Steps 4 and 5 in Richmond, VA

My name's Johnny, and I'm, still alcoholic. I thought if I could've listened to my own tape there for that hour, I could've been healed by now. It just you know, it it it's amazing. I've had the privilege of sponsoring a lot of people in Alcoholics Anonymous, and it's amazing how many people tell you that, god, I'm really afraid of step 5. I tell them, have you written the 4th yet?

Well, no. But I'm scared of 5. I think it's kinda hard for you to do anything if you haven't done it. If, by some strange hook or crook, you've established the first three steps of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I believe that the first three steps of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous are just basically decision steps. I believe you, you make a decision there to close the 3rd step to turn your will and your life over the care of god as you understand him.

But the next step, Alcoholics Anonymous, is, one of the, probably the only time that, or the first time in Alcoholics Anonymous you're asked to do anything except sit around and think about it. And that's when you have to really take some type of an action that requires more than just a simple process of thought. And it says when we, made a searching in the fearless moral inventory. It says here on page 63 at the bottom after we've taken that step, it says, next we launched out on a launched out on a course of vigorous action, the first of which is a personal housecleaning, which many of us have never attempted. Now this is very dangerous to a lot of people, particularly people like me.

And you get very many different reactions behind the 4th step. It said that though our decision was vital and a crucial step, it could have little permanent effect unless followed at once by strenuous effort to face and be rid of the things in ourselves which had been blocking us. Our liquor was but a symptom, so we had to get down to causes and conditions. Therefore, we started on a personal inventory. This was step 4.

Now when I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, I didn't know about all this stuff. But one of the greatest things that I've learned about Alcoholics Anonymous is that if you sit around here long enough and try to pay attention to what goes on and keep your eyes open, somebody will always prove to you what this program is really all about by their actions. It's just necessary for you to have to experiment on anything. I mean, all you gotta do is just sit still long enough and somebody will experiment for you and prove to you whether your thought process is right or wrong, whether it's I don't have to do it or I have to do it. I don't have to do it or I have to do it.

The group that I attend in California, feel that, if you don't have this inventory taken and this 5th step taken by your first step, your sponsor won't give you cake. That's in the 1st year. They give you a whole year to get around to doing this. I, personally, I get them started as quick as I can. I mean, because I've always believed, like I told you before, and guys said, when you want me to do this, when you wanna start getting well.

I mean, if you don't know what's wrong with you, you can't find out what's wrong with you. I said in a penitentiary when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, and there was 4 guys in this institution. And I used to watch them all the time. And these 4 guys were people who'd been in the penitentiary, got sober in there, and I'll call it synonymous, and went outside. We got drunk and come back again.

And I watched them all the time because somehow or other, even though I didn't realize it at that time, I knew that this was a very vital thing, that my life was hanging on the thread here because, you know, I had just returned from insanity and death. And so I realized it was a very critical thing. I watch these people. And one day, I was sitting in a meeting on Sunday. I sit in back a ride.

Well, that leaned up against the wall trying to be cool. You know, if I'd had a hat, I'd had it on backwards. But, that was before you were hip when you wore your hat with the bill out. But I was sitting back here and I'm watching these 3 guys, and a guy came in on a panel about that meeting we had, and he asked a question. He said, he said, I'd like to ask some questions to people here.

He said, I wanna know how many of you people have tried Alcoholics Anonymous before and failed and came back. And I watched these guys. Their hands went, all 4 of them. They're just kinda proud. They looked around to see who was watching them.

You know, like the big badge of honor to blow it. You know what I mean? And, you know, like some of these people who make heroes out of slippers. Oh, you wonderful thing. Be that old fool along over there.

He's been sober a while, but let me anyhow, he asked another question. He said, I wanna know how many of you people wrote your 4th and 5th step in its entirety. And not one of those hands went up. Not one not one of the 4. And it wasn't very much longer after that that, I started to write my inventory.

And it's not up. I don't think that's cute. I know some people do, but I don't think children in meetings with Alcoholics Anonymous to disrupt meetings are cute. I think children belong where they belong, but not in meetings of alcoholics anonymous where they disrupt them. But we love you.

I knew it. And I tell you, I got run out of San Jose last week because I was talking too much about Alcoholics Anonymous. This program of Alcoholics Anonymous is a very, very debilitating thing. When I started to write my inventory, I started to put things down there that I had never told my therapist. I tried to write things down there that I never said anything about on the psychiatrist's couch.

I put things down there that I had thought about and tried to hide all my life. And by the time I got to the point where I couldn't stand myself or I was afraid to even shave myself anymore because of the madness that was about me, I had to do something about it. What I have come to understand what that was is that I was absolutely and totally dying from a disease called alcoholism. I didn't know of it being an untreated illness. Now I had been going to meetings with Alcoholics Anonymous, and I've been doing a lot of things in meetings.

I'd been picking up ashtrays, and I'd been picking up cups, and I'd been smiling at people from time to time. But I did not, have any idea that that's all I would do. I was sitting there, but I didn't have any idea that I was not treating my alcoholism. The treatment of alcoholism is, is a very serious thing. And you do not treat means of alcoholism by, just showing up here.

All you're doing is just showing up. The disease of alcoholism, as I understand it, is only settled by some type of a spiritual experience, some type of a spiritual awakening within yourself, which I said before. And when I wrote my inventory, I was dangerous. When I got my inventory written, I wrote it I don't know how long I wrote it or who I wrote it to or what I wrote about, really, but I do know that it it was terrible. I I was just I was just almost insane because I did a lot of things before I came to Alcoholics Anonymous.

I didn't just show up here because my wristwatch went backwards or I took a little light wind at my high school prom. You know, I had committed just about every crime against man and nature that there was to commit before I got here. And I paid the price for it because I'd been literally driven insane, and I was dead on arrival at my last time out of Los Angeles County Jail. So I didn't come here in Alcoholics Anonymous, because I had a little trouble in my high school class or because mama was going to throw me out of the house if I didn't do something about my greeting. And so when I started to write this inventory, it was a debilitating thing.

It's almost like therapy. You know? You get so deep into that therapy sometimes, you get so far into your head about all the crap that you've done. You gotta have something to set you free. You know what I mean?

Medication seems to be a good thing. But I wasn't at that point. I was at the point that most alcoholics of my type enter into when we get so sick and tired of ourselves and so full of ourselves we can't stand ourselves anymore. We either have to do something about it or blow our brains out or take a drink. For me, thank God, I was locked up in a place where I couldn't get anything sharp, or I couldn't get a drink at that time.

So I did the only thing that people like me could do. I took this nonsense that I had, and I walked around the corner and knocked on a man's door and sat down and started to tell him about me. I tried to read what was written in this inventory. And somewhere during the presentation of this 5th step to this man, probably the greatest single event that's ever happened to me in my life happened to me. Bar none.

I don't I don't put anything above it. I don't put anything around it. It's the greatest single event that's ever happened in my life. You see, I don't believe that that coming to Alcoholics Anonymous is the greatest single event that's ever happened to me in my life. And I don't believe that getting sober is the greatest single event that ever happened to me in my life, because I was sober a lot of times before I got here.

I don't believe that my children being born or my grandchildren being born or the good life of mine today is the greatest single thing that's ever happened to me in my life. The greatest single thing that ever happened to me in my life happened to me when I was doing this 5th step with this man. I heard myself say to that man that I was an alcoholic. And as far as I can perceive that in my own case, that's the first step in recovery. I admitted to my innermost self at that day.

And from that moment to this moment, there's never been a doubt in my mind what's wrong with me. Me. I am an alcoholic, and I suffer from a disease called alcoholism. From that moment to this moment, I have never been an alcoholic and anything. I never was and anything anyhow.

I was just something, but I wasn't, said them. And everything in this program of recovery called Alcoholics Anonymous is something that I just wanted to do and had to do and knew I had to do it. Had to do it. It just sank. I mean, it's a tremendous thing that at the age of 27 years old, when you've died and gone insane and blew everything in the world that you'd ever been given, the talent that god gave you, everything that you gave you, you've come to a point in your life and through this terrible, debilitating thing.

All your life you've been searching for this tremendous answer of, my god, what's wrong with me? Why do I keep ending up like this all the time for Christ's sake? What's wrong with me? It's the alcoholic's theme song. Jesus Christ, what's wrong?

I don't know. That's hard to say. So we have a chapter that says, well, we try everything to control and enjoy our drinking. We drink beer only. We drink wine.

We we re health farms and sanitariums. People do that after they come day a. They take physical exercise, read spiritual books, make a spiritual breakthrough. Go to health farms and sanitariums. We can list ad infinitum, and my sponsor says you were ad infinitum, whatever that was.

I discovered what was wrong with me sitting down doing the stiff step. I discovered I had this terrible, debilitating disease, and I was gonna die or go nuts if I didn't do it. I had to. It's the most tremendous thing I've ever known. There was no big, you know what I mean?

I I I remember walking I remember getting up and walking out the door that day, and the guy said to me, Jesus, Johnny. Didn't you ever do anything decent in your entire life? I couldn't think of a thing. I couldn't think of a thing in my life because I walked out that door, because I walked over and sit underneath the tree that day and thought about it. I couldn't think of a single unselfish act that I had ever committed in my entire life.

I had never one time in my life ever thought about somebody else before me, ever. It took me a long time to understand that that is the glaring killer instinct of an alcoholic of my type, the selfishness and self centeredness. That's the way I lived my entire lifetime before I got here and didn't know it. I didn't know I was living that way. I mean, it was as natural to me as breathing in and out to be selfish and self centered.

I wasn't interested in the world or the people around me. I was interested in me. No wonder I was caught into this trap of disillusionment and despair and needed a drink. And once I took a drink, I'm gone again. I I didn't understand what was going on.

I didn't know I had this phenomenon of craving once I took a drink. I didn't know that I would drink it to satisfy a craving, which beyond all human help and understand. I didn't know that because I didn't know what was wrong with me for Christ's sake. I discovered in that thing that this is not an alcohol problem. This is not about taking drugs.

This is about a spiritual soul sickness, a disease of such proportion that nobody's ever been able to figure out where it came from. Nobody has ever been all the geniuses in all the years, in the 4000 years that's been recorded history of alcoholism, nobody ever understood or has ever been able to come up with a reason why my body does not react to alcohol the way other people's body reacts to it. That this terrible disease of mine, alcoholism, kills more people than anything that's been known to man and has the exact same proportions as cancer. It's amazing. The opposite thing between this and cancer is this, is that when can't when you have cancer, you have a tumor, and the body feeds the tumor.

Now the mind knows it has cancer. The body doesn't. It just feeds it. And it gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and finally you die from it. Doesn't relate that you die.

That's what it does. Alcoholism is is almost in a reverse situation in this thing. The body knows it has it, but the mind says it doesn't. I mean, you ever remember your first drink? Don't want that in me, the body's saying.

Mind said, but all hot mud make you feel. Oh, I'll try it again. I mean, what is that? The body is rejecting this thing. The mind says, hold it.

Good, boy. That's what the mind says. Mind. Mind. That's where the first drink is.

But I can't know that I'm caught in this trap if I don't know what's wrong with me. If I think, the only problem I have is drinky poo every now and then, and so I get out of control every once in a while, end up with a 502, earn the treatment center one more time. If that's the only problem I have, then all I have to do is put this aside. But if I have this terrible killer illness that being sober, being without liquid in my system or spirit within my system, isn't it amazing that you call alcohol a spirit? Why would we have to have spirit put in when we have spirit within?

The spirit within is trying to get out, so we put a spirit in to kill the spirit within. Oh, how do you like that one for simplicity? But that's the way it works. I don't understand. I didn't understand that, but I understand it today.

Thank god I understood that. Thank god I come to understand the very nature of my illness, that I have this terrible malady that I have to do what this program of recovery says to do, and the people who have gone before me do, and the people who are staying sober before me do. You ask anybody who'd been sober any length of time, and they will all tell you the same course of action that they take to maintain obtain and maintain this degree of stability so the mind doesn't trick them into taking a drink. That's what it's all about. To get rid of me long enough.

I can sit around in my room, spiritual as I am and as close to God as I am, and read all sorts of spiritual intoxicating books, and get thirstier, and thirstier, and thirstier, and thirstier, and thirstier. Because I know what takes the big herd away that quick. All I gotta do, pick this up and drink it. And I don't care how much knowledge I have learned about the crippling effect of alcohol on my system. If I don't do something to keep a permanent bridge between me and that first drink, I'm gonna drink again.

Because I know even in the back of my head today, after 36 years of sitting in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and doing what I'm asked to do here, I do know today, way in the back of my mind, what takes the big herd away. Alcohol will still work in my life. Still works. You ever been, well, it's the time of the year when you go out to some of these Christmas parties and company parties. Have any of you how many people in this room have ever mistakenly put one of those malt balls or put a drink of alcohol in their mouth since they've been sober?

Lots of you. What did you do with it? Did you get a little tingling feeling though? I did. That proves me alcohol works.

Feel funny about it. Oh, God damn. I mean, I went into office one day. I'm in the office. How you are?

It's Christmas time. You walk by the old girl's desk. You got candy. You grab one of them thing. Spit right on her desk.

She said, what's the matter with you? I said, god. What is that? She says, it's it's a rumble. I said, oh, shit.

Fast. Fast. What? I took a bite of rumble. It's how many did you eat?

I said, I didn't even eat that one. I threw it away. He said, well, thank God. He said, why? He said, well, if you he said, if you had to sit down and feasted at her desk, it would have been a different story.

You know? So you see that that, you know, I hear I hear people I hear people in Alcoholics Anonymous all the time. I go to a lot of meetings, so I hear a lot of things. You know, I mean, go to meetings, you hear a lot of things. If you listen, I mean, if you're busy, I mean, in AA meetings, you know, like getting coffee and being cute, whatever it is, you don't hear nothing.

I mean, you're just listening. I mean, you're trying to be showed up there. But if you go to me and sit around and listen, hear that thing. Hear people say all the time, alcohol just quit working in my life. My answer to that is, what the hell are you doing here?

If alcohol don't work, what are you doing here? That what's that? If alcohol don't work, what's what's what's the reason for this inventory and this humiliating 5th step? Where you gotta admit to god and somebody else's exact nature wrong. What's what's the business of this of of doing all this crap and talking to people you don't even like?

What what what's the reason for all this nonsense? If alcohol doesn't work anymore, then you have to worry about drinking it. I mean, well, it don't work. I don't think I'll drink it anymore. Worked back here.

The reason that is, I under believe this, is that you can forget the memory of pain very shortly for a moment's pleasure. For a moment's relief, we can forget the agony of a lifetime. And if you don't believe that, no woman would ever have her second child. That's how simple it is. Really?

I mean, you're, I mean, that's, you know, I mean, that's kind of an abstract thing, but that's just basically what we're talking about. The humiliation and the degradation and the pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization of yesterday is but a memory. But a memory. But a memory. But a memory is gone.

And I've almost forgot what brought it about. And if I am not hanging around people like you and keeping a constant effort into this program of recovery and the memory of new people in my life solidifying the idea of what happens to me when I drink, I'll forget it. And then I'll hang out with somebody. And the book says in the doctor's opinion, I become restless and irritable and discontent unless I can have a few drinks which I see other people taking with impunity. And by this time I have already thought myself into a state of unreasonableness, where it's just a phase I was going through anyhow.

You know, 30 some years, I may not have been alcoholic anyhow. Probably a dope fiend. I'll just drink. You know? And I don't believe the first drink is the thought process.

I believe the first drink is a reaction. I believe that for me to drink, all I'd have to do is be in the wrong place at the wrong time and the wrong set of circumstances, and somebody hand me a drink, and all the years of sobriety's gone. Could I take it? Because I do know that since I've been sober, there have been times when I have been so upset with myself or the situations that I had created or the things around me, or I had felt so guilty about the things that I had done, or whatever it may be that drove me into that simple fact that I was just absolutely and totally insane. And if I was in the wrong place, somebody handed me a drink, I'd have probably taken it.

Just the way I take a drink of water when my throat gets dry. Automatically reach for something. And so I admitted to my innermost self I was alcoholic that day. And I went out and sat underneath this tree. And for the first time in my life, probably, it was about well, it was about Easter time when there's new life springing up all around you.

And we were up in the mountains in this penitentiary, and I was sitting out looking at all these things. And the flowers were blooming, and the birds were singing. I mean, I was 29 years old. And that's probably the first time in my life I had ever experienced those type of things. Now I don't know whether that's a spiritual experience or what that is.

I think it's just an awakening. That's what I believe. The sad part about this, 5th step, If so many people make such a big deal out of it, such a big deal, they think that's the end of it. Now that I know what's wrong with me, and now that I have explained to people what's wrong with me, I just go about my business. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

What happens now is you have to repair the damage of the past. From now on, the program of Alcoholics Anonymous gets real, real tough because you ain't talking about 1 person and another person. Now you gotta go out and do something. So many people get stuck right here. Right here.

This is where we lose a lot of people to other outside agencies. Not not being funny. This is a deadly thing right here. It's because now I know all this crap about me as much as I knew about me in therapy maybe and more. So now I know all this stuff.

What do I do now? Well, you hear people all the time say, well, I just got all bets. I went back and wrote another inventory. Yep. Another inventory.

Another 5th step. Yep. Another inventory. Another 5th step. What do you think about that?

And I said, god, the the goddamn people who sell those papers must just love you. And pencils in stationary stores much just can't wait. You must have an open line down there or something, line of credit. Wow. You don't think that's good?

Nope. I don't. Why not? I says it's awful easy to go back and redo something than it is to go forward into something you don't know. To step out there in uncharted ground is not something that every alcoholic I ever met is looking forward to.

I'll tell you that. Oh, I think I'll go over there and tell them people I sold $10,000 from them. I'm willing to pay it back. Think about that, guy. Oh, I just can't hardly wait to get that done tomorrow.

Just so what do we do? You wanna go back and write an inventory. Another they're gonna write another inventory. Think about that. You're gonna take that another 5th step.

You need to run into if you're lucky, you go to some of these group therapy sessions that take call AA meetings. You run into one of the gurus who'd been sober about 15 days back there, maybe 2 years now. You know, you can always spot them. When I was in that position, I got lucky. I wanted to I wanted to kill myself.

What did you do? Luckily, my friend introduced me to their therapist. Or I found out that I was in conflict with my inner child. And you may talk, it's funny, but a lot of alcoholics die right there. Alcoholics of my type are right there at the turning point again.

And for me to break off from this program of recovery when I've just scratched the surface and found out what's wrong with me, I have not taken the steps necessary to repair the things that have driven me back to the bottle time and time and time again, the nightmares in the past. So for me to bounce off and go back and rehash this crap again, I'm doing the same thing. You might as well just stay here and keep writing inventories. You might as well. I mean, because that's all therapy is.

Let me think more about that. Oh, I can't stand that. Oh, that's better. Thanks, doctor. That's all it is.

Self help? No. Selflessness is what our program is all about. Getting rid of me, getting rid of the things that are driving me crazy, getting rid of the nightmares of my past. I can't do that just because I know about them.

I've always known about them. How do you think I wrote them down on a piece of paper if I didn't know about them? I mean, they're not spiritual breakthroughs, for Christ's sake, that I thought about one day when I had nothing better to do. I knew all about this stuff. It's what drove me crazy when it was described to me in a courtroom, my brain snapped.

I know about all this stuff. The little itsy bitsy details and stuff, taking care of my 5th step. See it said, they said in the book that we went back to our life, nothing counted but thoroughness and honesty. Now about sex. It's on page 69.

They have a lot of foresight here I'll tell you. I see. Yeah. We don't talk much about sex and alcoholics anonymous. Talk a lot about relationships.

I have a new I was telling him last night that I have a new answering machine things, you know, you have got these automatic secretary things you can answer now. You call up my house and voice comes on and says, this is Johnny Harris, if you wanna talk about alcoholism, press 1. If you wanna talk about the recovery from such, press 2. If you want to talk about relationships, hang up. It says down here on the bottom of page 69, God alone can judge our sex situation, you know.

And yet, I hear alcoholics all the time trying to help each other with their relationship problem. I mean, I I don't know anything about it. I'm not very good at it. Selfish, self centered people aren't very good at relationship program problems. I just they're just not.

I mean, we're too deeply into ourselves most of the time. And so somehow or other, before anything to work continually for a basis between me and another human being, whether it's a female or a male between Earl and I, or my sponsor and I, we had to have some type of selflessness there. Has to be some type of a give and take situation there. And so I have to establish some type of relationship with the human being, and what better than somebody who'd been sober a while knows what, you know, in steps in chapter 6. You know, it tells more about getting into action.

Isn't it amazing that there's this chapter in this book, chapter 6, it says into action. I've looked all the way through here and I keep I keep looking for a chapter into thinking. I could really get into that. You know what I mean? Anytime you get into deep psychological thoughts, go into the closet and take your pistol with you.

Really helps a great deal. Gives you kind of comfort. You rub the barrel on your cheek, back and forth, and your forehead kinda you get great spiritual breakthroughs. In a once in a while, you just can hardly wait to see how it tastes. And I get another kick, I get, you know, just a lot of things that they talk about in Alcoholics Anonymous, that you know, you hear a lot of things and people seem to think that, you know, that the only way you can stay sober now is to go to dances.

I mean, they think in an AA meeting it's just something to keep them occupied till the music starts. And so our rule is not to avoid places where there is drinking, if we have a legitimate reason for being there. I also believe that being completely lost in it, I'm not against drink, it's dancing, I just, strictly down here in the south, you know, I mean, in the Baptist country, them people, you know, they don't think you should be dancing. They think you're probably trying to make love standing up or something. I don't know what it is.

I don't really know what it is. I think I think that the program of Alcoholics Anonymous in my life depends on my being alert at all times and the thing that's gonna kill me. Now I can't I can't do anything about the thing that's killing me if I don't know what's what's going on in my life. I, have been through about all the 4th and 5th step I can be through. If you ain't been there, There's not much I can do for you.

But if you haven't been there, I suggest that you get with it right away. Another thing that I wanna say about the 4th and 5th step, it seems to me today that a lot of people who are coming out of these treatment facilities have been given a line of crap in there. They think, well, they've taken this inventory and they've done all this stuff in there and they come out 30 days later with 3 or 4 years equivalent of sobriety. I I think the inventory and the 5th step should be taken and given freely and without threat of anything. I think everything in Alcoholics Anonymous should be done just because you feel you have to do it for sobriety and for sobriety along.

Not because some counselor who's getting paid thinks you ought to, but because that's part of some program that you paid money to go sit into with some authority to tell you. I think that the only reason you do any of these things in alcoholic synonymous is to stay sober. That's what I believe. I believe sobriety is the key to the whole ball game. Kinda hard to be sober if you're not sober.

Another spiritual breakthrough. But that's really what it basically felt about. You stand well, I love when I get when I get a newcomer, I say to them, he says, did you hear the phone? Did you hear it, girl? Oh, shit.

I did. Anybody else hear the phone? Thanks, Johnny. Where was I? Oh, the phone rang.

You don't look look through your notes. Where was that? Oh. Well, it's like all spiritual breakthrough with alcoholics, it's just a fleeting thing. It's here a while ago.

But I but I really but my first thing I tell people that I sponsor with, I sponsor with them. I said people, I said, you know, I tell them, you know, after they've been sober a while, it depends on whether they're slippers or whatever they are, just new people and I'll call it synonymous, who've never been here before. And, first thing I tell them is you gotta get into these steps right away. You know, I tell them, you know, a period of time and look at them and I say, well, you better start writing on your 4 step. And then they say, well, I'm on my 4th step.

I said, fine. When are we gonna take my 5th? I said, I'll tell you. Keep them kind on 3 times a week they, I'm writing. Good.

When are we gonna take my 5th step, Moe? I'll tell you. Just calm and quiet and wonderful. They're just, God, he's gonna say it someday. And so someday, I'll walk up to him on a Monday night and I say, Thursday, after the meeting, down by the bay, we're gonna go sit on a bench and I'm gonna listen to your 5th step.

Oh. The first thing I ever say to him. The first thing I ever say to him, when they get down before I spend an hour or however long it takes, 10 o'clock at night on, whenever it was, I'll say to him, why you wanna do this? Why do you wanna do this? And it seemed like the people I get, because most of them are losers anyhow.

I mean they've tried all this other crap, none of it seems to work. And variably the thing that I get that really makes my evening a little, I would, after they say this, if they gave me this answer, I could sit here till dawn and listen to them. I just wanna stay sober. I just wanna stay sober. Well, because, says to do it, or I think ought to do it, or Willie's doing it, or Billy's.

I just love when they tell me, I just wanna stay sober because that's all I do. I just wanna stay sober today. That's all. Just the day is my day, this is my day, I don't got any yesterdays or no tomorrow, this is it. I can't even guarantee you that I'm gonna make it back to the room tonight.

I can't make guarantee I'm gonna make it through lunch. I can't guarantee I'm gonna make it anywhere, but I can, I do know this, that I wanna stay sober? That's all. Only chance I got, the only chance I've got of being a father, of being a grandfather, of being a good employee, of being a good employer, of being a good citizen in the world, or being a good member of Alcoholics Anonymous is if I stay sober. I can't stay sober.

That's the point I'm trying to get across. I can't stay sober. I can't drink and live and of myself, I can't keep from drinking. So how come I'm sober 36 years? Very simple.

I have found a design for living, not a workbench or a chore. I have found a delightful design for living that puts me in a place where it's necessary for me to have a drink. That all started when I discovered what was wrong with me, that I had this disease, killer disease called alcoholism, not alcohol. A disease called alcoholism, and I was smack dab in the solution that all I had to do was these things they wouldn't have to drink no more. Does it mean I'm gonna be a perfect human being?

Does it mean I'm gonna rise into their heights and be one of God's chosen people. It's just gonna mean that I'm gonna be one of those rare rare things in the history of mankind. Call a sober alcoholic who doesn't drink alcohol anymore and lives with some degree of comfort. That's what I found here. And that's as much as I know about the 4th and 5th step.

And Al just snuck some more of these sneaky things in here on you people. So here we go. How many times do you do each step? Every day of my life, and this is this is an absolute fact, every day of my life I do the 3rd step prayer, the 6th and the 7th step prayer, and the 10th, 11th, and 12th step before I ever have a cup of coffee. This right here in this book, page 62, is the third step prayer.

The first two paragraphs on page 76 are the 6th and 7th step prayer. And on page 84 of our book, it says this thought brings us to step 10, I read all the way through the rest of that chapter and then I read the last paragraph of the vision for you and somehow or other I'm in some type of condition to start my day Now the rest of these steps, I go through them all the time. I go through them with the people I sponsor. When I have somebody that I listen to as the 5th step, I share some of my 5th step with them. Kinda takes the edge off to find out there's somebody in the world sicker than they are.

I mean, you ever wonder, one of the funniest things I ever heard about, you know, amazing, people said, I didn't write in my inventory, I just I just took my 5th step the way it was. And I said, that's fine. I don't know how you are, but there's something that happens between me and my right hand. It just flows out here and comes out here. And when it gets to that paper it's entirely different than what it was up here.

I mean it's like it was something transformation of thought process, you know what I mean? It's like like that beautiful blue eyed blonde that I was with in Norfolk had turned to a little helpless sheep in Montana when it got down to the habilts. Not, it's not really true. But that that is an illustration on how my mind can trick me and just that quick. Just my mind is not my friend.

It really isn't. I look at my face in the mirror, it's almost as like, how am I gonna trick you today, slick? You know, just it's really not. I mean, I've told you before that my mind my mind has never had anybody else's concern in it, ever. Just not filled with thoughts of other folks, filled with thoughts of me and mine and what I want, how I need, I'm like them little egos with sticks on them, you know.

So that's it, that's the way I take these steps, I I do those steps, I read and send the books, in the book, I'll just sit there here. Basically, Alcoholics Anonymous, the 3rd step, and the 6th and 7th step for prayer. Now we have another one. Is what your view on the eye that all you have to do is don't drink and go to meeting? Well, that's a good start.

Don't drink and go to meetings, that is a great start. But I I I know what I've told you before, but I've been trying to tell you for the last couple of hours, that all that will do for a guy like me, is make me tired of the meetings and make my life so damned unbearable that I can't stand it. When I was doing this when I was new, when all I did was not drink, I was sober, I was coming to meetings, and I picked up ashtray. I took my 5th stab. It's a good start.

But it's like I don't know Louis. Maybe Clancy did this one time, but Alcoholics Anonymous is the last house on the block, Whether you know it or not. A while, but that will be enough for me. If you have options, you won't even, you know, you won't even be near the block because it's on for Christ's sake. And a lot of people think that they come here and they don't drink.

And they're in the house. No. They're not. Hell, they're not even on the sidewalk yet in the house. When you drink, you don't quit drinking, all you do is get on the porch.

But that doesn't mean you're in there sitting by the fireplace and being warm. That just means you're standing on a porch. You go out and stand outside out there, see how warm you are. I know there's something going on in there. I'm not quite sure what it is, but they're laughing and giggling and sitting out here cold as hell.

Same idea. You gotta come in. Friends and now I'm out. You gotta come in. Joe.

You've been always got It's awful hard to get out of something you're in. Real easy to get off of something you're on. It's almost very That's a treatment center. They get you off of stuff you're on. Hard to get out of Alcoholics Anonymous once you get in.

Once who was it? Great choreographer. Great man. Martin Luther King. He said in one of his Really right.

Stirring speeches, I have been to the top of the mountain and I have looked at paradise. I ain't going back in the valley. That's what happens here now, Paul, it's enough. When you come to believe when you come to believe that this is the answer for my problem, and this is the solution for what's been killing me all my life, this is a solution that's killed 1,000 and 1,000 and 1,000 and 1,000 of people after they've come here. This is the solution because they can't seem to buy this.

And the shield You're so wrapped up in that word, alcohol. Over your bid. It's your bid. I ain't drinking. There is nothing.