions power then the main proposition is then how do you find this power and we've got ten steps to show you how to find this pop ten simple steps which have never failed to enable us to find a power greater than ourselves which will solve our problems it never fail never fail so the first step shows you where you are and the second step shows your where you need to be and the last 10 show you how to get from one to two so just that simple so i had to take this program of action i made a decision the first step to anything doing anything is a decision and then i had certain steps to clear away the things that blocked me from god you know i had defined out what these things were in step four and identify it and step five I discuss them with someone else. And step six, I become ready to let them go. And step seven, I ask God to remove them. And all these were the action steps to clear away the things that blocked me off from that decision I made in step three. Real simple. Step eight and nine, I continue to do this, to work on my relationship with people. And Step 10 is a continuation of the same process. I I'll continue to watch for self as they come back here. Continue to watch for resentment and fear. And when I had a problem I discussed it with someone else and if I offended one I took step eight and nine again. After practicing these action steps that carried out that decision then you know the promise is coming to my life, you know. I remember the instant I got results. See the first, second step says you believe. The first step says you decide. The next step says you act. And after you act, you get results. The twelfth step says having had this then you know. You know, it's real simple. And as I begin to apply these things, these things never fail. They are precise, specific, clear-cut directions that never fail You know we talk today, we talk about that once these things were done then I could enter into a relationship with God. You know in step 11 then I could receive God's directions in my life In step 3 I turned over my directions took the actions and in step 12 I received new directions. The changing of directions in a human life You know I think things begin to happen for me and I think they will happen every time that these steps are taken the miracle of my recovery is very simple as a result of these steps this is the message I carry in step 12 as results of the 11 steps I have had a spiritual awakening now that is a personality change sufficient to recover from alcoholism I was just like you but as a results of these steps the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous has worked in my life you know I uh I tried to it says to carry this message to other people I think one of the greatest things in my line is they have the opportunity to work and talk with so many people and I never get tired of talking about the miracle of my recovery and how it happened in my it happened as direct results of those steps as I applied them on a daily basis. You know, I've had many things to take place in my life. Talking about how it is now, I began to do what I was to do on a daily basis, you know, working with alcoholics. I remember I was at this little rehab house, it's still there now, and I didn't go to AA as such. This was my AA, meeting there every morning. We just had three or four meetings in Little Rock and they met at night. The regular AA groups had met at nighttime. So this was my AAA every morning with those men. We'd have the big book, we'd have our meetings. I was sober quite a few years before, I worked at night waiting tables. So daytime morning meetings every morning, five or six mornings a week was my AA for the first year. After a while I continued to do this because this was my life. Five years you know I began to want to do something more. After about a year of sobriety, I began to have opportunities to work with alcoholics at the penal forum, going out there each Sunday morning. I did that for about 10 years. After a while, I begun to do other work at the old rehab house. I began serving on the board of directors at the rehab house, and I thought that was ironic to ask you to be on the Board of Directors in the first week they wouldn't let you in the damn place, you know? But that's really the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous. And the real things that have taken place in my life can only be explained by the big book. It's the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous that made all these things possible. I began to do other things with alcoholics, and then after about eight or nine years of sobriety, I was able, you know, I was involved and started this Serenity House in Little Rock, which I'm director today, I've been for 16 years. I began zu do other thangs, I began ze serve on de, some of de thangs. I was appointed through the state to work with alcoholics as a volunteer really in the direction of the state alcohol and drug programs, and I worked on the Arkansas Office on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, the committee that actually, the authority that governs these programs. And I worked for about 12 years and I really stood in awe over the last three years that was actually chairman of the state authority to control all the alcohol and drug programs in the state of arkansas and i sat there and we was able to govern seven eight million dollars for alcoholics and drug addicts and you know to come from where i'll come from how do you get to do that the miracle of alcoholics anonymous you know if i had many many things happen to me and i really i expect many many more you know because the miracle is simply getting what you need when you need it and i've been getting that every day i've been the problem with alcoholics anonymous so this is part of god's plan and i think that you know i get i see new people and i see the people here today and i just get enthused when if you really knew the excitement in your life that lies ahead as a result of these steps now there are many many things beyond the spiritual experience my book talks about you'll be doing things you never thought you'd be able do. Many, many promises in the big book. We talk about the promises on 83 and 84. We don't even talk about the premises on 84 and 85 and all the other promises. There are many, many premises. You know, in the truth of the day, I could make many, manly premises as a result of these steps. Now, I look back up and I think about the miracle of my recovery and why I like so much to tell about this because there might be somebody else that don't hear this. and i think that that's what the 12 step is all about telling other people you know not taking our thing that we've been given and using it for the benefit of our lives and this you know enjoying it i see many many people who attempt to do that some people get away with they think but taking this gift and taking this light and putting it under the bushel as that very big big book says you know as in that book that it talks about as we close up a miracle of healing and it was sort of like uh these guys were leopards like we are we are the modern day leopard's the alcoholics and the drug addicts for the modern-day leopords and these leopardo came to the master and he well in fact he saw them coming they were coming to ask to be healed. And it was a custom in those days that the leopards would not come amongst the people, and he didn't break any laws of the men of those days. So when he saw these people coming, he warned them, don't come, y'all stay back over there, don's come in to the crowd. And they wanted to be killed. He said, well I tell you what you do, just go on down to the temple, walk toward the temple and you will be healed." So these leverage, they just left and started walking. And as they walked toward the temple, they were cleansed. There was ten of them. And there's they were cleansed that they looked down and saw their conditions and you know how drunk they probably like alcoholics. They got real busy. One of them soon as he saw he was clean, he said, boy I gotta go home and get me some new clothes. One of them probably had to get a job. You know, two or three of them had to see their girlfriends. Some of them had to go to transportation. All of them, you know, had to get a new ride and do some things. One man, one of them one out of the ten said, I gotta go back and thank you. One of them one of em came back and said thank you I awful wonder what happened to those other nine they got over their leprosy Yeah, but what about the rest of their lives? How did they live? Were they happy? Were they complete? Were they full? Or did they have other problems that they didn't know how to handle? Probably did. But the one that came back, he looked at him and said, I got something extra for you because you came back. He said, brother, thy faith shall make you whole. You complete. he had something going because he came back and said thank you. And I think that that's what that 12 step is all about. Those are the people that come back and say thank you, and they got a little something special. And I think this is the real power, the real joy of living is in that 12th step. The greatest growth step of the program by Alcoholics Anonymous is that twelfth step where we can come back and say, thank you, Alcoholics Anonymous, by extending our hand to another alcoholic. Thank you, and God bless you. applause Thank you.