The Bondage of Self and the Need for a Manager – Franklin W.

Thank you, Louie. I never could remember names until I took that Dale Carmichael course. Ah, y'all are a beautiful bunch of diseased people. All those white eyeballs looking back up here. Not a red one in the bunch. I appreciate this 30 or 40 thousand people showing up here tonight to hear the Pope of Alcoholics Anonymous. I hope that's on tape, I want to take it back and play it to my group so they'll know how many were here. Yeah, the mouth of the convention up here old C.D., I've known him a long time but there's something about C. D. y'all need to know. We were out in Lubbock, Texas several years ago, and I couldn't keep old C.D. awake hardly. And he told me why. He said the first night he was there, he was awakened real early in the morning about 1 or 1.30. Some middle-aged blonde, about 18 or 19 years old, kept screaming and cursing and beating on the door, and he had to get up and let her out. I want to say something really before I start talking. You know, Dr. Bob at the last talk he made at International in Cleveland, Ohio in 1950 said more in a few seconds than I can say all night, although I'm going to talk all night. But he said, let's watch that erring tongue. And since that time, there's been no gossip in Alcoholics Anonymous, right? But I heard this. Old poor boy back there, I've known poor boy a good while and when poor boy really got serious about this deal and wanted to stay sober more than anything else in the world and was willing to go to any lengths he went to his sponsor gene and i know gene and genes one told me this he said yeah he asked gene to help him with the third step. So Gene had him to read the third step prayer in the big book. And to quote it out loud. So poor boy started off and said, God I offer myself to thee to do and build with me as I will. And God interrupted and said what an order. I can't go through with it. I've got two friends here from Lakeland, Florida that I really love, old John and Dorothy. And I heard this about them. I said, Dorothy always had cats. And this is a different cat from the one you heard, John. But the cat didn't like John. And John had a chair that he sat in, and that cat would never get close to that chair. But John had been out on about a two-week safari doing some research, came home unexpectedly drunk one afternoon, and old Tom was in his chair. And he reached down and got Tom and drew back and flung him up against the wall. Tom got up hollering and ran toward the back. Dorothy went back there and picked up Tom And stroked him and said Don't worry, Tom Said that old cuss is going to die pretty soon And when he does We'll have him cremated And put his ashes in your litter box She was, she was already a good Al Nye. Well I'm an alcoholic and my name is Franklin Williams. By the grace of God, to fellowship with men and women like you and because this program works, it hadn't been necessary for me to take a drink today and for this I am most grateful. Not as grateful as I should be but as grateful that I know how to be. Now, I mentioned I'm an alcoholic, and that tells you a whole lot about me. But I'm also a real alcoholic. Now, real alcoholic is referred to many times in the big book. And if you don't know who a real alcoholic is, you study the doctor's opinion, then turn to page 21 in your big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and read about the next two pages. It starts off by saying, now, what about the real alcoholic? So there is a difference. And since I'm here, and since I've found what I have found as a result of this program, I'm really grateful that I am a real alcoholic. I'm not only a real alcoholic, I'm an arrested alcoholic. Now, C.D. is a registered alcoholic. I had a dog that was registered. it. But I'm a arrested alcoholic. In fact, I've been arrested many, many, many times. I don't rightfully know how many times I've been arrested. I wish I'd have kept up with it, but I didn't know it was going to be a thing of social prestige when I got to the program Alcoholics Anonymous. Who knows? AA may come up with a pension plan and me not knowing how many times i was arrested i might lose out on some of my benefits the text of my sermon tonight is going to be keep it simple and follow directions these two things have been and still are hard for me to do i can louse up a one-car funeral I just don't follow directions and I don't keep things simple. I'm learning to do that, and in order to tell you how I've accomplished as much as I have in it, I have to bring in my sponsor. I like to talk about my sponsor because I think if there's a weak link, and I think there is a weak leak in Alcoholics Anonymous today, it's in sponsorship. you knew people coming in Alcoholics Anonymous don't know what sponsorship is all about and I hope you'll follow me through here to let me show you how a sponsor walked with me and not only told me how to work these steps explained what the big book says but took the steps along with me David was a fellow I can call his last name now because he's gone on to the big meeting David Gates And I hated that little curse. The group appointed him as my sponsor before I ever got to the meeting. And I said, David, how did you? I said what is a sponsor? He says we will learn as we go along. How did you get to be my sponsor? He said we drew straws and I lost. He said, I'm not going to enjoy this any more than you are because we've heard a lot about you. But I grew to love David as much as I'm capable of loving another human being. I think those of you who do not have a sponsor really miss the boat. There are two ways to work this program. One's with a sponsor and one's without. And the first one is hard. of course the other one's not too easy but it's a lot easier than trying to work it without one and you deprive that if you do not have a sponsor you deprieve that would-be sponsor or one of the greatest pleasures that he or she can derive from the fellowship of alcoholics anonymous by sharing and caring and being able to carry the message to the suffering alcoholic I know of no greater dividend in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, Bill said the surest immunity against not drinking is working with others. And it's a terrific deal. Now David was an ornery little cuss. He came from a very wealthy family. He had never worked. And he devoted his life to working with alcoholics. And he had a sixth sense. He knew when to talk, when to knock me down, and he knew when to listen. And he could look at me almost and tell what I needed. And I think you have to talk to the alcoholic at the level of his or her understanding. And David certainly talked to me at the label of my understanding. He used my native tongue, profanity. And And he called me ugly names that I won't repeat up here in a mixed audience. But that's what it took for me, that got my attention. He took me to a meeting every night for a good long while and finally he said, we find that if we continue to take a person to too many meetings they get dependent on us. And this is a program whereby you get dependent upon a power greater than yourself. He said, I'll meet you at such and such a place tomorrow night. I said, David, you know I don't have any money, I don'y have any way to get there. We find walking helps. I'll beat you there. The first several times he took me to a meeting, he talked. And I said David, don't anybody in AA talk except you? He said nobody you need to hear. he took me out to a meeting one night and he said now this is going to be a closed meeting well i didn't know what a closed meet was but i wasn't gonna ask david i said you're gonna talk he said no everybody's gonna talk i said am i gonna talk if they don't run out of time well i beamed because being the intellectual that i was and having this keen alcoholic mind, I had analyzed this program. And I knew that several of our steps were useless. They were for the old-time down-and-out alcoholic. For us intellectuals coming in now, five of the steps was all we needed. And I was going to write a book based on those five steps, and I thought those people should know about it. So that's what I was gonna tell them. And he said, wait a minute. He said, I want to give you some directions. He said sit on him. He said if they call on you, you tell them you're an alcoholic and your name's Franklin Williams and you belong to the Quonset group and sit your behind down. He said you done told them people all you know. Incidentally, I mentioned the Quinset group. i think all of us have to identify i hear people say i belong to a at large i ask them where a ed lodge meets i think we need to belong to our group to stand up and be counted somewhere i'm a member in good standing of the quonset group in memphis tennessee that's where i came into alcoholics anonymous in january of 1956. I got dry in October of 1956. So that's 27 years, seven months and a few years, few days ago. Now the only reason I tell you that is because I'm bragging. Now my mother passed away a little over two years ago with over 92 years of continuous sobriety and she never mentioned it. Now, I also attend on a regular basis an olive branch group in Olive Branch, Mississippi. So I'm glad to be able to identify myself as an alcoholic and a member of a group in Alcoholics Anonymous. So David kept telling me, he said, you must do this and you must that. I said, Marion said, there ain't no must in this program. He said, for your information, the word must is in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous 74 times, and don't you forget it. And said, this is one must that's not in the big book, but you must know what this one is. He said rarely have we seen a person stay sober who continues to drink. You must not swallow any of that stuff. I didn't know you wasn't supposed to drink. I drank the first nine months I was in this program. He said, You must get you a big book. He's always preaching that big book to me and quoting it. And I said, I'm tired of you Bible thumpers quoting things. I said why don't you just tell me something in your own words? He said I didn' t write this book. He said this program comes from a textbook called Alcoholics Anonymous. and you need that book to study that book and find out what you need to do in order not to drink anymore. There again, I said, David, you know I'm broke. I can't buy a book. I can even buy food to eat. I don't have anything. He said, listen, USB. Said, you hadn't forgotten how to steal. Said, You go out and steal your big book, and by the time you get on to it in our program, we've got a step whereby you can make amends for stealing that book. He said, this is a program of action, and that may be some of the action that you need. I said, yeah, but there again, David, I'm different. I said if I had a wife like you people and a good job, I too could stay sober. I read to David out of the big book, Alcoholics Anonymous, for five years before I found out he could read. He knew where everything was, and he could, he could reading numbers. He could read the numbers of the pages, and then he'd point, read this. So he told me to turn the book to page 98, over on the left-hand side. Said, read it. And Bill says, wife or no wife, job or no job, our sobriety does not depend on others, but in our willingness to trust God and a clean house. Then he pointed over on the opposite side of the page on 99 and said, read that. Then he flipped the page to page 100 and said read that He said, what does it say? I said, David, it says the same thing He said I know it He said Bill figured some cat like you was going to come along and you'd miss it on page 98 But you're bound to get it on 99 or 100 now those are the some things that david did to me and with me and for me but thank god that i had a sponsor that was appointed because had i been able to pick one i would have sure picked the wrong one i'd pick somebody who was still slipping because i didn't come to this program to stop drinking. My sponsor I have now, Carl W., said he didn't come to this program. He left where he was. And I feel the same way. I didn't want what you had, but I sure didn't want what I had. So I didn' figure what you have could be as bad or certainly couldn't be any worse. So, I was willing to come. So why did I come to the program of Alcoholics anonymous. This is a suggested program, and a judge suggested that I come. He gave me a choice. I could either come to this program or go to the penal farm for nine months. And you know, I had to weigh that situation carefully before I decided to grace you with my presence because I didn't want to associate with a bunch of bums and failures like I thought that you were. So, of course, I didn' t have any success in this program for nine months because I came here working people and not working the program. I'd like this time for my wife Eloise to stand. I want to say something about her. She's going to be your speaker in the morning at 10 o'clock. I never want to talk without giving credit or paying tribute to Al-Anon. I don't think anything is meaningful to me unless I have experienced something as a result of it. And I've certainly had a tremendous experience as a result of Al-Anon. Eloise has over 25 years of sobriety, because she obtained that in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I don't remember years, maybe 12, 15 years ago, she switched over to Al-A-Non. She said to learn to live with me. You people in Al-Anon and the Al-Alanon service call those double winners. So she became very active in Al Anon. She sponsors a lot of gals, and she's a tough sponsor. She believes in conference-approved literature, and that's all of you in the Al Anons group at Olive Branch. But at the time she switched over, we really didn't have a home. We had a house, but we couldn't communicate and we reacted. I was there very little. We'd say something and I'd explode or she'd explode, or we'd both explode at the same time and I would say, well if that's the way you feel, I'm leaving. So I'd go somewhere. We couldn't sit down and have a decent conversation. We couldn' take trips together and at that time she had a little ten year old daughter when we married, a 10-year-old daughter. And that little daughter grew to hate me, and she used to shake her finger in my face and say, you're not my daddy and you don't have a thing in the world to do with me. So things were real bad. Well, as a result of Eloise getting involved in her Al-Anon program and possibly me doing more with my AA program, which I'll tell you about in the next three or four hours, But that house gradually became a home, and today it is a home. And Eloise and that daughter Mickey are the best two friends I have. And we see Mickey and her husband real often. They only live six miles from us. and I've been out there a lot on Sundays when I wasn't away carrying services like I am here now and Mickey sometimes would walk me to the car and put an arm around my waist and say Franklin you're the only daddy I have and I love you now money came by these things it's only by the grace of God and the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon that made this possible And I look forward to Eloise being at home. We sit down and talk. We enjoy taking trips together. We enjoy being with each other, and we can talk now without reacting. She's wrong a lot of the times, but we don't react. So I think you people in Al-Anon deserve a lot of credit. But lest you Al-Ans feel too smugly, you remember we done drunks got you where you are today and don't you forget it. I'm real glad Ella Williams could be with me on this trip. She don't get to go to as many places as I do because up until the first of January she work regular now she's working two days a week and i've always tried not to do anything to interfere with that gal's way but i want you to understand she don't have to work darn it she can go naked to starve death if she wants to that's the decision she has to make decisions are bad on me i had to make a decision when i came up here tonight whether to go to the bathroom or not and right now I made the wrong decision so I don't like to make decisions I haven't talked any about drinking I'm not gonna talk much about drinking because there's nothing in the big book that tells me how to drink or how not to drink but it's a big bunch in there that tells me how the live bill said this is a design for living and it really is I'll I'll only say a little bit to let you know that I'm not up here through mistakes. I started drinking when I was 16 years of age, and I didn't mess around with the symptoms at all. I just jumped directly into the disease. In retrospect, I can see now that I was an alcoholic the first time I ever took a drink because I drank compulsively that night and I blacked out. And I don't think social drinkers black out. And I don't think social drinkers are strapped to bed, either, with delirium tremors. So I know the horrors of alcohol. I know loneliness. Regardless of where I went, how many people were there, I was still lonely. And I'd pick up and go somewhere else, and I was Still Lonely There. I know that terrific guilt, that terrific feeling of fear, that feeling of not being wanted, of not be needed. All of these I had, and all of these all of you had that are real alcoholics. As far as I'm concerned, I can sum up this whole ball of wax, and this is my opinion. I'm going to say a lot of things tonight that are my opinion, and I'll tell you they're my opinion., but I'm gonna tell you a lot things that come from our textbook Alcoholics Anonymous. And you don't necessarily have to pay any attention to my opinions because my opinions and my thinking got me to where i came to alcoholics anonymous but it's through studying the textbook of alcoholics synonymous and applying these principles to my life that i've been able to to not drink and to live comfortably with me and with you and the god of my understanding i like your slogan up there your motto love and and fellowship I think love is one of the greatest forces in the world, and I've never been to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting that I couldn't feel their love. Fellowship, one of these roundups, your conventions, your conferences, there wouldn't be anything without fellowship. John and a bunch of us that go to a lot of these things, and Julian, we've heard the speakers. I don't go there to hear the speakers I always attend the meetings but I go there to see my friends and the fellowship and if you'll give a bunch of drunks a coffee room over there where they can sit down and all talk at the same time and nobody listen and drink coffee it don't make much difference who gets up here and talk because they're in a receptive mood but I think this about fellowship I think sometimes we overemphasize fellowship the fellowship is good and it plays its part but it only goes so far fellowship won't keep you sober but the steps of the program will keep you sober and the big book tells us that it says the spirit of aa will get you sober the principles of aa will keep you so and I think the spirit is that little four-letter word love and the fellowship being accepted being understood nowhere else did I ever get or go where I was understood and accepted so these six words are trust God clean house and help others now I have to condense things down I have to get things simple because david taught me this and this is meaningful to me today these six words because when i start my meditation i'll start them with these six words and i don't just repeat them i think about what i'm saying now where did i get this i got part of it from the 11th chapter of vision to you as beautiful a series of sentences and words as i ever heard 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 have found and join us, and surely you will meet some of us as you trudge the road to happy destiny. And then didn't Bill say let us burn into the consciousness of every new man? In my book it says man. Every new man that he too can get sober if he trusts God and clean house. Didn't Bill also say the surest immunity against not drinking is working with others so trust god clean house and help others david used to talk to me about surrender all time said you got to surrender you got the surrender and i got tired of hearing it i said david how do you surrender he said i don't know i said how you expect me to surrender when you can't tell me how he said I can't tell you in the book can't you tell you how well i said well behind the devil do i do it david he said i don't know but says if it happens with you like it happened with me if you live long enough you go not be able to sleep one night or you gonna come to that night and you can't you reached a point where that alcohol no longer gets you drunk and you can get sober and all you're doing is hurting and all your doing is feeling that remorse from guilt and fear. And possibly you've had all you want of that misery, and says you may fall to your knees and call on a God that you do not understand for help. And in years I can tell you that's what surrender is. And he said try to think of something that's happened to you that you can associate with surrender. Something that's real simple. Well it's easy for me to think of something simple. I've thought about a boy that I was in college with, and I love to tell you I went to college so you'll know I'm educated. And Eloise says I'm education way beyond my intelligence. But I thought about an old boy on the freshman football team named Red McGinnis, and the more I tell it, the bigger he gets. But as well as I can remember, he was over six feet tall, over 200 pounds. He had the longest arms I ever saw. He came down below his knees and he had old long bushy red hair. And I smarted off to Red out in the little store there on the campus. The next thing I knew, I was getting up. And every time I'd try to get up, Red knocked me back down. And I never laid a hand on Red McGinnis. And he darn you killed me. Now if Red McGynnis had come in here tonight, ain't no way that I'd say anything smart to Red McGinnis. That was over 50 years ago. I had a complete, unconditional surrender to Red McGinnies. And you know it wasn't until I had a Red McGinnie's surrendered alcohol that I had any success with this program. Now this is still beneficial to me. David taught me to talk to myself. He said it's not you that gets you into trouble it's a little franklin in you and said when you get this idea of urge to do something you and little franklyn go over in the corner and count yourself and says y'all get on on your knees and and surrender to god well it's easier for me to go in the corner or by the bed or wherever i am and have a red mcginnis surrender to alcohol to uh to that deal because i can understand that i know what a red mcginney surrender is so i think all of us need to know what we're doing i i used to tell david i don't understand these steps he said no and you never will till you work them and there's a lot of truth in that but thank god that i had this little old sponsor that prepared himself to be of maximum service the garden of people's bodies that loved me enough and took up the time with me to explain this this this deal to come in as i told you earlier to walk with me as we took took these steps I told you why I came and I told your heart didn't stay sober the first nine months well at the end of nine months I got arrested again I'd gone nine months without being arrested and that was a record, that was the record for me. And I decided that I was going to end it all and I borrowed a car and stole a piece of plastic hose and I hooked it up to the exhaust and I started the engine. And when I did something happened I got thirsty and I got to thinking about that little spot of wine I'd been on wine a number of years then and I thought I better go back and polish that off well I had written this suicide note and while I was writing that suicide note I was living in as gratis in the garage apartment and this person that owned that apartment had an old Grappinola in there had one of these horns that come out there with a dog picture of a little old feist dog and she had a lot of old country music and she said al jolson's sunny boy that's good crying music and i just love to cry when i drink but that old outfit rafa nola i call it you have to wind it up and about halfway through the record it'll run down And I'd have to run back over there while I put my pen down and my paper down and run back over and wind it. And I think I just slowed my crying down, keep time with that music. So I wrote all I could write, and I cried all I can cry. But now I'm going on. You can have everything. Well, I had it all on. And I wrote so much and cried so much that tears dropped down to the bottom of that page and the pen wouldn't write. So, I put an arrow up to the top and said, see next page. And when I cried all I could cry, that's when I went out there and started dancing. That's when got thirsty and came back and took that last wine. And then another peculiar thing happened, I passed out. I went to sleep, is what it amounted to. And I waked up, and I didn't come to, I wakened up about 1.30 the early morning of October the 15th. Now that to me is a miracle. A wino like me don't wake up. He comes to and reach down by the side to get bed and get that which has slipped me back into the arms of Martha. But I wakt up, apparently clear of mind, and my whole life passed before me and I saw things in the perspective I had never seen before. I no longer blame people and conditions for the condition I was in. I knew where the fault was, as with old Franklin. And even though I'd been around you for a period of nine months in a closed mind, I knew what I was doing. I knew who the solution was. And I fell to my knees and for the first time in my adult life I said an honest and sincere prayer. And truthfully, I can't tell you what I said that night other than God help me. But I don't know of a greater prayer that an alcoholic can utter than God helped me and then thank you at night. So I know I said this. Now how long I was down there, I don' t know. I have no idea. But I was there long enough to accept the first two steps and to take the third step. And I admitted there was absolutely no way in the world that I could drink alcohol and not get into trouble. I knew that phenomenon of craving was there. There was absolutely way in world that i could keep from drinking, therefore I was powerless over alcohol. Lack of power was my dilemma. I had done the things I hadn't intended to do, and I'd left undone the things I had intended to doing. Therefore, my life was unmanageable. Now, if my life was unmangeable, I need the manager. And you told me about that manager in step two. Now, my wife was unchangeable, and I need a manager. It made sense that I turned my life and will over to this manager. And that's what you told me to do in the third step. Now, I knew before this God I did not understand was going to move in my house and live with me, I had to first clean it up. And I knew that's what you told me to do in steps four through ten. Let me back up. I got back in bed, slept soundly. Now, why no don't sleep soundly? Slept soundly till around six or 630 that morning of October 15th. I waked up and I got up and I went to the back door and asked if I might call David. I did, and he was there in a matter of minutes. He sat down on the end of that old brass bed and told me many things about himself. I'm sure most of these he had told me before, but I hadn't paid any attention to. But most importantly, I told David some things about old Franklin I had never told another human being. And he said two words which I think saved my life. he said i understand no one had ever told me that they understood but i knew david did understand by the look in his eyes and he said they are going to get some of your time now when he said there's gonna get some your time he's talking about the men down at the local bastille and they did get some of my time now just prior to this the thing that i said gave me the excuse to kill myself i had gone to see my first wife the wife i have now is not my first wife she's my second wife i had going to see her and told i've been sober for nine months lying like a dog when am i gonna be sober enough for you to come back to me she looked me dead in the eye and said you'll never get sober enough for me to take you back and this is a lick that hit below the belt she said and if you were to die today who would be your pallbearer and i knew she was telling the truth an alcoholic like me don't like the truth so that's when i went out and got drunk and then came back and wrote that wrote that will and decided to take my life Well, David told me then, he said they're going to get some of your time and sure enough two days later they picked me up and they sent me to the fennel farm. Out there I knew I had to have this program and I asked the warden if we might start a group out at the fentel farm and he said yes, we'd like for you to. He knew David, I asked him if he called David and let me talk to him and he did and David and two other men came out that Saturday, and we started a group at the fennel farm, and it's still there. I tried to sober up every drunk they sent to the fernel farm. I'd run around there with a big book under my arm and talking AA to them. And I even tried to sober up the warden, and he didn't even have a drinking problem. But it was good for me because it kept me busy. and david is on my visitors list he'd come out to the group me to the meeting on saturday and he'd back on sunday and visit me and i'm the only person i've ever heard say this but my sponsor gave me assignments in that big book and then the next time we'd get together he'd give me a test on it and if i didn't pass that test he'd gimme the same assignment and he got me started into that textbook and I thank God for that because I've been a student of the big book ever since and of our 12 and 12 way of life and our conference approved literature. I know one time I was trying to tell David something that was in the Bible and he said, what do you know about the Bible? You profess to be an agnostic. You don't know anything about the bible. I said there's some good stuff in there. He said, well, you don't read anything for a year except the 12 and 12 and the big book. And at the end of that year, if we think you're ready to read something else, we'll tell you. But I want to tell you this right now. The Bible ain't conference-approved literature. Now, David read the Bible some, but he did that after he got sober in this program. So I thank God for that. i got out of the penal farm when i was supposed to not a day earlier and it took me a long long time to get a job because i was unemployable i couldn't be bonded and every job i'd ever worked on i had to be bonded and i thank god for club rooms because that's where i hung out from the time they opened that thing in the mornings until they closed at midnight at night And they had a lot of meetings up there. We had noon meetings, and the Al-Anons would bring sandwiches. So they soon started to bring in some extra sandwiches in a sack and give them to me. And when you go in tonight, well, you might not be able to sleep. You might get hungry, so here are you some sandwiches. They knew I didn't have anything to eat on. Now, I'm not saying that for self-pity. I'm saying that because of what Bill says in the big book, that anyone can get sober and stay sober if you trust God and clean house. It don't make the difference what you have or what you don't have if you have the desire to stop drinking and are willing to do anything. And that had to happen to me, and it did happen to be. Let's say I got out. It took me a long time to get a job. I finally got a little job. stayed on it live months and I got a better job then I kept falling upstairs I kept getting better jobs and I've got to be mr. AAA in my territory they called me the Pope of alcoholics amount I went to a lot of meetings not sponsored a lot people then all of a sudden the bottom dropped out told you how things were with Eloise my employer wasn't running in his business the way he should, and he wouldn't listen to me. I'd take a new person to the Quonset group, and they wouldn't let me talk. At the end of the meeting, I'd get this fellow, and I'd say, that little old cat that's talking to you don't have but six months' sobriety. If you want to know something, you come to me, but I had around nine and a half years of undetected drinking is what David used to tell me, that I didn't have sobriety. I had undetected drinking. So, I have a lot of self-pity, a lot of resentment. I used to have to meet David at the concert group an hour earlier every meeting night and we'd stay an hour after the meeting approximately that and talk. And I think with me the meetings before the meetings and the meetings after the meetings are the most important meetings I went to. So I got there early that Monday night, and I said, David, I've got to talk to you. He said, I know it. He said I've been trying to break through that shell for the last several months. He said you had a wall built up there and I couldn't get through. And you'd run off. You had something else to do. And I've being praying to God that you'd either come to me or you'd come to somebody else and get these things out in the open before you got drunk. He said God's answered my prayer. so i told him about all of this stuff he says can you stay sober until saturday say that's on monday uh yeah i cannot drink between nine and but i'll be miserable as a devil he said what's new you've been that way for some time but said if you do what i tell you to do you won't drink between now and saturday and this may sound like bad information to you But he said, don't go to another meeting this week. But let me finish. He said, stay at home and every waking hour you take the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. He said I know you're going to say I've read it and I've studied it, but you missed something. You had a block against something in there and you read and study what I tell you to read. He said read and steady and read and restudy and so on with the doctor's opinion and you get that until you thoroughly are convinced of it and then you read and do the same thing study study and read read and study the first four chapters and said do you know why i want you to do this i didn't know i don't david he said turn to the abcs right after we read the 12 steps me the first few words in that paragraph, and it says, being convinced, we are ready for step three. Being convinced of what? Of ABCs. What are the ABCs? The ABCs are purely and simply and nothing else the first two steps. David said nowhere in any AA literature does Bill tell us how to take the first 2 steps you don't take them and that's true says so right here being convinced we become convinced of there's really no action in my opinion in taking the first few steps so we went out on the lake that Saturday and spent today. And he gave me a thorough test on the doctor's opinion in the first four chapters. And, he taught me from that doctor's opinion, he taught what the nature of my illness is and what the solution is. And he taught that I was not a bad person trying to get good but a sick person trying to get well. And that took the moral issue out of it. So then after we went over this, he said, we all right on the first two steps. He said, now let's see about the third step. Now I was Mr. AA and I didn't know that Bill suggested that we take the third step with another human being neither did i know that bill suggested a prayer in the third step so i took the third steps with david and then he told me to read that prayer and let's get on here by this log kneel by this law and said i would like to hear you say it in your own words and i think god would too so we did and i did and this is about what i say every day now god i offer myself to thee to do with me and build with me as i will relieve me of the bondage of self that i may better do thy will take away my difficulties so that victory over them may bear witness to those that i might have for thy love thy service in thy way of life release me from the bondage of self that's my problem and i have to pray for willingness for this every day of my life and that third step prayer is still still important to me i know when david first told me to pray i said david i don't believe it it won't work He said, nowhere in the big book does it say you have to believe. He said do it. He said the two most important things about prayer is first start doing it and secondly keep on doing it. And if you keep ondoing it, you will come to believe and that's what's happening to me. In that third step, I certainly didn't understand it. Made a decision. And David told me the decision was the most important thing in that. He said, everything else in the third step will change. He said your life and will will change and your understanding of God will change and that's certainly true. I didn't know what my life and wheel was. Today I know what it was or what it is. My life is my actions and my wheels are my thinking and I have to act myself into proper thinking. I can't think myself into a proper acting But once I act myself into proper thinking, then thinking can control my actions. And certainly my understanding of God today is different from what it was, well, a year ago. And hopefully a year from now, it'll be different from how it is now. And it will be better if I continue to ask for willingness to get more honest. And when I talk about honesty in this program, I'm talking about void of self-deception. I'm not talking about cash register honesty. I'm telling you, I'm just talking about void of selfish deception. I was a master at deceiving myself. And I think all of us are. And I don't think that's just a character defect of alcoholics. I think everybody is capable of that. But I think God gives us two built-in devices is why we can live with ourself. Rationalization and projectionism. So David had me to read then. He turned away at what? He didn't read anything to me. Even by this time, I found out he could read, but he still didn't tell me. He made me read. He'd show me where it was. And he had me read how to take the fourth step. he said i gave you a yellow legal pad several years ago to write your inventory on and you brought i asked you how you was getting along and to bring it to me and you brought it to me and wasn't doing a thing but writing a life history and i took that thing and tore it up and told you in the first place i was the wrong way it wasn't the way i told you and the second place you're lying to go back and do it like i told well i didn't want david to see it so i wrote a life history and took it to a professional man. He didn't know no difference. David told me, and I believe this because nowhere in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous does it say that you write a life story for your inventory. I don't know where that got started. I think there's about as much bad information floating around AA as there is good information. It gives us clear-cut, explicit directions for taking the fourth step. So David had me to read it. Selfishness and self-centeredness we think is the root of our problem. Then he examined three areas of my life. First, resentment. Secondly, fear. And third, sex. It gives me a format on page 65 of how to put down these resentments, and I also did the fears and the sects by the same way. See, Bill says that we must find out cause and effect. Life stories don't show you cause and effects. What caused me to do this? What effect did it have on me? If I know what caused me to do it, I know what to wake on. It says, I resent Mr. Brown. Why? Because of his attention to my wife. How does this affect me? It affected my sex, and it affected my relationships. And then what was the end result? Out at the end of each one of those instances is a little four-letter word, fear. Fear is the emotion that was affected. Then David said, I don't know whether Bill knew this when he wrote the big book or he just didn't have room to put it in there or whether he found it out afterwards. I'm of the opinion that Bill learned some more from the time he wrote the book until he wrote the 12 and 12. He said, David always had the 12th and 12th with him. He had a dictionary, the big book, and the 12nd and 12nd. So he had me to turn to the explanation of step four in the 12and12 and to read the three God-given instincts. We have an instinct first for sex. we have an instinct secondly for emotional and material security we have an instinct for companionship now the book goes on to say that things are not good because they're god-given but where you and i get into trouble is in abusing or threatening one or more of the god-giving instincts he said now under the part that how does it affect you instead of putting security in those deals there, use one or more of these God-given instincts. So I went back. Why did I resent Mr. Brown? Because his attention to my wife, how did it affect me? It affected the first God-giving instinct, sex. It affected first part of the second one, emotional security. And it affected the third one, companionship. I went all the way down the line, and one or more of those God-given instincts was threatened or abused in every one of them. So I listed all my resentments. Under my resentment, I put the people that I had harmed. Then I listed my fears and what was the cause and effect. I listed the sex cause and effects. We don't talk much about sex in AA. I think maybe it's because there are a lot of us in here like me and Julian too old to remember anything about it but but the big book has a whole lot to say about sex examine your motive pray for it the right answer will come so i i had a problem in that area and the book says that every person has a problem within that area so i had i had to work on it now the character defects that i put on was selflessness and self-centeredness and then i put on the seven deadly sins that bill brings out in the in the fourth chapter i didn't want to miss any of this and david had me to read on page 51 in the old 12 and 12 i don't know what page on them new and i don' have one but it says character defects representing instincts gone astray being the primary cause of our drinking and failure at life and unless we become willing to work hard toward the elimination of the waste of these both sobriety and serenity shall elude us now that's a powerful statement character defects representing instincts gone astray those three god-given instincts are the greatest tool that i have found anywhere to find out what's wrong with me and it's absolutely impossible for me to take a thorough inventory without using those God-given instincts. Everything I've ever done, every trouble I've even gotten into is by abusing or affecting one or more of the God- given instincts. Now what did I find out about myself in step four? David had me to read again in that in the 12 and 12 where bill says we eat more we drink more we grasp for more of everything that we need than we need fearing we shall never get enough what is that but saying i'm trying to satisfy a human ego there's absolutely no way in the world to satisfy our human ego whatever What alcoholic ever had enough of anything? Sex, whiskey, power, anything. Impossible to satisfy a human ego. So my real problem is ego. The end result is fear. That's why I can understand that seven of our steps have to do with deflation of ego. And I can understand why there has to be a spiritual program, a spiritual solution for the disease of alcoholism because fear being my problem, the only antidote for fear is faith. David asked me before we got on this fourth step, he said, do you know why you need to take the fourth step? I said, I know what the book says. He said, the book don't say this, but you need to know this. He said you need to take the fourth step so you can take the fifth step. He said there ain't no way to takethe fifth step without taking the fourthstep. And he says, turn to page 72 and 73 at the bottom of page 72 and read me about not taking the fifth step. And this is what it says. Not exactly verbatim but close. Those who do not take this vital step, the fifth step, do not relieve their alcoholism. Invariably they drink again. They haven't learned enough of honesty, fearlessness and humility by telling it all and the word all is in italics. By telling it to another human being. So I went home and I worked on that fourth step I worked a long time on it, and I prayed a lot about it. And I went back out on the lake with David with my written inventory, and I took the fifth step with him. Now, David did something with me which I do with the people with whom I take a fifth step. He took his fifth step avec moi, at least that part of it which related to mine, and it helped me because it helped reduce guilt. I saw I wasn't the only cat in the world that thought and acted as I did. And I thank God that he shared that with me. So then after we had spent the whole day on that fifth step, he had me sit down there on that log and read what to do when I got home. And it says, go home and get in a far place and thank him that you know him better. See some more of that praying. I had missed all of that in the first nine and a half years. And examine the first five proposals and see if you've left out anything. If you have, go back and do it. What I didn't think I had at that time, I took as complete an inventory as I was honestly capable of doing at the time. Now I want to say this, I've taken many fourths and fifths steps since then. why'd I do it because David told me to and showed me in the 12 and 12 at the bottom of page 51 and the top of 52 in the old 12 and12 it says a taking of a four-step inventory is there but the beginning of a lifetime process I continue to do it be cause of their release and the relief that I get from see I'm a cat the more honest that I've become in this program the more things that happen way back yonder that I had pushed back come to my conscious mind and it's necessary for me to clean away this wreckage of the path and some of that I can just do it better by going back and doing a complete fourth step inventory again and then coming on down with a balance of the program it's been beneficial to me i don't know what it takes for you but that's what i understand that my big textbook of alcoholics anonymous tells me to do i hear people say they don't know when to take certain steps they don t read the big book because it explains in there says now you're ready for step five now you re ready for steps six and seven David had me to turn to page 76 in the big book and that's the only page in the big book that explains four steps and it don't take a whole lot of room to explain them but there's not a whole lotta action involved in that but became willing to have my character defects removed some more praying the explanation is pray for that willingness so I've had to pray for that willingness and then it says humbly ask him to remove our shortcomings David said humbly means on your knees in the original manuscript it said humbling on your knees David said I can't tell you that you're an alcoholic but I can tell you a real alcoholic and real alcoholics get on the knees you get on your knees so I got on my knee now this may be controversial the big book don't say this now some other things I said the big book does but this is my opinion I don't think God has removed my character defect this is what I think has happened. I think my character defects are being replaced. I think God has afforded me the opportunity to do the opposite. For instance, there's no way I can have self-pity if I'm practicing gratitude. There's no ways I'd be intolerant if I am tolerant. So the more that this pendulum swings to the right, to the positive side, my character defects don't bother. Now, my character defects haven't been taken away. I know that's an illusion to you because you think that fellow is just perfect up there. But I guarantee you I don't have halotosis. And my character effects come back. Why do they come back? Because ego comes back. And I'll never completely get rid of ego because I'll never completely 100% honest, 100% where I don't deceive myself. Yes, character defects are going to come back and for only that one reason because ego returns. So that's something I have to work on the balance of my life is that ego deal and becoming more honest and the only way I know to do this is to be sincere and humbly ask God for the willingness. And as I do this and continue to work on this program, I have become more honest with myself. So that takes me down to step eight and nine. Made a list of the people we've harmed. The book says you made this list in step four, and I did. Some more praying. Pray for willingness to make amends. So I prayed for willingness, and I can truthfully say that I've made amends everywhere except when to do so would injure them or others. It bothered me for a long time that I couldn't make amends to my father because he was dead, but David convinced me that the mere willingness was sufficient, that I would do it if he were living. So that's all that I could do. So I no longer have any guilt in this area. Continue to take a personal inventory and when wrong, promptly admit it. Promptly with me can mean ten days, two weeks, three weeks, according to how I feel. But when I suffer badly enough, I'm going to do something about it. Pain is the thing that's motivated me to do everything that I've done in this program. Pain is a thing that motivated me to stop drinking. Pain is something that motivates me to do something positive in this program because I hurt and I don't like to hurt. i'm like a friend of mine i i'm very sensitive i hurt easily and i suffer badly and i don't like to suffer and i don't have to suffer if i will do what you have taught me and are teaching me to do in this program continue to take a personal inventory some people say that this is a daily thing well it is and it isn't it's more than a daily thing bill says in the explanation of step 11 of step 10 that some of our members take a annual inventory some take a semi-annual inventory so that indicates to me that i'm supposed to do more than just take care of today because i told you some things will come to my conscious mind that happened 20 something years ago and i've had to push back it's necessary for me to do something about them. So through talking and listening to improve my conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of his will and the power to carry it out. That's a beautiful step to me, a beautiful step. And I guess as important a thing as I have learned from that step is that God is, that God isn't. Bill says in the early part of the book that God either is or God either is not. And I know that God is. I forgot to tell you back in step seven, David had me to read that seventh step prayer and to get on by that log and say it. And he says, my creator I am now willing that you remove every single defect of character which stands in my way of my usefulness to me and to you and to my fellow men. May I always do thy bidding. i have some physical problems and i have to spend a good deal of time in a recliner at least i spend a good time in the recliner and that's where i do my meditation i'll say these six words trust god clean house and help others and as i say really think about them meditate on them i have a recorder there I have tapes there I have the big book there I have The Twelve and Twelve And I don't do the same thing all the time But I can pick up that book And maybe not read but a sentence Maybe two or three sentences And it gets me started to think And then I'll get to thinking about Old C.D., poor boy John, many others that I know in this program and thinking my god here's a bunch of failures that get together and are successes there's got to be a power somewhere a power greater than me and i get to thinking of this power and i'm really awed at it i can't understand it because i'm not as big as god i'm supposed to understand but i know it's here and i know what works in my life and it works in others' lives. Or I may put on a tape of somebody to get me started. Now Bill recognized that some of us would have trouble in that area, maybe all of us. But he says people ask how do we do this? And in the explanation of step 11 he says take a good prayer and examine And the prayer that he puts in there is the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, which is as powerful a prayer as I ever heard. He said, examine your life as you are today against what St. Francis of Asissi is asking for in his prayer. And then think about how you get from here to there. And I did that for a long, long time and I still do it again. so my meditation thing is a real important part of my life david i told you carried a dictionary and he had me to look up the word believe and one of the definitions is to rely and i am coming to rely on the forgiveness of god for yesterday the grace of god für tomorrow and that only leaves today. And there's nothing that can come up in my life today that can't be handled if I turn it over to the God of my understanding. How do I know this? Because I've tried it. And how did I know it in the beginning? Because David had pointed out to me and had me to read that the problem ahead is never greater than the power behind. there's fantastic power in this program i have another way of saying there's no limit to what i can do and become in this problem because of one thing i'll never run out of god i'll ever run out a gun and that is a fantastic deal you can't beat the deal like that if there is any better deal, I don't think I could stand it. I don' t want to know about it. I know this deal works and I know that I can never run out of God. So having had a spiritual awakening and that word scared the stew out of me in the beginning I said, David, that's too churchy. He said, turn to Appendix 2 in the back of the book and read me what a spiritual awakenin' is and i read it and it said spiritual awakening is purely and simply a personality change sufficient to relieve my alcoholism he said can you accept that i was yeah is that really what did he said that's what bill says did he says you had so much trouble with this god deal says read on down at the end of that appendix too. And Bill says many of our members suspect that an unsuspected power has entered our lives which we can identify as a power greater than ourselves. The essence of this is in effect a spiritual awakening. Real simple. And I knew that, I knew there a power at the end of my life that was greater than I was, that had changed my life. So I had no qualms in, no argument with what a spiritual awakening is. So having had a spiritual awaken, we tote this message and practice these principles in all our affairs. What message do we tote? There ain't but one that we can tote, and that's the message of a spiritual awakening as a result of the first eleven steps. 12th step tells us what the message is. I don't have any message to you about your marital problems, your financial problems, your legal problem. All I have is a story of a spiritual awakening as a result of the first 11 steps. Somebody asked me to say this and I'm gonna say it anyway. I wish I had said it originally but I didn't. An old boy from Little Rock, Arkansas Joe MCQ said it, and it explains carrying the message better than anything I ever heard. He said a cat rode through the countryside on a horse yelling the British are coming, a cat named Paul Revere. Not any picture does it show where Paul Reveal was looking back. Not anywhere does it shows where Paul Ravere got on off that horse and said now if I was you I'd do this about your spiritual deal, about your financial deal, about your marital deal. No, he told him one simple message. The British are coming. Now they could have sent Benjamin Franklin, but Benjamin Franklin was a philosopher and you know he would have stopped at the first place and given all kind of advice and if he had been to carry that message we'd probably be British subjects today. They gave the right carrier the right message. The British are coming. Now, Joe didn't say this. I said this. When he told them the British were coming, them cats knew to haul ass. So the message takes care of itself. The message that Paul revealed took care of himself. The message at you and our carrier of a spiritual awakening will take care of yourself. Practice these principles in all our affairs, that's hard for me to do. And I imagine it's hard for others to do but what are the principles? They're the steps and I'll only mention one principle, the principle of love that's the apex that all men of the cloth all faiths are trying to get us to the ultimate, love there's tremendous power as i told you earlier in love and i have been around you people long enough to see and experience the miraculous healing power of love i thank god for the program of alcoholics anonymous because it was you people that directed me to this program directed me to God and God directed me to you to to you people and then you taught me of the God of my understanding I want to close with my football story that always closed with it's really not much of a story but I just like the way I tell it and and I'd like to hear it and I hadn't heard it tonight I just liked to think that the god of my understanding of saying unto me Franklin I'm getting up a football team I'm going to make you the quarterback. I'm gonna give you three men in the backfield that you lost during your active alcoholism and I'm going to give them back to you in the reverse order which you lost. I want to give you hope faith and charity. I am going to give you seven men in a line that you were introduced to in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. At the two ends I'm going to be honest in humility. At two tackles patience and tolerance. At to God's unselfishness and gratitude, and it's son of willingness. Now, it's necessary that you use willingness every play, and if you use these men, they'll block out self-pity, resentments, intolerance, impatience, all the stumbling blocks that caused you so much trouble the first 45 years of your age, of your life. Now this game is going to last a lifetime. There'll be no timeouts, so I'm going to have to give you some ground rules. The ground rules are the Ten Commandments. The first four of these have to do with your relationship with your manager and your coach and the sole official, God. The last six have to deal with your relationship with your teammates. The ball is your eternal soul and the goalposts are the gates of heaven. Now get in there and play ball. I need each and every one of you in my search for truth in this game of life. And if you don't believe that this program will work, just keep it simple and follow directions. And if don't you believe that God'll help you, just ask him. Thank you and God bless you and I love you.