The Vision for You That Leads to a Road of Happy Destiny – Conway H.

A vision for you. Thank you very much, John, and it's a pleasure to be here with you people that have waited this late hour to hear the last portion of this afternoon's program. and I feel like you're the hardcore. You're the winners and it's gratifying to have you here and it's a pleasure for me to be here. Did I say my name is Conway and I'm an alcoholic? Thank you. Now we're off to a better start anyhow. It was very disturbing to me when Joe called me up and asked me if I would take part in the program, and he said, we want you to do a vision for you. And of course, you know, as I believe very strongly, whenever anyone anywhere asks you to do anything in this program, there is only one answer, and that answer is yes. And so however it comes out or whatever it is, this is always my response. But after I hung up the phone, I was quite perplexed. Now, what does Joe mean for me to do with a vision for you? What can I do with that? Of course we all know the vision for You, and it's the last chapter, and it is the final of the first 164 pages of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And it is a most important chapter because in it is the beauty of the genius of the people that comprise this program and I do believe that this program is of divine origin but the 11th chapter is a summary of the first 10 chapters this is what we're talking about you have had speaker after speaker throughout today go chapter by chapter and up to the 11st chapter which summarizes the previous 10 And perhaps the most brilliant of all of the lines in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous to me is the final paragraph. Because a final paragraph not only summarizes the entire ten chapters prior to this time, it summarizes the philosophy of the program of Alcoholic Anonymous. This is the core that we find in the last paragraph. So what I elected to do is I'm going to very briefly run over an outline of a vision for you of the 11th chapter. And then we'll spend some time talking about the last paragraph. And then I will try to tell you how this manifests itself in my life. Because really the only thing that I have to share with you is my experience, my strength, and my hope. And that's what this chapter is all about, is sharing with others. Or as Dr. Bob was to say, To summarize it all, it's love and service. But in the chapter 11, our vision for you, first we have a discussion of alcoholism, the normal drinker, what people can expect, the normal people, what happens to them when they drink. Then we have an lead into the alcoholic, and then with that, the destruction and despair, the loss of control. and this ends up with the dismal failure in waking up in the morning to the four horsemen of terror, bewilderment, frustration, and despair. And to this suffering individual of the alcoholic that finds himself facing these four horseman we then are offered a substitute, a way out, a new way of life, and this substitute is the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. There is a brief description in there in reference to the big book, and it's referred to as this chip of a book. This chip of a book, and as Jane held hers up, I too have a different big book. And this is one that was given to me sometime before, and it is the first 164 pages of the big book. It is very handy as far as travel is concerned, and it is easy for me to take with me wherever I go. It talks about the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Then we go into the Twelve Steps. There is a brief reference to the Twelve Steps, the core of the program, the love and service, the fact that this is an action program and that there is an essential component which is comprised of sharing with others or carrying the message, giving of yourself that others may live. Love thy neighbor as thyself. And then there is a discussion of the miracles of Alcoholics Anonymous. The miracles with the story of Bill in the beginning in 1935 1935, in Bill's disastrous experience—well, actually it wasn't disastrous, but it was to him at that time in his visit to Akron, Ohio, where he was expecting to produce a financial success which turned into a failure and a lawsuit. He became very despondent and very depressed, which was to be a component of his life for as long as he lived. But he was very depressed. Then the miracle of the program steps in. He realized that there was a need for him to be and to share with another alcoholic. And to further the miracle, the evolvement of going to the hotel and the bar is at one end and the church directory is at the other. And finally he's led to the church directory and through the search and he calls the last name that's on there and they put him in touch with another alcoholic. And then it describes in a little bit how Bill comes to meet Dr. Bob Bob. This was in May of 1935, and Bill comes and meets with Dr. Bob and relates to him about the disease of alcoholism and explains that a spiritual experience is necessary for recovery. Dr.Bob was able to apply these principles, and then Bill and Bob stay and share together. Then they too start looking for number three. They find the third alcoholic, a young attorney who was in a hospital. They call him up and they go to visit him. They move him into a private room and he says, what are you folks coming here? What are you going to do for me? And they say, we bring you a treatment for alcoholism. We bring you a treatment of alcoholism for alcohol. And then they shared their lives, their experience, their strength, and their hope with this young man. and then we have the third alcoholic. And then the three of them go to another even younger man and they go to alcoholic number four and then from four there were seven and then they branch to other cities. Bill goes back to New York, the Akron chapter is stronger and it moves out across the West first. It describes also AA as a treatment for alcoholism. It talks about the need for humor and stresses that a spiritual experience or awakening is a necessary component for recovery. In order to stay sober, an alcoholic must find a way to help to serve other alcoholics. A basic component is love and service. By applying this basic principle, one then can expect happiness. They also emphasize the importance of meetings and how it is important to have the family involved and that alcoholism is a total family illness. Throughout Chapter 11 there is a very heavy emphasis on this as a spiritual way of life. There is also reference to the fact that AA is for everyone. It transcends all social, cultural, moral, racial boundaries. There are not. It is the old shipwreck philosophy that we are all in the same lifeboat and united under one God. There is a description or reference to Towns Hospital where Dr. Silkworth was one of the first to imply spiritual principles in treatment and then the subsequent use of AA in other hospitals. The emphasis continues to be with the reliance on God, or the nothingness of self and the allness of God. And in the final two paragraphs which I will read, our book is meant to be suggestive only. We realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us. Ask him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick. The answers will come if your own house is in order, but obviously you cannot transmit something you haven't got. See to it that your relationship with him is right and great events will come to pass for you and countless others. This is the great fact for us." And now what I consider probably the most powerful paragraph in the entire book. Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find, and join us. We shall be with you in the fellowship of the Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the road of happy destiny. May God bless you and keep you until then. If we look at this a little bit closer, we see, abandon yourself to God as you understand God . Create your faults to him and fellows . Clear the wreckage of your past . Give freely of what you find, and join us . We shall be with you in the fellowship of the Spirit. It was necessary for me to destroy everything in this world that could possibly be considered important to a person. I lost a home, a job, a family. I was publicly humiliated and disgraced. I was put out of the hospital. I hospitalized myself on three different occasions. I know what it is to be in a straitjacket. At one time I was in the DTs for ten days. I remember well the pain in the back after the convulsions. One night, the convultions were so severe that the nurse called the doctor in charge and said, What must we do? We can't stop the convulctions. And the reply was, Let him die. He's a hopeless alcoholic. I remember the fear, the screams, the pain, and the shame. May I never forget any of these things! I also remember my first introduction to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I went to a meeting not because I really wanted a way out—I did, that was it. Not that I wanted to stop drinking. I never ever wanted to stop getting into trouble, but eventually through this I heard and learned of a man who is another doctor that lived about 200 miles away from where we live. I called him, and that man you've heard reference to, and you've heard some members of his family. It was Dr. John Mooney. I spoke to John on the phone myself. He answered the phone himself that day. I told him of my trouble, and he said, on down. I went down, and I lived with John in his home at that time. Bobby was a child, Al was a teenager at that point, and Carolyn was practically a baby. But I lived there in their home for a few days. In addition to that, this is where I was really introduced to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I was introduced to that wonderful phenomenon that that program has of unconditional love. These people didn't ask me who I was or where I had come from or what I had done. They knew that I was lonely and they knew that I was sick. They knew I was afraid. They put their arms around me and loved me. They held me up when I would fall, and they gave me everything that I have. They gave me hope. They gave courage. I stayed down there with them only a short while. During this time while I was there one day I was all alone in the house, and I became aware and experienced a most profound and moving spiritual experience of my own. Accompanying this was the knowledge that at that moment I was within the presence of God, and as long as I remained so, I would never ever have to take a drink or a drug again. My obsession, my compulsion, was completely removed. That was November 13, 1966. From that moment until today I have never ever wanted nor have I had of my own giving a drink or drug of any kind. I have had surgery since that time and I have drugs, but this was no problem. I was free. I came back eventually. I got back to work. As I said, I had been put out of the hospital. I was fired. I was humiliated. I was disgraced. It took me a period of time to regain my acceptance in the medical community, and during this period of times I did a lot of meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I did a lot study, and a lot reading. I became very active, and very visible in the recovery program. Eventually I did get back on the hospital staff, and I became very active in the medical community. I am a trained gynecologist. I continued to work in my chosen specialty and was eventually to be chairman of the Board of Trustees of that hospital that I was put out of. But prior to that time, and as I was to say, I became very visible in the recovered community as a recovered alcoholic. I became visible in medical community as a recovering doctor. And both of these are very important to me. And I don't have any anonymity, and this is the way that I live my life. Everybody knew me when I was a drunk Dr. Hunter. I'm certainly not ashamed for them to know me as a sober Dr.Hunter. And fortunately, through the course of the years and the times that I've been in the program, I have been referenced and quoted and referred to in numerous radio, television, movie, tapes, and everything else. And my anonymity has never been broken at the level of press, radio, and film. And I think this is very important. I also think it is very important that there is absolutely no problem that anybody in AA or in recovery who wants to find me has absolutely no problems, because my name is no secret. I did get back and I got very busy in my practice, and I continued to work in AA. I went to a lot of AA meetings and I began to go on 12-step calls. Back in those days we did it. We went with an older person, a younger person would go with them, and we would answer the twelve-step calls. And often as occasion would be there was a need if you were going to go see an alcoholic to take something with you. He'll listen to you better if you can give him what does an alcoholic want? He wants a drink. And so back in those times it was quite common, in fact on most of the twelve-stepped calls I went that you would take a half a pint or a pint of whiskey with you, and I was an observer As we went on this, I saw this and began to realize that I am a doctor. This is not right. We're taking this man or woman poisoned, the same poison that got them there in the first place anyhow. So then I began to treat alcoholics professionally. For a while I did it just on twelve-step calls. I'd take my little black bag with me and give them a shot of B12 or maybe a small sedative or something like that instead of alcohol. Then I began to realize I could see a lot more people if I had them come to see me. After my regular office hours were over, as I said, I'm a gynecologist, and after the ladies all left, the alcoholics would come to me, first in ones, then in twos, then fours. It got to be where I had more of a practice from six o'clock until midnight than I had during the earlier part of the day. I saw a lot of alcoholics during this period of time. When I started this, my intention was that I did not charge for it. This was simply my way of repaying to others or sharing with others not only my experience, my strength and my hope but whatever medical knowledge I might have at the same time to get them through. We had quite a lively place there, because usually there would be older members of AA that would bring somebody to see me to get a shot or to talk to them or something like that. Then they would have a little AA meeting in the reception room and then it came meeting time and a group would go off to meetings. This was real good. I look back on this experience with very fond memories. One night though I had been working pretty hard and I probably had been up the night I don't remember, but I went out and it was real late. I looked and I saw that where I had given a couple of prescriptions and some samples and they were crumpled up and they are lying there on the sofa. And I realized that these people that I was seeing and I was giving of my time and also materials to, sometimes they didn't appreciate it. They didn't this charity they were getting. So I put a nominal charge on them. I started charging $1 for a visit. That's really immaterial now that, but all of a sudden the folks started getting a whole lot better, a whole lot quicker, and I became a real bit, I became a better doctor overnight. And then it was they would all be out in the front yard and they'd be waiting for me on the weekends. Well, this led into the development and starting of a hospital. And I was involved in that. In Atlanta at that time, there were three or four drying-out joints. I made three of the four, but there were no places where an alcoholic really had a chance. So we started a hospital in Atlanta that applied the basic principles of Alcoholics Anonymous—the Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions. We never referenced ourselves as a hospital. We did not do that, nor would I ever intend to do that. But what the word did go out in the community was, this was a place where the alcoholic not only could receive proper medical care but would be treated with dignity. And this was very successful and this led to other hospitals and to other things. Also in my regular practice I began to see some of the same similar symptoms in my gynecological patients, and I was seen in my alcoholic patients. So then I began to apply these basic principles to other people too, and I began seeing the results come through. I took more time, and instead of writing prescriptions I would talk to people and share with people. It became a whole new experience for me. There were some things that I did in utilizing these principles and turning my will and my life over to the care of God, I turned a lot of people's lives over to God. One of the ways that I did this is that every morning in my prayer and meditation period of time, if I had something that was particularly bothering me or somebody that I was really worried or concerned about, I had my God list in the back of my book, and I would write their names in the book. It's amazing, and looking back over this book in the years when I was in my 24-hour book and around the year with Emmett Fox were the two that I used to write in and I would do this. There are numerous names written in the back of these books, and every one of them had a favorable outcome. There was another component to that that I did, and that was I used to write these little lists, and I'd take them if I was really worried about it, and I put them in my prayer list, if you want to call it that way. God was my senior partner. God was the most significant part. God was doing the healing. I was only the instrument and the privilege to be there at the time. Things began to happen. Eventually, I stopped working at the hospital—basically corporate medicine. My philosophy became divergent and it came time for me to leave, so I went into semi-retirement. I moved down to Little Island off the coast of Georgia. do consulting work and I do a lot of traveling. I also now see alcoholics in a little office that I have down there, and we're staying busy, and they come in ones and they come in twos and they comes in threes and they come in fours, and I don't charge for it. So you see, this is the way that I've begun This is the way that I am ending up. I owe it all to this wonderful program of Alcoholics Anonymous. On pages 83 and 84, we have heard reference to it today, are the promises of Alcoholic Anonymous, and they certainly have all come true in my life, and they will for you. What can you anticipate? What can YOU expect? Is this a vision for you? Is it just my life that works for us? No! So this program works for all of us, and it works the same way. I am firmly convinced that those of us by applying these basic principles and practices living by the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous can have anything in this world that we want. We can make choices. We can control our thoughts. We can apply these basic principles and the results will come through. It works, my friends. It worked for me and it will work for you. Some of you will meet some of us as we share this road of happy destiny. I have been very fortunate with the people that have come into my life as a result of this program. I was very active and I was busy. I was alone. My family had disintegrated at some time before, and even though I was surrounded by lots of people, I was still alone. There was no other real person in my life to mean anything to me. Then about six years ago at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, I met a beautiful lady who is Charlotte. She's now my wife. It means a whole lot more when you have some of us walking the road of happy destiny hand in hand. I know many of you have gotten to meet her and know what a wonderful, gifted person she She is just another manifestation of God's love for me. We live together on this beautiful island, and we have our love and our friends, and we are privileged to come and share and be with you at meetings such as this. I cannot begin to tell you how much IDAA has meant to me in my life. Basically, specialty groups are not really my thing. I go to AA and I go the finest group of Alcoholics Anonymous in the world, and that's the Tabby House Group on St. Simons Island. And it's a non-smoking group, and it's great group. When we first started this group they said you can't do it, people won't come, you can t tell them it s not smoking. I said well, we re going to do it. It's the most popular group that there is in our community down there, and everybody comes to it. three meetings a week, and sometimes we can't even get all the folks in that want to come to share that meeting. It always reminds me of the people who say you can't do it, they need to get out of the way of the ones that are doing it. And don't ever forget that anything that you feel and you feel in here is right. Step forward and go with it. we've been very fortunate. We've been very happy, and who could ask for any more? And I couldn't. And if you had said, is there any way, is there anything in this world that God could, any way that you could be any happier than you are? Our life could have more meaning, or you would have more gratitude, or be more appreciative. And I had to know that there wasn't. But there was. A little over a year ago, Charlotte and I were faced with the fact that I had to have open-heart surgery. It was an overnight situation. They told me, they said, you don't have a choice. This is what you're going to have to have, and this is what we're going to do. And they said, and we're going to do it tomorrow. And I said, no, you aren't. I am not ready to make that commitment at this time. So we went home and we prayed and we cried and we hugged and we loved. And I don't know how the word got out. I guess it got out through the hospital. but from all over the country. There was a pouring in of letters, telephones, telegrams. We finally had to stop the phone coming in at that time from the members of Alcoholics Anonymous. Charlotte and I were able at that point at that moment to take the third step again. And this was great. And we were able to face the inevitable. I didn't know if I would live and she didn't know if she would be alone for the rest of her life but what we did know was it was going to be okay whichever way it went, it was gonna be okay and we were happy. All of the fear was removed we simply turned it over to God. Allof the fear was removed We went back to the hospital the next day, almost, and went on and went with it. There were some miracles that happened in that. I didn't know who the surgeon was going to be—I knew my cardiologist, but I didn' t know who he was going be because he had been out of town and I knew his name and didn't know anything about him. One of our friends who is a cardiologist and also an addictionologist came down early that morning to go to the operating room with me. The night before, when they were doing all these things that they do to get you ready to go into surgery the next morning, I turned around and looked out of the door, and there was Joe Cruz standing at the door. Joe and Sharon had come through town, and they had come to see me. This friend had come down early in the morning—I don't know, it must have been five o'clock in the afternoon—to go down to the operation room with him. He went down and he went in. I didn't know this until afterwards, but of course he came. The three main principles in the surgery that morning—the surgeon, his assistant, the heart-lung pump, and the anesthesiologist—were all members of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Miracles, that's nothing new. Here's a whole room full of miracles. But yes, is there anything that could give me a fuller appreciation of life? Certainly. That did. It gives a whole new dimension to the one-day-at-a-time concept when you're there. And now, even more than ever before—twice, three, a hundred times blessed, and then more—our life is rich and fulfilled. It has more in it deeper gratitude than I could ever have had without having had any of these things. I certainly hope, though, that that's all that he has planned for me to teach me gratitude. But as I was stopping and thinking about this, I knew that I wanted to tell you that little story because that was a vision for me, a vision far beyond anything that I ever thought might happen. And I wanted share that with you and say it could be for you. As we live on the coast—and it's a very powerful little place down there—I was reminded of a little verse that I had heard, and where it says, And when you stand on the shore and you look into the horizon, and as far as the eye can see, there's more, there is more, more that's why this program is my friends there's more there's more there is more thank you