The Deep South AA Convention in New Orleans, LA

Well, good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Saturday afternoon meeting of the 20th annual big deep south convention. My name is and I'm an alcoholic. I haven't found it necessary to take a drink since October 1st 1982. And for that, I'm eternally grateful. Would you please join me in a moment opening this meeting with a moment of silence followed by the serenity prayer.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Alcoholic anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problems and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for a membership. We are self supporting for our own contribution.

He is not allied with any sex, denomination, politics, organization. He is not the, politics organization institution does not wish to engage in any controversy. Neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety. We'd like to remind you of our 11th and 12th tradition.

Tradition 11, our public relation policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and film. Tradition 12, anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our tradition. Ever reminding us to pledge principled, triple personalities. Therefore, if there's anyone here from the media, we request that you do not use the last name or pictures of anyone present.

Before I introduce the speaker, I'd like to remind you that the speaker's remarks are his own interpretation of opinions and not necessarily those of the alcoholic or alcoholic anonymous. I met Paul the other day for the first time. And last night, matter of fact, I told him when I met him and he told me how many years of sobriety he had. And, I told him about the tradition that we had here of lighting the candle and I told him, I said, I'm quite sure you would you will be the one to light the candle. And as it turned out last night, Paul did light the candle.

And, in talking with him also, he mentioned a part of the big book that I had read the big book in several occasions and, and reread it and read passages from it and but there was one in this in the, big book that the page wasn't even numbered. Matter of fact, it's it's sandwiched between, pages 164 and 171. They just, for some reason, did number these pages. But I thought I'd like to read it to you because Paul was this could be classified as one of the pioneers and should should be classified as one of pioneers of AA. And, it goes like this.

Doctor Bob and the 12 men and women who she had told their stories were among the early numbers of AA's first group. All have now passed away of natural causes having maintained complete sobriety. The period of sobriety attained by these 13 AA range from 15 to 46 years. Today, 100 of additional AA members can be found who have had no relapse for more than 30 years. All of these then are the pioneers of AA.

They bear witness that release from alcoholism can be really permanent. And I think, Paul is one of the ones who can attest to that with 46 years of sobriety. You know, in, and another thing, I think in with Paul's presentation here today, there are he will probably dwell on the summary 4 absolutes of AA. And just as a reminder, Ed both Ed and has tapes on the 4 absolutes and the related subjects. Now, it to me, introducing Paul is just like introducing the pope to, the Catholics.

So with Paul so I don't think Paul needs too much introduction. So Paul, it's all yours. Thank you. Good afternoon. Are you folks here back there?

Before I get into my dog and pony show here, I would like to thank the committee, all of the trusted servants that, put this thing together, and the invitation to come down here and participate in this beautiful conference. Several years ago, I was contacted and given an invitation. And at that time, through a lot of circumstances, I was unable to attend. And I was quite flattered when they called me again and, said they hadn't forgotten me and, wanted me to come down. And I suspect they kind of scheduled me in and forced me in this thing, but I don't care how I got here, just so I got here.

And I wanna thank everybody because I'm sort of a non resident member of Mississippi in this area and I come down in this area, I get a chance to visit with some old friends. Obviously, to have an opportunity to meet some new people and share in this beautiful experience that we call Alcoholics Anonymous. And I am delighted and thank you very, very much. On a personal note, if you'll indulge me, in the last few months, I have had some traumatic experiences, which I think has put me in a different dimension. And I think I'd like to share that with you before I get into my presentation.

I just got out of the hospital. I had a bout with the devil all last month and I wasn't sure I was gonna make it, but, here I am. And, for that I thank God. And along with this, some of you know that, my wonderful and beautiful wife passed away. And had she lived to this area this year, she would have enjoyed 48 years of sobriety.

Between the 2 of us, we would have had 95 years of sobriety. How about that? And along with this, since I'm now alone, I decided to get out of the corporate wars and commercial wars. So I retired. And let me tell you, that's that's a scary deal.

I remember when the phone reached to ring and I would say, screen it and tell me who it is and I'll call later. When the phone rings now, I got it by the second ring. I'm afraid they might hang up. So it's a new world. It's a new dimension.

And I think in the main, and in all honesty, I think that I am here at this moment, perhaps happier and better off than I've ever been in my life. And for that, I am indeed grateful. And so again, thank you very much. Let me introduce you to Paul Keber, the alcoholic. My group refer to me as a bald headed bleeding deacon with the sex appeal of a wet noodle.

Some of the newer people think my fundamentalism puts me to the right of Genghis Khan and Jerry Farwell. Recently, I heard it whisper when I mounted the podium like that, they said there by the grace of God goes God. Now, these expressions were by my admirers. So you can imagine what my powder room ready gives with the grate unwashed. But nevertheless, we all take our positions, thank God.

And among my group and among you people, I am here sharing and getting the best of all worlds. And I want to tell you how proud I am and happy I am to be here and to participate in this conference. Now the program says that I am to share some experiences as a pioneer. And I hasten to tell you that I was not there at the beginning of AA, or the birth so called, but I was sure in hell there at the christening. And I say that because I think I'm probably one of the most fortunate people in AA, the few of us that are still left of my original group of 59, because at the time I came in, it was in place and working.

It was no longer an experiment. It was no longer an idea. For the first time in history, spiritual concepts had used to address this awful malady disease of alcoholism. And here were these beautiful people that were taking these new ideas, these new concepts, and putting them into their lives and into their families. And, it was working.

And I was privileged to know both the founders, of course, for coming into Akron. Bob Smith was my mentor, and the early people of those days were, I think, the epitome of the spiritual essence of this group. And I was privileged to get not only their their close association and but also to participate in the family. In those days, it was a family disease. Everybody went to the movies, dogs, cats, kids, everybody.

We didn't have any of this detached nonsense, whatever the hell that is. Everybody went. And so if you're if you will indulge me, let me see if I can't set the stage of the scenario which I hope will help me and perhaps you understand some of the things I'm gonna try to offer by way of explanation and from my own experience. I think you'll join me in saying that I think the proliferation of books that have been written by Pete sees it, Joe sees it, whether it's commercial overtones or not, the things that I experienced to be there firsthand. And I will, if you will, let me set the stage that if you were in Akron or Cleveland this evening and this afternoon to a meeting, in fact, a May would be a big sign.

Placard would say but for the grace of God. And in the front would be 4 placards. The absolutes, honesty, unselfishness, purity, and love. These were the spiritual concepts by which we found sobriety a guideline to a power greater than ourselves, the pathway to a higher understanding. And the 6 steps which are now our 12 was a philosophy for change.

The system for removing the obstacles between God and your fellow man, so that you could participate and get rid of this awful awful disease, the compulsion obsession to drink. And so with that in mind, let me, they're after me already. With that in mind, let me try to lay this out. Some of you have heard me say this before and I I believe that the bible people tell me. The first drunk of record was Noah.

He got drunk and God called him to task for getting drunk. And Noah said, I don't know the strength of the grapes. So So he put in the first denial system we've been using ever since. And so down through the history and through the series of 100 of years, the alcoholic was washed out, sing a derision, no position. There was no way you could deal with them and that was it.

And even in my era, you died in drunk tanks or you certainly found a way to either get well or die. It was a pretty damn bleak picture. Real sad. And I think as time went on, and the things that I wanna talk to you about are not necessarily the people, places and things in the chronological order of which you're very familiar with. But in these past months, I began to think about these things and I think when I go back, there seems to be a significance to the spiritual events that happened.

This is a development that I wanna talk with you about, not only including AA development, yours and mine, the benchmarks, the recovery system as it was practiced then and perhaps not. And so in thinking about these things, it seems to me that the first glimmer, the first attempt at doing something about this malady was brought into being sometime in the early part of this century. There was a group called the Washingtonians. Now this group, in something like a few months, got together over a 100000 alcoholics working with each other and found sobriety. And they became so exuberant and and enthusiastic and zealous about this new system, that they went up to Boston and had a convention.

Gotta watch these conventions. They marched around the commons and invited the people to join their fellowship, their society. The people who joined were the abolitionists, the prohibitionists, the vested interests, and the first thing you know, within 6 weeks, they were gone. Working with another, alcoholic was fine. The absence of the spiritual concepts, they were vulnerable and nothing happened.

Now along about this time, and I moved on the few years, we had a man in New York, a very beautiful young man. He's gone now. I don't think there's any reason why I shouldn't mention his name. His name is Roland Hazard. He was connected physically, socially, financially, his family were well connected.

This guy was an alcoholic. He was one of those kind of alcoholics we talk about in the big book, the real alcoholic. He had tried everything in the every human agency, everything that could possibly could to find a way to save silver and he just flat could not make it. Someone suggested that he go to Europe to see the great doctor Young. Here was this brilliant scientist that for many, many years had been treating mental aberrations with a great deal of success and world renowned reputation.

So Roland went over there and went into treatment, I suppose, something like we have today. And he got into analysis and he got physically set up and mentally, and it was just doing beautifully, and he stayed there for a year. And he left Switzerland to go back to New York to come back into his social stream. And within a couple of weeks, he tested his new cure, crashed in flames. And I think Roland brought to us the first universal truth of this disease that it is a physical addiction.

It's progressive. We never never have it repaired. And so Roland, to his despair and despondent about what the hell goes on now. So he went back to Europe to see the great doctor and he said look, I was there for a year and look what happened. And I repeat this because I think it's so significant.

Here's this great scientist who said to Roland, Roland, you are one of those people. We don't know why or how, but you have a susceptibility to this disease called alcoholism. We can't help you. Psychiatry can't help you. Medicine can't help you.

What you are in need of is a religious experience. You must find a pathway to a higher understanding. You must find a oneness with God. And I suppose that Roland took this information with a great deal of of concern and I think wonder. And I look back at this beautiful scientist, think of the integrity of this man.

One of the first scientists to recognize the disease concept of alcoholism by which today our recovery system begins. The acceptance of the disease concept. Roland went back to New York. Without getting into a whole lot of detail, there was a beautiful fellowship called the Oxford Fellowship. They had a chapter in New York.

One of the prime movers was a doctor Schumacher, which you've heard a lot about. Harvey Firestone put in a chapter out in Akron. All of our people went to the Oxford Fellowship. They dealt with all kinds of mental aberrations including alcoholism. And the system was 6 steps which are now our 12.

But the spiritual concepts were dishonesty, unselfishness, purity and love by which they're synonymous with a God of love. And this is what they were exposed to. Now, I didn't know Roland personally, but there's enough evidence that I'm sure that this did happen. Somehow, through doctor Schumacher and some of the other people in the Oxford chapter, Roland went through what I'm gonna say is a spiritual experience, if nothing else, and acquired some sobriety. He found that he had to give it away to keep it.

Primitive, one of the things that we talk about. And so he took it to a boy head friend of his by the name of Eby Thresher, I don't know what we all know. And Eby got a hunk of this spiritual concept. He said, this is great. Let's take it to Bill Wilson.

He's a nut. They had all gone to school together, so they took it to Bill Wilson. And Bill and all of them went back to the Oxford Fellowship for the next 6 months or so, involved in getting these spiritual goodies and finding out something about this disease concept. I won't go into the details except all of you know about Bill Wilson's trip to Akron. He went out there to con somebody out of some money or something.

I don't know what the hell he went out there for. But he had a list of names, some 6 or 8 names. They were Oxford people, but he was trying to find someone who was a boozer. And I'll tell you, I stood in the Mayflower Hotel, the exact spot where Bill stood. The telephones are about 10 feet over here.

The gin mill's up here about in the mezzanine. And you could hear the glasses tinkling and the girls giggling and all the good things. And I'm glad it was Bill and not me because you wouldn't be here. So he began to call and he couldn't raise anybody. Now this is a series of unrelated events that if you review and think about, there's only one conclusion that I have and I think you'll agree that the hand of God was in this thing from the very beginning, a, b, c.

Couldn't be anything else. So in his frantic calling trying to find someone, he found a minister who referred him to Henrietta Seiberling, who was one of the prime movers in the Oxford group there. And she and Anne Smith were very close. They are the granddames, I'm sure, of AA. And so we talked with them and she said just he said, I've got a doctor, a doctor Bob Smith, and he's a pistol.

You tell him to get over to see the Smith's residence. And they cleaned Bob up. He'd been on a drunk and he's been nasty when he was on a hangover. He agreed to see this Yankee for a few minutes and, that was it. So Bill arrived on the scene and the 10 minute meeting turned out to be 3 months.

And what happened was that Bob had been going to the Oxford fellowship for some 2 years. And he knew all about these spiritual concepts. He was a biblical student. He was a scholar. He was not only a medical internist in the sinus, but he he was he was a a real biblical student.

But the ingredient that was missing was one alcoholic sharing with another. And so this meeting between Bob and came off and that mystical force, this sharing process came into being. So they both went back to the Oxford Fellowship and the people met down there, Henry t Williams, how there were about 60 of them. Now, these people were not alcoholics, all of them. There were some that were, But they agreed that the way to treat this thing was through public admission, inventory and catharsis, adjustment of personal relationships, prayer and meditation, working with others.

Our 12 steps, but practicing those absolutes. And so they all went down and got this thing together. And so ultimately, through a whole series again of unrelated events, Alcoholics Anonymous was born in a very casual way without anybody really thinking that this name was the name to use. It was decided to be anonymous because of the stigma at that time. And there was a hell of a lot of stigma particularly for the women.

You can imagine my wife coming in as a youngster she was, the second or first and 2 girls. And I said, you can come in and sit down. Don't say anything. We'll let you know when you can talk. And that was her initiation into the fellowship.

But nevertheless, that's the way it was born. Now every once in a while when I look back at the this fledgling group, this tremulous, this very very narrow The possibilities of this thing succeeding are just unbelievable. But this beautiful power of love took over. And so Bill and Bob put into action an act of love that's been going on ever since. And I think it's significance to say that here is this act of love that's been going on ever since then.

Believe me, even the people in AA can't destroy it. Even with our counter production of things in volatile natures and so on, it still prevails and it's still going on. But I can tell you firsthand that AA did not grow through unity. It grew through dispute, hostility, anger, and a great deal of resentment. The elders owned the group.

If you didn't do it the way they wanted, you took your coffee pot and resentment, went down the street and opened up another group. We didn't have any traditions. The only thing which will be sure is that we didn't want Bill Wilson coming out from New York getting in the act. And there were 2 kinds of AA, and I still think there is today. Bill Wilson, and I believe this to be true, felt that he was the messenger to take this message to any place that he possibly could.

And through promotion, he did this. I think that at the time, it was indicated that he should do this and he did a beautiful job of it. But his effort was in this direction, that AA was for people who needed it. In Akron, we said no, it was for people who wanted it. Whether you needed it or not was not consequential.

So we were because the interested in saving lives and not concerned about promoting. And so this thing went on. We also used the basic elements they're using today, the 4 absolutes, the 6 steps which are now 12, together with, of course, those beautiful traditions without which we had nothing. And so we had nothing but open, what you call open meetings. If we had no closed meetings, what the hell could you do on a closed meeting?

There was no such thing as discussion. The first guy that walked into the meeting that had a problem, they said leave, we don't need problems. You wanna talk about solutions? We'll talk about it. If you have a problem, take it to your sponsor.

Don't take it to us. You're not unique. No way. So there were no discussion meetings, we had a big book study meeting in which we read the word by word by word, and it was discussed word and it was structured. But the meetings were what we call today speaker meetings.

We did not have speakers, we had leaders. The leader was chosen, and he would stand up as I am standing here, use his full name and dry date or you didn't talk. And he would talk about his recovery and his interpretation of the of the program and so on. And when he was through, you could have heard a pin drop 20 miles. There was no acknowledgment of any kind.

Everybody went in the deep meditation. If there were 20 people there or 200 or whatever it was, everybody went into meditation. You got up and made a comment when the spirit moved you. And I've seen people get up and make comments that hadn't intended to get up. And it was a phenomena of a type and kind in which we felt that through this mass meditation that God spoke to us through the people who felt that the spirit moved them and they got up.

It was a wonderful wonderful experience. Sometimes we sat there for 5, 10, 15 minutes, then all of a sudden a whole bunch of people would get up. I never quite knew how we knew the meeting was over. But ultimately, it was sort of a, I don't know. We got up and said the large prayer and went out and had some fun.

And I think when I look back at those beautiful beautiful periods of meditation, and to hear some of these people get up, And when they made their comment and sat down and suddenly realized they had been up to look at the to see the consternation on their faces and they look around to see what's going on. It was a beautiful thing. It was a beautiful thing. And so that was the type of of meetings we had, I guess what you would call them. And the theory was that you were taught to listen.

If you could go to these meetings and sit and make a comment or something, but you were you were taught to listen. And the only time you ever deviated from that was in the quick book study which you read word for word. No discussion meetings. It was not, it was not the least bit interesting to me. And when I look back at some of the meetings I attend now, and I go in and the sponsor, the secretary says, well, I don't have anything to talk about.

Anybody got a problem. So they said, my mother-in-law is coming to town and then 40 idiots get in it and talk about mother in laws, you know. I know that story. I don't need that. I wanna hear about recovery.

I think one of the most interesting things in that era was the presentation and the way that we went about taking the message of the suffering alcohol. Now obviously, I'll have to depend on my own experience and talk to you from my own experience about some of these things, but I'll say to you and all honestly, this was the method. In my own experience, I had come on off the street and I'd been on the street for a long time. And I was mentally in bad condition and physically shot And I'd reached the point where I couldn't exist any longer on purple death which was a drink of the winos up in that area. And I was in this saloon and I'd been there for some time and I think all I can say is that it it seemed to me I had an intuitive thought I better get the hell out of there.

If I didn't, I was gonna die and if I did, I was gonna die and it was kind of up to me. It was below 0. I had no clothes, no money, no nothing. I go up the street. Seemed to me I had an out of body experience, I think they call it.

Seemed to me I could see myself, I could hear the hallucinating and I could hear the bells and the people talking. But some were hostile, some were friendly. But I kept moving and understand this, I had no logic to this. I had no money. I had no places.

There was no agency that I knew of that would help me, And yet here I am moving up the street. 0. I moved into a reasonably modest hotel And I got in there and the assistant manager saw me and put me in a room, believe it or not. Now here is the series, as I say, of these unrelated events that sometimes I I'm just overwhelmed. I'm not sure that it's an illusion.

Sometimes when I look like I write today and I see you people who think of me and the others, I wonder when the other shoe's gonna drop. But it's not gonna drop, it's real. You are real. The program is real. This was real.

This youngster, this man, was an in law, one of the boys who was from acting on his way back to acting to stop in this little town. And And he said, I got a rummy over in the place. You better go over to see him. They said, no way, we don't do that. And he said, you go see this guy, he's in trouble.

Now, I don't know what happened, but I'm gonna tell you, I have almost total recall even in the hallucinating, even in the shape I was in. And soon the door opened and here, 2 beautiful guys, bright eyed, bushy tail came in. They said we understand you're in trouble. I said, oh Christ, am I in trouble? And they said we got some good news for you.

And what in the hell would that be? Hey, we used to drink like you. We don't have to drink anymore. We wanna tell you about some of our experiences. Now I don't know.

There was something about these guys, I knew they were pros. I had been before the magistrate, I'd been screened for commitment and everything, I had never admitted to drinking more than 2 beers any time in my life. And here these guys were talking about booze in a way that I never heard anybody talk about it. And they began to tell me about their drinking experiences and I began to share with them and they completely disarmed me. Their honesty is, was was overwhelmed.

And as we talked and talked and talked, and I became closer and closer and I listened to these people, and I thought, my God, this is beautiful. And every once in a while, in would come something, AA or Akron, alcoholics, anonymous. And finally, it got around to the $64 question. And I said, fellas, I'm not like you. I'm nuts and I'm I'm a drunkard.

He said, yeah, that's right. You are. But you are an alcoholic. And I said what's the difference between a drunk and an alcoholic? And I think this bit of information saved my ass, if you'll excuse me, and perhaps yours or other people, if they understand and accept this disease concept.

They said you are one of those people that may or may not have a predisposition for this disease. Over a period of time, under certain conditions, you do irreparable damage to yourself physically, not mentally, physically. You will never recover. It'll never be repaired. It'll be with you as long as you live, like Roland.

Progressive. You'll never be able to drink successfully. And I said, Well my God, what chance have I got? And they said, Now unlike a lot of you people who had options, I didn't have any. I didn't wanna die.

So I said if I don't have any options, what the hell am I gonna do? And they said did you go to your high school counselor and tell him you wanted to be a drunk? I said no. They said, did you marry a woman in your family, in your country, and embarrass everybody and so on? I said, no.

Said, why did you do that? I said, I don't know. And they said, that's right. You're an alcoholic. You don't have possession of your sanity.

You can't function. And I thought my God, that's right. How many times I'd gotten up in the morning, I'm only gonna have 2 drinks, be drunk, no drinks, be drunk. I couldn't think of anything that I ever got engaged in that I brought into fruition that booze or something didn't get in the way and I fell on my ass again. There I was.

And I said, well, guys, I guess I'm a drunk, and I guess I'm nuts and an alcoholic too. The mate said, that's it. And I said, what do you want me to do? He said, we want you to come with us. You look bad, you smell bad, and you ain't much, but we'll take your warts and all.

Now again, I want you to think about something. Here was a guy off the street, physically, mentally shot. No future, no nothing to work with. I knew there were no human agencies that would do anything for me. I also knew that there were people who could have probably been interested, but didn't have the tools to help me.

And there's nothing in the world more hopeless, or let's say, despondent than an alcoholic who'd like to live instead of dying. And I'll tell you, when they said come with us, I said I'll do whatever you want. But they said it ain't gonna be that easy. If you come with us, we want a commitment. And I said, what kind of a commitment?

They said, you're gonna do what we tell you. No qualifications of that. It was real simple. I'd agree to anything. I didn't want to die, so I went with them.

Now this is an area here that I think is wonderful. When I got down and got into this family, it was a family disease. It was a family unit. I had had abscess molars that had been my face was always full of beautiful things. They said do we just want you to do one thing?

Now this is an area here that I think is wonderful. When I got down and got into this family, it was a family disease. It was a family unit. I had had abscess molars. It had been my face was always full and I was always the only time that I well, I thought everybody was sick.

I didn't know you could live without being sick. I had a strep infection. I'd had it for weeks. I didn't know when when I was going to the bathroom and whatnot. I don't have to tell you what this thing is about.

So think, these people said come with us. And they took me down to the fellowship and I met all the people. And the way they did it was they took you around to everyone's homes. And you sat and shared your experiences, and we ate in our homes. And it was a beautiful thing.

And they said, do we just want you to do one thing? And I'd like to emphasize this if I can. We don't pay too much attention to that these days and I think a lot of our relapses, if there are such a thing as a relapse, are directly due to our violating this. Halt, hunger, anger, lonely, tired. Manageability, they said all we want you to do is to not be too hungry, too angry, too lonely, and tired.

And they saw to it that I was not lonely. Oh, every day evening, somebody was picking me up, taking me somewhere. That was never never a moment when I felt alone. They gave me some brawlihide, 4 or 5 fingers arrived 2 or 3 days and they got me over the convulsions. And they filled you full of tomato juice and sauerkraut juice and said don't cough.

And so I got through that and I began to brighten up a little bit. I found out I could get out of the bed and go to the bathroom. It was a it was quite a deal. And so as time went on, I was exposed to these beautiful people. And while I didn't understand one damn thing was going on, there was a spiritual affinity.

I knew that these people were not only sober and full, but they were full of goodwill. Goodwill. Now I went for the meetings and I listened to these people talk. I saw and heard from people that were just unbelievable. I hate to use such a term, but they were spiritual giants in my from my viewpoint at that time.

And I listened to these beautiful people and the more I listened to them, the more discouraged that I got. And I finally went to Paul Stanley who was the 4th man who had become my sponsor. I said, Paul, I can't make this thing. You and Bob and Dodson and Ernie and Alder, you're also erudite. You have this classical information.

Your students, your bible school I said, hell, I can't find my ass with both hands in back of me. I have no classical information. I'm just a tramp athlete. I have no religious orientation or classical information. How the hell am I gonna do this?

I'll never forget Paul as long as I live. And he said, that's great. And I said, why do you say it's great? He said, you don't have to unlearn anything. Now I'm gonna lay this on you.

I can get out of town before you get next to me. I thought about this a 1000 times and I'm sure here's what he's saying. If you come to AA with some preconceived ideas that you're special, that you have some credentials that you are unique and different, Leave it at the door, we don't need it in here. And that's what he was telling me. And thank God, I did not have any credentials.

I didn't have any preconceived ideas. Mine had been left at the bar and on the street. And so they took me into their homes and they took me into their hearts and they took me into their minds. And Paul said to me, I am gonna take you on a spiritual journey. I'm gonna take you on a series of spiritual experiences.

I will be your sponsor. I want a commitment that you will do these steps to the best of your ability in my time, not God's time or somebody else's in my time, the sponsor's time. And so he put me into this beautiful recovery system. We didn't pay much attention to the first two steps. I never heard the first two steps discussed at all.

If you didn't take the first two steps when you had a 12 step call, you weren't in the fellowship. Problem with the insanity is the unmanageability. If you were manageable, you were still drinking. And so into this fellowship we came. Now with your indulgence, I wanna get into a little detail about this because I think this is so important.

And I said, Paul, do you think I can make this thing? He said, without question. He said just do what I tell you and I will share my experiences and that's all. He said don't read any books, don't go to people, don't talk to anybody. I'm your sponsor.

And he said we'll begin with the 3rd step. I had no problem, I read it. He said what? I said I read it. 2 hours later I had a different idea and context of what that step was all about.

And I said, Paul, how can I take the 3rd step and turn my will and life over to the care of God? I don't know anything about God. God's an abstract idea. How would and why would God have an interest in me or anything else? It's ridiculous.

He said, that is to you. And I said, well how can I turn it over? He said the operative word is decision. You're gonna make a decision to go through this thing. And he said, you may not know anything about God now but you will if you do what we tell you.

And I said, well how do I do this? He said, It's simple, you come down to the group tonight and you read the third step prayer, and you do it on your knees in front of the group, I said you're out of your mind. He said you either do it or I said I'll do it. So I went down and I note before the group and put my little hands together and closed my little eyes. And I said, my father, I've turned my will of my life into your care that you remove the bondage of self, that I might do your will and your service.

No one left. No one said a thing and I got up. And I can tell you that there was a feeling that since I had complied to this request and to this method, that I now felt that I was a member of the group. And I said, Paul, why did you make me do a thing like that? He said, we wanted a demonstration of your sincerity and your humility.

You go to God, you surrender, you do it on your knees. It's the first act that begins with a physical act, not mental. And I look back and I see this beautiful experience of a public admission. Like the Oxford people said, begin with a public admission, just surrender. And I went through this beautiful experience, and that didn't come to me until a little later what had happened.

But I noticed a different feeling towards my fellow man and the people in AA. It was a beautiful thing. And I thought my God, maybe this will work for me to turn my will in life over to the care of the abstract. I applaud what I do now. He said we take your inventory.

He said don't tell us who you are, take the inventory, that's who you are. You are the sum total of your experiences, nothing more or less. And I said how do I do this? And we didn't do it like you do it in that big book with that psychological crap. Did you make a list of your antecedents?

Your immediate family, your social life, your business life, your citizenship, the whole human ecology. There's 2 things, shortcomings and defects. You put down the things that you're ashamed of that you did that your it's on your conscience, But you put down also the things that you did that you should have done and didn't do that's on your conscience. Omissions and commissions. And I did this.

I had a string of crack. And I said, Paul, look at this. And he said, Don't you know the nature of the rung? I said, I don't even know how to spell nature. What do you mean?

He said, we have something called the 4 absolutes, Honesty, unselfishness, purity and love. They're the criteria. That's the nature of the wrong. A lie is a lie is a lie. Selfishness is selfishness is selfishness.

You can't love and hate at the same time. So the nature of the disease is that if you're not loving, what are you doing? Envy, slander, I could go on. And when I used these 4 absolutes as the criteria for the nature of the disease, out came the flagrant things, the things that were in my conscience. And I said, Paul, what the hell do I do?

He said, this is the beginning of your recovery. The steps are so designed that they have an overlapping ongoing spiritual momentum. And when you get into these things, the third takes you to the 4th, the 3rd, 4th and the 5th, and what's happening is that you are removing the obstacles between you, God and your fellow man. He said, find somebody to surrender these things to. Find another human being.

And I said, my God, I gotta talk to someone about this? He said, absolutely. I said, why? He said, the other human being is a surrogate for humanity. You would both live in a vacuum.

He said it isn't God there, your fellow man there. It's all one. So I went out to Saint Louis and I found a kid that had caddy for you. We were very close. And I said, Rowdy, I need about 10 minutes.

3 hours later, I'm laying this on this kid. And when I got through with that thing, I really and truly did feel. And I think I found the difference between confession and comparison. And I'll tell you how ingrained my dishonesty was. There were 2 things I wasn't gonna tell him.

Would you believe that after going through all that painful analysis, I was gonna hold on? Think of that. I wasn't fooling with me, I was fooling with my soul. But as I went through this gizzard out of pocket, God didn't want me to be a liar, I guess, and that was it. So I got rid of that and I got back to Hackernan.

I said, Paul, I've had a spiritual experience. He said, Hell, you're just beginning. I said, What now? He said, Look at that inventory. He said every one of those wrongs has an attending shortcoming and a defect.