Why the Principles Must Be More Powerful Than the Problem – Steve M.

I'll tell you, it's been a day with this guy. I thought at the airport, I said, my God, they gave me a guy drinking. My name is Steve Mitchell. I'm an alcoholic. It's good to be here. I was thinking when people were up here working on this microphone, it's kind of like an AA dance when somebody's car won't start and somebody pulls the hood and all the drunks are around there and telling them how to fix it. I had an old broke-down car, this was years ago, and pulled the hood like that, and all the drunks were looking in there. And one guy took complete control and assessed it and told me, he said, man, it's a good thing that I got out here because it's such a big deal. It's a very small problem. He said, I've had this happen before. He said what's going to take about $2 to fix this car? And nothing to it. I felt better all night. I found out the next day the engine had been blown. Can't always believe what alcoholics tell you. Well, it's been an eventful day. I left Raleigh early this morning and we left late and I was on Northwest so I went to Minneapolis and we got there late so I ran from Minneapolis, a really good airport to try to get through and I ran from one end all the way to the other and I got there just as they were getting ready to close the door so I left and got to Louisville but my stuff didn't and first thing I saw when I got off the airplane and down to the luggage was Norman and now I'll tell you this is the truth we were leaving there and there's only two ways it looked like to me there was a small median you had to go one way or the other well he went up the wrong way so he stopped up there and backed up and he backed right up over the top of everything jolted me so then he said I've been here a thousand times later he amended it and said a hundred so we left and we get out on the thing and we're going it's hard to describe but a look of consternation are you lost? and he said well I'm not sure so he stopped and asked directions gosh I've got a guy drinking now but anyway we did get here so I'm grateful to have been included in this this is one of those things in Alcoholics Anonymous that always seems like such a good idea when you're asked. And there's always that time just before, and I don't mean this, but you know what? This is a talking point anyway. There's always this time just bevor when you really wish they hadn't have bothered. Now, that's not true, but it's a talking part and a talking place. So I will be much more grateful. This is going to take me about two or three hours tonight. When I first got to North Carolina, I'm from Nebraska, and I went to North Caroline in 1989. And when I first got to North Carolina in 1989, a guy told me, he said, you never have to worry about being alone in Alcoholics Anonymous in North Carolina unless you talk five minutes after nine at night. So I'll be mindful of that. But anyway, I got here with no clothes other than I had a sweatshirt and blue jeans. I mean, I had clothes on. It's not that bad. There has been a time now. I mean anything for me. I became a social climber the day I got to Alcoholics Anonymous. There's no doubt about that. But I got here, and I obviously didn't have any luggage. And my vote was as soon as we got to Janice, she seemed to take control of things and knew what was going on. And I told her, I said, look, I'll do this any way you want. I'll speak in the clothes I'm wearing or whatever. But the last thing I said – my vote, if we're going to vote on it, would be to put me in somebody else's clothes or to send me shopping. We'd be better. I hate to go shopping without my wife. The only thing I'm really qualified to get might be underwear. I mean, somehow I'll screw it up if left to my own devices. But anyway, or to go shopping or wear somebody else's clothes. Why don't we just see if we can't trade me with somebody else? My clothes are supposed to show up tomorrow. And so she tried that and came back right away and said it wouldn't work. Aaron stepped in and took me to his house and dressed me. So his mom was there and seemed to work out well. We got back here, and a very good-looking woman, I don't see her in here tonight, a very attractive young woman told me I look nice. And I appreciated that, even if it isn't true. The only thing I could think of, I didn't say it. I thought of that thing in the book where it says visual proof is the weakest kind. Anyway, my sobriety date is May 26, 1975. I'm a member... I've got some serious coffee up here. I've Got This Giant Thing, and I've got two other cups. If I drink all this, I'll pee for a week, I swear. I'm a member of the principals group of Alcoholics Anonymous in Raleigh, North Carolina. We're one group that meets twice a week. On Tuesday night is our closed discussion meeting. The first Tuesday night of the month, we study the book AlcoholicsAnonymous. The second and third Tuesdays, we take topics out of Alcoholic Anonymous literature and the chairman sets a tone for that meeting and calls on people to share their experience, strength, and hope. On the fourth Tuesday, we do a tradition in conjunction with the month, so we circle the big field every year. One of the things I've learned, you probably learned the same thing. Things are not always what they seem to be. I sobered up in a group in Alcoholics Anonymous. The only group I've ever heard of that does this, they studied the traditions on Saturday night. So I was early on introduced to the idea that the traditions are exciting and electric and things are just not always the way they seem to be, I used to sponsor a dentist and I used to go to him because I'm spiritual and I wanted to get a break on my bill. But he died in 2000 and now do I go to a lady dentist that, and I always hated the dentist. I just detested going to the dentist, you have that rancid smell they had when you were a kid and that noise in there is enough to, you know, get a train off the track. It isn't, this is an awful experience. But I goto a lady dentist now and it's an altogether different experience. Her office is alive and there's a lot of enthusiasm in there and children are encouraged to run around in there and play, and she pops off a lot. She says things like, I practice dentistry that doesn't hurt. Anybody practicing dentistry that hurts in this day and age doesn't know what they're doing. I practice Dentistry That Doesn't Hurt. I do root canals that don't hurt, I've been doing root canales for 20 years, my root canels don't work. And sure enough, I had a root canal from her that didn't hurt so things are not always the way they seem they ought to be but on the fourth Tuesday night of the month we do tradition and I think there's four or five months a year that have five Tuesday nights. And if there are, we study Alcoholics Anonymous history, believe in our collective history is as important to us collectively and also individually as our individual history is. I believe for me, if I become for too long of a period of time what it is when I was drinking, I'll drink again. I don't want that to happen. Years ago, I know people always preface these stories by saying that old-timers always call them son or Sonny. I know that, but this old man really did. I just talked to him the other day. He's still living. He is 84 years old. His name is General Kimston, and I said to him one time many years ago, I said, you know, General, I said that studying Alcoholics Anonymous history is fascinating. It's really interesting, but you really don't need it to stay sober. It reminds me of eating ice cream. It's fun, and it's good, and all that, butyou don't need it. And I'll never forget the general hung his head and shook his head. That sort of, I guess, kind of,I guess it wounded his sense of righteousness. And he said, Sonny, he said how could you say anything so ignorant that you would not need to know the history the program that has not only saved your life, but is now teaching you how to live. So I think that our collective history is very important. And on Thursday night we have an open speakers meeting. So if you're in Raleigh, come and see us. We're on 4400 Buffalo Road. Now when I went to North Carolina in 1989, I'd been sober almost 14 years. I'd never been to an AA meeting where you go in and sit down and the chairman opens the meeting and asks if anyone has a problem. And someone brings up a problem and then 20 or 25 brain scientists take a crack at that problem. And then what happens is you leave there goofier than when you came. I mean, I'd never seen anything like that. I'd go to the meeting. I was fine. I left there needing help. Maybe it is true that there's no such thing as a bad meeting. There are meetings, however, that will make you look for other meetings. So that's what we do. You know, and I'm not at any speaker should say in a very real sense, if you're new here tonight, there's No Such Thing as an AA Speaker. What there are AA members who are some kind called upon to share their experience, strength, and hope. I would never want to be known as an AA speaker. What I am is an AA member. I would be just as contented tonight to listen to your experience, faith, and strength, and strength and hope, and as has been well said, any AA member knows after we've been here for a little while that everyone's experience, truth, and health is important. We can't afford to lose any alcoholic because you never know what's going to happen. One of the reasons I never say no to anything I'm asked to do in Alcoholics Anonymous if it's at all possible for me to do it, is you never know the reason why you do it. You may be asked to go down the road to make a talk at a small group of 25 or 30 people or something, but that isn't really why you went there. You go there to listen to somebody in the parking lot after the meeting. I mean, you never knew where this thing was going to be visited and how this thing is going to work. But anyway, we don't do that. What we do is we share our experience, strength, and hope, and from that believe that the illness of alcoholism is powered down. If I had to describe what I thought alcoholism was, for me I would say that I think alcoholism means I can't live with drinking and I can' t live without drinking. That's what I think it means to me. The very first time I heard somebody say that the majority of alcoholics who kill themselves do it sober, I didn't need any education or any edification to understand it. That made excellent sense to me and that was just etched in my mind. I have a dear friend just celebrated his 25-year anniversary. He always says that the first time in his life he ever heard the first step spoken out loud, It went off like a rocket in his brain, and it's been tattooed there ever since. He's never forgot, never for one second has he not been able to recite that or know in his heart what that meant to him. And that made perfect sense to me that that's what alcoholism is. I'm certainly not here on moral grounds. If alcohol still did what it did for me when I was a 17- or 18- or 19-year-old kid, I don't mind telling you that's where I'd be tonight. I'd being in one of them broken-down country western bars. I'd have some half-dressed slingstress in there with me telling me how good I am. She'd know it was a lie, and I would too, but it wouldn't make any difference. Now, I even today question people's alcoholism that don't listen to country music. They may not be alcoholics. They might just be heavy drinkers. But I'm certainly not in here on moral grounds. Now, what I started to say is it looks like to me now any AA speaker should say that they don't speak for Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm not an expert on AlcoholicsAnonymous. I'm not an authority, I'm a counselor, I am nothing. All I am is a guy who Alcoholics Anonymous has worked very well for. But any speaker should say that they don't speak for Alcoholics Anonymous. Now with that said, it looks like to me, just my take on it, consider it if you want to, it looks to me people approach this thing in two basic ways. And one, I've been more and more grateful over the years. The more I've seen of Alcoholics Anonymous and the longer I have been sober, I have more and more grateful that I was socialized into a kind of Alcoholic Anonymous that I was. Where I got sober, if you wanted this thing, you'd have had to been brain dead to miss it. This message was carried in such a way. I mean, it was literally brought to me by people, I think, that were absolute spiritual giants. Now, not necessarily in terms of their godliness, but in terms that they were very unequivocal that it's impossible to practice these principles to the best of your ability and drink alcohol too. It can't happen. They asked Dr. Bob one time. It's written down two or three places in our literature. I think I could even find it if I had a little bit of time. They Asked Dr. Bob one time if he thought he would ever drink again. This is what he said, I don't think I'll ever drink as long as I live unless I quit doing what I've been doing. See, if I could put all the jets of Alcoholics Anonymous in place at one time and still drink alcohol then there'd be no miracle here. What you'd have here would be a crapshoot and this is quite the opposite of that. But it looks like to me people approach this thing in two basic ways, and one is the man or woman who has socialized into the kind of Alcoholic Anonymous that means put these principles in place, practice these principles to the best of your in all areas of your life, and everything else will automatically come along. Now right up to this very moment, I've never seen one single person who's done that who hasn't come out just fine. No matter what the provocation, no matter what their reversal, no matter What the tragedy, because that stuff happens to us just like it happens to anybody else, doesn't it? Life continues to visit us. In many ways, I have had a lot more problems since I got sober because then that makes sense if you understand alcoholism. I've had to be sensitized to life. I've learned how to live here. I've taken my place. So I've never seen that kind of approach to Alcoholics Anonymous fail. The other way it looks like to me people approach Alcoholics Anonymous, and it looks to me that this is a more common way, sadly, is they believe if they can fix all areas of their life and get it working okay, that their drinking will go away. Now that looks like it would make sense. I sponsor a guy who proves things. He's a mathematical genius. But it makes more sense that you could prove that I could take a drink and get away with it. It looks like, to me, that you can prove that I couldn't if we didn't understand alcoholism. Now, we know that's not true, but alcoholism doesn't make sense. It's illogical. It just simply does not make sense that a simple drink of booze would whip any of us. But anyway, we knew that it has. I was reminded of a thing. There was one night at the boxing matches. There was a—in Nebraska, I'm not sure about Indiana, but in Nebraska where I'm from, people are Catholics about where I live now in North Carolina like they're Baptists. And one night at the boxing matches, every time the bell rang, you've seen athletes. I saw it the other night on the World Series. You've seen athletics cross their self. Well, every times the bell ring, one of the boxers stood up and crossed himself. And then he'd answer the bell and go out and fight. And there was a drunk in there, and there was also a Catholic priest down around ringside. And you know a Catholic, that collar is a light for a drunk. And so this drunk kept watching the boxer cross himself, and he kept watching the priest, and pretty soon he couldn't stand it any longer. And he went over to the priest and he said, that's one of your boys, ain't it? And he said well, he said he appears to be a Roman Catholic, yes. And he says well, what is that? He said the way he keeps doing that before each round, he says he's crossing himself in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. And the drunk said to the priests, what I want to know, will it help him? and the priest was kind of a practical hard-bitten old boy and he looked back over at the drunk and he said it'll help him if he can fight now I mean that's the way Alcoholics Anonymous is I mean what we've got here is more powerful than the illness of alcoholism but that's only true if we put all the jets of this thing in place at one time see what I believe about AlcoholicsAnonymous is it's a way of life slightly more powerful than the alcoholism that's made up of many parts of a great whole and at the pinnacle of that of course are the 12 steps but if you leave any part of the great whole out, then the whole suffers. We also have a lot of other things. Thanks God. Thank God this is a written program. It may be passed on mostly through an oral tradition, but it's a written programme. Thank God it is because you can hear a lot of stuff in meetings, can't you? I was in a meeting one night and a woman said her sponsor told her to go out and throw eggs at trees. Now what would that do? At one time I thought I'd been about as confused as a man can get, but I've rescinded that. I've never been that confused, that I know of. If I've ever thrown eggs at a tree, I mean, I don't remember it. I mean, you can hear anything, but AA is made up of many parts of a great whole. We've got sponsorship, we've got service, general service, literature, meetings, all kinds of stuff. Meetings are just one thing that we do in AA. Now they're integral to what we do. It says in the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions book that most alcoholics can't recover without the group, but an AA meeting as such is not AA any more than anything else. It's just one things we do at Alcoholics Anonymous. AA is made up of, AA is a way of life. And I certainly wouldn't suppose to improve upon the preamble. But my very favorite explanation of what Alcoholics Anonymous is is that snapshot into the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions book where it says AA's 12 steps are a set of principles spiritual in their nature. If practiced as a way o' life will do two things. It says it will expel the obsession to drink. Trust me on this one. I know what expel means. That's what they did to me when I was a kid in school. I knowwhat that means. It means to kick out. it will expel the obsession to drink and the other one, this may not be literal but it's close and it's probably the correct use of the word enable it says it will enable the sufferer to become usefully whole now I don't know about anybody else but when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous homeless my feet were swollen up like elephants feet and I was hemorrhaging blood having the obsession of drinking expelled and being usefully full was not even a good fantasy I would have settled for much much less but many many things have happened And so, you know, this has been a wonderful thing that's brought me right up until today. I want to tell you one more, one of those goofy little stories about what I think alcoholics. I think there's a net. This is analogous to Alcoholics Anonymous. There was, this probably happened in North Carolina. You know, you have to be careful what you say you'll never do. There was a guy one time, this is a true story. There was the guy in Nebraska said there's three things in my life I said I'd never do, I'd never have. He said, I said, I'd never have a Chrysler automobile, an Oliver tractor, or a fat wife. I got all three of them, he said. I guess the Chrys ederimobile would be the best deal on that. But trust me on this. I don't think I'll ever take one of these houses. You've seen these houses where people buy them and they take a restoration project and fix them up. That's what happened. And out in the country there was this old dilapidated farmhouse and this couple bought it. And over a period of time they turned this thing in. It was falling down and it was coming apart. And over a protracted period of time, they were fixing it up and it was becoming nicer and nicer. Well, there was this old country minister. Him and his wife would take the scenic road home every Sunday after church and they would go by this house. And over about a year's period of times, they watched this thing from falling apart, having turned into what looked like it was going to be a nice house and then a beautiful home and then eventually towards the end of the year it was mansion-like. And the minister was fascinated by this. Plus he was a little bit of a sanctimonious old boy and it bothered him just a little bit that this guy wasn't in church. But he kept telling his wife, one of these days I'm going to stop and talk to that young couple about what a nice thing that is. And so he did one Sunday, and they struck up a conversation, and he said that they were talking for a little while, and finally the minister said to the guy at the house, he said, isn't it amazing what God can do? And the guy said, yes, it is, Reverend, but he said remember what this place looked like last year when God had it all by himself. Now, I think that's also analogous to Alcoholics Anonymous. So far, so far, I haven't heard anybody get sober that hasn't pointed their sobriety to people because this is a spiritual illness. Now, when I came to Alcoholic Anonymous, I don't mean anything disregarding by this. We usually don't talk about it in these terms. But not only was I afraid of God, I detested God and I blamed God for the direction my life had taken. This is a spirit of alcoholism. It's a spiritual sickness. And I've never seen an alcoholic come to Alcoholix Anonymous that wasn't in deep spiritual distress. I've seen some that didn't look like they do. I sponsored a college professor one time that went up in a tree in an electrical storm and shook his fist at God drunk. Now, you think he had a few spiritual problems? So, I mean, this is a spiritual illness and quite obviously it needs a spiritual remedy. Now, I understand today that all this has happened because of the grace of a loving God and a power greater than myself. But that was brought about through God's servants carrying the message to me. And I like to think about it at things like this, how powerful this thing is. I've taken the history tour in Akron a couple times and it's a fascinating thing. I'm interested in history anyway but particularly Alcoholics Anonymous history. It's a fascinating history that we've got, you know, the history of Bill Wilson and Lois and Dr. Bob and Ann Smith. And on that history tour, the Mayflower Hotel is now a home for elderly people and what we did, you're not supposed to get in there, you've got to have a card to get in there, just like you have to have a card to get in these rooms. But we waited outside until a lady came out with her granddaughter and we told her we were from Alcoholics Anonymous and she said, well, go on in. So we went in and we were walking around in there and pretty soon a fire alarm went off and there was several people shooting through there and an Akron City policeman, when he saw us, he stopped immediately. And I suppose he was polite, but mostly he was businesslike. And he wanted to know what we were doing in there. Well, we went to telling him that we were From AlcoholicsAnonymous and he said, oh, you want to see the phone, don't you? But, you know, that history tour. And we went to the gatehouse and we went to Dr. Bob and Ann Smith's home and saw where Dr. Bob hid his bottles in the table and went to the hospital where Dr.-Bob and Sister Ignatia worked and the cemetery where Dr-Bob and Ann are buried. A fascinating experience. What I've done the last few years is I've went back and read books on the life of everyone who had anything to do with Alcoholics Anonymous. William James and, you You know, that quote's in there. And Carl Young, the great psychiatrist, that powerful, profound statement that he made that he wrote to Bill Wilson that said that he believed that the alcoholic's thirst for alcohol was on a low level the same thing as man's thirst for God. That's a pretty powerful thing. And all the people that have helped us, there's a fascinating book. Most of this stuff is not conference-approved literature. We've got some great history books, Dr. Bob and the Old Timers and Pass It On and A.A. Comes of Age. But there's a lot of stuff written now that's not Alcoholics Anonymous literature, but it's fascinating literature. There's a book on the life of Sister Ignatia, Sam Shoemaker's relationship with Bill Wilson, the Catholic priest, whatever his... Ed Dowling, who Bill Wilson said was his spiritual advisor. You know, the statement he made is so powerful. He heard Bill Wilson's fifth step. Here's a man who had dedicated his entire life to the service of God, apparently never had to be good to be bad now, made this statement. He said that if he ever did get into heaven, it'd be from back and away from hell. If that's good enough for him, it's good Enough for me. And that's certainly a powerful commentary on what happens to the alcoholic. But there's a Protestant clergyman that's mentioned in our literature, Harry Emerson Fosdick, and I read a book on his life, and I read A book on the Rockefeller Foundation. My wife is an accountant, she's a CPA, and The Rockefellers are, the Rockefellern and His people, I think, are principally responsible for our corporate poverty, that this was before the tax laws were changed. They were paying millions and millions of dollars in taxes. They could have thrown a couple million dollars at us and it would have been pocket change to them, but they didn't. So, you know, I think we need to be awfully careful how we talk about non-alcoholics. It's not as bad as it used to be, it seems, in Alcoholics Anonymous, but I know that we'd have never got AA going were it not for the intervention of non-alkoholics and we'd had never kept AA going. In fact is, we have non-alcoholics who serve Alcoholics Anonymous today. I was at a regional forum in North Carolina in 1996 where the non- alcoholic chairman of World Services chaired the whole weekend, all the workshops. And I know that personally I would be dead if it were not for non- alcoholics. So we sometimes talk about non-alkoholics not understanding but I don't know what you need to know about alcoholism. I mean you needto know if you've got it or not but other than that you really don't need toknow much about it. I'm not sure we understand alcoholism So I think our history is incredibly important. Well, in the next two hours I've got left to me, I want to let you know that I did drink. I'm going to fast-forward you to a place called Bill's Bar now. I'm always fascinated in North Carolina. I went to North Carolina, like I said, in 1989. I'm almost, I guess, shocked by how few bars there are in North Carolina. I don't know how people get respectfully drunk. Now, plenty of people are coming into Alcoholics Anonymous, so I know it's happening. But in Nebraska, there are bars everywhere. I'm going to be next weekend. I've got one sister that stayed in Nebraska. The rest of us are all gone. She lives in a little town of Euling, Nebraska. Gene, you might know where that is. It's, I guess, 50 miles from Omaha or so. But you go up a hill and there's a sign that says Euline, Nebraska, population 263. There are three bars in that town, and there have been for as many years as I can remember at about as many churches, a post office and a general store. But there arebars everywhere now. Now, I'm well aware of the fact that the majority of people who drink alcohol drink it with, they control it. I think the book Alcoholics Anonymous says they drink it with impunity. There's a lot of big words in AA that you don't learn much about on a country road drinking beer. I didn't hear anything about impunity on a county road drinking beer or anonymity or any of those things. But I think what impunity means is you can get away with it. And I'm also well aware the fact that everybody in Alcoholics Anonymous keeps their own time. They decide if they're an alcoholic or not. No one can decide for anyone else if you lie about your time I mean the great guardian in Alcoholics Anonymous if you're an alcoholic in my description is alcohol if I don't conform to certain spiritual principles over a length of time that what's going to happen to me is I'm going to sicken and I'm gonna drink any alcoholic I mean it would be foolish for me to stand up here and say that I that I'll never get drunk I I don'T know that that you know I know that I'LL NEVER GET DRUNK UNLESS I QUIT DOING WHAT I'VE BEEN DOING RIGHT UP TO THIS VERY MOMENT I'M NOT GONNA JUST WALK OFF AND TAKE A DRINK YOU KNOW I STARTED THE DAY ON MY KNEES I've read Alcoholics Anonymous literature today. I've been doing what God's will is for me as I understand it. I haven't tried to hurt anybody. I've tried to practice these principles. I'm not going to just walk off and get drunk. I'd have to sicken and pull away from here. But anyway, so I'm well aware of the fact that the majority of people control their drinking and that nobody can decide anybody else's alcoholism. Now, with all that said, I'm going to take a chance on those people in Bill's Bar. I'm from Fremont, Nebraska, which is about 30 or 35 miles from Omaha, and there are bars up and down both sides of Main Street. I sobered up at Chapter 5 right down the street from Bill's Bar, right between two bars. It didn't make much difference because I wasn't allowed to go in either one anyway. But Bill's bar was a colorful place, I'll say that. Bill made his fortune in the garbage and septic tank business and he bought that bar as a toy for his drunken wife Phyllis. Now we had some colorful characters in that bar. We had a guy under the name Vibrator Hartman. We had a guy named Rodney Well, Vibrator got drunk one New Year's Eve And burned up in a fire We had Rodney Montani Rodney got drunk and got in a fight with a guy in a wheelchair And tipped him over That ain't good The way Rodney described that He said he hit me a good one Steve But I tipped them over before they got me out of there We had Leonard Larson Now Leonard had no neck His head sat right on his shoulders And Leonard had taken one too many shots to the head Leonard would get drunk and crawl around on his hands and knees and lift bar stools to perform feats of strength. He used to have me jump up and down on his stomach for feats of strength, my fighting weight at that time was about 130 pounds but Leonard would get drunk and crawl around and lift bar stules, we had a guy said one time at midnight in the bar, Leonard can lift everything in here but his own body. We had a guys named Pee Wee Holtgren, Pee Wee would get drunken, he'd just be dead weight, you couldn't carry him, I mean he'd go out wherever he was at and the police would walk through there on Friday or Saturday night and they had these big mirrors and the Country music would go all the time, and what somebody would do is just hold Pee-Wee's head up like this so the police would see it in the mirror. When they'd get on the other side, they'd drop Pee Wee, and he'd hit the bar, but he didn't know it. But anyway, at that time, you literally could have backed one of them farm trucks up to Bill's Bar and put everybody in there and carted them to Alcoholics Anonymous. You wouldn't have missed a person. You had to be drunk to stand it in there. People who worked in there were drunk. But the two most colorful characters came in there were two guys came in here by the name of Billy and Tommy Walker. Now, I've gotten out of the military the summer of 1972. And Billy and Tommy Walker came to town. And, you know, I have always known things that I don't know how I know. Even today that's with me. It can be a good thing. It can been a bad thing. Sometimes I'll hear myself say something. I'll say something to a new person and I'll say, I wonder how I knew that or do I really believe that? I don' t ever want to be guilty of just in the trite one-liners or something. But I've always known thing that I didn't know I knew. When I was a little kid, I knew things were not all right even though my mom was telling me that they were. I just knew that they weren't. I mean, I've always known things that I didn't know how I knew. But anyway, when Billy and Tommy Walker came to town, they came to Bill's bar, and I was not long out of the service. But when Billy Walker told me that he was just out of 101st Airborne, now that's been over 30 years ago. I knew that day when Billy Parker told me he was just out-of-the-101st Airborn, that was a lie. It's whatever that is, 30-some years later today, 31 years later, today I know that that's a lie, Billy Walker was not just outof-The-101ste Airborne. And I knew that day and today that where he came from was a penitentiary somewhere. There was no doubt in my mind. Now, when they came to town, they fell into Bill's Bar and Billy Walker drank dry gin and chased it with squirt. And I don't know if they've got squirt in Indiana. I ain't never seen it in North Carolina. I told this story one Sunday morning in West Virginia and after the meeting, a guy came up and handed me a can of squirt but all it is is a kind of soda. Now, I'm basically a beer drinker. I'll drink anything, though, but I'm basically a beer drinker. There was a time when I was a kid, I guess up until I was about 21 or so, and I know everything they tell you in Alcoholics Anonymous ain't true now. I never have known if this is true, but you remember that deal about when you were a kid you drank yourself sober? You remember that? Like you'd drink for 24 hours. There was literally a time When I could drink beer for 24 or 30 hours, and I'd be drunk, but i could remember stuff, I could talk to people, I could drive a car, I could walk around, But you let me take one drink of booze with that, one drink of Mad Dog wine or dry gin or whiskey, and I'm gone. I mean, I don't ever remember anything. And I know that everything in here they tell you ain't true. You know that deal about the only way you can sober up is through time? That's a lie. I know it's a lying because I've had the experience. A guy named Cecil Woodgate put a .357 up to my head one night, and I am very drunk. I have vague recollections of this, but I remember it, and I know Cecil was very capable of pulling the trigger. He's dead now because he got killed in the commission of a burglary by a deputy sheriff. But he put a .357 up to my head one night, and he kept pushing it at my head. And I remember very clearly saying, Cecil, is that thing loaded or are you just trying to scare me? And he hung it out the window and fired it. Now, I'm here to tell you I sobered up some. Everything they tell you in here ain't true. I never have known if that deal's true about drinking yourself sober or not. But anyway, Billy Walker drank dry gin and chased it with squirt, and his brother Tommy Walker drank bar whiskey and chased him with water. Now, when I started drinking with them, I loved to drink with those guys for two reasons. One reason is I had a big mouth. I didn't intend to have a big month. I just did. It's sort of like saying before you start to drink, you're not going to drive a car tonight. But after you take a few drinks, that's all gone. But I can remember thinking, I'm not goingto bother anybody today. I'm just going to stay here and drink. And towards the last couple years of my drinking, every time I'd wake up, I'd be sick. And by the time I'd get enough to stay down in there, there'd be just a little while where I'd be drunk again. Then I'd never remember what happened. Then I wake up again. Then I'm sick and it starts all over. But I would say, all I'm going to do today is drink beer. I'm not going to drink anything else. Well, once you take a drink, that's gone. Well, I had a big mouth and I would stir stuff up. I would says things I shouldn't say. Now, I'd pretty safe in Bill's Bar because if you were one of Phyllis' pets, particularly the daytime crowd in Bills Bar were made up of people who were not allowed to drink anywhere else. So I'd been pretty safe there And periodically, Phyllis would go over to the cash register and get a couple $300 out and take us all out around town, and we'd go other places. Now, I'd be pretty safe in Bill's Bar. Nobody was going to bother me. But if I'd get out somewhere else, my mouth would get me in a lot of trouble. Now, plus, I'm a coward. It's a bad combination. It's kind of like, I mean, the same person shouldn't get both of those. It ain't fair. It just isn't. It's like today. I mean, I can't stand a mess and I can stand to clean a mess up. I don't think I'm too good to clean the mess up, it just doesn't work. I've always wanted to live in one of those houses that looks like it's not lived in. I had a girlfriend one time that kept her house that way. Now she had a few other problems but that's the way she kept her home. But by the time I walk across the room one time it doesn't look that way anymore. So I had big mouth and I was a coward. Bad combination to have. Now I went up a pant size a year when I got sober. I needed it. But at Billy Walker's biggest, he was never any bigger than I am right now. But he would attack people. He looked like that dog on the Greyhound bus. He'd just fly on people. If somebody would have got him as a child, he'd probably been a great boxer instead of a horrible alcoholic. Now, the other reason I like to drink with Billy Walker, there ain't any other way to say this than the way I'm going to say it. It doesn't have any dirty words in it. It's just a flat declarative statement. There just is no other wayto say this. We've all known people like this, men and women occasionally like this. there's just absolutely no other way to describe this I've thought for all these years how else could you describe this there ain't any other way Billy Walker is one of those people that just attracted women now my game plan was I'm going to hang out right here with old Billy Walker and possibly get in on some of the overflow now this is the kind of brains you had in Bill's bar at this time now Billy Walker told me he said when I started drinking with him I started drinkin' that gin too now I'd drink beer until I'd get about halfway goin' then I'd start drinkin'' that dry gin and anybody who's ever drank that stuff knows it's nasty. I mean, if we got anybody coming in to Alcoholics Anonymous says they're drinking gin for taste, we probably ought to get them some kind of an evaluation, not to see if they're alcoholic. There's something wrong with their element because that stuff is nasty. I mean it's about like hair oil or perfume. It's just nasty. And Billy Walker told me he said the way we're drinking this gin, he said there's a couple things you've got to remember. He said what you do, he said you always get the gin in a separate glass. And then when you get the Gin, you get a glass full of squirt, But get it in a separate glass. And what you do is you take the gin and drink it down real fast. Fundamental to this is don't breathe while you're drinking it. And the reason you don't breath is this gin is nasty, and if you smell it, it can make you gag. So what you doing as soon as you swallow that gin, then you drink down that squirt. I said, all right, Billy, it makes sense to me. Now, the second thing he said threw me a little bit. And we weren't eating much in those days anyway. He said, plus, you've got to start to use a lot of pepper on your food. now that threw me a little bit I said what will that pepper do he said well this gin hurts your liver and he said if you use a lot of pepper on your food it'll counteract any liver damage that's what he said now I'm looking for Billy Walker I'll tell you why he claimed to have been from Texas he could have been form anywhere I don't know where he was from he was around there for a while and he left but he claimed he had been from Texas now I am looking for him if he is alive he is either in here or locked up I mean, those are the choices he had just like I had. Well, anyway, that's where the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous started to move in my life was in Bill's Bar. Thanksgiving season 1974, a lady came up to me in Bill'S Bar. I don't know why I look at this client. I never can remember what time I started. You know, I don'T know whyI get so nervous up here. It really doesn't matter much. We're a very accepting lot. I mean,, you know, a nice-looking crowd out there and everybody's been so nice. Can you imagine if we were all drinking here tonight what kind of a situation we'd have on our hands? It would be a totally different thing, wouldn't it? You know, sometimes when I try to do this, I'll get settled down once I get going. Sometimes I never get settled down. I have to give the whole talk a nervous wreck and then once in a great while, I think I'm going to quit saying this because it hasn't happened. Once in a Great While, I'll Get an Icy Calm Come Over Me That's Almost Sexual. Now, I tell you, I assure you, that has not happened here tonight. But once in awhile, I will get an icy calm come over me. I don't know why this is such a nerve-wracking thing because the comfort in trying to do this is that my job is really to show up here and give whatever it is I have to give. And if I would fall out up here, they would just get me off and somebody else would come and give the talk and next year somebody would say, what's wrong with that guy from North Carolina? I mean we are a very accepting lot. But anyway, it's a nerve-wracking thing. But anyway Thanksgiving season of 1974, I had just come back from California. People in Nebraska go to California to start their life over. I made my first trip to California I quit school, I was about 15 or 16 16 or 17 years old and I went to California I had a drunken uncle out there that had been a paratrooper in the army and he had quit school when he was 17 went in the Army and became a partrooper and made a lot of money in California and I'd been out there when I was a kid I think I was 14 years old he let me drink beer with him on the freeway and let me drive his pickup truck but I would go to California to start my life over now you can imagine my astonishment when I'd wake up in California and there I was I hadn't been to Alcoholics Anonymous, so I didn't know. There was no way for me to know that you can't change the outside by changing the outside. You know, I had to come here to find out. Once you change the inside, the outside automatically manifests. You know? I really don't have to do anything in life. I spent my entire life prior to coming to Alcoholic Anonymous and part of the time since I've been here really wondering. One of the things Bill Wilson said that I think is very true, at least it's been true for me, he said the alcoholic more than most seems to want to know what it's all about. One of the great things that's happened for me is I know exactly what my job in life is. It's to practice these principles to the very best of my ability and carry the message. If I do that, then everything else will automatically happen. I don't have to do anything else because everything else will automatically happened as a byproduct of that. For example, I don' t have any other way of getting any money so I've got to work. I mean, that's a by-product to that. I got some very wealthy people on both sides of my family but the chances of me getting any of that money are nil. I got a great aunt and uncle who have their name on a building at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. You've got to give a couple three million to get that. But so far as I know now, they both left out of here, and I haven't gotten any money. So the only way I've got of getting any money is to work for it. I have one wife, so I sleep with one woman. I think I can be fairly safe on the natural virtues like kindness, those kinds of things. So I really don't have to do anything in life other than practice these principles to the best of my ability. There used to be a guy still around. I don't think he says this anymore. It was profound for me. He used to say, and God bless him for saying it, he used to saying that you don't have to do anything in Alcoholics Anonymous, you don' t have to try to find anything to add to your life other than practice these principles to the best of your ability. Whatever is necessary for your fulfillment in life will show up on its own. It'll just show up. You don't ha ve to do any thing to remove anything that's hindering or harming you in life. All you have to d o is practice these pr nciples to the b st of your abil ity and it'll automatically be removed. And a few years ago, I started sponsoring a guy who's an excellent member of Alcoholics Anonymous. He diligently works with a lot of people and carries the message. And he was sober about 10 years. And what he was trying to do in the sixth and seventh step was remove all that stuff on his own. It'll kill anybody to try to do that. I mean, if there's anything wrong with me that I can fix, it isn't much of a problem. About anything I've ever tried to work on has gotten worse. There's absolutely no doubt about that. But anyway, it was the Thanksgiving season of 1974, and I had just come back from California. and another disastrous trip to California. I had left California, and you know how it says that there's... And you can hear in AA sometimes about how smart alcoholics are. It certainly never comes from anybody who lives with us. But there's a couple places in our literature that seems to dance around that. It talks about that the alcoholic builds people up and is usually bright and pulls things down. You know, I had went to California in 1974. I'd written a bunch of bad checks, and Phyllis had paid some of them off. So I was on my way to California, and I was hitchhiking. I got to a place called Little America, Wyoming. I'm going to San Gabriel, California, which is part of Los Angeles. A guy picked me up in Little America. Wyoming and took me to Portland, Oregon, and dropped me off. I'm now further from Los Angeles than where he got me. And those kind of things happen time after time after time. You know where it says in Alcoholics Anonymous literature that the story of any alcoholic is some of it's hilarious, some of it's tragic? That's certainly true in my case. I mean, there's some absolutely hilarious things happen. There's stuff that happened that never could have been planned. What's that old thing about truth is stranger than fiction? I left the bar in the wrong car one time. Now, you could never make something like that happen. I drove a car to the bar that was white, and I left in the bar in a car that was White. Now, they were roughly, I found out later, about the same size. And I had a woman with me. I'm going to be as delicate as I can. She was not ugly. she was old I told this story one night in Decatur, Alabama and a lady down in the front row said you mean mature? and I said no, I don't I mean old but I left the bar with this woman and we left the car we drove to the bar we left the keys in it we went in and we just one of those flukes that never happened again in a million years we left in a white car with the keys and left the car we were arrested about 2.30, 3 o'clock that morning I was arrested for auto theft and drunk driving it took me a long time to figure out what happened they put this woman and I in the same little jail cell this little country town out in Washington while they tried to get to the bottom of this and it was rough I've told this story so many times you know how you tell something so many time you actually don't know if it's true but I actually think that the patrolman the next morning when he let us go gave us the beer back but I remember standing outside there and that woman she had on these little shorts that barely covered her butt. The bottom of her butt was coming out of those shorts, and they let us out of jail the next morning, and I remember that patrolman punching me in the chest and saying she would have to drive. I was too drunk to drive, but I'm pretty sure he gave us the beer. But I remember walking off that morning, and I guess I was about from here away from the patrolman to the back of the room, as I am to the bank, to the front of the backof the room. The patrolman's about where I am, and I turned around and looked at him, and our eyes locked. And if I live to be 1,000, I'll never forget this. We looked at each other and for just a second our eyes locked and he went... That was my sentiments exactly. I know it hurt him. It hurt me. But those kind of things happen time after time after time, that kind of stuff. And then there's stuff that happened that absolutely was tragic. My drinking is at least partially responsible for the death of another person. I wouldn't stand up here and say that that didn't bother me, but I don't think it bothered me like it would a regular person. I just kind of went on. And I think what I learned later through inventory and through the process of the steps and God's grace and trying to get current with life is I think What Happened With That Situation is as sick as this is. I mean, I think I believed that that person got what they deserved for what they did. And my life just kindof went on and my drinking went to another level. You know, it's bad enough that the alcoholism itself progresses, but everything else progresses with it, the rage, the isolation, the fear. In fact, it was just for me, if I had one word to describe what I think alcoholism is, I'd say it's fear. That's what I would describe the illness as. It's just a mass of fear. I think Gene, my old friend Gene's a speaker Sunday morning. I think her sponsor always described it about as well. She always describedit as like a big hole missing out of her and like cold air blowing through there. And I think what an apt description of what alcoholism is and how this thing comes in here and the power of Alcoholics Anonymous begins to fill that up as people start to treat us with dignity and start to treatment us really when we come here. One of the kindest things people do initially is they listen to us. You know, we come in here feeling like pond slime and like the absolute bottom of the rung of everything and people take us seriously and they start to treating us at a level of what we could possibly become. But anyway, I'm in Bill's Bar and it's Thanksgiving season of 1974 and remember now everybody in Bill's bar that I believe then and now that was in there the bar ain't there anymore. I think it's a shame it became another kind of bar when Bill opened that bar he had to sign a contract that any time he sold a bar he wouldn't open another one in the city limits for three years because all the drunks would follow him but anyway they eventually somebody else took that over. Bill's dead now and Phyllis just died in the last couple years but they've turned it into some kind of a computer place. I go by there every time I'm there and it just kind of, somehow it seems like it's not right. You know, that place should have lived on. But anyway, there was a lady came up to me in Bill's Bar. Her name was Libby. And it's funny how you remember stuff. You know I, time is a funny thing to try to grasp and to try grapple with. It's hard to grasp time. It's harder to discuss time. Sometimes when I go home at night I can't hardly remember the morning, you know, at work. But if I look back on the last year it's just a blur. Time is hard to get a hold of. Pain is like that. One of the reasons I've stayed as active in Alcoholics Anonymous as I have. It's awful easy to forget that pain, and it's easy to forgive. The other thing, one of the reasons I've stayed as active as I can in Alcoholic Anonymous, I really believe this is a good place to run a little ignorant, that it's a good space to run in awe of the gift. I don't want to think that this is the way it's supposed to be, or I don' t want to thin I've got this thing figured out. My observation is people, the smart ones, don't stay here quite as long. People who come here given answers don't tend to stay here. When I came to Alcoholics Anonymous I didn't know this, but I was just right for alcoholics and non-alcoholics. I didn't know that. I didn' t come here believing AA would work for me. What I did is I came here running away from what I had. The asset that I had, it says at least twice in the big book, it may say it more times than that, but it says it at least once that the alcoholic's past is their most vital asset. And at one place it goes on to say and sometimes or oftentimes something like that it may be the only one. And I think that was true for me but it certainly was an asset that I'd have the fight beaten right out of me. and I either had to find some new way to live or I wanted to die. But a lady named Libby came up to me, and stuff I remember from this is really strange. She came upto me and her and her boyfriend invited another town drunk and I to their home for Thanksgiving dinner. I'd been in a horrible tractor-trailer accident with this guy, the other guy that they invited to their house. And Libby made a great big beautiful Thanksgiving dinner and she had her children there. And of course I wasn't able to eat. I'm too sick physically. I'm in that kind of thing now where I remember stuff, but I don't know if it really happened or not. I don' t know if I really saw somebody or if I just think I saw them. I don''t know if It happened yesterday, the day before, or last week, or if It happen at all. I wake up and I'm drenched in my own sweat, but l'm freezing. Libby knew a lot about alcoholism. Remember now, she's permanent party in Bill's bar herself. But Libby is buying quarts of beer and bringing them in for me, and she fixed this great big beautiful Thanksgiving dinner. Her boyfriend was also an over-the-road truck driver. You could go into Bill's Bar. At that time, you could be gone from Bill's Bar as long as a year at a time and walk in, and it was like you'd left an hour ago. You know, sometimes the same people would be sitting on the same bar stool they were last year when they left. Sometimes they'd have the same baseball cap on. They were driving those trucks. You know if one guy went from Omaha to Chicago with a load and it took him, you know, say five minutes to do that, the guy that talked right after him went with two loads and it take him three minutes. You know the first liar didn't have a chance. But anyway, this is the kind of thing you had in there. Well, Libby had this great big thing and she's bringing in these quarts of beer and, of course, I'm not able to eat them. Plus, you know, depending on when you caught me, it might have looked like I knew everything in the world except how to shut my own mouth and how to quit drinking. It might have look that way. Or it might've looked like the way it really was that I didn't have enough dignity to hold my head up. The first real, I think, ring of spiritual dignity that ever moved in my life was a byproduct of the first step. I was raised in alcoholism, so I never was very good to start with. I mean, I'm not part of that breed to blame their alcoholism. I came along under good, hard, honest, decent people. Nebraska alcoholism is textbook in that you've got people on those farms that won't go fishing on their own property without a license. I mean it's the kind of honesty if they went in a grocery store and bought a carton of cigarettes with a $50 bill and the clerk gave them change for $100, they'd give it back. Now I was introduced to all that. I was never afflicted with it. I knew about it. And those people, they understand about hard work. They understand about right and wrong. They understand shared purpose, but yet they've stayed out there and they've drank themselves to death for years. So I don't think alcoholism has anything to do with goodness or who gets a chance at this thing or any of those things. I just know that for me, I was selected, and I don' t have any illusion that if I ever took a drink of alcohol, I would ever come back to Alcoholics Anonymous. I believe everything it says in AA literature fits me just fine, except there's one thing I don''t agree with, I never have agreed with, God forgive me, Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob, but there's one thing I don't agree with, that line where it says it's the great obsession of every abnormal drinker to be a social drinker. I don' t have any desire to be social drinkers. You might as well go bowling or something and be a Social Drinker. I watch people drink sometimes. I was on an airplane with a guy that was drinking and he had a drink for 500 miles. I'm sure this guy had a BMW or a Mercedes at the airport because he had everything, he had the perfect briefcase and everything was cut just right. in that drink and he'd twirl it and he picked that drink up and smell it and set it back down. And I watched this for about 500 miles. I'm thinking, either drink that thing, dump it out, or do something with it. But I can't imagine being a social drinker. But anyway, Libby had a talk with me that went very much like this. She said, I've been around alcoholics all my life. She says, I'm married to two alcoholics but I don't think I've ever seen anything like you at your age. She said there's a man in town who helped my last ex-husband who's now been sober a full calendar year. He's got a full-time job, he's paying child support, and he's doing very well. If you want me to, I'll call him. Now, I wanted help on one level. I think any alcoholic in here, probably any family member understands this. I wanted health, but I didn't want health. My sponsor's sponsor a while back described surrender in a very succinct way. It really took on me. He said, surrender is what happens when the demons you might get start to look better than the demons you got. And I think that's a good definition of surrender. But anyway, she said that she would call this man and I wanted help but at the same time I was terrified. Plus you can get fairly spiritual in Nebraska on Thanksgiving when it's blizzard temperature and zero degrees and you don't have any place to go and you're standing and everything you've got in the world is right there. Well anyway, Libby called a man by the name of Bob Branigan. Gene, I don't know, do you know him? Do you know Bob Branigen? She called a guy by the game of Bob Brannigan and he, the last day of November of 1974, he made the first call that was ever made. I mean, I understand that he spent most of Saturday afternoon with me, but I only remember a couple things that whole time. I remember asking him, how do you get the willpower to not drink? I remember that very clearly. I said, how did you get to willpower and not drink, and he said, well, I look on willpower a little bit different than you do. He said, what I think willpower is, is the way you take that drink knowing it's going to come back up. That's what I think will power is. And I remember askin' him, uh, how long since you drank, and apparently I know now that what he did was he told me a story, but I don't remember much of that. I remember asking him, how long since you drank? And I remember him telling me if I can make it until September, it will be 11 years. And he's still sober in Alcoholics Anonymous, whatever that is now going on 40 years, I guess. And I guess the reason he's so sober is because he's doing those things that he did with me. But the next day he carted me off to the state hospital, which was about 115 or 120 miles away. And I remembered a couple things about that. We picked up another guy about my age on the way who's now dead from drinking. Later, when I was sober, we 12-stepped that guy, and he was in his mom's bed. He'd come in from the farm, and she'd wet the bed he was laying in there. And we told him we'd get him cleaned up and take him to an AA meeting. He didn't have any problems that his girlfriend and people leaving him alone wouldn't fix, and he's died from drinking, and what separates him and me is a simple thing. It's separated by a drink, nothing else. I don't for one minute think I'm a better guy. I'm confident that my dad, who just finished up his drinking at Christmas last year or two of his life, he really couldn't drink much. He was too sick to get anything to drink, but he died at 80 years old in a horrible case of alcoholism. His idea on Alcoholics Anonymous was it'd make you drink. I remember one time I was sober about 10 years. He said, I never have understood why Steve had such a hard time quitting drinking. You know, I've never had. Well, he'd never quit. But anyway, Bob Brannigan carted me off to the state hospital, And I remember asking him on the way, well, not asking him, but I was smoking at that time, of course. And he bought me a carton of Marlboro cigarettes and a can of 7-Up. I had horrible cramps. And I guess I gave him that great one-liner that I probably said 10,000 times when I was drinking, I'll pay you back. And I Remember he looked over at me and he said, that ain't the way this thing works. He said, you'll be expected to help other people when you're able. And that's what I'd like to think that I've been doing all this time. I mean, I've had great things happen to me because of this thing. I mean, I've had all kinds of stuff happen here as a byproduct of this thing. I mean I've all the stuff anybody else has had happen here. I got married when I was sober two years. The day I was over two years, got married. The judge who married us was an AA member. He ordered the courthouse open at night and mounted the bench. That marriage lasted 17 years. It was one of those things that it was where boy meets girl on AA campus. We probably never should have, you know, two beautiful grown women came out of that. But in, got divorced from that. I mean, in the early 80s, my wife had three cancer operations. I lived through that. My daughter, who's now 26 years old and a mother herself, when she was 15 months old, she had spinal meningitis. The lady who took care of her was this little bitty woman, a brand-new pediatrician from India, and she knew exactly what she was doing. But she said that even when she found out that she was going to live from the spinal meningitis, she said their fever's been so high for so long that we're afraid there's going to be permanent brain damage that will never be reversed, and She's either going to have brain injuries or have learning disabilities. Well, that didn't happen. and she was healed from it like as if she never had it. But AA people converged on that room. The priest who came up there and prayed over her was the same priest, a recovered alcoholic, who had heard my fifth step. All kinds of things have happened here. I've had two periods of time. I'm headed for the homestretch on this thing. I still got a little bit of time now. I ain't up to an hour yet. I've Had Two Periods of Time that Bill Wilson called this same thing in his life the dark night of the soul. You can call it whatever you want If you've had it, you'll never forget it. I've had two times in my life, one at eight years of sobriety and one at 19 1⁄2 years of sobriiety. Pain, again, is hard to discuss. It's hard to capture. But I can only describe it like this. It made being homeless seem like kid stuff. It felt like I was being choked spiritually. Now, I have a sponsor. I've always been dedicated to the steps. And what happens with this is very often alcoholics end up at a doctor with medicine. But I have an alcoholic who's been sober two years longer than me and his sponsor. I mean, I'm very dedicated to this. I want to be careful how I say this. If I'm an expert on anything in Alcoholics Anonymous, I'm a expert on my effort at trying to apply these principles. I have diligently tried to apply those principles. When I was sober 20 years, it became clear to me that I had done the best I could do drinking and I had been the best that I could in sobriety. That's a wonderful sense of comfort and a wonderful relief. It's very akin to what I heard a man say one time. I was just with this guy a couple or three weeks ago. I heard him say, if you can get to the bottom of the ninth step, if you could do the first nine steps to the best of your ability, what you've got at that point is a jet engine for life because what you're doing then is you're just out there in the power right now operating. You're not coming from behind living in the past. You're no out there. You're out there and the future. And the two greatest problems I've always had have been my resentment about the past or my fear of the future, but those – my sponsor's been sober two years longer than I have, and he's fond of saying that they taught things in that two years that they no longer teach. Now, that's fine with me, But I got through that time just barely. It was horrible. The pain was incredible. And what I learned from that is, and I learned this at a level of my heart, I learned that the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous have to be more powerful than whatever the problem is. Otherwise we would pale out here with problems we would bail out. My observation is problems have very little to do with drinking. You know, I've watched people just like everybody else have. I've watched people in AA deal with the imminence of their own death with tremendous class and dignity. You wouldn't even have known what was going on unless someone told you. Problems have very little to do with drinking. Now, when I was drinking, I had some big problems, but they were very few, and they could be broken up by just me bailing out. I was in a flop one time. I'm not exactly Methuselah's age, but I was at a flop where the rent was $7 a week. When I got sober in AA, I met a guy who'd been in that same flop when the rent was $5 a week, he pointed out it didn't make much difference what the rent was, neither one of us could make it. You know, and you could break that up by leaving town. Well, you can't do that when you get sober. I mean, I had to take my place. So what I've learned is to put all these jets in place at one time. And I've earned to try to pass this on to other people. And, you know, I've been able to participate in other people's lives and do things and all kinds of stuff. I've being able to take place here and be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous in good standing. and I appreciate very much much more now than I did an hour ago being invited here and thank you very much you've been a great audience to talk to thank you