The Vicious Circle of Complacency, Apathy, and Dependency – Wesley P.

He needs really no introduction here, but he's been responsible for many a sober person in this area. I know he's meant a lot to my sobriety. I've heard him talk a few times, and I've always gotten something out of what he has to say. Can't hear. okay well you can't hear me you walk up a little closer and get on the side there's something like this i don't see if we can make it any louder it's all the way up now okay so i think wesley's going to talk to us about the 12 traditions and so with that i'd like to ask wesley p from pomano to come up and tell you what it's about Let me get the pitch all right. Can you hear me all right? Can you here that? Okay? Okay. My name is Wesley Parrish, and I am an alcoholic. Hi, everybody. You know, I have to say that John made as fine a talk as I've ever heard. Right? Let's give them another hand. That's my boy. When they call me from Australia, I know John don't mind me telling this, and they said, Wesley, I was in Australia in 1978, and they says, we want you to come back. And it says, We need someone to talk about AA. And I said, Well, I'm sorry. I'm too old. I can't make trips like that for once in a lifetime. But I said, I do have a man that can go and do the same thing that I do. And so they said, who is he? And I told them, and I said now you can take my word for it. And you should see, I've got a stack of letters at home. I've never shown John about what people thought of him in Australia because he 12-stepped the nation. And, you know, that's a tremendous thing. And he did it by carrying the big book. He carried forth exactly the same thing that I did in 1978, and he just added two. And so I'm indeed proud of being John's sponsor. Well, John has told you about the recovery, about one-third of the AA program. How about that? One-third. And that is recovery. That is the foundation. That is what makes this AA program real. And you will find that outline. It says, Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Now what path are they talking about? How do you get on the path? Well, in the first edition of the big book, in The Forward, they said this book was written by 100 men and women who found themselves in the hopeless state of mind and body. and this book is to tell you precisely this book here is to tells you precisely how we have recovered precisely and so you will find that John went through the twelve steps he carried you down the path in Alcoholics Anonymous it's no need going any farther than the big book Alcoholics Anatomist to find the path because the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous outlines step 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. And if you follow the instructions, this is the blueprint, the big book. If you followthe instructions, you will have that spiritual experience or spiritual awakening as John talked about and things will happen to you beyond your fondest dreams. In Texas, they say if you don't give your sobriety date, most likely you don t have one. So I always give my sobrieta date. My sobriete date is November 13th, 1947. I've had the wonderful experience of living this program now. I'm in my 37th year. But that means nothing. I need the program more today than I needed it 36 years ago, because today I have a lot to lose. When I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I had nothing to lose, but today I've got everything to lose and so therefore I have to be as enthusiastic about the program today, more so than I was 36 years ago. And I have to study and apply this program to Wesley Parish on a continuous basis. The big book says that you cannot rest upon your laurels, that you have a daily maintenance, you have a daily reprieve subject to your spiritual maintenance. And so therefore you have to maintain what you have in this program every day. And to maintain what you have and improve it, you've got to grow. There's an old cliche in AA that says you've gotta go, you've Gotta Grow, or You've Gotta Go, one of the two. And it makes no difference how long you're in the program. You always have to be teachable. Now John mentioned several times in his talk about what, that this, the 12 steps of recovery is an inside job. In other words, you apply, you put into action the program into your own self. No one else can do it for you. This program works if you work. This program walks for me if I work. This program will not work if I do not work. If I don't put what I hear and what I read in this big book into action in my own life and find my own program, I will find that I will have a hard time staying sober. There's three pertinent ideas after the big book. It says in the big books, it says how it works, it gives the 12 steps. And then it says the three pertinate ideas is this. It says A, that we are alcoholic and we cannot manage our own lives. B, that probably no human power now I want to repeat that that probably no human power can relieve you of your alcoholism let that soak in no human power that means your group that's people that means your mother your father your children your church that's a group of people they cannot remove alcoholism from you you cannot recover through them but C tells you where you go C says that God could and would that's the definite promise that God would God could and would if he was soft and we hear that at every meeting do we not Now, the 12 steps are so designed that when you go through the 12 steps, you go to a process of deflation. Getting rid of the big I, the ego. That's the way they're designed. When Bill Wilson read the book, A Variety of Religious Experiences by William James, this book told him that a spiritual experience which he did not know was deflation at depth. Now you will find this listed in the book A.A. Comes of Age, which is a history of alcoholic synonymous. Bill found that the definition of a spiritual experience was deflation at depth. In other words, the big book says the root of our trouble is we're self-centered and selfish. And so therefore these things we have to get rid of. We have to Get Rid of Ego. And we have To Put God in Our Lives. As John says, we have to make a decision that we're going to turn our lives over to the care of God as we understand it. And any time that we take over, well, we edge God out of our lives, or we ease God out, out of all eyes, E-G-O, ego, edge God up. So therefore, we have to have a God conscience. And this is what the 12 steps is all about is to deflate inside. The first thing you do to start deflating, and you have to do this no one else can do it for you the first thing You have to admit that you're whipped you're licked you say that you are powerless over alcohol now who ever heard of telling an alcoholic that he is powerless over anything If someone else tells you that you're powerless over anything, you rebel because you feel like the person is regimenting you. Number two, it tells you that your life is unmanageable. Well, you have to say that you are powerless over alcohol, that your live is un manageable. And you have make this decision yourself. This admission, this surrender from there you have to say that you're in a state of insanity because it says I came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity well if you're if you've been restored to sanity you had to come from somewhere so you had come from insanity whichever whatever the meaning might make mean it doesn't make any difference so that's deflation then it tells you that you've got to make a decision to turn your life over to care of God as you understand it that means that that the way that you have been living what you have been doing must be wrong because you've certainly messed things up. You're an alcoholic and I mess things up in my life and so therefore I've got to say to Wesley Parrish to God, Wesley Parrisch has to say, God I've messed my life up. My life is unmanageable I'm powerless over alcohol I wonder if you will help me with my life I'm willing to turn my life over to you when you direct it you know g-o-d means good orderly direction that's all it means good orderly the direction and so i turn my life and my will over to him that is deflation telling him that i admit that i am completely wrong and i surrender to him and then it tells me to look at myself exactly the way i am not the way I pretend to be it tells me to take an inventory and be fearless about it. Look at myself exactly the way I am, not the way that I pretend to be. And from there it tells me that I have to admit to God, to myself and another human being the exact nature of my wrongs. Both of these are directly deflation one hundred percent. And it tells you that I've got to ask God to remove all my defects of character, my sins of commission, doing the things I know that I shouldn't do every day. And it tells me that I've got to get rid of my shortcomings, my sin of omission, things that I don't do everyday that I should do everyday. Then it tells you that I have to make amends to the people that are harmed. You see the process of the deflation? Getting rid of the big I. and then it tells me that I make these amends except to do so with any of them or others if it's going to hurt someone else don't do it, that's deflation because we as John said we were like a bull in a china closet anything that protects us we always did it regardless of how it affected anyone else we don't have to do that anymore and then he says after you've done all this you continue to take a personal inventory and when you're wrong properly admit it depletion. It says that you'll never have a perfect relationship with God, so through prayer and meditation you continue to ask God for his will and the power to carry it out. And then it says after you've done this you have received, you have got away from self-reliance and you have God-relief. You rely on God. it's nothing and you have a God conscience and God has become your partner in life and you've had this spiritual experience or this spiritual awakening and you try to carry this message to other alcoholics you become a plant of seeds you try you don't poke it down anybody's throat you just try to care the message that's deflation knowing what you have and be an attraction and not promote it that's depletion and then it says and to practice these principles all your affairs the best piece of 12 step work any AA member can do is just walk down the streets of his hometown sober and be a credit to Alcoholics Anonymous That's the best 12-step job you can do because someone is watching. You needn't worry about that. Well, when you do all this, you have deflated. Well, how do you say deflated? You know, this is about 10 years sober. you have received this spiritual awakening through the grace of God and then you've got long more to live you live in this AA program and so how are you going to keep for relaxing your program how are You going to Keep Your Enthusiasm Up for the program being that you've gone through the 12 steps am I going through those one after another time and time again recovering every day the same old 76? Or am I going to have something else to grow on? Well, when I reached this time, I was about 10 years in AA, and I was getting along fine. God was doing for me what I could not do for myself. I had everything in the world. I had things that happened to me beyond my fondest dreams. I was successful in business. I had money in my pocket. I'd build a new home. When I'd first come in there, my sponsor had a Lincoln that was 40 miles, about 40 feet long. And I said if I could ever have a Lincoln automobile, that would be the epitome. And I had two Lincolns. I'm an alcoholic. And I've had success galore. And I have pigeons everywhere. And I was being respected, you know, and I was in service. I was doing all these things, you Know? And one day I got a screwy idea. I said to myself, I said, Wesley, do you know that you haven't done a thing in the world about your retirement? Here you are 45 years old, and you don't have a dime to retire on. You'll have a little Social Security yet, but that ain't going to buy it the way this inflation is coming about. You better get busy. You better spend a little bit more time in business and make some of these and make more money because you're going to have to have something, a nest egg back there to survive in your old age. Your kids are going to kick you out. they're not going to support you so you're going to have that wife of yours to support too and so I really got hung over on this you see I started becoming dissatisfied with what God had done for me I didn't think God had done enough I guess but I was I couldn't reason it out that way but that's what I was thinking God had not done enough And I had more than I'd ever had in my life. And I hade nothing to worry about, nothing. And I started reviewing my time in the 24-hour day, and I found out that I was spending a lot of time in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I was spendin' the normal time in business. I said, well, if I'm gonna make more money, what I've got to do is I've got to take some of this time from Alcoholics Anonymous because I've gotta run my business 8 o'clock in the morning till 5.30 in the afternoon and I gotta have an hour for lunch, an hour for dinner and I said what I gotta do is take away from Alcoholic Anonymous. I just don't go as many meetings as I've been going to and I got thinking about this. The only place I had the time to take away from you see and I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I day come up, Wednesday of the week. And I hadn't missed a meeting at my group in years on Wednesday night because my sponsor told me, whatever you do, boy, on Wednesday night, you be to your meeting if that's your group night for meeting. It comes before anything else. Your family, your job, your business, your children, society, anything. Let your family do whatever they want to do. let society do whatever they want to do. It don't make any difference what's on television. You go to that meeting, and that was the way I was reading it. And I believe this. And so Wednesday came around, and the phone rang. The old devil rang the phone. That's who rang it. I know it. He rang the call because, you see, I was thinking in his way now, you say. He was sitting up here on my shoulder, poking me along. He said, Wesley, you're thinking right now, boy. See, I was one of his chief lieutenants, and I had thrown him by the wayside, and he wanted to take me up again, you know, because I'd done him a good job. And so he let that telephone ring, and this man says, Wesley, I'm going to be home tonight, and I want you to come out and survey my house for air conditioners. I said, that's terrific. and I thought I said well tonight's meeting night I said oh I've been justified I said I've wanted to go down to Fort Lauderdale that Thursday night meeting for a long time I'll go out tonight and see him and then I'll be like a Rotarian I'll make the meeting up you know and you know I went out that night and I sold this Eric and Misty job and I made a nice piece of change how sweet it was well I made so much that the next night I forgot about the meeting in Fort Lauderdale. I went out on another air conditioning call. And for a week, I didn't go to a meeting. And the next Wednesday night, I went to my group and I walked in. Now, I haven't missed a meeting in years. I walked into this group. Not one person said one word to me about not being able to meet in the week before. I said, what the hell? Ha! Is that all I mean to this group? I said, the heck with them. I said I'll be doing this some more. I'm not important around here anyway. I said i should have turned what I'm doing around this group over the newcomer a long time ago. And so I just got very permissive about my AA meeting. now you see let me go through this with you I learned this from Ken Brooks years ago and you'll recognize this this is nothing new but I haven't heard in a long time it's called B to B when you come into A you're in a state of bondage you're on the bondage of alcohol and you're bondage of self because you're under bondage of self because in the third step prayer it says, God relieve me of the bondage of self. Does it not? So you're in those two bondages. Well, you take the first half, the first step, and you break the bondages of alcohol. As long as you don't take a drink, you don' t get that phenomenal craving. As long you don''t get that phenomenon of craving, you don ''t have a drink. And so therefore, you break bondage. And as long as don'' t take that first drink, your bondage is broke. But the next eleven and a half steps is totally for the deflation of self. S-C-L-F to get rid of self get rid off Wesley Parish. And the way we do this is through faith. We get faith in something the second and third step and from faith faith we go to freedom we get free of ourselves through the fourth and fifth step sixth and seventh and from freedom we get abundance I'm sorry after faith we get courage courage courage to look at life like it's supposed to be and from courage we get freedom and from freedom we get abundance we get abundance of spiritual being a spiritual life and we get abundance of material life. I had both. Now, I don't know which is the most important. But any time you get them unbalanced, yet one more paramount than the other, you're in trouble. Now, the big book says, and I know it says, if you become spiritually right, you'll become all right materially. But I didn't have time for that. But I think that in the pursuit of happiness, You've got to have material values, and you've got to have spiritual values in the pursuit of happiness. And so, you see, I could become top-heavy. When I got getting the abundance of this program, I couldn't stay on top because I got dissatisfied with what God was doing. And so what happened? I became complacent. The quiet pleasure of complacency means a quiet pleasure inside of you in other words i would go to my group and i would survey the flock and i said if it hadn't been for me he'd have never made it i look over here to this little doll and i says look at her isn't she beautiful my god do i remember that wreck for the first time i saw her everything straightened out if hadn't it been for mc she would have never looked that good. You see, taking credit, start playing God. Complacency. And after a period of time, this is inflation. You're inflating again. And after complacency you go to apathy. You become indifferent. You forget about your group. You forget About Everything. I used to say, well, I'll go once a month and sit on the back seat And if they all know how long I've been in AA, and if the newcomers want a few pearls of wisdom, I'll sit there five minutes after the meeting. See, this is getting sick all over you. And from there, I go to dependency. I start depending upon Wesley Parrish. I'm an alcoholic, and that's the worst thing an alcoholic can do is depend upon himself because his life is unmanageable. I don't care how long I'm in AA, my life is unmanageable. In some department, every day of my life today. And I start depending on me. It's the worst thing I can do. And I'm completely inflated all over again. Did I draw the picture? And where do you go from there? Right back into bondage again. So it's B to B. Bondage, faith, courage, freedom. If anybody should know what freedom is, it's an alcoholic that's rid of old self. Freedom, abundance, apathy, complacency, apathie, dependency, right back into bondage again. And so that's the vicious circle. So what do you do to get out of this? My sponsor caught me by the bootstraps. and told me what I was doing. And he said, Wesley, you better start looking at this program to grow. He says, you've stopped growing. And I didn't know where to look. I just didn't Know Where to Go. And one day I picked up a grapevine. And I read inside of the front cover, and it was the 12 steps. And I don't know why, I looked in the back page and back cover, and on the inside of the back cover was the Twelve Traditions. And I read the Twelve Steps again, and then I read The Twelve Tradition, and I said, well, I said you know it's an amazing thing, the Twelve steps is written at the we level, but I never practice the Twelve Steppes at the wee level. I practice them at the I level. And I says, the Twelve Traditions is practiced at the group level. And I said, I wonder what's the difference between we and a group. And I opened up my big book back to the long form, and it told me of the Twelve traditions, and it taught me that the number three, that when two or three alcoholics got together for the purpose of discussing in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, they could call themselves a group. And I said, well, two or three alcoholics getting together, that's a group Well, when two alcoholics get together, that's we, right? And so we and a group is the same I said so why can't I practice the twelve traditions along in my life with the twelve steps just like I practice the 12 steps. And you know, I started doing it. I don't know how, it just come to me now. How it come to be, I don' t know, but I was in a position where I had to do something. I had start growing and I knew that the founders of this program with Alcoholics Anonymous, if it was divinely inspired, there must be somewhere in the AA program that I could grow have to have a spiritual awakening. In other words, continue on. And you know, I have found out through studying the 12 traditions at the eye level that the 12 Traditions at the Eye Level is a continuation of the 12 Steps to how you keep from resting on your laurels. And this is how you Keep Physically and Mentally, Spiritually on a day-by-day basis is combining the two. The 12 steps taught me two things. Number one, it taught me to love Wesley Parrish. And number two, it talked me to love God. I had to love myself before I could love God Now, I've got something now the 12 traditions is going to teach me the third thing which is awfully important, and that's how to love you. How to love you, and really love you You see, if you read A Comes of Age, it says in the first part of it when it started, there was a fellow by the name of Amos that chaired the first meeting of the Rockefeller meeting with Alcoholics Anonymous members And after they got through they said this He says, you know, Alcoholics synonymous, is the nearest thing to first-century Christianity that I've ever known. Well, what was first-centric Christianity? It was a greatest group of people with the greatest love toward each other that's ever been known in the history of the world. You see, that's why Dr. Bob said in his last message, he says, that Alcoholics Anonymous was two things. It was love and service. That's the reason that we find in the big book, it says, our code is love and tolerance. Our attraction to AlcoholicsAnonymous was love. It was a Christian love. But although most likely we alcoholics, when we first came to Alcoholic Anonymous, only knew one interpretation of love, and that was a physical thing. But after you have a spiritual awakening, you see you have that spiritual love and that has got to expand within you and the only way I know to do it is to know what you're going where you're going and what you're doing it's not a person in this room that don't live the twelve traditions every day of their life along with the twelve steps but how many people in this room know what they're doing that it is part of the Alcoholics Anonymous program and how much more we would get out of it if we lived knowing what we were doing. I have found this out. And so today, you see, I have combined the recovery and the unity of AlcoholicsAnonymous in my life and things happen to me beyond my fondest dreams. I thought recovering was great but that's no comparison to what my life is today and the enthusiasm that I have for this program I have more enthusiasm for this program and it grows every day than I've ever had in my life right this very minute my wife says that all they have to do is just ask me to travel a thousand miles to lead a silent prayer and he says I'll be right there and that's the truth because you know I'm so grateful you know it's no way I could ever repay Alcoholics Anonymous what it's done for me you know the word grateful I had a lot of trouble with it and thankful I had to I had lots of trouble with it when I heard it around AA it seemed to me it was synonymous people would use it and I couldn't understand what they were talking about. And one day I found out, reading a little book, I picked it up and on top of the page it says thankful, grateful. And it says when you are thankful for something is when you are directly benefited. In other words, like I'm thankful for your friendship. I'm thankfull for you to invite me over here tonight to speak to you. I'm thinkfull for the food I eat. I'm thikfull for my family. Oh, it's so many things I'm thankful for. Through the grace of God that I have received through this program. Now, if I want to be grateful, I have to be as good to God as God has been good to me. I haveと be willing to reciprocate in God's service for what I'm thankfull for. In other words, to make payment thereof. because God has been so good to me. This is the only way I could ever repay Him. I know no other way I can repay Him, and so this is what showing gratitude means to me, I want to go through a few of these twelve traditions, and just show you what I'm talking about, so that we, you will understand, what I have done. I used to not have to wear these. The first tradition, now I'm going to read these traditions at the eye level. And you can see them, they start off with deflation. Starting this deflation all over again. It never lets you forget that you're an alcoholic. And I'm going to read them on the eye level, the first person. It says, my common welfare comes first. What is my common warfare? My common welfare is that I'm an alcoholic I'll never forget that. If I do, I'm in trouble. My common warfare comes first staying sober is my biggest business every day of my life it's got to come before my family it's gotta come for my job or my children my grandchildren our society because without my sobriety I am nothing I'm an alcoholic and so my common welfare is to be sure that I'm spiritually healthy. That's my common welfare, that I have no resentment, no hate, no jealousy, no intolerance, no impatience, rid myself of all of that each day to the best of my ability. That is my common welfare. Is that your common welfare? Then it says my personal recovery depends upon AA unity. My personal recovery depends upon me living in unity with you. My big book tells me that resentments are fatal. It tells me that argument is too expensive for me. It's a commodity I cannot afford. It It tells me, and I'll repeat, that love and tolerance is my code. So you see, I have to live in unity with you whether you live in unit with me or not. I've got to love you whether You love me or Not. I've Got to accept You just the way You are, not the way I want You to be. In other words, I Have to show You the same consideration I expect You to show Me. you know the greatest teacher on earth once said what is it to love those who love you that's nothing but to love those who hate you is something that's something now the rest of the world don't live like that but those are normal people out there we are not normal we're alcoholics so we can afford to live that way try it someday on for size and see how you like it I'll tell you It'll be the greatest day you ever lived if you just live in unity with your fellow man. Just show tolerance, patience, understanding and wish him well in everything that he does and show no jealousy toward no one. Oh, what a way to live. You know, I'm still practicing this, but damn it, I know the path. I know The Path. And I stay on The Path I'm like John and his piano. Well, the concert pianist said that, you know, he says, if I don't practice today, I know it. If I don'T practice tomorrow, my critics know it, and if I DON'T practice the next day, the world knows it, and I'm that same way with the traditions and the 12 steps. I became a different person altogether. this is a daily thing with me because my book tells me it's a daily thing that my spiritual maintenance has got to depend upon my spiritual condition and that's all there is to it and I have to keep deflated I have but one I have one ultimate authority A loving God as He expresses Himself in my conscience. I have one loving authority. A God of my understanding. The God that I found in the third tradition. And I said I was going to turn my life and my will over to Him. It's the same God. It's a God that loves me in spite of me. It's God who love is spontaneous, it's unlimited, and it's unmotivated. Regardless of what I do. The moment I turn to God, he loves me that minute or that second or the most minute measure of time. And he does the same for you, and you know that as well as I do. I don't deserve the love that God gives me, but he loves be in spite of me. And I have to use him as my ultimate authority. And it goes on to say that I am but a servant, I do not govern. In other words, I have been everything in Alcoholics Anonymous that you could be. I've been a bleeding deacon. I've done a dictator. I've run a group with Iron Hand, you know, all that stuff. I've ran people out of AA. I've did all those mean things. But today, the members of AlcoholicsAnonymous, if they are alcoholics, this is an inclusive, not an exclusion fellowship. and if you tell me that you're an alcoholic I accept you that moment in Alcoholics Anonymous and I believe in that because the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking now that's simple a simple little statement I only to be a member of AlcoholicsAnonymous only thing I have to do is just have a desire to stop drinking. And any person on earth that wants to become a member of Alcoholics Anonymous says, I've got a desire to stop drinking. It doesn't say anything about taking pills. It doesn'T say anything about any other addiction or any other troubles or anything else, whether you're neurotic or what you are. That doesn'T make a better difference in the world. AlcoholicsAnonymous is for alcoholics. That's what it says. And that's the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. It's simple. I don't know how I could be any other simple. So, therefore, I don' t have to take anybody's inventory anymore. I spend all that time taking my own and how much happier I am. You can tell me you're an alcoholic and I love you immediately. I try to do the same thing that my sponsor did to me. You know, the first time I saw my sponsor, he had great big eyes. And I went to him and I said, Jim, can I go to an AA meeting with you? And he had a great big blue eyes. I'll never forget it. And he says, you can go tonight if you're sober. But in his eyes, you know what I saw? I saw the divine love of God. Because when I said can I going to an AAA meeting with him, they just flashed. And it was spontaneous. And what he wanted to offer me was just unlimited. and it was nothing about me that should motivate such a thing but it did it was the divine love of God and that's all it takes for the memory to shift that's all it calls it's just the divine love of god loving your fellow man through AA I should always be autonomous except matters affecting AA or group as a whole I should always be self-governed. I should also be a man of my word. I should not always stand on my own two feet and be counted. Today, I'm not led by the nose. Uh-uh. If I have any convictions, I stay with my convictions. You know, Alcoholics Anonymous has proved more often than once that the minority is right more often than the majority. And this particular fellowship is the most democratic fellowship in the world. There could be no finer democratic organization in the world than Alcoholics Anonymous because it gives you the right to be wrong. It also gives you a right to petition regardless of your position, and any time you want to petition, you can petition in AlcoholicsAnonymous in your group. So you can be autonomous in this group. Stand on your own two feet. Be counted. You know, we used to have a little sign in Pompano Beach at a meeting that says, anything just about right is wrong. So if you want to go along with anything just About Right, you're wrong. That's the way it is. And you're the one that's going to hear the hounds of heaven bark at 4 o'clock in the morning. You're the loser, not someone else. You are. Because you haven't been firm and you haven'T sit on your own two feet and be counted. This is what you want to do if you're in the pursuit of happiness. You've got to be an individual and stand on your old two feet. be autonomous. This is what it's taught me. I'm going to come back to number five. Number seven says every AA group ought to be self-supporting, declining outside contributions. You say, well, what's that got to do with me? What's that got to doing with being happy? It has everything in the world in being happy because you show me a person that don't meet their responsibilities and I show you a person that's not happy. It's just that simple. And so, therefore, we are members of Alcoholics Anonymous. And the traditions of Alcoholic Anonymous tells me that it's my responsibility to support my group. It tells me if my group is going to be supported, the membership is what's going to support it. We are not going to get any outside contributions. We don't get food stamps. And we don't get WPA and FEA and all that stuff. We are self-supporting by our own membership. And if you're a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, then you have a responsibility to support AA. It's just that simple. If you want to be happy. It's just that simply. I used to sit by a millionaire when I first come in AA. I'll never forget it. And I sit by him every meeting because I wanted to renew the resentment every Thursday night, you know. And I did. I renewed it every Thursday tonight. This man was a millionaire. And when the plate went by, he'd reach into his pocket and he'd get a little old pitch pocket book, you know, and he would snap it open and you could hear it all over the room, you know. and he goes through and he runs his finger around in there and he come out with a Texas half that's a dime and he drop it in the plate under the basket and you know what I'd say that tight son of a bitch if he don't put but a dime in there I'm not going to put nothing now who was I hurting me because you see I wasn't meeting my responsibilities Anytime I shine a cheat, Alcoholics Anonymous, I'm the one that pays for it. You see, there's no strings attached to the program of Alcoholics Aanonymous. What other service organization or service fellowship and we render a service in our community has that record? Do you know of any? I don't know of a lot. and all of them just can't get enough money. Well, we decline it. We don't want no part of it. Money, power, and prestige is something that we just don't need because it will destroy Alcoholics Anonymous. And so, therefore, it's up to you and I as individuals, as members of AlcoholicsAnonymous to support AlcoholicsAnalymous. Alcoholics Analymus don't say give until it hurts. It says give until it feels good. And you know what you can afford, and I know what I can afford. And as long as my conscience is clear, I'm giving my pariah to share. But when my conscience hurts me, I say, well, I've got to add a little bit to it. Now, my conscience started hurting me a couple of years ago. One night I happened to think, I said, you know, ever since I've been in AA, I've been putting, since 1947, that's when a dollar is worth a dollar, you know. I'd been putting a dollar bill in the collection plate every time it passed me in my group. And I said, you buy a pound of coffee back in those days for 19 cents. And I says, you don't know, I haven't increased that dollar one hour older since 1947. I says that's 28 years or better. I said, you know, I haven't been doing my part. I haven'T kept up with inflation. I better start putting $2 in. So I started putting $1 in, and you know why I felt a lot better? Because I felt like I was doing my Part. I wouldn't belong to a group, and I say this with all sincerity, with all my soul, and with a complete autonomy. I wouldn't belong to a group that didn't support intergroup or GSO. I just wouldn't along to them because it's not a group. I believe in Alcoholics Anonymous supporting Alcoholics Aanonymous because I don't want no strings attached. I want those children unborn that's going to turn to alcoholics have the same privilege that I had, And as long as we members hold tightly to our breast the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and says this is ours and no one else can take it away from us because we don't receive no contributions from nobody. It's ours. It's our. And no other organization in the world can say that. Isn't that something? Isn't That Something To Be Proud Of? I'd say so. this is really you say well you're too gun ho I'm just gun ho enough to know what I got that's how gun ho I am and I'm going to keep what I've got because I haven't stayed sober 36 years picking tiddlywinks I'll tell you that I've stayed sober by doing an inside job here the best I can and my sincerity for this program is more today than it's ever been because I want you to have what I've enjoyed and had for the last 36 years. That's the only thing I can say to you. I'm so grateful to give you the opportunity to listen to me. And I'm going to close now because I know you've sat in a long time but I want to add one more that's number five. It says the primary purpose of a group or an individual is to carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers. Now, I've been sober as long as I've been sober and I am still suffering from the disease of alcoholism. I'm here tonight for my medicine for my disease. Now, I'm going to ask you a question. Are you here tonight for the medicine for your disease? Hold up your hands. the hell you still must be suffering right it couldn't be no other way well if that means you don't take medicine unless you're suffering and so you see what it says to carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers each one of us the medicine that each one of us need in this program every day of our lives is love. It's love. That's 12-step work. Is that 12-stepped work, love? What I'll call it for nothing? Then it's your and my responsibility to 12-stop each other. You show me a group where the membership of the group 12-steps each other, and I'll show you a group that will be successful in 12-step work. Because when a member walks through that door, for the first time, he will feel the spirit of Alcoholics Anonymous. And he says, I don't know what's in this room, but I sure want some of it. You see, this is an attraction that we have. The divine love of God. And we should use toward each other, to carry the message to each other. Every time we should see each other we should show spontaneous, unlimited and unmotivated love toward each another. This is what makes AA grow and what makes AAA whole and what keeps your enthusiasm up for this program. If you find some article or something somewhere, or read the big book and you find a paragraph in there and you think of a friend and say, I wonder if my friend has ever read that or not. That would do them some good. That's what we were talking about the other day. You call them up and say you know I found something today that might help you if you'll read it. Show them you care. This is a total program of sharing and caring for each other through the grace of God. Oh, this is a wonderful program. This is a wonderful program and everything is included. When Bill Wilson left us he left us with a perfect program. He didn't leave nothing out. He taught us and left us the big book to teach us how to love ourselves and how to live and how to love God. He gave us the twelve traditions which teaches us to love each other. And to love Each other, we serve Each other. And this is service. This is what Dr. Bob was talking about, love and service. You have to have love before you can serve. There's no way that you can Serve your fellow man without loving him. No way. And then Bill gave us a third legacy. which meant, in essence, to remove all politics from Alcoholics Anonymous. Politics is something that we don't need. And I live that every day of my life. Politics is favoritism, absolutely favoritist. And when I go through my day meeting people, regardless of who they are or where they come from or who they are. That makes no difference. That I show each and every one of them the same love, the same kindness, and the same consideration. Showing no partiality to no one but loving them all with the divine love of God spontaneously unlimited and unmotivated. You see, this is a path. This is a pathway that we have. This is the path that we need to keep if we keep this program. We have to grow or we've got to go. Thank you. Applause i hope each and every one of you here tonight got something that you can take back with you i know i did and i envy you john i do envy you okay the time is getting late and a lot of you have a long way to go are there any announcements that all right uh wes and john thank you very much for coming all the way from Pompano to here. I also want to remind you of the Big Book Seminar that's going to take place in Pompaneau Beach on May 31st, June 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. If you haven't been to the Big Books Seminar, please do yourself a favor and go. Applications are on the bulletin board of the club. Wes says, or whoever is sending out these things. I have some that I'll be more than glad to give you. It's at the Palm Air Hotel and Country Club. The rooms are beautiful, and I believe, if I remember correctly, they're $54.50 a day? $44.10. All tips, all taxes include your breakfast and your dinner. And it's buffet. Gourmet, it really is. That's great. So do yourself a favor. two bathrooms in every room that's right that's no lie okay folks thank you very much for coming enjoyed having you and if you will join me in the lord's prayer and we close the meeting our father Thank you.