The 13th sponsorship conference in Tacoma, WA

Morning, everyone. My name is Jay Stennett, and I'm an alcoholic. Good day. And god's doing for me what I couldn't do for myself because it's 10:30 on a Sunday morning, and I haven't had anything to drink yet, which for an alcoholic of my variety is a a really amazing occurrence. Because, see, I'm a morning drinker.

I love to drink in the morning. I'd like to thank, my friend Chuck and the committee, for being so kind to my family. You know, I got to bring my fabulous wife, Adele, with me, and it's always great to get the wife in another area code. So thanks for the excuse. And then also my AA family, you know, to be able to be here with, Bill and and Will and, and Phil.

We're all ill. Anyway but and to have the opportunity to reflect and write and pray and meditate over the thing that I think is the most wonderful topic there is, which is sponsorship. Now for those of you who are new with us, my purpose here this morning is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. And it's my most fervent prayer that something I say will either excite you or offend you so much that you will go out and have a cup of coffee and have a real discussion about this thing that we call Alcoholics Anonymous. And, in our book, this is the 4th edition of the book Alcoholics Anonymous.

And, if you don't have a copy, I'd suggest that you get it. One of the things that was really important to me when I got sober was, is that there were, there were men and women who were referring to this literature. And I got sober on the 2nd day of May in 1979. It was the day that I came to you. And although I found it necessary on a lot of occasions, I haven't taken the front drink, sniffed any glue, or done any of those other things that I found to be so consoling.

But the, at that time, the 3rd edition of the book Alcoholics Anonymous had only been out for about two and a half years, and there wasn't anybody talking to me about the stories being better in their big book or referring to pagination that wasn't in the book that was given to me, the 3rd edition. So if you have don't have this book, get it. Is there anybody here who is fortunate enough to sleep with another person in 12 step program? Yeah. If you wanna have some real fun, take the new stories in here, and try reading them aloud to each other at night.

It's a nice way to build an AA home. And, there is a solution. It says here, each individual in the personal stories describes in his own language and from his own point of view the way he established his relationship with god. That's my purpose this morning. And the way that I got that relationship with the power greater than myself was, was through sponsorship.

And, have you ever have you ever had this happen to you? They look at you and they say, no drinking at work. Okay. Now I don't know about you, but I hate to pay retail. And, so I like to tend bar, preferably during the day so I'm available for the evening's activities.

And so when they say that to me, oh, okay. I I won't have anything to drink. And and, this particular story happened. I anybody know the j and m in Pioneer Square? Yeah.

Yeah. I was one of the 4 people that helped start Fat Tuesday. If, I helped any of you get here quicker, I'd like to say you're welcome. Anyway, I was working at the Germ and and they said, no drinking at work. And don't have anything to drink before you come to work.

So I got off work and, you know, 6 o'clock and go have a few pops with the guys. And, you get home early. Everybody in this room knows what getting home early is. Right? If I'm through the door at 1:30 AM, I'm home early.

If I'm through the door before last call, it's early. And so I go and I lay my head down and sleep for a little while and wake up about 3:30 in the morning because the depressed and alcohol has washed through my body enough that I pop up. But fortunately, in those days, I had good sponsorship. Somebody told me you always you know, if you've actually got a bed, it's good to keep a cold one next to it so that when you pop up, you can just crack the beer, drink it down, settle down enough so you can get another 2 or 3 hours of rest in the body. No problem.

And then I wake up about 5:30, and I start to get ready to get to work at 10. Now the way that you do that is, right, you have a couple of beers, because as you guys all know, beer is not drinking. Right? It's a food. You know, people who tell you that drinking beer is drinking, they're the same people who will try to tell you that smoking marijuana is doing drugs.

It's what you do in between doing drugs. Right? So, anyway, I I get myself prepared for work, and I gotta get on the bus. Right? And you guys all know why I'm a big fan of public transportation in those days, because I can't afford to drive, because all the driving under the influences I've gotten the high insurance.

And so I gotta go downtown, because the only kind of bar that's gonna hire me is downtown. And I go sliding down into Pioneer Square, and then I stop and I have another couple of beers on the way in. And they look at I I come into work and my tongue was just a little thick. And they look at you and they go, what the hell is wrong with you? Didn't we just talk about this yesterday?

Yesterday, you said that you weren't gonna have anything to drink before you came to work. And I look him dead in the eye, and I say, I haven't been drinking, because I hadn't. I just had a few beers. My alcoholic life is the only one that I knew. I lived in complete and total fantasy, and I had no idea that that's what what the reality of my life was.

I didn't know that I'm an alcoholic, and the best description I've ever heard is the Chinese proverb. The man takes a drink, and then the drink takes a drink, and then the drink takes the man. Once too many in a thousand is not enough. I was born in El Segundo, California, which if you need a reason to drink, is as good as any. It's kind of like a Baja Tacoma.

On one side of the town is Los Angeles International Airport. On the other side is the Northrop Defense Contractor. On the other side is the Chevron Oil Refinery, once the town got its name. And then on the little patch of beach in between the town of El Segundo and the Pacific Ocean is the waste treatment plant for the entire county of Los Angeles. So toxicity is just a way of life.

You wanna get right with your environment? And I was born into this household, to a to a father that looked good and and moved fast and a mother who, who needed a drink really badly and never took it. So it got really quick around there, you know. And, you know, alcoholism doesn't run-in my family at gallops. You know?

And I had no idea. I had no idea. So, that's how I qualify for Alcoholics Anonymous. I wanna spend this time talking about sponsorship. We've, if you're in this room, you know that if I'm lame enough to be dressed up like this at this hour of the morning on a Sunday, that I probably had a few drinks.

And, I'll tell you one more little thing. If you're wondering whether you're alcoholic or not, whether you have this physical allergy, this obsession of the mind, and this spiritual, malady, take what it is that you do for recreation and then match it what happens with 90% of the population, the non alcoholics. Example. By the time I'm 16 years old, my idea of a good time is to take a rack of reds. 3 high powered sedative hypnotics, second all, and to wash it down with a quart of spinata wine.

Okay? In 90% of the population, the part that is not not alcoholic, these people that don't have this this physical allergy that I have, when they do that, what happens is called synergistic effect. This the, sedative hypnotic mixed with with the alcohol starts to get the brain so loaded that many times people forget how to breathe. And they throw up, and then they choke on their vomit. Jimmy Hendrix died that way.

Bunch of different they call it Hollywood death. Okay? With me, when I do that, I'm looking for car keys and to make short term romantic commitments. If you ever woke up with a life form with which you were unfamiliar before you left the house that morning, you might wanna try Alcoholics Anonymous. So on the 2nd day of May, I I was living in my pinto.

I wasn't homeless. It was just my outdoorsman phase. And and I'd reached the point where I drank away my soul. You know how you like alcoholic's like a cat. If it gets sick, just kinda goes away at Hines.

And, I was just driving from place to place and stealing gasoline and drinking. And and I got arrested one more time, and my father was kind enough to bail me out. And I was, and we were sitting in a in a Marriott in Santa Clara, California, having a couple of Vodka Rocks. And he said to me, do you think you have the disease? And the still, small voice inside of me said, pay really close attention.

He might pay for the lawyer. And, so I said, I don't know. And he said, well, you can go down to my my mother's house. She lived in El Segundo. And, and you can stay there, and I want you to call this friend of mine.

So I didn't have any other plans, so I he gave me some money, said don't have anything to drink. So I bought a, you know, a couple tall 6 packs of Coors for the drive. And, like, it took me about 4 years sober to be able to use both hands when I drove because I always had to have something. You know? But anyway, I went down to my grandmother's house and I gave this guy a call, and he said, meet me at the Howard Johnson's in Culver City, 7:30 in the morning.

Don't have anything to drink. How did he know? So I went and I talked to this guy. Actually, I sat at the table, and he started talking about himself and talking about himself and talking about himself. And after about, you know, he had some problems in his life.

He met Alcoholics Anonymous, and things got all better. And he's talking about himself and talking about himself. And I need a drink really badly, and I can barely light a cigarette. And so I I figure, well, I'll prompt him. I say, Do I need psychiatric treatment?

How about religion? Do I require hospitalization? And he looked at me and he said, well, trick. He said, if you a hospital program will cost about $3. If you can get your hands on $3, go out and drink that money up.

And when you're done, call Alcoholics Anonymous. They do it for fun and for free. Now I don't know about you, but I'd had a lot of helpers in my life trying to, you know, move me in the proper direction. But I'd never run across anybody that said out loud what you do if you can get your hands on $3. Of course, you go out and drink it up, and then you plan your next move.

Right? And he said, you'll find it in the white pages of the phone book. Call them up. See you later. And I went back to my grandmother's.

I was so profoundly affected by this conversation. I poured myself a water glass full of Davies County Old Fashioned Kentucky Bourbon with 3 ice cubes. And as I was drinking it down, I called Alcoholics Anonymous. And this woman answered the phone. She said, Alcoholics Anonymous, may we help you?

She said, don't go anywhere. I'll have somebody call you in 20 minutes. A guy called me. He said, hi. My name is Larry, and I'm an alcoholic.

Are you willing to go to any lengths to stop drinking? Well, I'd finished most of my drink, so I was in a fairly agreeable mood. And he, said, do you have a car? I said, yeah. I didn't tell him I'd been living in it, but and he and I he told me where the Alano Club was, and I went went down to the Alano Club.

And I walked in the door, and and, the woman behind the bar, Yuna, said, you, upstairs. And I walked up these 12 steps into this room of Alcoholics Anonymous, and everybody started talking at me. I couldn't figure out why they were talking at me. But when my hair is long, I kinda look like the sphinx, and I hadn't had quite enough to drink, so I'm starting to get these ups ups. And, and this guy this guy, Butcher Joe, was the 3rd guy who shared.

They're all talking at me. And you can always tell Butcher Joe. Right? And and and Joe, Joe looked right at me, and he talked about when the family left, how he cried the big crocodile tears. And inside, he's going, yes.

Now we can drink, and nobody will mess with us. And I understood that. And he knew just how much to cut himself at work, so that he could get away. Go get a stitch or 2, and then he could drink. And he told me that I never had to feel the same the way that I felt about myself at that moment ever again if I was willing to do the things that he'd done.

And I was willing. I was willing. I drank away my soul. I hit it up in Alcoholics Anonymous, the lamest place in the world. And I figured I got a moment of grace, and I figured that I'd just do this thing.

Now on my 3rd day, I almost drank, and I went back to the Alano Club and Larry was working the the the hinge and he, and he got me a copy of the book Alcoholics Anonymous. I'd been too cool to get it the first couple of days. I was busy. Didn't wanna look like an obvious rookie. I came on with my little book.

You know? Are you going to book study, Dim, at the beach? And, he, he got me the book, and and and I went home, and I I wasn't sleeping in those days. And, they told me at that first meeting that this was the last time that I ever had to withdraw from alcohol. I couldn't believe it.

But yet it was so ridiculous. I said, what the heck? And, so I'm walking and sweating and smoking and, and reading this book. And I I I was reading through the doctor's opinion where silkwork talks about the sense of ease and comfort that comes from taking a few drinks. I understood that.

And I kept reading, and, you know, I mean, I was really fascinated with the stock market crash and the first world war. I mean, give me something contemporary. Give me something disco. Can you imagine how awful it was getting sober wearing those clothes? And gear's enough to make anybody drink.

There were there were meetings. In fact, Clara may even been secretary when were you needed 3 gold chains just to get in the door. Right? Oh, man. It was a funny time.

Anyway, so I kept reading this book, you know, and and and how did they know? And I got to that point in we agnostics, where it tells a story about this preacher son and about how he got down on his knees and how he had this profound experience. And and and in there, there's a line and it says, who are you to say that there is no god? In religious terms, I was convicted because I may not espouse that. Well, I did espouse it a lot, actually.

And I certainly lived that way. And so I did what this guy did. I got down on my knees, and, I, I said my prayer. And my prayer was, I don't know from Jesus or Buddha, the Talmud, the Upanishads. Just get me the top.

And I said, I will do whatever these dried up old geeks say to do. Just please help me not to drink. And I believe at that moment, I'd done the first three steps. I said it with all the sincerity of my heart and that's the prayer was perfect. I'm here with you this morning, not drinking.

So I went to the I went to the the club the next morning. Believe it or not, god had not created morning meetings yet. So you had to wait outside the door of the Alano club at 9 o'clock for them to open for the noon meeting. It was kind of a zombie walk, and and I I went up into the into the room to wait for the meeting, and there was this woman sitting there. And she had on a black dress and her hair in a bun and cracked shoes on.

And she you know, oh, young man, you're new, aren't you? How can you tell? She said, I can tell you the secret to Alcoholics Anonymous in 4 words. What are they? Find God or die?

No. Not that. No. Anna, 26 years later, I can tell you the secret Alcoholics Anonymous in 4 words. Find God or die.

But the great thing is is that we're an Alcoholics Anonymous, and we will never suppose to tell you what kind of god it is that you have to find, but you have to find 1. You can use the group. Works really, really well. Worked really well for me in the beginning. You can use your sponsors, or you can use, your friends.

But at some point, you're gonna have to find your own. And how do you do that? How do you do that? Well, what we have is we have a set of spiritual exercises, which when done, actually produce relationship with a power that will solve your problem. Now if you only agree with it, I'm not sure about that.

You'd not drink, but you don't get this regeneration that happened with me. And how is this transferred? How is this knowledge transferred? One person to another. So I'm sitting in this meeting.

I got when I came to AA, I my entire wardrobe was I had a good t shirt, a bad t shirt, a pair of Levi's, and some bowling shoes. I'm the reason you have to give them in order to get them. You know? I said, size 8a half, please, and I boogied with the shoes. And, so I'm stuck to the why is it they have naugahyde in the Alamo club?

You know, you're just stuck to it. And and this guy got up and he took a birthday cake for 4 years. And so I asked him to be my sponsor. And, I will never ever be able to repay the kindness of that man and his Al Anon wife and what it is that they did for me. Because I was a real alcoholic, and I was baffled about how to get through a day without drinking.

I was obsessed with drinking. Every third thought was about, I gotta get a drink. No. We're not drinking right now. Oh, no.

Okay. And, and I just show up on the porch, and he'd he'd still be at work. And Bonnie'd let me in and make some coffee and talk to me while I smoked cigarettes and, you know, and that kindness. When I was 22 days when I was reading in the in in in the big book and it said that, you know, if you don't do your inventory, you're gonna drink. I ran to my sponsor and said, I gotta do my inventory.

I don't wanna drink. I said, fine. And he and his he and a buddy of his who had a long time sat there and told me silly stories about, you know, mammals and non mammals and and, things that they'd stolen and things that they'd wanted to steal and things that they were afraid of. And my sponsor said, okay. Here's the 4 step prayer.

What you do is go get really jacked up on coffee. He said, sit down at the kitchen table and look at the door. He said, here's the prayer. Write it down. God, I don't know what I'm doing.

Help me, please. And then he said, I want you to think of every place that you lived and every job that you had and every group that you ran with. And if as people from these different phases of your life walk through the door, if your stomach goes like that, write their name down, and then you get 3 sentences on why. Nobody's life is that interesting. And I did that.

And then he said, right right in the sexual weirdness, he said, who you hate and who you're afraid of? And he said, and then we'll talk tomorrow. Took me about 4 hours. Wasn't I mean, it was fairly long. It was, no, fairly long is not it was maybe 5 pages legal, and I write big because I shake a lot.

And and and I got I got it done. Was it a fearless and thorough moral inventory using all 4 columns? No. No. It was the greatest hits.

You know? It was the stuff that when my head goes down on the pillow, it always popped up. And I got it out of my head and onto the paper. And my sponsor came and we sat down. We read the we read the, stuff, and I I said the stupid prayers and then we burned it.

And I'm 23 days sober, and I'm a fully vested member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I've done some stuff. I'm not just sitting in a chair agreeing with it. Now this is the program of recovery that in those days was what we were doing. Wasn't a lot of books.

There wasn't a lot of book studying going on because the telephone was ringing at the Alano Club. You know? And I had a car. And they'd say, don't talk to him. Go pick him up and bring him back.

We'll take care of it from there. You know, and I got out and I started making my amends and I went to my grandmother Alice who used to have the, the Oxbow Inn down on, down on East Marginal there next to Boeing Field, and she taught me how to tend bar. I owed her just a little money. And, and I said, grandmother, I've stolen this money from you, and I'm so god and AA are keeping me sober. Please forgive me.

Here's some of the money. And she said, what'd you say? I said, god and AA are keeping me sober. Here's some money. And she goes, thanks.

And then she got her purse and her hat, and she starts moving for the door. Where are you going? She said, about 5 years ago, you and I had a conversation where you said you didn't believe in god anymore. So I went down and I put your name on a list down at the church, and me and the girls have been praying for you. And I get to go down and report that my grandson has been restored.

Spiritual terrorism. It works really, really well. In 1985, my then wife, Jacqueline, got sober, and it was a wonderful occurrence in my life. And, we picked 3 people, her best childhood friend, our friend Jeannie, who, was working at a cock as a cocktail waitress at a saloon that we were working in, and then, my sister Regina, who was missing in action with her self employed Colombian boyfriend. And, we prayed for him at every meeting we went to, the moment of meditation afterwards.

Within a year and a half, all 3 of them got sober. All 3 of them picked up birthday cakes. And after that, one of them, the girl who got sober in the treatment center, decided that she'd made a mistake. She'd made too much of this. But Jeanne and my sister Regina have not had a drink since.

Alcoholics Anonymous, it works. It really, really works. I'll give you a spiritual terrorism 101, because you all know somebody who's really bad. Like, you may be in here just getting the heat off, being good for a little while, but you know somebody's got a real problem. You know?

The one you're always looking down at if I ever get that bad. And then a year later, he's worse, so you got a ways to go still. When you walk into a meeting place and you see an empty chair, just walk up and tap the chair and say their name. I believe that that person may be sent to the meeting. That may be somebody that I work with that saves my life.

So, Michael and I, we you know, in those days, we were just running around, grabbing drunks, going to coffee. It was a it was a whole different society. The downsizing hadn't happened. The treatment centers hadn't farmed a lot of people, and we were busy. Phone was ringing off the hook.

And, you know, that's the way we became members of Alcoholics Anonymous. I mean, Clara described it so well yesterday that it was in the seeing ourselves and the suffering of another that we that we really got a, you know, clue of who we were. And, and then this is, an opinion. But then when this treatment center started sending lots of people in, what happened is is that the activity got different. And we had lots of people who were coming into Alcoholics Anonymous with information that they've gotten from well meaning professional people.

And one of the great things that happened is is that Alcoholics Anonymous stayed Alcoholics Anonymous, because there were some really, really well meaning, well intentioned, brilliant people that wanted us to be all things to all people. And what happened is is that those of us who were here, we went back to the literature, and we got in this process of working with people reading out of the book. Now most folks, you know, in that in in those days, there that was not going on. It was not part of the culture in Los Angeles that I know of. And most of the people that were sober in those days, they were not reading the book 1 on 1 with people.

And I didn't know about that. I didn't know how did I start doing that? The way I started doing that was, I, I had this sponsor, by the name of Fred. Mike had left town, and and I had the sponsor Fred Allison. Fred was one of the great members of Alcoholics Anonymous.

He was a he was a tremendous man. In fact, what I did was is that I just, I I thought about it for a while, and I just went and I asked the man that I admired most now call it's anonymous to be my sponsor. And he was a busy guy. And he said, you know, he said, you may not be able to get me whenever you want me. But he said, if you ever need me, you will always be able to get me.

And, anyway, so I'm going along working with Fred and and and, you know, and it's all about, you know, guys like you don't sign up any on any speaker lists, because he knew who I was. See, I didn't get to do this kind of thing until I didn't have anything to say. And, and, anyway, one day, I was I was in those days, my this is the mid eighties, and my my, my then wife had gotten sober. And so I'm back to going to 7 meetings a week. And I'm, you know, secretary of the speaker meeting.

You know, the the people that are the best sponsors in the world are the ones between 38 years sober because they know everything, and they're willing to tell you for hours on end. You know? And, you know, get a sponsor who still smokes. You know, they really know the truth. Anyway, so, and I I had a job, a traveling sales job, and and and I'm busy.

I'm busy. And, during that time, there were a few guys that came to me and asked me to sponsor them, and and and, and there was this one guy that came up and and he was shuffling like this. And his glasses had been cleaned in about 7 weeks, and he just gotten out of the Twin Towers, the county jail down in Los Angeles. And he was he was just really unsettled on his pins, and he asked me to be a sponsor. And I said, I took one look at him, and I said, you know, I'm really busy in AA, And, and why don't we get together, tomorrow, and we'll go to the Hermosa Beach men's stag Monday night, and I'll introduce you to some guys who can save your life.

And, I was not used to standing up for myself. I wasn't used to giving myself care. So I called the reports of my sponsor about how much I'd evolved spiritually. The insights that I'd had about myself. My my quest to find balance in my life.

And and he said, you did what? He said, you go and you find that man. And you ask him if you can please have the honor of sharing with him what has been so freely given to you. Did I say no to you? Click.

Fred had been a marine, and he'd been a numbers runner for the mob in Los Angeles while suffering from blackouts. You didn't want him mad. And, so I went and I found Kevin, and Kevin had left school in 5th grade, and Kevin couldn't read. And so that's where I started reading aloud with guys, because every time Kevin came over and we read together, I got a lot out of what was going on. I got a lot what was going on.

You know? Before that, I'd had guys, you know, reading and and and then just, are you reading the big book? Oh, yeah. I'm reading the big book. Ready to do the 3rd step?

Well, I don't know. Are you working on your inventory? Yeah. I'm working on that. Now I started formatting a little bit.

And then what I did was is because I wanted to grow in effectiveness, I started sponsoring people when I had, like, 29 days sober. Guy walked up to me and asked me to sponsor him. I went to my sponsor. I said, what should I do? He said, if they're sick enough to ask you, you have to say yes.

Hopefully, you're the lower rung on the ladder. Help him up. Okay. And, but what had happened see, I'm alcoholic, and I'm afraid that I'm not gonna drink. And I'm obsessed with alcohol when I'm new.

And every time my sponsor say to me that he thought he might be someplace, I was there. I never missed an appointment with him. I never missed having Friday dinner with he and his wife where they we'd sit around and talk about sobriety, and they'd all laugh at me. She and her Al Anon friends. And, Bonnie Bergman died of cancer a long time ago.

And, anyway, so I I I took out great men. Jack Prose, Ken O'Brien, Fred Ellis, Verne Stamps. And I asked each of these these men what their sponsors did with them, and I took a pad and a piece of paper, and I said, now what do you do with the guys that they sponsor? And they were you know, I mean, when you ask people you admire what they do, they love to talk about themselves, especially if you're buying lunch. Buy people you admire lunch.

If you're secretary of a speaker meeting, you wanna make AA a wonderful place to be? Ask the speakers if they'd like to come and join you for dinner before the meeting. You know? Because they all need to get a bite to eat. But what happens is is that's how I that's how I got close to Clara.

You know? It was You know what I mean? That's that's what I was taught in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I know all these wonderful people just because somebody said, hey, I didn't know how to answer the telephone until I was 35 years old. I'm sobered 11 years, and I called doctor Paul up.

And they say, hey, I I I call Paul up, and he picks the phone up, and he says, hi. This is Paul. How may I help you? Any conversation that I get to have with a person, I try and remember always to say, is there something I can do for you? It's amazing what people will tell you.

Just paying attention to AA. So I got this stuff, and I started working. I I I mixed some stuff around, and I came up with a format that kinda worked for me. You know? And, and and it changes over time.

You know? Because this thing about passing the information on is a wonderful thing, but this one on one working the steps with people is is is just a great it's a great, great thing. Fred died of cancer in 1987. What am I gonna do? I've had one of the great men.

And so I when he when he'd been diagnosed again, I I, I came up with the the sponsor. Here's the here's the find the sponsor prayer. God, if there be a god, if you want that, you can put that part in. Help me to recognize the person when they come through the door. And I was sitting at a meeting, and there was this guy who got up, and he started spouting this hard line, big book stuff.

And I thought Fred wasn't dead yet, and I thought, oh, I should talk to that guy. And then, of course, I forgot about it. But a few months after Fred passed, I kept saying that prayer, and he this man was at the meeting, and I went, oh. And then I went and asked him to lunch, and I sat down to kinda interview him a little bit and found out that that every area of my life, there was something that he had experience in. And it was a wonderful, wonderful thing.

It's a wonderful thing to have an AA home, the most important job in the world Aside, of course, from the GSR, the most important job in Alcoholics Anonymous is actually the sponsor's wife. She's a counterintelligence agent and a great form source of information. When I was courting my wife, I said to her, I need your help, when I was courting Adele. I said, I need your help. Will you help my friends who have no skills at all?

Will you help them to get into nice, wonderful, loving relationships? And she said, yes. And our home is a source of nurturing for men and women that are are on the path learning to share wanting to share their lives with another human being. And it's a wonderful thing. It's a wonderful, wonderful thing.

Newcomers come come first in our house. It doesn't matter when the phone rings. It's no big deal. It's no big deal. It's just God on the phone.

Anyway, that's one of the things Fred told me. Well, I'm sponsoring a lot of people. He said, no. You're not. He said, never ever count the number of people you sponsor.

Don't know. Said, you're just sponsoring the next person that's on the telephone. So I got no responsibility. I just answer the phone. So this household that we have is just, it's a wonderful thing.

You know, there's this these disparaging remarks about, oh, I am not gonna date a woman in the program, or, hey, amen, or all a bunch of pigs. Okay. But, you know, see, if Alcoholics Anonymous is the first thing in my life, How the if if I'm out shopping for a mate, why am I not gonna get somebody that that is on this path? They don't have to be in AA, but Allen on or OA. I had a guy, an old timer, one tell me one time tell me, look me dead in the eye and say, women who are in the program in recovery and the program of Overeaters Anonymous are the greatest lovers in the world.

Because they have to work the program harder than anyone, because they walk the tiger every day. And, and I got one. And I got one. I got mine. And, but, you know, I mean, what is it?

The line the the, dating an alcoholics anonymous, the, the odds are good, but the goods are odd. But can you imagine a guy like me trying to represent that I don't have any problems to anyone? I mean, if a woman finds me a attractive, there are large psychic gaps. Okay? And I'd much rather have her at least acknowledge that she has them.

The holiest place in the world is the birthing room, to be there when a child is born. The second holiest place in the world is the coffee table, where a woman or a man says, I think this might work for me. This is the greatest privilege that anyone can have. You can actually be there at the moment that somebody's soul is reignited, or their spirit is reborn, or however you wanna say it. You know, I mean, but something happens and you have the privilege to be there.

And once you've tasted it, it's a wonderful, wonderful thing. And as you go along, you get to go through all the different processes of, you know, people say, oh, I don't spots over there. I'm just not good at it. They don't drink. Read the book.

You know, Bill worked for a long, long time before he started to get people even starting to be interested, and that was Cleveland. You know? And and of all the people that, that asked me to work with them, I mean, how many actually keep showing up? You You have to be pretty badly mangled to end up in my living room. It's always fascinating who's on my couch.

You know? And, and so we go through this process. A fun thing happened a number of years ago. I was about, I was 14a half years sober. I was in a big change in my life.

My first marriage had ended. I was with my fabulous wife, Adele. And, a guy was busy smoking crack and was trying to, get a guy that I sponsor who was on the 12 step call away from him. He was in the bathroom, and so he threw this pamphlet that had been written in Texas, and that doctor Paul had put in a format about an unofficial guide to the 12 steps about working in a in a group. And so I called all the guys up, and I said, I'm coming up on 15 years sober.

And I said, I'd like you to come and join me in working the steps. So the gang showed up, and I think Bill lasted 2 meetings. Went off and formed his own group because I wasn't doing it correctly, and he didn't even have the interferon card to play in those days. But, but, anyway, we sat down, and this group, we started out with about, 18 of us, and it whittled down to about 14. And and of the 14, 12 of us actually did all the stuff.

And what happened is is I saw, for the first time at a group level, within a year and a half, all these men's lives changed radically. All of us had more fabulous relationships. Our business careers all changed. I mean, it was just it was just remarkable. And once again, I I was able to see the power in a way that I hadn't I hadn't experienced it before.

And it was it was an incredible it was an incredible thing. Bill talked a little bit about our friend, Patrick Keelahan. Keelahan. Try spelling that. And, and his mother, really did call him the devil of all liars.

I have heard him referred to as the sleaziest man in Alcoholics Anonymous. This guy this guy was in the freight forwarding business, and so he was always busy on Friday. And if I sponsor you, there are 2 things. I want you to go to, at least one of the meetings that I go to, hopefully, the Hermosa Beach men's stag. And then second, I you we go on retreat every year.

You know, you circle these dates, this is this is the requirement. Everybody knows. So Pat would go, yeah, I'm gonna be on the retreat. I'm gonna be on the retreat. I'll be there late.

And he'd go on retreat alright. He'd stop on Century Boulevard, get a couple professionals, couple 8 balls, and go to the Viscount Hotel and spend the weekend there. Guy never had a sobriety date much, and then finally, he got sober. You know, he always represented himself as being sober. In fact, one time I was after he'd he'd gotten sober, this time he was, I was driving along, and I was out of town on business.

And I wasn't gonna be able to give him a birthday cake, and he's ragging on me about, oh, you're not gonna be there to give me my 2 year cake. How could you do what kind of spots are I? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, and I thought about it, and I'd already given him a 2 year cake. He just wasn't he just wasn't sober at the time.

I said, screw you, trick. I did my job just because you weren't really there. But I didn't fire Patrick. They don't hire me, and I can't send anybody away. Who god sends to me, I They're taking advantage of me.

Oh, really? How tragic. They're eating up my valuable time. Well, get some boundaries. You know?

But, you know, we don't send them away. So here's this guy. I mean, bad example, number 305 a. Okay? And he calls one day, and he says, I got lung cancer.

I'm gonna die, and I'm afraid. And from the doctor's office, he came to our house, and we sat there and we prayed. And it was time. Am I full of shit, or aren't I? Will I show up?

What kind of man am I really? And what I found out is is that I'm an Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm a member in good standing of AA, and I go where I'm asked, and I do the next good thing. There's no question. There's no question.

If you're sitting around wondering, what's the next good thing to do? And then go do it. And so we walked this man, who was 39 years old, to the door. And, and it was not easy, and it was not fun. But along the line, you know, we had a good time.