The Indispensables to Recovery – Craig S.

Up at 9 o'clock in the morning, you've got to be borderline insane. My name is Craig Schreiner. I'm an alcoholic. It's a privilege to be here, and it's an honor, especially at the first KCAC Pop, a young people's convention put on by people within the Kansas City area. It's the first one, and they've been working really hard for the last eight months, nine months, and really it's a pleasure to be part of this thing because I think it'll be the first of many, and it might even become one of the first to possibly get a two-state convention, Young People's Convention, something like that in the area. Who knows? They may even want to try to go after international and get the Young People International Convention here in Kansas City someday because they really have the contingency to do so. This morning the workshop that I was asked to participate in is on the indispensables to recovery and those being honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness. So if you want to know more about sponsorship, there's a meeting right next to our workshop on sponsorship which is important. However, since you're here, stay here. We can use the faces and of course it would make it a lot easier on me if there wasn't anybody here. Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA membership. We are self-supporting through our own contributions. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution, does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and to help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety. My name is Craig Schreiner. I'm an alcoholic. Good morning. In the event of a conference, there's a number of different things that take place. And basically, the whole concept of a conference is based on service. And it's one of the legacies. Unity, recovery and service are the three legacies in Alcoholics Anonymous. And that's basically what the foundation of a conference is based on. To take it and bring it back to something more personal, such as myself, the basis of my sobriety is based on the indispensables to recovery, and those being honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness. And these are found on page 570 in the big book, in the spiritual appendix. And the spiritual appendix was put into the book of Alcoholics Anonymous because it was basically this phenomena that Dr. Young was talking about on page 27 in the big book of alcoholics anonymous, that there should be some kind of a rearrangement or displacement of the ideas, emotions and attitudes that were once the guiding forces in our lives and that these had to be set to one side and a whole new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate us. And this spiritual experience, which is this phenomena that Jung was trying to get across, is basically what has to happen to the alcoholic in order to arrest the disease. The tools that this recovery is based on is simply honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness. So from page 27, it tells you that it gives you a little asterisk in there and it says see spiritual appendix. And you flip to the back of the book and then there's the spiritual appendex and you read in there. And it starts talking and it delineates in the last two paragraphs in there about that the willingness, open-mindedness, and honesty are the indispensables to recovery. And when I first read that word indispensable, I didn't understand it. And my sponsor, in his loving way, would always ask if I'd look the word up. and I did and I found out that it means it's absolutely essential it's a primary ingredient it's the foundation by which everything else is based on and as a result of that he also nudged me and urged me to look up the rest of the words those being honesty, open-mindedness and willingness self-honesty today is the most important thing that I have because it is basically that self-onesty that has gotten and kept me in line and kept my sober. There's this little quote that's used quite a lot from, I think it's Hamlet, when he is talking about to thine own self be true as the day follows the night. My sponsor told me in no uncertain terms that as long as I was honest I could lie because honesty is so important and I thought that was sort of stupid when I first heard it or I thought he was really exaggerating the point to get my attention or something. But he says, as long as you're honest with yourself, there's nothing you can't do. And that got my attention. When I had a moment of real honesty, and basically with the word honesty, I equate the word humility. It's almost synonymous. Because the moments in my life where I've gotten very, very honest with myself have been the most humble moments in my life. And the date that I remember where I was, for the first time, as honest as I'd ever been in my entire life, was March 6th, 1978, when I fell onto my knees in total frustration and despair and said, God help me. And I meant it. And I'd never been more honest about anything in my whole life in my own entire life because I admitted honestly that I was defeated by alcohol, subject to the king itself another denizen of the vicious ruler alcohol and as a result of being honest that brief moment that came from my heart in two seconds my entire life is transformed and it was the first time really that I had been totally honest and in a humble state and as result of that moment of honesty and really true humility my life has swung 180 degrees and it's been the first and primary step in my recovery now I have a sponsor that is not honest my sponsor is brutally honest and I mean it, not only in respect but in awe and in amazement because he takes things to degrees in terms of honesty that really far exceed or far exceeded the ability for me to be honest when I first got sober. And strangely enough, it's beginning to rub off and I'm beginning to get brutally honest in a respect. And I am more honest with myself today than I would be with somebody who is new, who is trying to get a hold of these principles because basically honesty has come in degrees. I was not able to be as honest with my life when I was new that I am today. And I know and I hope and I pray that 10 years from now I'll be able to become more honest with myself than I am today. This, I think it's important to know in recovery where this word is mentioned and I've got this book up here that I bought a while back and it's an AA indexed Alcoholics Anonymous and what it is is a reference of anything you would ever want to know about sobriety is in here, and it tells you where in the 12 and 12 of the big book or as Bill sees it or pass it on where these different things are located. In honesty, it says if we are incapable of being honest with ourselves we do not recover. Develop a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty and that's in the big Book on page 58. I'll just go through a couple of these different highlights. Honestly wanted to accept spiritual help one of the one of two alternatives or go to the bitter end honesty humility and willingness plus belief in the power of god are essential requirements to establish and maintain the new order of things we feel a man is unthinking when he says that sobriety is enough honesty developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty solid honesty straight thinking and genuine humility. Those come from A.A. in the 12 and 12. Honesty was the first step. Honesty Was at least the point where I admitted that I was powerless over alcohol and that my life had become unmanageable. There was a difference that my sponsor wanted to make sure that I understood, in that there is a hyphen in that first step, and that I was not to be misled or misunderstand that alcohol is just a symptom of the disease of alcoholism, that we were powerless over alcohol, hyphen, that our lives had become unmanageable. I at first had thought, well, because I drank so much, my life was unmanangeable. It's not true. I became powerless over alchohol, and at the same time, or even before that, my life had become Unmanageble. And really, because of the unmanagability in my life, i drank it was the only reason really to deal with it and to cope with it so that to just stop drinking did not bring about sobriety it brought about abstinence from alcohol i now had to start doing some inventory i now have to start doing some house cleaning i now how to start looking at the mental emotional and spiritual spiritual aspects of the disease of alcoholism but none of these could transform none of this could come about until i got honest and realized, in all humility, that my program for living, my way, my approach, the design that I was using to deal with life, stunk. It was worthless. I mean, it got me to Alcoholics Anonymous. My best thinking got me here. And that if I was going to try to change, I had to open my mind to new concepts and motives. And so based on honesty, the very next page in the book becomes Open-Mindedness. And there are two absolutely fabulous words that I love today because they help me so much. They're really the key to open-mindedness in my book, and they help us to be open-hearted. They help me to recognize in a moment, in a split second, when I'm not open-mindered and when I am closing my mind and when i'm not trying to exercise an attitude that will open up myself to a new light. And they're really fascinating words. As a matter of fact, I was so amazed at how often they came out of my mouth. I was amazed with how they were just consistently in my thinking at almost every turn of the road, at every turn and every road that I would encounter. And those two great words are, yeah, but. And when my sponsor would mention or would say, well, you know, maybe you should go around the room and shake everybody's hand at a meeting, and that way you won't feel so uncomfortable. You'll get to know. Well, yeah, but I really don't think that I need to. Yeah, but i'm scared. And my mind would close. And he would ask or suggest that I read certain things, and I would say, well, yeah. But I was busy today. I got home late from work. I was tired, and I just didn't feel like doing it. He would ask if I had any problems or if there's anything wrong, and I would preface it by saying, yeah, but I don't really need to talk about it. I'm okay today. It doesn't really hurt. And I never realized that I almost started every single sentence or every thought, I really did, by yeah, buddy. I was so defensive. I wasそう closed-minded to everything. I was SO scared to try anything different than what I had done because of fear, self-centered fears. and they were always glorified by the two words, yeah, but they're my greatest indication today that I'm scared of something or that I don't want to change or thatIi'm afraid to try something new or thati think I'm going to look stupid or I may not be or succeed at it perfectly the first attempt or the first go-around or I just might feel awkward about it. You see, the open-mindedness is the most elusive of these indispensables. I'll never, I just think it's one of the my sponsor gets all excited and he jumps up and down and he gets real squirrely and he does strange things when he knows my mind is open because it doesn't happen very often as a matter of fact he gives me all these books and he get's really excited he starts talking faster because he knows it's open and it doesn' t last very long it's like the black hole or something on these space adventures when they've got three milliseconds to get through this hole, you know, to get free and to get back to where, that's kind of the way my mind opens. There's this big black hole inside me and it only opens up when the moon lines up with Mars and Pluto and a bunch of other things. But the thing that's so incredible about open-mindedness is that when I do exercise it and then when I stop saying yeah but and I try to entertain new ideas and I trying to develop some new concepts and motives and such is that the sense of freedom and release and growth that I get from it is absolutely phenomenal. I mean, here's the alcoholic thinking now. Once I finally went around the room and shook everybody's hand and introduced myself at a meeting, not only did I start to feel more comfortable and was I able to start sharing and become a part of the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, the very first thing I'd say to myself is, God, why didn't I start doing this three weeks ago or five months ago or two years ago? Or why didn'T I open up and share at a meetIng? Or why DIDN'T I try to be sponsored? Why DIDN't I actually try to sponsor? Why didn't I set chairs up? I felt so good about setting up the chairs in the meeting. Why didnít I not do that? And it just amazes me that every time Iíve tried to exercise an open mind, if I havenít grown. And do you think I would remember that, though, when it came time to start a new one or to open up the mind again and try a new adventure? Every one of you at this point in time, as far as I am concerned, have come here and are basically trying to exercise an open mind because you want to know a little bit more about what's going on and uh i think that it's really the key it gives us it gives me the um the opportunity to learn more about this incredible recovery in alcoholics anonymous because it is so much more than just not drinking just not drink is one symptom and just not drinking is abstinence from alcohol and there is so many more to do as a result of that Open-mind, willingness and honesty are the three essentials and these are indispensable. It talks about it here at 570. Open-minded to conviction and as willing to listen to the dying can be when we discover the fatal nature of our situation then and only then. Unfortunately it is really adversity that becomes the primary tool, at least it has been in my life, that okay I'll I'll try it your way, or okay, I'm an alcoholic, and it's basically been adversity that has opened my mind, and that is growth through humiliation, which is not necessarily the way you have to do it in AA. It's growth through frustration. It's grow through kind of an aversion, and alcohol, as powerful as it is, is basically the primary tool by which God got my attention. He does it differently with other people, but he primarily needed alcohol in order to open my mind because as a result of the stagnant way of thinking that I had, as a results of all the closed-mindedness and the arrogance and the fear and the self-centeredness, the life that I created was totally introverted and totally self-centred and as a resulting it was very sick and very stagnant. There There were no new ideas coming in, and there's no exchange, and there was no opportunity for change and growth. And as a result of being closed-minded, I was a very stagnated person who was dying. Open to all, you are a member of AA if you say so. And I think that one of the neatest things about Alcoholics Anonymous is that the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. now the open-minded aspect of alcoholism like i said is the most elusive because i will exercise moments of open-mindedness and read something that my sponsor wants me to read or take the action that he has been suggesting i do for months sometimes on end and as a result of of exercising that find that i've had an opportunity to grow but i can't understand why i will continue to just keep my mind closed to new ideas and new concepts and hang on to it and say those two words yeah but uh i now know and i even check myself in my thinking when i'll be talking to somebody they'll be giving me some sort of a reason why they do certain things or denying and i can just see the words wanting to hear the words wanted to jump right out of their mouth and I catch myself anymore trying sometimes in an elegant way to disguise them by saying however or well maybe or you know I've just I've just got this little thinker that not only I've just well I can just use different words I don't need to add but I can do certain things and I'll get around my sponsor and that's when he calls me you know belligerent denial breath or something like that. And, you know, go ahead, deny it. But he has a fascinating way of opening my mind and that is basically what he did so many times was he would compare me to other people that he sponsored. And I hated it to know that somebody who had less time than me in terms of sobriety or dryness or length, would be doing something that they were supposed to do before I would. Or somebody that had a year was working or finishing up his fifth step and I really hadn't gotten mine done. Or somebody who had less time than me was reading a book that was suggested to me by my sponsor that I would read, and he would coerce me by way of my ego and my pride to realize that there are other people that he was sponsoring with less time that were going far beyond me and sobriety and such, and I used to hate that. And I think coupled right with open-mindedness is willingness, because I can be as honest as I want to be, and then I can finally exercise an open mind, but until I'm willing to take some action, absolutely nothing happens, nothing. It's academic up to that point, even with honesty. totally honest with myself that yes i'm an alcoholic and that my life has become unmanageable until i became willing to go to go take the action to go to meetings and to get off my derriere and start to do something to help change my life put myself in a position where i could become a benefactor of this fellowship nothing happened will is the first part of that word and it says will in alcoholics, the will is amazingly weakened when it comes to combating liquor. And page 15 in chapter 7 in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Will, our human resources as marshaled by the will were not sufficient. They failed utterly. Willpower and common sense, What has become of it? It's practically non-existent. When we get down to willingness, again it resorts to willingness, honesty and open-mindedness are the essentials but these are indispensable. Willingness, honesty, humility and belief in the power of God are the essential requirements. Willingnes to believe and lay aside prejudice we commence to get results. willingness to pursue the spiritual remedy willingness upon a foundation of complete willingness to believe I might build what I saw in Ebby at long last I saw, I felt, I believed willing to believe and lay aside prejudice as we commence to get results willingness basically meant that I would be willing to do anything Willing to go to any lengths, that's the thing that sticks out in my mind most. And it's the things that Bill talked about last night and brought out very well in his talk. He mentioned how he was willing to go to all these different cities, small towns in Texas in order to stay sober driving 30 and 40 miles some instances. Well unfortunately willingness came by way of pain at first in Alcoholics Anonymous and frustrations. As a matter of fact it was only through humiliations that I really began to grow or wanted to grow in Alcoholics Anonymous. But when it got to a point when I had honestly accepted the fact that I was an alcoholic, and this happened almost 20 months into AlcoholicsAnonymous, when I finally just cried and got it all out and thought it was a raw deal and it was the worst thing that ever happened to me, yeah, I guess I'll join this fellowship. I've been denying it. I haven't been hanging around it for 20 months. I really haven't be trying to do any of these changes, try to really take it seriously or do it for the primary motive of my own self and total acceptance of the fact that I was an alcoholic. And I remember that night when I was at my sponsor's and I just cried and I thought it was a raw deal and something happened, it became evident to me that I would now be willing to do something to begin to change to take action, to really step out in this program and try to do what I could to help bring about and start the changes in Alcoholics Anonymous. And it got to a point where I would talk to my sponsor daily, and I would call him. The first sponsor that I had in Alcoholics Anonymous, I never used him, and he died. Died sober, had a heart attack and some major operation. He didn't recover from it, and as a result, I found myself looking for another sponsor. And when I had gotten this new sponsor, the one that I have today, I looked at it a little differently than my first one. I didn't take him for granted. I realized that I needed to, well, I realized that nothing is permanent and nothing is fixed. And the fact that I'd taken my first sponsor for granted and really never called him or pursued any of the suggestions that he had made when I did call him, that it opened my mind and I became willing to go after what he had. And if I had one conversation, I had over 100 conversations with my sponsor talking about problems that lasted 5, 6, 7 hours on the phone. hundreds of them. I would call him at any given time, and it was sometimes I was so full of denial and so unable to be honest with myself that it would take two or three hours for me finally to get to the point why I even called my sponsor on the phone. And I was just amazed at the fact that he would sit and we could talk about all these things that wouldn't matter or were insignificant until I finally got to the part where I was hurting. And he knew all along what was the problem from the very beginning but he gave me the option and he was so delicate with me and he handled me with such feather uh feathery gloves so that i wouldn't bruise this thin skin of mine that i would remember getting around finally to the problem at two or three in the morning i can remember after meetings going to my sponsor's house because i was now willing to try to change and leaving at 6 30 or 7 the next morning and talking about all these different things i I remember I got to a point where I was willing to go and stand at the front door of every meeting that I went to and shake everybody's hand and get to know everybody. I wanted to sit around and wait for them to come to me and shake my hand. As a matter of fact, I didn't think the meeting was very good or the people weren't very friendly if they didn't do that. But the funny thing was, I wasn't willing to do that myself. And that's what my sponsor began to show me in Alcoholics Anonymous is the old recovery depends on you. Group unity depends on your ability to do it. It depends on who you are. A healthy AA meeting depends on you. Sponsoring depends on both to be a sponsor and to be sponsored. I can't sponsor somebody else if I'm not willing to be sponsored myself. And I never realized what willing to go to any lengths actually meant. So as a result, I became willing to do whatever and anything that was necessary to recover in Alcoholics Anonymous, and that meant all these different conversations and ironing these problems out, and then it meant also writing inventories. Not one, but many. The degree and level of honesty and open-mindedness varied at times, and as I get and work and stay and hang around people that are honest with themselves, it's easier for me to be honest, because I'm shown how to do it. And that comes in varying degrees. And I'm glad that God's got a great sense of humor and I'm Glad that God has got and is very gentle with me because he has taken time to show me to myself. Had he shown me what I really was like the first six months in sobriety, I would have gone back out and drank. Had you shown me really what I, the kind of emotional immaturity that I displayed at two and three years of sobriety, when I first came in AA, I would have never made it. I didn't even realize that at two or three years drier in Alcoholics Anonymous that I was still nothing better than a 14- or 15-year-old when it came to things like envy or jealousy or gluttony or sloth or these different emotions that I have to deal with because when I got sober I recognized that really I was very very immature and needed a lot of airing growing to do but it wasn't until I was willing to go to any lengths or willing to take action in the fellowship alcoholics anonymous that nothing really proved to be nothing beat the acid test that is the acid test if I am willing to going to any links to actually do it to get up to come to this meeting at 9 in the morning is the asset test become willing to go to any lengths uh when the willingness started and i began to reap the benefits of doing and getting involved in alcoholics anonymous sponsoring people because finally i was at a point where i could be sponsored and i'll never forget when i became willing to sponsor somebody or to become willing to sponsored uh i got real frustrated because nobody asked me to sponsor them and I brought it up at my home group meeting in Akron, Ohio, where I got sober. And it's a men's closed discussion meeting, and it is not unlike something like P3 or the meeting that Bill talked about last night where they really don't lay out a whole lot of sympathy about your problems or anything like that. They just kind of hit you right between the eyes, and the brutal honesty begins. And self-pity is something that is really not put up with much. And I mentioned at this meeting, I said, yeah, I've got a problem. I said I can't understand why I can'T sponsor anybody or I want to sponsor somebody and I'm not able to. Nobody asked me, and I'll never forget Ron Sennett who was the first guy to respond to this problem I had. and he's and this is a room full of 85 90 100 colleagues or whatever mavericks actually is what it was and he said craig has thought ever occurred to you that you have to have something to transmit in the first place uh you can't give away something you don't have and i didn't even understand what that meant what he was saying was you don'T even have anything to give to a new person so to speak and this was at 20 20 some months in alcoholics anonymous and really all I'd been doing was hanging around AA. I haven't been trying to implement, or I really wasn't exercising any honesty, open-mindedness, or willingness to change. I was just kind of hanging around. Yeah, but, you know, yeah, but I'm too young, or yeah, but, uh, you know, I'm white male Caucasian with white blonde hair, or yeah, but, uh, you know I didn't earn enough last year, or yeah, but, uh, I'm not like him, or yeah but she's a girl. I don't have those kind of problems. Yeah, but I really don't need to go around and introduce myself to everybody and shake everybody's hand. They know me. Or, yeah, but that guy over there, he's putting the chairs away. I don't need to help. Or, Yeah, but that guy already talked about the same problem I had in a meeting so I don' t have to mention it in front of all these people that I puke all over myself when I drink or whatever. And those two words yeah, but are really basically what keep me in jail. They keep me imprisoned. They keep locked up in myself. And this lady named eve would always say you know craig when you're wrapped up in yourself you make an awfully small package and uh i had realized i again i didn't even understand it takes me time to think about these things and began to realize what she was saying was that until you get out of the envelope that that you're in that you keep yourself in and become willing to do something and you're be a small package and it wasn't until i became willing to be sponsored that i could find myself in a position to sponsor and that's really when the greatest amount of growth occurs in me in alcoholics anonymous is when i was willing to take the time and make aa more important than anything in my entire life no more yeah but it's not one single yeah but i can't i gotta be i got a meeting or yeah but I can't do it I'm tired tonight or yeah, but I can't get involved in conferences that takes so much time oh yeah but what if the conference doesn't come off would I want to be associated with something like that or or I ever forget when this one friend of mine had come to me and in Akron it was a guy that I'd sponsored originally and he now had the same sponsor that I did and he approached me one night after Hilltop meeting he said hey we're thinking about starting a young people's meeting and you know what do you think Would you like to try and get active or try to help out or whatever? And I said, well, I don't think that'll work. And today that meeting is, I Don't know, was that the last anniversary? It's like six years old, and it has an attendance of 85 people regularly. The same group of people got a young people's convention in Ohio, the third annual. We had speakers from all around the country come in and talk. eleven and a half thousand dollar bill that we paid uh to the university of akron um and ended up with two thousand dollars extra to give to the next year's convention so that they could get it started and get it rolling and all this came and stemmed from this this little young people's meeting that i didn't really think was going to go anywhere and uh fortunately i changed my thinking and got involved and yeah but uh got out of it and i said well yeah but you know they they said they've tried these young people's meetings in Akron and they've never worked and I just can't believe how those two words yeah but have prefaced everything that I do they say you know get up and hug some people at this weekend what yeah but that's kind of you know I mean I don't even know these people and and it's another one of those yeah buts I guess the point that i'm trying to make is that i realize today that i make the difference and i'm not saying that in a vain and glorious sort of fashion it's because recovery starts with me the very first theme of the very First International Convention of Alcoholics Anonymous was let it begin with me and until the willingness came nothing happened because as i began to accept the responsibilities and became willing to change i didn't realize exactly how important that really was because I as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous make the difference and possibly you as a Member of Alcoholic Anonymous makes the difference. And every one of us has got that responsibility and that privilege locked up inside us and it's there and we get the choice of decision. We can decide whether we want to become willing, we can decide weather we want to be open-minded and we can be we only are the ones that decide whether that we want to be honest about anything. Honesty has never hurt me. The moments that I have experienced and wanted to get honest with myself, afraid to say something or afraid to look at something in my life, have always paid off a hundredfold. This is not to be confused with getting honest about something or telling somebody something about them to hurt them. To be honest or to use honesty to tell somebody or show somebody the mistakes that they're making or such, to hurt them or to belittle them, to make you look better. That's an abuse of honesty. And my sponsor, if he said, you really want to know how honest you are and hit me with it right down the line when I first got sober, I would have never come back to Alcoholics Anonymous. So along with this creative power in honesty comes responsibility. And I learned the word to be discreet and I learned the word, I learned how to be compassionate. Because if I was shown how sick I was when I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, I honestly don't think I could have handled it. I honestly do not think I would have even, I really would think denial would have come in and creeped in so fast that I would never have accepted the fact that I was that sick or that I like the people that seem to be having problems in Alcoholics Anonymous. Willing to go to any length in Alcoholics Anonymous, today I am willing to go any length. I am willing every single morning to get on my knees and ask God for guidance for the day. I'm willing now to take time when I'm ready to leave the house to sit down quietly in a moment of meditation for some minutes. Some days it's longer than others but to think and become willing to actually try to clear my mind and try to become a vehicle through which a power greater than myself can work. I am now willing today to participate at any level in recovery of Alcoholics Anonymous, be it helping to try to start a meeting, participating in a convention, being responsible and trying to sponsor other people, being a vehicle through which this power greater than myself can work. To come here in the morning and to share with you people, to be willing now is basically I think the greatest indication to me that I have accepted the disease of alcoholism and that I am now willing to try to change, that I am at a point in time where there's nothing that I won't do really to stay sober. Willing now to accept the responsibility at work and to try to become a productive human being that Alcoholics Anonymous wants me to become. It just doesn't want me to stay dry or to not drink. It also wants me to get back into the flow of things, fit back into society, begin to try to exercise and practice these principles that we learn in recovery in all my affairs, be it business or relationships with loved ones, family, or the opposite sex become willing to accept the responsibility of myself to become not just cash register honesty which is very easy for for me to be honest about money and those types of things that wouldn't steal but to be honest about the fact that I'm denying that I am hurt by somebody else's actions or to be enough with myself to realize that I really don't know much about certain things and then I need to open my mind mind and ask questions the beautiful thing about how it works or how do you do something or how to get to this point in time or how have you arrived how have you recovered how have you gotten to a certain point is that when I say just how not only does it remind me of honesty open-mindedness and willingness the spelling of it but it has actually the first step in humility when the mind opens up and I am willing to change based on an honest assessment of where I am, how do you get sober? How do you start a meeting? How do become involved in conferences? How do share? How do recover in Alcoholics Anonymous? Because that in itself is an indication of open-mindedness and willingness. I think what I would like to do at this point in time based on what we have left is call on some different people to see if they would like to come up and share about any of these indispensables and what you may be doing today to be willing to go to any lengths to recover in Alcoholics Anonymous. And first I would like just thank everybody, thank the committee for asking me to come to participate in this first annual kansas city area young people's convention and alcoholics anonymous um is there anybody that would like to come up and start and share a couple minutes about the indispensables to recovery no yeah but uh yeah but you know uh yeah but why don't you come on up and and kick it off yeah i'm pointing at you take a few minutes to share so that you too can become part of this convention let me sit over here hi i'm robert and i'm an alcoholic i haven't got this i might have to get that uh I like what you had to say about the yeah-buts. I yeah-but all the time. I don't know, yesterday, well, it ran over yesterday. I was awake 30 hours. I got off work yesterday at 8 o'clock in the morning and came to Kansas City on my way to the convention. So yesterday was a long day for me and I was up until 2 o' clock in the evening at the marathon meeting i was just kind of dozing in and out of the meeting but uh i was sitting there and uh the people would come around and they'd share and they were sharing honest feelings you know they yeah i was at the dance and i didn't feel like i fit in and uh they're being honest about it and uh one lady said that she went out the night before and got drunk and i don't know how much sobriety she had but uh she was honest about it and um i just i sat there and i was grateful because where i come from i've been sober for eight months and i think i'm the the one who has less sobriete in russell kansas uh except for those that are that are still practicing but uh they haven't had new blood and rustle forever and and i come here and i you know i was sitting in that marathon meeting i felt kind of like an old-timer i i've heard it said the first 30 days of sobriety uh you ought to be grateful for because this is a program where you work up to being ignored. And it's kind of that way, I guess. You ought to be grateful for the advice you get in the first 30 days or the suggestions. But that's one thing that I do. I take my sobriety, the sobriity that I have today, for granted. And that's the most dangerous thing I can do because once I start taking it for granted and think that I can doing it on my own and not ask for God's help or AA's help. And there's times when I catch myself, say I work nights, and so to go to meetings, the meetings in Russell start at 8 o'clock, and I usually wake up about 8, 9 o' clock. So to go To meetings, I have to wake up early. And somebody said, well, did you go to the meeting? I said, no, I slept in. and yeah but I was tired you know I stayed up late later than I should and I never like realized how how much I said yeah but until you mentioned it Craig and it's uh this is a program of honesty and if you can't be honest with yourself then you can'T be honest WITH anybody else and it's kind of like you can't love yourself and you can' t love other people until you love yourself well I believe that you can be honest with anybody else until you're honest with yourself and I don't know I have a lot of good friends in and out of the program friends I wouldn't normally associate with out of the program. I have one real good friend. He knows that I'm in AA, and he's real supportive. Before I came to Kansas City, I went over to Hayes. Well, I had to go to Victoria, and Victoria is ten miles away from Hayes, so I went over to—it's the opposite direction of Kansas City—so I went over to Hayes and I saw him before I left, and I said, yeah, I'm going to Kansas City. He said, oh, I wish I could go with you. And he was real encouraged me to go and meet other people. And I don't know, I have a friend in California, and he's one of the reasons I'm in AA today. We were talking, I've been around AA for two years now. My dad's been sober for two and a half years. And I, this friend of mine, we were talking about drinking and sobriety and AA, and he said, well, when you drink, how do you drink? And I said, well, I drink for one purpose. I said I drink to get drunk, and drink to get drunk. And that's the only reason I drink. And he said yeah, well there's a lot of us in AA like that and uh that's one of the things that he said that made me realize that i and with uh with alcohol and uh in may he celebrated his first birthday and it was really really good i have to buy him a birthday i haven't bought him a birthday present yeah i uh when he got his nine month chip i think i was five months sober i wasn't quite five months over and uh he sent me a letter and he sent this chip and i got it and it was a nine month ship i called him and i said uh asked him why he had it why he sent it i said I only have five months. He said, why did you send me a nine-month chip? And he said, well, it'll give you something to look forward to. I remember that when I was on my way here, I rememberthat I left the chip at home in my other pants. So I thought, oh, shit. Something interesting happened to me on myway here. Well, when I went to Hayes, I went by the Oak Street group before I came here, and I got a bumper sticker because I wanted to put my bumper sticker on so anybody on the interstate could see me and know that I was in the program if somebody happened to be coming that way. Well, I was driving along listening to some tapes that my sponsor had given me. My sponsor likes to give me tapes. And I was just driving down the street, driving down to the interstates paying no attention to the traffic or my driving or anything, listening to the tapes, putting it all in God's hands. and uh this guy comes up beside me and he's waving and everything i thought well god damn wonder if i have a flat tire or something and so he gets to the rest area and pulls off and i i pulled off and i went down and got a drink of water and he said he said are you a one day at a timer and i said yeah he said me too and he introduced himself and and uh i never heard heard it phrased that way one day at a time or i've always said are you a friend of bill wilson's and uh i've never heard it praised or there's other things but it's interesting how many people you come into contact with people that you don't would never associate with and it's good to be here and it could be sober thank you gentlemen in the back row good morning my name is ralph harris i'm a member of alcoholics anonymous i'm probably in the wrong meeting that's the first one at 9 30. okay workshop is supposed to be 10 30 there's another one oh okay and i should i thought sure there was somebody sitting behind me over there but i guess that's the last row i know i always sit on the last roll trying to get out of whatever might take place but i guess i got caught this time i'm i'm glad to be at this conference for young people and uh every time i go into meeting i try to get sit by somebody that's got hair like mind and I think maybe that I won't have to participate um it's a good thing I know that it seems as though in this particular place that I'm running into young people who have the right information and I can say that when I came here I got some information there wasn't necessarily the right information the right information was available to me because I was able to purchase a textbook soon after I got here. But the things that I heard coming from the people's stories and the way that they were living got me on the wrong track. I guess that's where I was supposed to be or that's where I wanted to be, because I haven't heard anybody say since I've been here that all you have to do is stop drinking and you can do anything you want to do. I think I missed this thing for quite a while. I had to figure out, for the purpose of registration, how long I had been a sober member of AA. And it winds up to be 206 months and 7 days yesterday. It translates into 17 years and 2 months and seven days or something like that. And I wonder where I've been, and if I had my way, I'd want to start over with you, see? Because I know the wrong way, and I know the right way now. And it's more to this thing than just not drinking one day at a time, even though that's the reason that we come here in the first place, is not to drink one day of the time, and it's high on the priority list. but after a while it's it's not the most important thing it might always be the most important thing but living becomes the most important thing and knowing how to give to other human beings without asking anything in return learning how to cooperate and be instructed by a power greater than yourself in your decision making and in your personal relationship. That's where it is for me today. I found that this power after he gave me a spiritual experience that I thought was so necessary in my recovery program that I looked for and worked for so hard after he gave it to me, then I took it and did what I wanted to with it. And the idea was that if this God would enter my life in the way of a vital spiritual experience and relieve me of the obsession to drink, then it was my responsibility to nurture this spirit and allow him to take me to a better way of living. though the obsession to drink may be expelled it doesn't mean that it's a permanent lifetime deal the doctor told me in that book after i began to read it that i would always drink if i became nervous irritable and discontent and there were many times in my life that i was nervous irritable in discontents and the power saw fit not to let me take a drink hoping that his grace would be sufficient for me to really wake up one of these days and find out what that book was saying because some people wrote in that book had the nerve to say that they were reborn and i wanted to skip over that because i was sure that they could have written that book without putting those words in there and then as a second thought they said well it's in there so we'll just keep it in there i thought maybe they would have really liked to have taken it out because that's not the kind of stuff you tell an alcoholic compared to what I hear in a meeting because nobody wants that. I don't hear people talking about a rebirth in an AA meeting so why is it in AA book? I looked a little further down maybe about after after step 10 and they said that we have began to sense the flow of his spirit into us I said what the hell are these people talking by i hear people read the 12 promises in aa meetings but i don't hear them talk about the fourth dimension of existence i am talking about not drinking anymore but it seems to be that there's uh there's quite a bit more to it than that and i'm thankful today that i'm in a period of personal growth where i can really say that i might be on the right track and i haven't had a drink for a long time but i see that this power that um that causes spiritual experience to take place more than 16 years ago has been long suffering with me he's been patient and he's being tolerant with me and he allowed me to take the reins of my life at certain periods and mess things up and still not drink today i'm a committed aa member at one time i was just a member of alcoholics anonymous and i think it took that for me to go through all the things that you go through in an aa club the business meetings the misunderstandings that you have in order to have an opportunity to express what God has really done in your life. I see many AA members as a result of having personality conflicts. Can you imagine having personality conflict in AA? Move to another group or stop coming all together. And I see today that if he could do a job on my drinking problem as badly as I was affected with this disease, He can do something with the other fears that I have, with other problems that I had. Last night in the marathon meeting, for a considerable period of time, I felt uncomfortable. And I don't know why I would feel uncomfortable in any situation since this book told me also that we have a solution upon which we can absolutely agree. and it would be in harmonious brotherly action that we would follow this program so i had nothing really to be afraid of and i found out that i wasn't afraid of anything except myself i think uh when that book says that selfishness self-centeredness seems to be the root of our troubles i sat right there in that seat last night and figured out that that's what my problem was last night, that I was being selfish and self-centered, and that I was trying to protect something. I didn't want to be honest. So therefore it was almost impossible for me to share. But my heart went out to a gentleman in there because I could understand when he said that the luster of Alcoholics Anonymous had gone away. And I've been that place too. And I was at that place when I was constantly depending on people. Now, I know that we hear in AA that God works through people, but then I was able to pick up that book one day and in the end of Chapter 5, Chapter 3 find out that that's all real good. That's all really good, but the last paragraph in Chapter 3 told me that my help and my defense must come from a power greater than me. And I don't see any human being as being that, because I think I would be insane if I gave that authority to another human being. I can't even give it to my wife, and she swears that she's a power greater than I am. Because my healing came when I was alone one time, and there was nobody with me except this power greater then me. And I find now that if I don't grow along spiritual lines, and there was a time when I thought that Alcoholics Anonymous wasn't a sufficiently spiritual program for me, that I had to look for my spirituality outside AA. I was six years old in the fellowship, and I was determined to find out more about how I could live this spiritual life, so I got involved in the church. In the church they asked for tithes, you know, which is all right. us all right six years ago it was just something that i had to do to satisfy those church people but one day i looked in the bulletin and they had stopped putting my name in the bulletin as being a tither and so it it was going to show up my honesty and my sincerity about this tithing thing so i called the pastor and i asked him why they had taken my name out of the tithing section of the bulletin he said well i'm not responsible for that you have to talk to somebody else he gave me the name of the lady to talk to and she said well I can't explain it either uh she said are you tithed on your gross income or your net income and the answer to that was I was tithering on what I felt I needed to tie it on. It probably wasn't the gross art in that. And I was disappointed there and found out that, uh, that I couldn't buy my way into this thing, see, into a good relationship with a power greater than me. I want to internalize the word as it exists in the book, the textbook Alcoholics Anonymous so that I can have a serene and peaceful life with a minimum number of bumps and disappointments i i think i have them all the time it's just that this book has promised me and i've received that promise that my reaction to life is different today than it has been in the past and i owe it to the fellowship of alcoholics anonymous but more than that i owe to the information that the old time has left us in the form of the textbook because i can tell you today that it will answer any problem that I may have, whether it be in personal relationship, whether it'd be in politics, whether it'll be in finances or whatever the situation may be that could potentially become uncomfortable. I have no doubt in my mind that one day at a time following the fellowship as I am now being committed to it that I'll never have to worry about drinking again. And I can remember 17 years ago at this time when my family had left me and left me there with a poodle and unemployment, and I didn't know whether to get the poodle some lunch ham or get me some or didn't have enough money to buy a package of cigarettes, let alone to get something to drink. When I was selling soda pop bottles in order to just go through the day, today it's a lot different and i owe that to alcoholics and i was beyond a shadow of a doubt and if i can help anybody in this fellowship understand what it is that we're supposed to do in order to have this thing then that's what i want to do for the rest of my life and for as long as i live when young people come to this program and think that maybe i can half do this or wait till later on to do this i want to be there to tell them that if you want a quality sobriety you have to follow the clear-cut instructions the way the book has thank you very much well it's 10 o'clock it's time to wrap it up um i want to thank ralph robert two people we had time to listen to comments uh somebody with eight months sobriety came all the way from wherever russell kansas is it's next day it's nice to haze and bingo or wherever and uh and uh 240 miles which way that way and uh i remember when When we had the Ohio State Young People's Convention, we had a honk-if-you-know-Bill-Wilson post or bumper sticker that we tried to sell to make money and stuff. And I used to get so pissed off at these people that kept honking at me until I realized that I had that sticker on the back of my own car. I'd get aggravated with people, why are you honking? And I'd realize, oh, jeez. It's another member in AA, so I did exactly the same thing you did. Why are these people weird or something? minute uh it's great to be a part of this first uh first convention of the area young people's convention and it is a conference being put on by young people for all of aa there is no age limit on what what's being done here call somebody today and ask them to come on out to the meetings later on today and tomorrow and to the dance and such hopefully you'll be willing to do and spread this message hopefully you're willing to start to hug people and and and do that what it takes to get out of ourselves. But I would challenge you all to get on the phone sometime today and call somebody you know in AA, especially somebody that you know is hurting, and say, get your butt on down to one of these meetings because I love you and because I want you to come here and be part of this first Young People's Convention and make that call today to somebody. So if we could, could we close this meeting with the Lord's Prayer? And there'll be another meeting at 1030.