The Dry Drunk Danger of Lacking a Spiritual Path – Peter M.

I'm Peter, Recovered Alcoholic. Thank you. Grateful to be here. So it's the last week and it's been a blast for the last 11 weeks. And I get to take the show on the road after here, so I want to thank the group and James and Rachel for extending this invitation to me and get to share with you. Heard an interesting thing, story the other day was Sunday school and Sister Mary Teresa asked the classroom if they knew what the resurrection was. And little Johnny raised his hand, and he says, Sister Mary, I know what the Resurrection is. She says, Well, why don't you tell the class? He says, If it lasts more than four hours, call a doctor. And that's my joke for the year. OK, so God separated me from alcohol June 23rd, 1988. And I like to share my recovered alcoholic. Hopefully my life reflects that I say I am because anything less than that would be falsely humble. Another reason why I say recovered is one of the first promise in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and God's separation separates me from uncle June 23th, 1988, And it's a long road to get to recovered for me. And I didn't taste that until I was beginning the steps after almost six months of being an Alcoholics Anonymous and doing a lot of meetings and fellowshipping and doing A lot of things except one part of the triangle, which was the 12 steps. I was getting it by listening to speakers and talking about it, reading a little 12 and 12, reading a little big book but never really in it until I bottomed out. And then what took place was indeed the miraculous, the spiritual transformation that our book guarantees us. And I came to the realization one day that I haven't thought about drinking or taking any other substance in quite a while. It just showed up on me. I don't remember the last time I thought about it. And the great thing was I was always thinking about it and I tell new folks all the time if you're thinking about It doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong. Something's gone wrong if you're really into the 12 steps and you're practicing it and you'RE still thinking about it. That should be removed, certainly the obsession. And I realized that's what had happened to me. And the other thing that was removed as well was the other isms that accompany alcoholism. When they talk about driven by a hundred forms of fear, selfish, self-seeking, dishonest, and frightened, all the defects of character that give birth to behavior. Now I wasn't lily white here, but compared to the way I came into AA, I didn't look like the same guy anymore. My mind was not taking me down dark alleyways. And when I did have the thoughts about behaving inappropriately or bad thoughts about other people, there was this little nudging going on with me. And it really was that intuitiveness, that God voice telling me this is wrong. And that's when the road was being narrowed for me. See, the truth will find us. We always say the truth to make you free. The truth will fine me. The truth we'll find us through desperation, through behaving inappropriately, through drinking almost to our death. The truth, we'll show up every one of us. We don't look for the truth and show up. And when it gets bad enough, we usually come to the realization, okay, this is my life. It needs to change whether I'm drunk or sober. And any sort of dishonesty means I'm a liar. If I lie to you once or twice but I cling to be honest in the rest of my life, I'm not going to kill you. I'm going to lie. And if I have a little bit of lies, like a little Bit of Cancer, it's going to Kill Me. It's not going To Kill Anyone Else. It'll Offend People. It'll Hurt People. It'll Do Damage To Other People. But at the end of the day, I'm drinking. So it really comes to what kind of terms do I want to live on? Spiritual terms or my terms? God's terms, which means I'm going to live by someone else's rules or my terms? And based on my track record, the question is based on what I've been doing, how has that been working for me? I was in Minnesota. I was out there neighborhood of ten months and I was going to meetings And I had just started working with this gentleman out there who was helping me through the book after almost bottoming out after six months, hitting a bottom in AA sober. And because I'm separated, I learned this first thing, because I am separated from my uncle, it doesn't mean I am much better. In fact, many of us, I know for me, can be more dangerous sober than when I am drunk. When I am drank, I am easy. I drink, I pass out, put me in a corner, just leave me in the hallway, I'm good. I won't show up for life, but I'm predictable. When I'm sober and I need a drink and I don't have any kind of spiritual way of living, I'm dangerous. So I'm getting with this guy and we're starting this big book and I'm living in Minnesota and I was living in a town called, I think it's Brooklyn Park or Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. And up until that point, I was getting all these little sober jobs and things like mowing lawns, car service, whatever I can do to make a couple of bucks to keep afloat. And this gentleman said, why don't you come to my house? I live there with my sister. She's an Allen Honor. She is a therapy person. He was taping for something called Gopher State Tape Libraries, one of the tapers. The back of his house says it's all yours. And so I had a little place to live. And what this guy did for me, I didn't know anything about AA cassettes at the time. New people, we had cassettes before CDs. The old timers know what I'm talking about. And he had a bunch of cassettes. Now, I never knew AA had cassette tapes and you could listen to speakers. This was brand new. He had a wall full of tapes, and he said, there's two guys you want to listen to. Their names are Joe and Charlie, and I don't know Joe and Charley from anything. And I put them in, I put the headphones on, and we had big headphones back then, not the little buds, right? And I looked like a pilot. And, um, I start to listen to these two guys talk about the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and as if someone turned the light on in the room. I'd never heard this stuff before. And going to meetings, listening to these two guys and the message I kept getting was make sure I pray, call another drunk, get to a meeting and read my big book. And this guy was starting to take me through the book and there was one particular day, I didn't have a car, couldn't afford a car. I had no money now. And I was renting something called Rent-A-Rex in Minneapolis. They're cheap cars. They look like wrecks, and you could rent them. And I had nothing, and I had a walk, and there was still like two feet of snow outside. It's like near April, and I just had enough, and I was feeling really alone. Not time I have alone now, which is healthy, but alone, lonely. And the invitation from the family wasn't extended for me to come home yet, so I stopped asking, and there's no texting during my meeting, young fellow in the third row. Can't do that here, man. We're not going to text. Take that outside. This is Alcoholics Anonymous. And so I wasn't sure what to do, and I'm feeling really alone. And so what I did was prayed, made a phone call, and I opened up my big book. And they said, wherever you open up to, read. It's better than listening to the mind. And one of my favorite chapters in the big book Alcoholics Anonymous is a vision for you. And it still is. And if you're familiar with this chapter, when you get to the last page, I mean, it speaks volumes. This page became three dimensional to me. And I remember by the time I got done, I had like I was weeping, but not of sorrow and self-pity, which I was in right before I started. But I almost could feel the nearness of God and our founding members in that room telling me you're going to be OK. We'll get over this hurdle. And so it says, our book is meant to be suggestive only. We realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us. Ask him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick. And that we can do in our 11th step and practice in step 12. The answers will come if your own house is in order. And this is key. Is my house in order? What's my behavior look like? How am I in thought, word, and deed? What's My relationship with God look like because if my house is out of order and I sponsor people, they're going to be out of water because they're doing what I'm doing. I'm the teacher, and I need to remember some people coming into AA, they're very vulnerable. They're impressionable. So whatever I tell them, they'll probably going to do. The answers will come if your own house is in order, but obviously you cannot transmit something you haven't got, and sometimes I will what I do, and that's untreated alcoholism. See to it that your relationship with Tim is right, and great events will come to pass for you and countless others. This is the great fact for us. Then it tells me, 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 and join us. You shall be with us in the fellowship of the Spirit and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the road of happy destiny. May God bless you and keep you until then. And I remember feeling snapped into place at that point. It was a great experience for me just reading a couple of paragraphs off a vision for you. And it was our book's way of extending their hand to us, as if they wrote those pages for me in a vision for you, especially this page. And part of carrying the message is extending hope to another drunk. We never shoot the wounded, but we confront them lovingly when they're going down the tubes. One thing about this illness, I can't see my illness. And I think I'm okay, but you realize it isn't okay and you need to confront me and vice versa. It's a great thing we get to do in Alcoholics Anonymous, carrying this message to the drunk who wants it. And sometimes some of us don't want it and page 96 they just move on to the next drunk. So what sort of message are we carrying? Is the home group carrying me as a drunk? The third edition of Big Book Alcoholics Synonymous says, but the basic text pages 1 to 164 have remained unchanged. This is the AA message. So how have I recovered? Now some of us do the 12 and 12. Some of us are meeting makers, and I'm not here to split a room. But if I really want to work the AA program, it's outlined in the big book, Alcoholics Anonymous. And that will guarantee me a spiritual transformation from the inside out. Now, if I'm not all in about recovery, if I am just kind of hanging around, well, what I have to say and what this book has to say is really not important to me. In fact, you couldn't care. I know because I was on that end of the scale one time. I hated people at a big book. I hated AA. I hated me. I hated all of it. And my behavior demonstrated that. In 1988, I wanted everything that was offered to me When we go to chapter seven, working with others, it says this practical experience shows that nothing will so much ensure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. And my book tells me right here, intensive work, which means I'm not taking a drunk to a meeting. That's car service. I don't sponsor that way. Intensive work means you're going to come to my house. I'm going to comes to your house. We're going to crack open the book and begin the journey through the book. That's what we do. We minister other people in Alcoholics Anonymous. And where there was no hope, we can turn the flame of hope on and bring people into the light. The interesting thing about Step 12 is, you know, for the longest time I thought Step 12 means I arrive and I'm part of AlcoholicsAnonymous. And in reality, when I get to Step 12, my journey has just begun. It is not completed. I've just begun. I've had the spiritual awaken as a result of these steps. It talks about that entering the world of the Spirit in 10. I'm enhancing the experience in 11 and 10, and I'm passing the message on as a resultado of the spiritual transformation in 12 and practicing these principles. I'm made right. I'm whole again to go out and live life on God's terms. So the journey at that point has just begun and put back together as much as God sees fit. does it mean I never go through the steps again for me absolutely not it's about reworking the first nine proposals and killing off more self and getting rid of the ego as much as God allows to get freer less self, more God more God, less self so I can be an upstanding member of a sacred fellowship and not treat it like a nightclub or a hangout the thing that came to me as a result of this work and being part of Alcoholics Anonymous and says, I may be sitting in your meeting and I really don't want to be there but she really does and how dare I infect the meeting. Someone might be writing on every word someone's sharing from the floor or the speaker and I got the audacity to find an annoyance with that. Leave, is what they told me and alcohol will beat you up enough so you'll be in the first row going please give me something so I can go home because if I don't I'm going to drink tonight. It's a gift for the desperate, not for the folks who waver. And I had to get to a point of being completely desperate in 1988. And I really mean that, not figuratively, literally, completely desperate. I would have wrote on anything you told me to do. And thank God people were there to kind of circle the wagon and say, this is what you're going to do tonight, this is What You're Going to Do Tomorrow. And that's what I did. it says remember they are very ill carry the message to other alcoholics you can help when no one else can which is pretty neat at the end of this meeting they read why we were chosen my book tells me that we can help when noone else can now why would God not give this message to Carl Jung this whole message Carl Jung had a piece of it Why would not God give this message to some famous psychiatrist, some brilliant person, some worldly person, someone who's way beyond my intelligence? I never went to college. Why would he put me behind a podium to share something? He gave it to another drunk. Bill Wilson was a wannabe stockbroker. Couldn't rub two nickels together. Everything he did fell apart because alcoholism owned me. Dr. Bob was a doctor, but basically lost his practice. He was living to drink. God could have gone past those two and said, let me get someone who's got their act together. But he gave it to a guy who was hanging on by a thread, Bill Wilson, to go see Dr. Robb, and we're here tonight. When I was new, my sponsor, bless his heart, he was a bulldog, dropped the F-bomb regularly, but he was also a great teacher. And he took me to a meeting in Brooklyn called Park Slope Cain. It was a clubhouse. And we used to go Sunday morning, 11 o'clock, 11-step meeting. And the meeting ended, and there was a gentleman who was a regular there. He went by the name of Don the Plumber because he was a plumber. In Brooklyn, everyone got a nickname. Joey had a lettuce, you know. And Don the plumber was talking off to the side. My sponsor called me over, and he says, I want you to see what's going on here. And Don the plumber was talking to this older gentleman, older. He was in his 50s and glasses and gray hair. He had looked very studious. And Don, the plumer, was doing this to him, right in his face. And give it reading the right eye. That was Don the plumbers sponsee. Don was a plumber. This guy he was giving a lecture to was a doctor. He was a medical man. He was at doctor. A plumber was sponsoring a doctor, and the plumber is lecturing the doctor on what he was doing wrong. It was as if, you know, Moses parted the sea for me. Oh my God. It doesn't make a difference in Alcoholics Anonymous. The guy would one day might have a week in sponsoring me in two weeks if I'm not careful. It's the great equalizer. and I learned that first hand my first sponsor was not an educated guy he worked for the newspaper but when it came to this and living life on God's terms and passing the message on and cutting right through the fact he was an expert at it because he loved God and Alcoholics Anonymous and part of that when we love AA and we love God and we have a book this book we will be revered and reviled sometimes in the same meeting and sometimes by the same person depending on how your talk goes but I need to take some of that heat when I was first coming around carrying this message I would get very upset if someone gave me feedback that wasn't positive on my big book message I would take it personally, I would be crushed I don't care anymore because I'd rather be accused of telling the truth than be accused OF TELLING THE LIE and one thing about this, it forces me right into the heat of telling the truth. You can't lie to a drunk. If you do, you've got to take a hit for their death. I don't want to do that. I do not want to do that I remember I was at a meeting in Brooklyn one time and this young fellow was in and out forever and he was a heroin addict and I says I'll take you to another fellowship. I took him a couple of times but no one else told him that and every time he relapsed came back to AA they said keep coming back There were no heroin addicts in his group. He couldn't identify with an alcoholic. He overdosed in a park directly across the street from the meeting, and that Saturday night everyone went, poor guy, he probably didn't want enough. And I raised my hand. I said, how many people took him to another fellowship besides me? No hands went up. I said we all take a hit for his death. We lied to him. We lied. We lied too an addict about their truth. Doesn't mean we're going to kick out of AA, but at some point we need to trickle back to the people we identify with and what I was told if I need to talk about drugs at an AA meeting maybe I'm in the wrong meeting it's part of carrying this message which doesn't make you a popular man or woman in AA or any fellowship but God gave us this task to go work with others my first home group And we were very crowded, standing room only. And it was closed discussion, beginners meeting, feelings meeting, packed. And I came along one night and I says, why don't we have a big book meeting? And they almost hollered and feathered me. Well, what happened was the meeting started to disintegrate. great. There was infighting. People were going to other meetings. Another meeting opened up around the same time. The group splintered. And one night we were sitting there with about six of us, all doing like five and six commitments each. And I says, what about that big book meeting? Let's have a speaker come in, kind of do what we do here. Let them talk about their experience from the Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous. And they agreed to it. And the first night, there was like 250 people in the meeting with big books and markers wanting to hear a message because they were dying for a message. Because every meeting in Brooklyn where I was were beginners and open. Beginners and open and no message being shared. People were hungry for this message. So as a recovered alcoholic, as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, I have a responsibility to pass this message on as it is in the big book. And sometimes we're going to take some heat for that that's just the way it goes but I agreed to turn my will and life over to care of God in step three and it's none of my business what that looks like and once we have a transformation as a result of this work we kind of can't go back to the way we were it's way too painful when it comes to sponsorship I don't know if I talked about this last week the way I was brought up in AA was working by the law of spiritual consent So if you came into a meeting, you were brand new and raised your hand and said I need a sponsor, I will come over and make the approach. I will bait the drunk. I'm available if you want to talk about the big book. But what I need from the drunk is for you to ask me can you sponsor me? Because if I just say I'm your sponsor and in two weeks from now when I confront you, you have a right to say I never asked you in the first place. But the law of spiritual consent is our oral contract that you want me to help you. And that's how we approach this. And that is how I do with men and that is what was asked of me. And I remember seeing this guy speak at a meeting in the free spirit group in Brooklyn. And he got up there at an anniversary and spoke very parallel to a lot of the information I heard when I was in Minnesota. Going to this meeting called the three legacies meeting. That was God, 12 steps and the big book. He talked about the importance of service. And that very still, quiet voice, that thunder of silence said, go ask him. And when I asked him to sponsor me, he told me what a pain in the neck he was. His language was brutal. He said, before I sponsor you, you need to go home and read from the preface to page 164 before I sponsored you. He says, if you feel like drinking on the week, you call me, but that's what you need to do first. Now, there's different ways to sponsor. This isn't the only way. People do it different ways. There's different influences. When I got to working with others, it said how on the first visit we loaned them a copy of this book and on the second visit him or her having read the first portion of this volume was ready to go through the work, which means they went from the preface to 164, which is exactly what he gave me. So I read it right away. I wasn't in a place of bargaining or negotiating here. I'm hanging on by a thread. So I ran home, and I started reading. I called him up, and he says, I'm done with the reading. And he asked me three questions. He says, do you think you're an alcoholic and life's unmanageable? I said, yes. He says、Do you want help? I said、Yes。 Then he says、Are you willing to go to any lengths to get recovered? I said、「Yes。」 He says、「Now I'll sponsor you。」 And we immediately dived into step one. Now, I got an idea what step one was all about. I know what it was like out there. I learned a lot in here. But I had to see firsthand my experience as it related to Bill, to Bob, And what the book talked about was step one. And I quickly found out that being homeless has nothing to do with being an alcoholic. There's a lot of people homeless who have just lost their mind. That was a consequence of my being alcoholic. And he taught me firsthand the threefold illness, and we went through the first 43 pages little by slowly, pulling out bullets out of the book, giving me assignments, written assignments so I can see in black and white. That's the way he did it. We could also work with a drunk in an hour and take him through one, two, and three, kind of like Dr. Bob did. But he methodically took me through the book because I was so uneducated as to really what I suffered from. But Alcoholics Anonymous, I find out, is not just education. If it was education, we'd go to school, we go to a seminar on the big book and go home, get a little diploma and go to the bar with it. AA is really about the transformation rather than education but I had to learn what was wrong with me and one of the things he showed me was my real powerlessness that I was completely screwed here now as he's taken me through the book he's giving me, this is what I do at Most Men I sponsor days to meet him and times to call him he disciplined me to his life before I was disciplined to the spiritual life Somebody had to take charge of my life, certainly not me. And he was confident enough and secure enough to say this is how we're going to do it, not the way you want to do It, because if you do It the way You want to Do It, I might as well pour a drink for you now. Now what that does for most alcoholics, it crushes the ego. And any kind of self-reliance gets in the way. But if I'm completely down and out, kind of like if I find flat broke, I have no money to get food my rent is due, I have no money, I'm flat broke and you come along and say I'll give you a hundred but it's going to be in ones and you negotiate that a hundred, I don't care if it's purple, does it work? I'll take it so he had to take charge and I quickly see how much trouble I'm in and during the week I would meet him at the home group and I had three days a week I had to call this guy You know what he did to me my first year anniversary? June 23rd, 1989. My sponsor gets on the phone. I say hello and he says just another day and hung up the phone Nowadays we have coins and Academy Award speeches and parties and we have balloons and just another day click. he would usually call I would usually call him in the morning and he would do this he says recovery starts when one alcoholic talks to another he said we're starting our day of recovery and then he'd hear my inventory or my step work whatever it was and we'd spend about an hour on the phone and then I'd get on with my day but he taught me he disciplined me and I would meet him at home group and at the free school group there was a kitchen in the back and that was our hangout we'd go back there I had to show up with a big book, or he wouldn't even entertain me. Got your book? Okay, let's go. And I go through my assignments. I have a little notepad, and we sit down at a kitchen table, and it was intimate. It was just wonderful. I look back on those days. It was incredible. Student and teacher. And little by slowly, he was feeding me, and I was getting spiritually fit. I didn't even know it. I was just going blind, not making any decisions. And I was only able to do that because I was so broken coming into Alcoholics Anonymous. Fast forward 25 years. Wednesday nights at 8 o'clock, my sponsor lives in Colorado. I still show up with the big book and notepad and pen. I lock my door. I have a little prayer room in my house. I lock the door, and I go in there. And Marion knows not to bother me for the hour unless it's an emergency. and for about an hour sometimes longer I talk to my sponsor I give him my inventory we'll take something out of the book we'll just talk about some life situations and so on and so forth I am the student I hope to always be a student so something worked from day one and it was because of the gift of desperation based on what I did in my past life how did that work? that's a question we'll have to ask ourselves there's a lot of young people here I know what it's like to be young and listening to someone like me who's old enough to be your dad. It really doesn't fit, but if you're desperate, it fits fine. But I know What it's Like to Be an AA and Struggling and Say, Why do I Have to Do This? Well, Based on What You're Doing, How's That Working for You? That's What They Asked Me. I Was Living in a Halfway House in Hastings, Minnesota. Town Population, Me and a Cow, That Was It. And A House With About 60 Guys. A dorm room with 25 on one side, dorm room with 25 in the other side. Not everyone bathed. Certain people made weird noises at night. It was interesting and I had a cubicle you know what's the jail cell? 8x10 cubicle No door just a cubical like an office cubicle and all my belongings were in a hefty garbage bag. That was my life I was still wearing my brother's sneakers that he gave me but I kept that cubicle you could ate off the floor because that's all I owned. And that made me teachable and open enough, desperation to hear someone pass a message. I went to a Three Legacies meeting one time. And I walk in, I'm standing in the back, I was petrified. There's about three, four hundred people at this meeting. It was packed. And everyone was at the door. They still do it. You know, shirt and tie, greeters, name tags, literature act from here to Philadelphia. It was a big meeting. And I'm petrifying them against the wall and they announced the keynote speaker and he gets up there and anyone knows what Sigmund Freud looks like that's what this guy looked like and my heart sunk I said oh man what's he going to tell me and then a quiet voice said shut up and listen this was all God stuff God connecting dots to me when I didn't have the ability to do that you never know what's going to be said this gentleman began his story And by the time he got done, I was crying. The guy in a different part, Midwest guy, I'm a Northeast kid, tells my story. Same mom, same sort of dad, same desperation, high expectations, achieving nothing, fall down drunk, homeless, the whole thing. He's a successful businessman now. And he told one little piece of his story that had me, got my heart, and I realized I can learn from anyone. All I need to do is be open and willing. This was a whole lot better, and for you dope fiends out there waking up on a Sunday morning with no money and you've got to get straight. You didn't sleep the night before, the stomach, the sweating, the anxiety, the legs, your cough, your puke at the same time, being sick, and for my drunks out there, when you're waking up and you got no money and you're like this, and I don't know about you, there's plenty of times I had to do this. or had a panhandle to get to the bootlegger in the projects to get some liquor because I needed a drink really bad. And when we're that desperate, we will do anything. Or I can sit in an AA meeting, pay attention and be teachable. Might get better. Whoa! Put this monster to bed for good and all. Permanent sobriety is what our literature talks about. Permanente sobriete. Or I could be getting white chips for the next 30 years if I lived that long. and living in a sober house at 50. That's fun. There are lots of people carrying the message in Alcoholics Anonymous. Even if they're not out of the book, they still have your best interest in mind. Very few people in there have to hurt anyone. That's why it's a sacred focus. We have a few folks who aren't legitimate. Every fellowship does. But overall, AlcoholicsAnonymous is out to help another drunk. but I need to be willing to be taught to hear this message out of the book so I'm grateful for the horrific bottom I hit I'm thankful for being homeless, I'll never survive it again God forbid, I'm Grateful for that last drunk, I didn't know it was going to be my last drunk but Grateful for that drunk and the place I was in because it has me here now I didn' t know that back then I don' t want to die, what do I lock into and people were passing this book on and they didn't care about the heat they caught. Some folks come to newcomers, hey, I shedded a meeting about the big book and a couple of old-timers gave me hell for it. They don't want to hear about the steps. I'm not going back there anymore. And I tell them, how did you find me? Did I hide this in the closet? Did I put my neck out on the line? Did I take the risk? Yeah, that's how you found me. How do you think I found my teachers? there was a guy who walked this earth took a lot of heat in a volatile time we're still talking about him changed the planet if he can do that I can pass on a message from the big book any great spiritual teacher is going to catch heat at some point it's just the way it goes even in AA but I can't imagine trying to get recovered any other way than in Alcoholics Anonymous and with this book carrying the message there was a gentleman I used to sit with if I went to him with any problem even the weather, I mean it was ridiculous anything I went with him with he'd go open up the big book let's go to page such and such and read me, I hated them and I loved them at the same time because Ken was sure no matter what it was He says, the answers are in the big book. And he says, kid, that's what you should be learning and that's what you shouldn't be spreading, the message from this book. This is a big book meeting. And so that's what I try to teach the men who come into my life. The interesting thing is at times, many times I feel like I'm an inadequate sponsor. I don't really feel like I'd do a good job sponsoring. That has been pretty much with me since I started sponsoring, even until now. And sometimes it comes in waves like I'm not doing a good Job. And it troubled me for a long time. I'm giving the message in the book. I'm sharing my experience and hoping there was a piece that says I don't know if I'm doing this good. My sponsor says God has a funny way of keeping us right-sized. And what that has translated into is me working as hard as I can for the next drunk. I don't know if I'm doing this right, so I work really hard, as hard als I can. I'm sure those people do a lot better than I do. But it keeps me focused on a drunk at a time and trying to really pay attention to everything they say, even though while I'm listening to it, I know it's really not that important. But to him, it is at this moment. So I try. So after 25 years, I still don't feel like I'm a great sponsor. for some reason, of all the men who have come, God has put in my path, I've only lost a few. It has nothing to do with me. It has everything to do mit this book and sharing this message. Of all the man I've sponsored over the years, I've ony lost a fiew. They've gone on to other sponsors, they've moved away, and so on and so forth. And the same goes for the place I work. Of all the people that have come through those doors, I've only lost a few. My team has only lost a few and those are the folks who just don't want to hear what we have to offer. The folks who surrender to God and to surrender this book somehow they get better. Isn't that crazy? On the street always trying to figure stuff out, always trying to angle, always trying do this, always try to do that. We throw up our hands in AA and it's done for us. We come into the light. We don't have to turn the light on, we don't have to invent a light, we just come into the light because I've been dark for so long. So many of us are in AA, sound asleep, thinking we're awake. We're sound asleep. We sleep walking through life, sleep walking through a marriage, sleep walking to another relationship, sleep walking to other jobs, sleep walk in an AA and then one day we realize that our time is running out and we're about to get called home. We say what was that about? What did I do? It just blew by, and we know life is like a vapor. We're here and gone. My sponsor says, you go to a cemetery and look at a headstone, and there's a date God brought us here, and there's the date God calls us home, and right in the center is a two-inch dash. And he says, what are you doing about the dash? Because the dash between the two numbers is your life. What are you dealing about? It's about that long, two- inch dash, over 40, 50, 80, 90 years. That's what I've come to. Boom. In and out. What am I going to do? And I'm an alcoholic, and I'm being served a banquet every meeting I go to, whether I like it or not, or I think so or not. I'm Being Served a Banquet. And I never eat. And God keeps serving. And i never eat and I go back on another drunk. I go back on another run. I get back into the volatile relationship. I I get back into some more violence. I let someone's behavior affect me. Did you ever do that? Someone's behaving inappropriately. My week is ruined. How much power am I going to give someone to ruin my day, ruin my night, ruin my week? They take up space. You can feel them. Those are all rookie mistakes. but somehow when we get this message and we start to walk with God that stuff just gets grinded into dust it's not so important I don't have to take anything personally anymore I don' t have to make assumptions anymore I can do my best every day what a great way to live by listening to people who have walked the path before me remember the first time you learned how to somebody was teaching you how to use for the dope fiends out there first time they showed you how to get your wings you cook this much, put it in a thing draw it, the whole thing remember how you were listening this is important how do you do that okay, that many mills, you draw it boom, okay, in, out okay, got it this is very, very important I need to learn how to kill myself, so pay attention and the day you do it on your own you feel like you've been reborn right, I got my own wings how good is this? You guys know what I'm talking about this whole row over here it's not paying attention and then I come in to Alcoholics Anonymous or any other fellowship and they say listen pay attention this is how you never have to suffer again ever I know it's scary I know you're uncertain but guaranteed all of us did this you follow this you never have to suffer again and we go oh that's too crazy I can't do this we don't pay attention or read the big book while we're texting have some Snoop Dogg music on in the background right brushing my hair at the same time I'll get the big book don't worry I have to be all in all in a journeyman, a woman right a couple more things it says helping others is the foundation stone of my recovery a kindly act once in a while isn't enough I haveto act a good Samaritan every day, if needed. It says it may mean the loss of many nights' sleep, great interference with your pleasures, interruptions to your business. It may mean sharing your money, your home, counseling frantic wives or husbands and relatives, and numeral trips to police courts, sanitariums, hospitals, jails, asylums, detoxes, meetings. It goes on and on and on. I can't tell you how many times I've literally cleaned up a drunk or someone who was drinking and doing other stuff. And the first time I did it, I was petrified. And I was grossing out on it. Then I got my stripes, and it was a privilege for me to do that God entrusted me with one of his children to clean him up and save his life. And I felt like I was being interrupted many times. Now I know that welcome to the NFL, this is how it goes. I should never deny my family of their time or money but my job is on the service plane, altruistic, on steroids is how we're supposed to live. It was a basketball game one time and it was a Knicks-Paces game back in the Camelot days of the Knicks and it Was a big thing and they were at the garden. My brother came over with his wife. I was with my ex-wife. We're having like a little Super Bowl party about to watch this game and we started eating and the game's on and we're having some fun and the phone rings, I pick it up and they said, here's another nickname, Louie the Butcher is in trouble. His name was Louie, he was a butcher. And can you do this? Now I could have said, I got company, get someone else I wouldn't have slept. I also would have been a hypocrite at my next talk. So I told my brother, his wife and my ex-wife, I need to go, they got it and off I went. And I drove about two or three miles down 4th Avenue, 3rd Avenue in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. And there was Louie flat out on the concrete, mumbling, crying, blind drunk. The ambulance came. We put him in the ambulance and took him to a place called Cornell Hospital. He was out the very next day. Louie died in the street drunk like an animal. This guy would come into AA and clean up in 20 minutes, look like a GQ model when he cleaned up. Dressed to the nines, good-looking guy. All the women thought he was like Elvis Presley when he walked in the room, get drunk. He was in the dumpster the next day. Totally got him because that's how I drink, dumpster tomorrow morning, God forbid, if I got drunk tonight. He died in the street like an animal of alcoholism. They found him in the gutter. He was here. He was hier many times. He was right here. I tried sponsoring he would not see this way of life because the mind told him we can do this on our own the ego says you don't need this stuff it's not that bad we can tweak it we can figure it out and the message was handed I sponsored him my sponsor took a shot at him guys I sponsored took a shout at him he would not see constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves meaning they will not see the truth Why? I don't know. He's sober now. He dines with God at night. He's sobre now. Louie wasn't even 40 years old. Dead because of this thing. So what do you do? You hop on a horse and keep riding, look for another drunk and chop wood and carry water, which is what my whole life is about, service, professionally and privately. Not everyone wants to hear what I have to say professionally and publicly. I sleep at night I don't think about drinking last I checked I have never intentionally hurt anyone in a while I'm sure I pissed off a few people but I build a bridge doesn't mean you're going to dine with me but I'll build build a fridge because I know one thing I walk with my creator and one day he's going to call me home he's gonna say how'd you do down there can you help my kids I want to say yes you just surrendered to me every day that's the way I show you my love you surrendered to me you're forgiven that's what I'm saying that's it that's how I can show you my love I want to say yes and tonight I want to sleep I don't want to toss in town I hope those guys who walked back walked out come back thank you guys for sticking around that's all I got peace