The Difference Between Religion and Spiritual Living – Keith D.

Hello everybody, I'm an alcoholic. My name is Keith. By God's grace, Alcoholics Anonymous rules full of people like you and a little bit of effort on my own. I haven't had to take a drink or do any dope since May the 11th, 1976 and for that I am especially grateful. Glad to be here, glad to be sober. I want to thank Tim for inviting us up. It's always a real privilege to be able to share recovery with my wife. We got sick together, and it's a special gift that we've been able to share the programs together and be ableto share the family recovery. And that's my story. I brought a family to Alcoholics Anonymous, and as a result of AlcoholicsAnonymous, now a teen, now a dog, now the cat, my family has been ableto stay together. and I'm grateful for that and you know that's the whole deal really that isn't always the case families don't necessarily always stay together whatever you the book says that wife or no wife job or no job and we still got to stay sober and that's what it's all about and I am I am grateful for that I am thankful for the old timers in my life Otto and Marianne and of course some of the people that are here that have a lot of time that i've got to meet and coming up here and i like old timers i love old-timers i like to be around them i like let it rub off and uh and i just feel good you have a lot enthusiasm here and enthusiasm is god within and i believe that rather than explain god why you can feel it you can fill in the enthusiasm the feeling about what's going on in this room and you know an amazing thing i'm sure that this this building is full of a lot lot of people on Sundays, and they're all looking for something. And the amazing thing is that tonight we know what we got. We found it. You see, we found it, and you know, that's a difference between religion and spiritual living. Religion is for those people that are afraid of going to hell, and spiritual life is for the people that are afraid to go to hell. And spiritual living is for some of us who've been there. Excuse me real brief, but somebody's got a green Toyota Camry out here with a license plate. You'll know who you are. I'm good. No, you're not. You've got to move it. You're in one of those Christians Park driveway. But I'm glad that I know where I'm supposed to be. When I'm in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, the world is a safer place. And I assume that it is because you're here. When i'm in an alcoholics anonymous meeting, everybody that I meet including my My enemies are glad I'm in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And the cops are glad, my cat's glad, my wife's glad and my kid's glad and I'm glad I am in a Meeting of Alcoholic Anonymous That's the most important thing that I got to know because I know what it's like to be in a Meeting of alcoholics anonymous when you're not really, really, REALLY an alcoholic I went to some meetings of Alcoholix Anonymous and I know what it is like to be there wondering what you're doing there I know what it was like to be in the meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous when I was there because she said I should be there. They said I shouldn't be there and I didn't know what I was doing there. And if you're new or relatively new, you've been around here for a while I know how you feel and it's a good feeling. And I hope if you don't feel anything else tonight for a period of time sitting in this room you feel safe. You feel safe, safe from yourself if nothing else. But I had to know a feeling of the fact that I belong somewhere and I couldn't put any kind of a definition on that but I felt safe and I felt safe ever since I've come to Alcoholics Anonymous for me I don't know if I was born an alcoholic or not but when I took my first drink an alcoholic was born and I was very young I was six years old I remember it it meant something to me something happened to me I took a drink and there were things going on around me that I didn't necessarily like made me angry made me irritable restless and discontent I was 6 years old standing along the side of a country road in a Texas Oklahoma panhandle My grandpappy had just made a near fatal mistake. He opened the door on a 1934 Ford going 40 mile an hour into a 40 mile and hour wind, and the door in 34 Ford opened from the front, and when he opened it, it sucked him out of there like a sail cat. And the drunk that was driving the car didn't miss him for five miles. And I finally got old Slicker slowed down, and we turned around and went back, and I scooped my grandpathy up, and my job was to carry this jug of corn whiskey. and we got out and the old man was scratched up and skinned up but he wasn't hurt much poured some whiskey on his hands rubbed it on his face and everybody took a drink and he offered the kid a drink, give the kid a drink and I took a drank standing there that Saturday afternoon people going into town I felt embarrassed, I felt ashamed I felt scared and I take a drink of that corn whiskey and I can care if that old man lived or died and I searched for that feeling for the next 30 years of my life and the book says we search for that we try to recapture that and we never can so it was a memorable experience to me I also was a hyperactive child had an uncle who was a doctor and he gave me amphetamines to calm me down I don't understand that today why would you give somebody that has an abundance of energy speed but it was diagnosed and given to me and I had an acquired taste and I love that I love speed is like going 190 miles an hour with your feet nailed to the floor. I come from a long line of alcoholics that isn't necessarily necessary that you come from an alcoholic family in order to end up an alcoholic. It's not just my story. My dad's an alcoholic, his dad was an alcoholic and that's as far as I wanted to check it out. Now, I'm at least a fifth-generation alcoholic. I don't blame them for what I did or where I went or what it did for me or to me or any of that stuff. As a matter of fact, I grew up with selfish, self-centered, self-seeking, neurotic, and sane people. And I got out of there alive. Amazing thing, I ended up in Alcoholics Anonymous 36 years old in a room full of selfish, Self-Centered, Self Seeking, Neurotic, Insane People and you said, welcome, you're home. And a lot of the things that allowed me to survive growing up in that alcoholic family have allowed meto survive right here at Alcoholics Anonymous, I'll guarantee you. So I don't blame them for anything. I'm my own kind of an alcoholic. I'm glad that the big book of AlcoholicsAnonymous has the stories in there because those stories in their Teach Me About Me and Teach Me about You is an amazing thing. Forty-two stories in the third edition of the big books of Alcoholic Anonymous. Sixteen of those talks about narcotics. Heaven forbid But I'm glad they do Because I like the definition of a real alcoholic in there Because I did a little of that You know, chemistry Matter of fact, I don't identify with anybody that's specialized And I know they do That's why they have stories I'm a pig myself It's the way it was That's my story There's stories in here There's a place here for every kind of alcoholic But my story is that I just took anything Anytime, anywhere I'd stick it in me Out me, out me It didn't make any difference The only thing I have never knowingly or willingly volunteered for is a pap smear So I've been up and down, round and round It doesn't make any difference I'm still an alcoholic First thing I ever took was alcohol And the last thing I every took was alcool And anything I did in between was just circumstantial evidence that I'd do anything You know, I used to drink a little beer And think maybe I ought to do something and smoke a little weed and kind of fantasize how I was going to do it, shoot a little speed so I'd have the strength to do this. Snort a little Coke so I could be cool when I did it and then drink a little whiskey and forget what the hell it was I was gonna do. There's three kinds of people in this world basically, not just in alcoholics and non-alcoholics. There's people who wait for things to happen. There's People Who Watch Things Happen. There's The People Who Make Things Happn. And I happen to be one of them guys that makes shit happen. I don't care where you go, whatever. Hey, it's happening tonight. This is a deal. This is the best deal in town. I know it because I'm here. I don'T go where the bad deals are. I go wherethe good deals areI'VE ALWAYS WANTED THE DEAL ALL MY LIFE. I LOOK FOR THE DEALEDON'T CARE IF IT'S 50 CENTS, 50 MILLION. DEAL ME IN. I LOVE THE DEal. I LOVETHE EXCITEMENT OF IT. SEE? I LOVETHEEXCITMENT. I LIKE THE EXCICTMENT ALL MY LIFE. AND CONSEQUENTLY, MY DRINKING WAS LIKE LIVING IN A COMBAT ZONE. and I went places and did things all over the world wherever up and down around and around and the only problem alcohol was kind of like a laxative to me it just removed things from me see and I could get a lot of stuff but it just I just seemed to get drunk and it would leave I don't know why and I just I just exciting I always I didn't dinner fight with anybody you know I didn's stand against the wall have pimples on my face and, you know, want to dance, you know, and somebody give me a drink of whiskey and I come off the wall and dance with the girls. I brought the band, man. I brought it. I brought them. I brought those girls with me. I brought that dope. I brought booze. You want to go home? Go home. We're going somewhere else. I didn't identify as anybody who wanted to. I've got to quit drinking because I've got to go to work. Hell, I didn' have a job. I'm a thief. I like to steal. God knows I'm not a thief, I know I'm a thief. Now you know I am a thief, and I had very little guilt except right when I got caught. And that's short-lived because you've got to figure out what you've Got to do to get out of trouble right away, you know? So I just had a lot of fun and went a lot places and did a lot things. I could drive a car when I was 12 years old because I grew up in a farming community and I got a farm permit and got my driver's license when I Was 12 years Old and grew up in a dry county Where the Baptists were There's more Baptists And Baptists was always trying to heal me There was either Baptists or Heathens And the Heathens were having so much more fun than the Baptist I just kind of hung with the Heathen You know, I just They're the ones that are smiling, you know I mean, I went to them churches They used to sprinkle me and dip me I mean I've been sprinkled dipped so bad That I almost look like a prune I'm telling you But that boy is touched He ain't never going to get it, you know. And they said, you do this, you think that, you're going to hell. I volunteered. Somebody's got to go, I'll go, you Know. I had no problem thinking that way, really, from the get-go. So I, you Now, naturally attracted that kind of stuff, see. And by the time I was 17, 18, 19 years old, I'd spent about half my time locked up somewhere, you Know. I mean, well-meaning people observing my behavior patterns, you Know, wanted to talk to me about me. And I learned to talk to them about me You know, whatever they wanted to hear It didn't make any difference It was just easier to go along with the deal I don't know why My daddy's a lawyer, a drunken lawyer I've never resented the fact that my daddy was a lawyer Kept him on retainer for years Matter of fact I finally had to take him off retainer When I came to in a jail cell And he was with me in there My daddy's a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous today And he's got Yeah Got 19 years I got 14 months of seniority on him Don't ever let him forget it I love my dad Yeah, he's a good old dad My dad's 81 And he still goes to his meetings And lives back in Oklahoma In the Texas-Oklahoma Panhandle No man's laying back there and goes to meetings I love my dad. He's just my dad, that's all I ever wanted him to be. And many, many years we were anything but father and son. Many times we were crime partners, many times we Were doing a deal, many times We tried to be like brothers, many times W e tried to Be like friends, anything But a father and a son. Today this program Has put the family back together so that we can Be like a father and son is supposed To be, a very simple thing. And I'm grateful for that. My daddy had a lot of money. I noticed that. I've always noticed that my first wife had a lot of money and I noticed that and my father-in-law called me in one day and he said I got a lot of money I said I noticed it he said, I didn't get all this money making bad investments and you're a bad investment so they annulled me they gave me some money told me hit the road that time I I had a price, recognized later I could have sold out for a lot more. Which time after I'd spent all that money I recognized anybody ever asked me what I'm worth again, it'll be a lot more. Unfortunately no one's ever asked me that since then. And I got in a little trouble down in Fort Worth, Texas. I was selling a little marijuana. You know, non-habit forming marijuana. I wasn't smoking that crap, I was selling it. There's a difference, you know. And the policeman locked me up and decided that I should stay there for a while. So I did my first inventory, and I thought to myself, Self, you need to quit hanging around with these guys. You hang around with These Guys, they're always in trouble, they're Always In These Bars, and Always Doing This Stuff. You need to stay away from These Guys. Boyle and Goose, my very best friends. And you need To Stay Away From These Sick Women. gotta stay away from them sick, sick women. Man I got a character defecting line ten women up against that wall I get the sickest one every time. I did my little inventory and got to stay away in them sick sick women gotta style them fast cars love them fast cars. Style them fast cars and I shared that little inventory with my cellmate down there Huntsville and come time to get out why call my two very best friends Oily and Goose I told him I'd be in Damrell's my new suit and $100 and pick me up and And they went down there early. They'd been there two days, running a battery down their old pickup truck, sitting there drinking a little moonshine, you know, taking some bennies. They were wide awake. The battery's dead, but they were wide away. I crawled off that train. Boy, them goose sitting in that old pickup truck had a couple of rifles hanging in the back window and I got in there and we got a push start and I started drinking that white lightning and I stole them. I said, man, I need to stay away from you guys. When I get with you guys, I get in trouble. And they said, that's right. That's right. So I got to stay out of them honky-tonks. If I get in them honk-tonk, I get in trouble every time. They said, that's right I got a stay away from them sick women, man. I get around them sick women all the time and I get into trouble. They say, that is right Have another drink. Have another drink. We drove about two hours pulled up in front of this old building down on Wolf Creek One of them dances, honky tonk dances where you get drunk and be somebody. Where the men were men and the sheep were unscared It was midnight night and the band took an intermission i wanted everybody to know i was home so i run in there grabbed a coke bottle there's a stage up there i rolled it up and bumped the stage the band was gone a bunch of hairy legged old boys hanging around there and uh and i said let the meanest sucker in the house bring that back i'm home it looked like a stampede coming my direction figure i hit the first guy leading the charge and then i'll split and so i punched the guy and took off. The woman's restroom was right by the front door. I ducked in the woman's bathroom, and there was a lady standing there, and I said, tell me when the fight's over. I duckged in there, and pretty soon she stuck her head in and said, you can come out now, cowboy. I went out. She was handy, and the band was playing, so I asked her to dance. And I'm a quick study. Don't take me long to find out she had a car, job, money, and a bank place to stay. I didn't have none of that. And Olin Goose had split. And so I said why don't you take me home with you? And on the way home, I said, where you been? I haven't seen you around. She said, where you've been? I haven' seen you round. I said I asked you first. She said well I just got out of an unwed mother's home. I said hell I just go out of the penitentiary. We deserve each other. We didn't fall in love with you. We fell in sick with you where the rocks in my head fit the holes in hers. You know? I knew it was love because it hurt. You know and I mean, it was just We dated two weeks And they nicknamed us Hatchet and Hammer Both of us were physically violent Physically violent And I know today that comes from fear And fear is a strange emotion Because to some people fear demobilizes them They hunker down like an old mule and you can't budge To other people fear is an accelerator And I drove fear like a fast car And her and I just set up a little light housekeeping And it was just absolutely insane And after a couple of years While she said she's pregnant And I was the father I don't remember that Must have been crossing over the invisible line When that happened So I tried to do the right thing We got married And had a little girl And the progressiveness of the disease Just got worse and worse and worth I tried new things I went to school I went from the time I started the first grade until I quit going to school for 21 years and never learned a thing. It's easier to go to school than it is to work. It ain't nothing easier than going to school, but it ain't nothin' harder than learnin', and my family wanted me to go school, so I'd go bootleg and do all kinds of things. Finally, they got in a lot of trouble and it's time to leave, and I know when it's Time to Leave. Alcoholics know when it'stime to leave. I loaded up my wife and kid and the dog and the cat and headed for California. Now most people in Alcoholics Anonymous call those trips a geographic traffic. When I left Texas, they call it an unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. It's time to split, and I know when it's time to slip. Got to California, moved into a house. My uncle helped me get a house, moved right into ahouse, and a bunch of wild people in the neighborhood, you know, got the deal on the house, move right in there, a bunch of hippies on one side of me taking LSD. Never seen that before. They're taking that I had LSD and laying out in the front yard watching the sun come up and go down. And wandering around the neighborhood naked and blind, you know. There was a couple of guys over there. I left Oily and Goose back home so I needed some friends. So I made friends with Doc and Professor next door, you knew. Motorcycle gang on the other side. And we got a good deal on this place. Moved right in. Set up a little lighthouse keeping. Then I split and I'd go off and do my thing. And I'd come home and I always brought people home with me. I always brought guys home with me to watch me fight with my wife that didn't want to go home and fight with theirs, you know. They're always on my side, you kno. Always standing behind me saying, get her, get her, hey dude step to the head of the line she's got a butcher knife up here. Came in there one time passed out on her 15 minutes into a two-hour conversation and well-meaning women don't like that when you reject them like that. She stabbed me all over my back with that butcher knife. And when I came to it, I said, God, something's wrong with my back. You know how they are? Let me see. Because you've been drinking that rock gut whiskey and you broke out of acne in the back. Peeled that old shirt off me and said, let me get to rubbing alcohol. I'll fix you. Yeah. I'll tell you one thing, them Baptists dipped me and sprinkled me, but that alcohol bath got me closer to Jesus than anything I'd ever had. We just had them knock down, drag out, fight. I love the story about the two women that went to the zoo. My wife was going over there with her girlfriend, went to a zoo and they're walking around. She said, I want to see the gorilla. Friends said, no, we don't want to sea the gorilla She said yep, I wanna see the grilla Said oh, we can't see the Grilla We don't need to see The Grilla She said I do need to sea The Grila So they went over to the Grila cage She reached in there and pet that Grila Bam! That Grila jerked her right back in the cage Took her back in her back mauling her and molesting her, and her friend didn't know what to do. Ran and got the zookeeper. They got a tranquilizer gun and came and shot the grill and he fell over on top of her and crushed her and the ambulance came and hauled her away and two or three days later her friend thought, maybe I better go see her. She goes over to the hospital and there she is laying in traction. And her friend comes in and said, oh my God, you must be in a lot of pain. The zoo said, you just don't know. He ain't called, he ain't written, he ain'T even set no flowers. She went down to the pet shop one time To get me a pet She goes in there and there's this fuzzy thing Laying on the counter Asked the guy in there What's that? The pet store owner said That's a burger She said I want it He said lady It'll only take commands from a man And she said I don't want it He said, why would you want something that will only take a command from a man? She said, I just want it. He said let me show you. He said tell it to do something. So he said, burger, carpet. It was laid there. The pet store owner, a man, he said burger, carpet and they just jumped down on that carpet and just tore a hole in the carpet and jumped back up on the table. She said I want it! Pet store guy said, why would we want something that only takes commands from a man? She said because I'm going to take it home when old Keith comes home he's going to come in He's going to say, what's that? And I'm going to said it's a burger. And he's going say, burger my ass. Love that perpetual revenge, you know. That's why I move fast. Moving targets is hard to hit. And I ended up in A&A That'll happen to you, you know A lot of other things happened to me But I ended Up in A & A When I wasn't really An alcoholic I was a hope-to-die dope fiend Or I was just about To be an alcoholic Or I Was just Coming up on Being an alcoholic Or maybe just A little bit alcoholic But I wasn' t really Really, really An alcoholic That's alright The judge Sent me to AA And she took me And she pulled up Out in front of the meeting And go in there And I went in And I sat in there And I listened I'm sure they talked about everything I didn't hear nothing you know and there's two kinds of people come to Alcoholics Anonymous been my observation from that people who come to change the consequences in their life and people who comes to change their life and I just came to change the consequences in my life and so I went to one meeting a week for four months didn't drink or use nothing just sit there in that meeting didn't get a sponsor didn't give it nothing no steps no book no nothing just sat there counted all those squares in the ceiling the light bulbs and hairs on the back of your head and waited The meeting over yet, you know And then I'd go out and get in the car She'd take me home, dump me off I'd lie on the couch and wait there for a week Get up, go back to the meeting Same thing Amazing thing, after doing that for four months I hadn't drank or used for four month I looked at myself and I said Self, you're looking pretty good The old dog's laying over here Patting him on the head The cat's in the lap purring She's in kitchen I'm back in the big bedroom Beat the deal down at the courthouse I thought to myself You have prematurely gone to Alcoholics Anonymous I know I'll be there someday But I'll old and it'll all be over So I resigned from Alcoholics Anonymous A strange thing happened to me When I resigned From AlcoholicsAnonymous I got struck drunk immediately And the amazing thing about it is It never gets better, it always gets worse And my life got worse And ain't nothing worse than having a head full of AA And a belly full of booze I mean you just know you're a loser then man and you know they're right, you know? And the progressiveness of it is unbelievable, and we all know that, and some of us are going to get to know that I suppose. But I know what it's like to stand in my kitchen and take a drink out of a bottle of vodka, look down the hallway, a little nine-year-old girl standing down there in that hallway, had her chin on her chest and her hair was in her face. She didn't run down there and grab me by the leg and say, Daddy, come play with me. She's looking at me and I was looking at her and I took a drink. I took a drink because I had to have a drink because that phenomena craving inside of me demanded that I have a drink. Turned back around and she was gone. She just wanted to know what direction I was going so she'd go the other way. I know what it's like to stand in my bathroom and I'm taking that drink and doing that deal and I look in the mirror in the bathroom and I see a reflection little ten-year-old girl looking through the hole in the door in that bathroom where I I saw the reflection of her face and she was looking at me in that mirror and she didn't say daddy what are you doing come play with me please don't beat me and mommy she didn's say nothing she just looked through the hole in the door in that bathroom and I looked at me in that mirrow and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that what I'm putting in me has got me there isn't one logical thought in my head that can even imagine how I can stop it now I know what it's like to crawl out of the back of that house needing a drink the phenomena craving i'm talking about the phenomena of craving inside of me is screaming louder than any thought any prayer i'd ever uttered in my life and the only money in that house is in my daughter's piggy bank and i crawled down the hallway and reached under her bed and pulled it out and broke it and i'm separating the pennies nickels dimes and the quarters because a big time slick like me not going to take no pennies down at the liquor store i'll be showing silver the ego of the alcoholic is unbelievable when we're in the gutter And looking over my shoulder I saw a little ten and a half year old girl Hiding in the closet behind me She had a black eye and a busted lip And I was pretty sure I had something to do with that She didn't go to school that day Because she looked that way It wasn't because she was ashamed of the way she looked Hell, we all looked like that We all looked that But if she'd gone to school looking like that That day the cops would have come and got daddy And that ain't too bad Because they'd take him away And the worst part about it is I get out and when you put me away like that and I get out, I come home and it was just easier to stay in that closet that day and I looked over my shoulder and being the very best father I could be that day, I give that kid a break I let her shoot out behind me without inflicting any more pain in their life because at that point in my life when you caught me at those pitifully incomprehensible demoralizing situations it is absolutely necessary for me to put some kind of painful memory in your mind, physically, mentally that overshadows what you saw me doing. You can bet on it, you just don't know when it's coming. Now maybe some of you have been there. Maybe some of you are going there. And we all know that some of our children are going to be there. They're going there but I come to share with you hope not the pain of that. Hope hope is a vision beyond your present circumstances and on my hands of my knees feeling my own kids money I had no idea what hope was I knew only one thing the phenomena craving inside of me that thing that demanded a drink that saying that animal inside of media that made it absolutely necessary for me to drink here regardless what logical thought intellectual act mental prayer that I could conjure up it made it absolute necessary for me to take a drink because the drink I'd already taken took another drink I am so I'm so grateful for that. If you're new or relatively new, if you've been here for some time and you wonder about forgiveness, I'll share with you something that is very, very important to me. The last year and a half of my drinking, I knew I was doing wrong. Morally, I know what I was going was wrong, but physically I had to take that drink. The phenomenon of craving made it absolutely necessary for me to drink, even though I knew it was wrong. And I'm so grateful for that because when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I was able to forgive myself because I knew the difference between right and wrong intermittently. The definition of an alcoholic is a drunk with a conscience. And I am so grateful for that. Because I knew what I was doing. I just did not know how to stop it. Now if you can imagine sitting here tonight, the terror and the bewilderment and the absolute hopelessness of living like that then let me share this with you tonight this very minute this very heartbeat that lady said know that you heard before me that lady and I have been together over 37 years it's the most important thing in my life as far as a human being my sobriety comes first my God bonds that that. That lady and I, we have forgiven each other. We love each other." There's a tremendous bondage there because of where we came from, what happened, and where we are today. That little girl that was in that closet, she's a beautiful young girl. She's over 34 years old. She stands tall. She is a ramp model. She was 34 years old and still is a ramp model that's unheard of in that profession. And the reason she is is because she has an An aura about her. An aura about her that shows the godness that we understand. They don't understand that. They don' t need to understand that So you see if you can imagine the terror and the bewilderment and the absolute hopelessness of living in that insanity then don' T set aside the possibility that for you even you can have the good things in your life that I just shared with you about mine We have to understand not only is it It's a bad, my past is my greatest asset, but what my life is today. At 20, a little over 20 years of sobriety, I don't come to tell you about tragedies. I'm not here tonight to tell You. I haven't had no tragedies in 20 years Of Sobriety. I've had a lot of experiences, but I come to bear good news. I come To tell You that this thing works, and it works so good I can't even explain it. But the most important thing is that it's put a family back together. It's put people back together that hated each other. It's allowed them to forgive each other and it's allowed him to live good, productive, fulfilling life provided we do what we say we've got to do. You see, the amazing thing when you hear us share as a family, we talk about a man and a wife and a child, the whole family's riddled with alcoholism and we talk abut the recovery that we have today is because we put everything in our life into this program. We've worked it with 110%. The whole family. The whole family has put that in. It's not just that one came and the other one waited. The whole familly put everything in our whole being into it because all we had was failure. There's a tremendous amount of effort that's gone in to be able to get the sobriety and the recovery that we have. It's an amazing thing. I mean, when I went to school they said if you work these these problems out and use these formulas, you get the right answers. The amazing thing, when I came back to Alcoholics Anonymous after four and a half years of not doing those things, didn't get a sponsor or anything like that, I didn't have anything, I didn' t know what to do, I just drank. And then I come to Alcoholic Anonymous, after hitting some kind of a bottom, I suppose, I gave up. And I turned my will and my life forward, absolute and total complete stranger, with no conditions. And I started going to meetings with AlcoholicsAnonymous. them. So I got a sponsor, a guy named Rotten Ron. Rotten Ron was assigned to me. It was where I sobered up. They assigned sponsors. The guy that 12-stepped me, little Jack said he was my first sponsor because he did a 12-step call on me. And then I went over here and I'm in this detox and Rotten Rons in the detox. And so they said, Rotten Ronnie's your new sponsor. I said, what's a sponsor? A friend? And they said no, if you want a friend, get a dog. I had a dog, he hated me. they said how long did you drink I said good hard 22 years they said you're going to have to go to a meeting every day for 22 years before you can have a night off and see a movie I believed them they told me I was going to do an inventory one of the silliest things how can you take somebody that books men and women drink for the effect the effect is after some amount of consumption you can't distinguish the difference between true and false right and wrong that means you don't have a conscience and then you're gonna do a moral inventory a fearful inventory because I can't do that and he said just try it so i did a immoral inventory and a fearful inventory first just to show them that it didn't work and i gave it to him and uh you know they looked at that and i had 157 things down there that i was afraid of this old guy took this pencil and he drew a line and he tied them all together and he took 157 thanks and narrowed it down to 10. i said 10 things i'm afraid of he said yeah so i went to a meeting i said in that meeting at the meetings over, I came back and looked at that list and I wrote number 11, all of the above at once. Absolute, total and complete fear. The amazing thing in the book says that when we sober up we're like rubber bands and we unwind. In other words all that physical violence that I ventilated when I was drinking it now goes inward because I can't put it outward I've had total abstinence from physical violence since I sobered up over 20 years And all that, here I am sober and all that stuff's going inside. You know, it's just like it's going in like an ingrown hair, man. I'm just sitting around and it's Just going on the inside of me And it's like battery acid running inside of Me. And I'd try to write it. I would write and it looked like I wrote with a Hershey bar. Hate, hate, hate. Give it to my sponsor and he'd put little X's down there. I love you. I carried so many guns with me because I had people after me. But if you'd have bumped into me, it would look like a mushroom cloud went off, you know? When I finally sobered up, I came out of a motel room over in Taft, California. You know, I mean, if the world's got a rectum, it's Taft. I'll tell you. I mean I was over there in a place that you could get a room there for $50 a year. And I came down there. I had hair down to my rear, beard down to mine navel. I didn't wear underwear. I didn' t wear socks. You know, I'd travel light and, you know, had $50,000 on me. It wasn't mine, but I had it. And, no, I mean, I didn't know what I'd come down to alcoholics. And honestly, I'm just crazy. I'm sitting there just crazy, I just, I don't even know what was going on. You know what, my sponsor would get newcomers when I was about 30, 45 days sober and he'd get them and bring them up to him and he would be pointing at me and I'd ask that guy, so what did my sponsor say about me? And he said, newcomer, your sponsor told me if I go back out and drink I'll end up like you. I mean, sometimes the best you can be is the group's worst example. You know what I mean? I just, I didn't sober up and everything. I wanted to drink. I told people I wanted a drink. They let me out of that detox. There was 39 of us in the detox. I told them, I want a drink! See, I'm glad that's why the book and all the history of it... You read Bill Wilson. I didn' t identify as Bill Wilson had that whom. I had that kind of deal when I did bad drugs, you know? I identified with Dr. Bob, who wanted to drink for a long time, even into sobriety. I wanted to Drink. And I tell people that when I was in that detox, they had 39 of us in there, and the last day they let us out, well, they put us in a circle, and everybody got to take each other's inventory, and 38 people said I was going to Drink since I got out. Gave me my first resentment. They were so convincing I was gonna Drink when I got into that detox that I almost said I'll Drink, and I thought, to heck with you. you. I'll see you in hell for our drink. There was a little pilot light inside of me, a little fight inside of my that said no. Oh hang on. The amazing thing is it's over 20 years later and I'm the only one out of 39 that's still sober. See so we ain't here for the vote and this ain't a popularity contest. See? And I went home and I told Sue, I said I gotta go to a meeting with Alcoholics Anonymous every day for the rest of my life. What are you gonna do? And she said I've been going to Al-Anon and the kids are going to Ali Jean Dog's going to alley dog and the cat's going to alley cat. I don't know, you know. I just go to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't know what to do. I owed over $250,000 to people that you can't write them a letter and say I'll send you $100 a month. I had two different groups of people wanting to kill me. I had been mulling dope and I hit a package and forgot where I hid it. And those people were really upset. that's why I felt safe in a meeting of AlcoholicsAnonymous. I knew them people wasn't coming in there for fear they'd get infected, you know. And I had all that stuff coming down the pike when I sobered up. I mean, I'm crazy. My house, it wasn't a door jam in my house. It wasn't split wide open like he'd put a grenade in it. My home was painted three different colors. There was an Edsel and a Corvair in the front yard, you now. And, you kno, antiques. I'd ridden my Harley up the driveway doing a wheelie waving at somebody down the street and drove it right into the front of the house and it was stuck in the front of the house. Sorry, I was a sportster. I was down that low and uh inside joke for the bikers. I mean, I was nuts. I didn't know what to do and Saturday morning was a thing. I'd wake up Saturday morning you know it's like you know I got to get to a meeting. I got to get to a meeting. Okay well go to the early morning meeting. I'd go in there and I think well I'm from From Texas, I'm a cowboy, so I'd put my Levi's on, my boots, you know, and get my western outfit on, my cowboy hat and suit. She'd go right over there and go to her phone and call her sponsor. And I'd be in there in front of the mirror doing a couple of shithowdies, you knows? And get ready to go to that meeting. I'd go out and kiss her goodbye, you now, and I'd get my pickup truck and head down the street and I think, no, I don't want to do that. I'm not a cowboy today. I turn around and I go back and park my pickup car and I take my cowboy stuff off and I say, I'm going to bike her today. I'll go put my leathers on, on my bandana you know get up in front of the mirror and do a couple of rev up thing i'm gonna take my harley down and drive right up that old timer's ass you know go out kiss her goodbye and i go you know out and get my harvey fired up and get down there about a block from the meeting and no i'm kind of a marshmallow today i don't want to be around turn around and go home park my harley go in put my three-piece suit on my wannabe secretary suit and uh get in front of the mayor and do you know look up the dictionary and get something in 75 words so so I can sound big deal, you know, if you're wearing a three-piece suit, and I'm in there. I go out and kiss her goodbye. She's still talking to her sponsor. I go up and get my big AA car out. I had a big Lincoln by then. It had 104,000 miles on it, but it was a big Lincoln. If you're going to be a newcomer in the AA, get you a big car so you can park it out in front of the meeting and give the newcomers hope. I got my big Lincoln and my three-piece suit, and I drive down there to the meeting. I get close to the meet, and I think, no, I forgot all them words. Can't go in there with a three piece suit on without some big words. So I'd drive the Lincoln back home, park it out in the driveway, and go in, take off my three-piece suit, put on my sweats, go out and kiss her goodbye, and jog to the meeting. Know why newcomers are tired when they get to a meeting? Had about three or four identity crises just getting there. Yeah. You got no coffee, huh? Yeah. You know, I mean, I had it down to four. That ain't bad, you know. One time, Sue's sponsor said, how many people live in that house anyway? I said, oh, just me and the alcoholic. He's got it down to four, but today he don't know who he is yet. You know what I mean? I don't even know. I'd stand around a meeting all day. I'd try to work the steps. I'd done all that stuff, step, stuff. You know, I didn't mind writing. I'd write. I'd ride anything, whatever you want, you know. I'd been the secretary of the meeting. I was cool. I'd paid all the money back I stole. I was school, you Know. You know, and I was just so terminally cool that I stand there in the meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, three-and-a-half years sober, stone cold sober, so dry as a fire hazard. You know? She's all fine over there in service, and the kids over there doing good, and we moved out of that old house and got another house. Everything's just moving right along in AA, and i'm just, i've worked all the steps, i've done all this stuff, and im just standing there just waiting. As a matter of fact, Bob the Cop, this guy, Coppa was an AA guy. He gave me a grenade. He said, here, hold this grenade. Probably the most spiritual thing you'll ever know is to put that in your mouth and pull the pin. And I'd just stand in the back of that old Anaheim Milano Club with my grenade and just radiate hate. I didn't identify the people who said, I love you, but I hate you. If you can't do better than that, get out of the hate business. I hated everybody equal. Just sit there and just hate. just dying I just went to hospital they put nine pints of blood back in me because I hate sober hey just like battery acid in there just hate this is it so sponsor said he's probably as good as he's ever gonna be gotta love old-timers that have the wisdom and they're the have the experience to watch a guy like that see because there's a to surrender in sobriety. There's a bottom in sobrietty. And standing there doing all the deals, all that thing, I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen next and it really didn't make sense. Drinking was not an alternative. Suicide was not another alternative. I had a hit list. Man, if you're new or relatively new, make yourself an AA hit list so if you drink, you can go back and kill all them people that told you you were going to drink. And I'd just stand there three and a half years sober were just dying inside you know i had my grenade and my sponsor was watching me with his tenacity you know waiting and all of a sudden i looked around there's some weirdo standing next to him the weirdest looking guy you ever seen wasn't short enough to be a midget or tall enough to be a man just a weird guy painted his feet black with shoe polish so he didn't have to wear socks he beat the laundry deal you know had weird hair sticking out everywhere had a cap pulled down over one ear you know and he come up to me and i said won't you comb your hair and he said i did and i I said, hell you did. Don't look like you combed your hair to me. So what do you want? And he said, will you be my sponsor? And I think, oh, Jesus. I can't hold my grenade, you know. I go over to my sponsor and I said... See that guy over there? And he says, yeah. I said well he just asked me to be his sponsor. And my sponsor said, yeah, no, I sent him over. You can go over and tell him you'll be a sponsor and do exactly what he says. You know, that don't even make sense to me today. Why would I want to go do what that guy says? You know what I mean? You don't argue with sponsors. They always have some kind of a stupid reason. If you argue with them, they go nuts and embarrass themselves, you know? I know the deal. I knew my sponsor had been trying to help this guy for years. And I was going to lay the deal on him, and then my sponsor was going take credit for it. I knew the deal, I know how they work. So I went back over and said, give me my grenade, you now. So my sponsor says, I've got to be your sponsor. What do you want to do? He says, I want to go for a ride in your Lincoln. Oh, shit. So you go out that door, I'll go out this door. No, he said, I want with you. And he grabbed me by the arm, we'd go trucking over the door and there's a couple of guys I know leaning against the door jamb, weirdo. He says... That's my new sponsor! I said, Man, don't tell people I'm your sponsor! They looked at us and said, Boy, it's going to be fun to watch you two grow. You know? I got that guy in the Lincoln and the way we went, he started talking sick stuff to me, man. He's laying some sick, sick stuff on me. And he said, you ever do anything like that? You know, yep, I did something like that and I started telling him some stuff I did. A couple of times I had to kind of stretch my story a little bit because you can't let them one-up you, you know. Picked him up one morning He said, I know you lied to me last night Because it's physically impossible To do what you said you did I tried Took him down to hear the great Chuck Chamberlain Back then Sat on the front row And Chuck came in And laid the big message about God Sat in the front room And after a meeting We go out in Malaken Sitting on Malaken And this guy says We need a miracle I said, what are you talking about? He said We need We need A miracle Guys like us Need a miracle You know Like a burning bush or parting of the water or something like that. I'm thinking if I had some lighter fluid, I could torch the hedge over here. Had an old .45 in the glove box. I reached in and got her out and run around a chamber, shoved it upside his head. I said, tell you what, Ace, I'm going to count to ten. You pray. If I don't have a floating resentment I need to pop a cap on your ass, you've just done step three. I counted to ten, he's humming over there, and I felt pretty good. Laid the hammer down, throwed it back in the glove box. He jumped out of that car, ran right back in that meeting hall where my sponsor was, rat-finked on me, told my sponsor, showed him that ring on the side of his head where the barrel of that .45 was and told my spouse I put that gun to his head and made him do step three. Old Ron says, yeah, I know, ain't he spiritual? Now I know that sounds crazy crazy, but we're both still sober, huh? And some of you folks know them bent fenders that I work with. You got to stick it right up where they can hear it, you know? And I was moving right along with that guy. I was doing a little Sunday morning meditation, come a knock on my front door. I went over to the front door, there he was. Looked like a half of him was stuck in the concrete and the other half of me was headed for Tijuana. Had his old car parked in my new driveway. Running oil right down my new driveway already. And stickers all over his old car said, AA and all that stuff. You know, now my neighbor's new, you know? Had a big book with a bunch of papers stuck in it. I said, what do you want? He said, I want to work the steps like you did. And I'm thinking, I know I did. I'm going to see. I said yeah, the first step says I'm powerless. I'm pretty sure of that. I said come on in. And the second half of that says my life's not managed but I'm pretty sure that because you're going to be here a while. The second step says, we're crazy. I understand you and you understand me, so we must be on step three again. He said, oh man, you're not going to put that gun up here, are you? Nah. We got on our knees down there in that kitchen and he cuddled up underneath my arm. I had that tingling sensation and questioned my sexuality. I mean, hell, everybody's hugging around here. I didn't understand, you know. We said that third step prayer together and the cat walked by and looked at us weird And I thought, man, as soon as she sees us down here on her knees together, she's going to know I've whacked out for sure, you know. He got up and he had a bunch of paper. He throwed that paper out in front of me. He said, I want to do my fourth step. And I said, you're supposed to do that before you come to your sponsor's house. And he said, I can't write. Will you write if I talk? And I says, yeah. So I started writing. And then he said... Did you ever do anything like that? I said... Yeah, I did some stuff like that. And I started telling him some of my things. Matter of fact, a couple of things came up I'd forgot to tell anybody. body. And I knew God was in the room and that ding-a-ling couldn't read, so I just put a little bit of my crap in his. Hey, God don't care. Just get it out, baby. He jumped up and kissed me when he's through for that. Yeah, said, I love you. I figured, well, that's it. Divorce her and follow him. Hell, I don't know. But I know I know something for the first time in my entire life. That's the very first time in my entire life that I ever spent any time at all, an hour or so there, you know, whatever it took. And I never thought about me. I thought about him. And that's the healing. It made full circle. It went from the head to the heart. It went From the Head to the Heart. And sitting there looking at that guy in the eye when he's talking to me about his thing, even the feelings that he didn't understand, the pain that he didn't understand himself and could not at that time put the words to I understood by watching him that's why I love doing fifth steps I love to look them in the eye when they're doing fifth step because you will show me the pain that I should have had for the things that I did and that's the only way that a drunk like me will get a conscience is seeing you hurt when I've done the same thing and never even thought twice about it and knew I was wrong see and I knew I was wrong and when I know I'm wrong I can heal I know I can heal the healing starts by my admission of my wrongs and sitting there that day that guy told me simple little things he told me them stupid little things he had a daughter told me about his daughter came home had a little flower she cut out you know paper at school and came home crawled up on his lap and he was sober and she said daddy I'm glad you're sober And I'm going to give you a flower that will never die. And she opened it up. That's the kind of stuff you and I sit there at my kitchen table and talk about. See? Not that macho stuff. I know what it's like to sit in a courtroom and have a judge tell me that I'd taken another man's life in a bar fight that I didn't even appreciate or show any guilt or remorse for another human being's life. I knew that. When you live like an animal, think like an animal, you've got to defend yourself like an animal. But sitting there in my kitchen that day, we didn't talk about those things. What we talked about was the fact that we were so grateful for the fact that we were both sober because we were both sober. We both had two little girls that wouldn't have to go through the things that we knew they'd go through if we were drinking. Gratitude for physical sobriety sitting there that day. Being grateful to human beings beyond under our own power of myself by myself i didn't know how to stay sober but sitting there with that guy in my kitchen that day sharing the things the simple little things that puts the feelings and the touches and the sounds and the effects of sobriety i love the sound of sobpriety i lovethe sound ofsobrietyinmyownhome i wake up early in the morning and lay next to that lady Like I say, we've been together a long, long time. We fit, butt to gut, we fit. That's good. That's great. I wake up early in the morning and I lay there and I listen to her breathe easy. She breathes easy. She sleeps easy. I love the sound of that. Because I know the screaming, I know The yelling, I don't know the shooting on and going off I don' t live like that anymore I love the smell Of sobriety I was a stinking drunk Stinking old drunk Didn't bathe and drink that stuff until it come out of my pores I love to sit in my own house And smell life And be able to understand That I don''t have to live like this anymore But I care I really care I haven't cheated on that lady in over 20 years and she hasn't cheated on me it's just my story like I said I came here I brought a wife here the amazing thing is that after some period of sobriety I'm sitting here and I'm trying to develop a relationship with God I did all my prayers they told me to do the prayers I've always read in the morning I've also read my morning meditation I've tried to do it I couldn't remember a lot of those things but I did the drill Well, I know that today, looking back on it, there's been many times in my life that I just reached out and got it and it was there because of the meditation. I always read my morning meditation and I always write. Every day I write. And I was writing along one day, I don't know, I was several years sober, over ten years sober and it dawned on me I hadn't cheated on this lady over that period of time. And the significance of that is what that put in that relationship is trust. Trust. Something I knew nothing about. When I came down to Alcoholics and Onslaught they talk about a fifth step I said I don't trust anybody and they said that's because you're not trustworthy. And it dawned on me you know that lady and I have a relationship that has trust in it. Freedom. No secrets. I'm as sober as I am secret. I have no secrets. There's nothing going on in my life today that I can't stand here and let you see. An amazing thing about that is if there's no secrets, there's no gossip. There's nothing to defend. I don't have to defend or I don' t have to outperform I don''t have to maneuver, I don ''t have do all those things that I had to do when I was drinking. And that trust was there and what that means is that whenever I have that relationship with another human being, when I have the trust with another human being then I have the same with my God. When I trust my God it's because Because I have no secrets from God. No secrets. There's no dark places in my life that you can't shine the light on. See? And that's what puts the freedom in that relationship. I haven't hit that lady. I haven'T hit that kid. I haven' t written a hot check. There's some absolutes that I had to do. That's the hard part. It's not just drinking and not just don't do this. When I tried to just not drink and go to AA, I kept getting drunk. I had to change. And I was afraid of change. That was the hardest thing. Don't you understand? I don't know who I am. How can I change? I don' t know what changed. I'm afraid of changing. And the old timers say, You're just an alcoholic. Why don't you just be an alcoholic? My wife would say, Well, you're going to just be an alcoholic, you know, instead of trying to be all these other things. I'm so grateful for the time and the old-timers that gave me the time and the commitments that gave me the support during that time and my sobriety has not been a bed of roses let me tell you I came here with a lot of things follow me there's a part in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous that talks about our men there's part in a big book of Alcoholic Anonymous that says our enemies will welcome us our enemies will be glad to see us Our enemies will help us. Well, let me tell you, I had some enemies. I had to meet some enemies, and when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous and I sobered up, I owed over $250,000 to people that I just, you know, had been involved with organized crime for over 20 years. When I came down to Alcoholic Anonymous, I was a little bit more than that. I had that debt, and the people in AlcoholicsAnonymous told me that if I had a financial amends, I'd have to pay that money back, saying, I'm sorry, won't cut it. and my enemies welcomed me they helped me they suggested things that I could do and so even though I sobered up and I had these things that I didn't I had to be faithful to my family I had a family recovery the financial part of my life was in shambles and there's certain things there that I couldn't do that I just didn't stop just because I quit drinking we all have those character defects and even though the other character defects that were there in my life that I had to stop. I had a stop drinking, I had stop using, I had stopped hitting people, I had it stop cheating on my wife, I had the stop them hot checks. There was a financial amends there that demanded immediate action. At 54 days sober, I had go get about quarter of a million dollars worth of cocaine and take it and give it back to some people. And I didn't go into my sponsor and say would you like to take a ride with me? I was sitting in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous I got up and met Alcoholics One made a phone call Told some people I'd meet them And I brought that back And I gave it to them And I said I'm going to Alcoholics And that's where I'm gonna be And I turned around and walked off And I figured they were gonna blow a hole in me The size of a watermelon And I walked through the first wall of fear I ever walked through in sobriety And I found that every good thing in my life Has been preceded by a wall of Fear I have to walk through that wall of fear in order to get the good. And that day, I turned around in that parking lot and walked back through that wall of fire, and I knew a little bit of freedom. I had to pay that money back, and by the time I was seven, eight, nine years sober, I knew that the way I was making amends was going to require some amends. And at 10 years sober I was indicted by a federal grand jury for money laundering. And I look back on that, you know, and it was an unbelievable experience. I'm 10 years over. I'm sitting in meetings with alcoholics anonymous. I'm hurting. I'm just like a newcomer. I'm sitting in meetings with Alcoholics Anonymous. My wife just went right back into that insanity. How can you do this? How could this happen? You know, I'm not even drinking. I'm using nothing. The whole damn thing just stopped. Ten years sober, I'M SITTING IN MEETINGS WITH ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS SAYING, I NEED HELP. ASKING OLD TIMERS TO HELP ME. THERE'S TWO KINDS OF OLD TIMEERS IN ALCOHALICS Anonymous THEY'RE THE KINDR THAT'LL SIT THERE WHEN YOU'RE TEN YEARS SOBER AND SAY, YOU DESERVE THIS SHIT, KID. You've been running around here for 10 years, smarting off. Now work through it. And then there's old-timers that will say, come with me, I've been there. There's old timers now, colleagues and audience, that believe that 10 years is just as important to save as 10 damn days. And I'm grateful for them, baby. You bet. Just because you got length of sobriety doesn't guarantee that you won't hurt. You'll hurt more than you ever have. But when you get through that, you'll be stronger than you ever were. And that's what they promised me with spiritual muscles. To be able to live and breathe and walk and talk and enjoy life. And I've walked through each one of those things in my sobriety and in my life. And it's taught me an unbelievable relationship with a God that I can trust. That I can trust. Each one of those little situations, each oneof those little surrenders, each one of those times that I had to go through made me stronger made me more durable instead of rigid and made me more loving and more compassionate I am so grateful for that if you're new or relatively new let me share one thing with you then I'll shut up there was a family that lived in Europe a beautiful family, a mother, father and a little girl they had a dream being alcoholics in this room those of us in alcoholism, we were dreamers so maybe you can identify this family had a dream their dream was to come to America and the mother and father, they were beautiful people had no flaws really, little girl they loved her very much their dream Was to come To America and they didn't have much money so they made a pact among themselves and they decided to save every dime that they could get until they could have enough money to buy passage on a great ocean liner that sailed into the port of this little town where they lived they knew that so they'd made this pact that they would save all their money and pull it together so that someday they'd be able to have this dream come true. And came the day that they got the money to be able to buy the ticket on the Great Ocean Liner, they bought it and they went home and they packed all their stuff, everything they had, their clothes, their food, everything. They went down and got on the great ocean liner and they got their room, their porthole there and they looked out there and came the moment the great Ocean Liners sailed away and their dream was coming true. And they were so happy and just, you know, their love was just so thick, it was just so exciting and they sat in that room and they watched it. Every day they looked at that wind and all they could see was ocean. Four days out in the ocean on this great trip that their dream was going to come true, a little girl went to her father and she said, Daddy, Daddy, I've been in this room for four days. And for four day's the only thing I've had to eat is crackers and cheese. I can't stand crackers and cheeses anymore. I've got to have something else to eat. And the father being a good father reached in his pocket and got a nickel out or something and he gave her a coin and he said, Here honey, go up to the galley and get an ice cream. The little girl was gone. She was gone an hour or two. And the mother and father were totally just, you know, besides themselves. They were worried sick. Pretty soon there was a knock at the door and they opened the door and there was little girl. She had a beautiful smile on her face and she was so excited. And the father said, where have you been? We've been worried sick, where you been for two hours? And she said, oh daddy, I went up to the galley and I had a steak and I potatoes and I two ice creams. And the Father said, my goodness, you can get all that for a nickel? And she says, no daddy, the food's free, it comes with a ticket. My friends, God is free. It comes with a ticket. See? But that story is not about love. That story is about ignorance and about teachers because they were ignorant. I came to Alcoholics Anonymous ignorant. I came down to Alcoholic Anonymous with crackers and cheese. I don't want crackers and cheeses. I'm not satisfied with that. I want the best that you can give me and you tell me you give me God, God is everything to enjoy in abundance. But be careful of your teachers. Be careful of you teachers because there are some teachers in Alcoholics Anonymous who are satisfied with crackers and cheese. There's some people in Alcoholic Anonymous that are satisfied by that. That isn't what the steps promise us. The steps promise a spiritual awakening that opens our eyes to peripheral vision so that you can walk down that street and hold your head up and you don't crawl before anyone. That you'd be able to walk out on them streets and you'd look them in the eye. That you'll be able to walk up there and hold you're head high. That you be able to enjoy life that you be be able to feel and express yourself with all the feelings and love that you always wanted through all your life. That's what Alcoholics Anonymous has done for me. When I came here I heard people say I love you and I didn't even know what that was. I thought when you said you loved me it meant I was next. And I came to Alcoholics It's anonymous and I've learned to love you. Not because of what you are individually, but because of who I am when I'm with you. God bless.