The topic of Service at Speakerjam 2009 in Waverly MN

My name is Jim. I'm an alcoholic

and I always get a little nervous before I speak. Coming up here, I wasn't sure if I was going to go for the door or if I was going to end up here. So I'm up here, can't keep my name tag on today. I want to thank Dustin and the committee for asking us to come up and speak. It's certainly a privilege to become a nasty to speak as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous prior to me getting a sober, people were not asking me to come and tell them, tell them what I thought or to share my experience with them.

It was quite the quite different than that.

I want to thank everybody that spoke so far today. Both the paths did a great job talking a little bit about what Alcoholics Anonymous does in their life. They talked about recovery, talked about some of the different, the ways that we can get that in our own life. And Sarah talked about the importance of the unity inside of Alcoholics Anonymous. And, and I got to tell you that what I was asked today to do today is to talk about service. And I wasn't exactly sure how to go about doing those things. And so I, I thought about it a lot and I talked a little bit about it with my

and then I thought some more about it. And then I walked in today and I sat down the back of the room

in 5-10 minutes passed by and, and I'm sitting in the back of the room and the sky walks in and I look over and I go, I know that guy. And and the reason that I knew that guy is I knew that guy in a different life. I knew that guy when I was an active drunk and he was an active drunk. And the guy that walked in and came and sat down next to me and whom I've had a chance to talk to you today

is a different human being than the person that I knew five years ago, or it was probably longer than that. It was probably 10 years since I've seen the guy, at least to any he's a different human being. Something has changed in his life that is absolutely phenomenal. And I sat and I talked to him. He told me that he had a Home group and he told me that he was involved in service. And he told me that he had a sponsor and that he sponsored other guys and they had this brand new life that was given to him. And,

and I've just been sitting here all the whole day going, there's no way I know this guy. There's no way he should be sober. There's absolutely no way he is a hopeless chronic alcoholic. There's no way that he should be sober. And, and to have the life that he has today. And it, it, it just, it made my day. It was worth for me to drive down here from Brainerd, MN today just for that alone. And we got as we were driving down here. I grew up in Buffalo, MN. If you haven't picked up yet, I'd cock at a pretty fast rate. I've had about 8 cups of coffee today. And if I get going too much

smoke rolling or anything like that, just kind of wave your hands around or something. And I'll, I'll try to slow down a little bit. But I was driving down here today and we were coming down from Brainerd, MN. And I grew up like maybe 10 miles from this place. And I sobered up an Osceola County, Florida through a series of bad breaks and misunderstandings at the Austin County Police Department. But

I, I didn't even know this place was here. You know, if I, if I had known it was this close, I've been like 10 miles from my parents house, I'd have just came here instead of going all the way down to Florida.

You know, this, this seems like a lot more efficient use of my time. I didn't use my time real efficiently at that time. I'd gone to Florida, 2000 miles away from anybody that I even knew to try to find. I knew that something wasn't right in my life. I knew that things had to change in my life. I knew that I ought to be doing different things than I was doing in my life, but absolutely no idea how to do those things. And I went down to Florida and I lived down there and, and what I thought is that things are going to be different here.

Things are going to really change from here. I've I graduated from college, I'm going to go out, I'm going to get this new job, I'm going to go after it And, and my life's going to be different. And in about a year later, I ended up in Alcoholics Anonymous.

And it wasn't not the highlight of my life. It was not what I had gone to, to Florida to go and do. And I got a sponsor, an Alcoholics Anonymous. And he said, Jim, that was a great plan that you had to go from Minnesota down to Florida here and get your life straightened up. He goes, unfortunately, you brought yourself with you. And, and that's kind of been the, the mantra of my problem is that I am the, you know, it's been a real difficult thing for me to realize an Alcoholics Anonymous that I have a quite a bit to do

with my

life. It's my life and I am the problem most cases.

So today I'm going to talk a little bit, hopefully a little bit about my experience. I'll talk a little bit about what service is. And our first speaker that started off today, Pat talked about the fact that he was going to talk about recovery and he used the analogy of a stool. And I really like that analogy. It's certainly not mine. If I say anything that's good today at all, I want you to know that it was stolen material, that I, I can guarantee you that

my best ideas got me into Alcoholics Anonymous Anonymous in the 1st place. And I didn't have a whole lot of useful things to share with anybody.

But Pat talked about the stool and he said that recovery was one post on that when I came in Alcoholics Anonymous. And we get to come into this thing and we get to talk, start to work these steps in our daily life. It's kind of like sitting on a stool, but it's only got one leg on it.

And then we start to add some new things into our life. And it was suggested for me to do some of those things when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. It would suggest for me to get a Home group and to attend that group regularly and to get to know these people and get united. And in that, on that triangle, on the front of those medallions that they hand out, sometimes it says recovery, then it says unity. And I think that unity is an extremely important part. And Sarah talked today about the the traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous and why we have those things in place and why they're essential for us to continue to survive as a fellowship.

And then that last piece of that triangle says service. And I'm a school teacher

and I actually have a one legged stool in my classroom. I don't know why some occupational therapists gave it to me for

some reason or another. And, and that thing sucks to try to sit on. It's got this one little leg and I fall off that thing periodically. And, and when I got the second leg in place in my own recovery and in all my my own life and I got unity and I got a Home group, it's a lot more stable for me to sit on in my experience has been that since I've gotten involved in service and I try to be a service to God into my fellow man through Alcoholics Anonymous. And the opportunities that I have here is that I have a very rock solid foundation. The little things that used to tip my life upside down

that anymore. Don't get me wrong, I can get a little bent out of shape about things that mean absolutely nothing

for a brief period of time. But my life has changed in such a way that I feel like I have the ability to deal with things in life that I never had the ability to deal with. And I never,

I never even think about drinking in most circumstances. When I came in Alcoholics Anonymous, I was not thrilled about the idea. It was not my plan. I, I came in through service work by other people of Alcoholics Anonymous. Somebody had gone and talked to a treatment professional and they told him they'll this counselor about Alcoholics Anonymous and they told him about what the program of Alcoholics Anonymous does for people. And this guy was informed about it. And I share with this guy some of the things that were going on in my life.

And he said, I'm going to suggest that you go to 16 meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, two meetings a week for eight weeks. And that's my plan for you. And I screamed at the guy. I swore at the guy. I called him an idiot. And I said the last thing that I need to do is to go to a bunch of people who drink too much coffee, smoke too many cigarettes, and tell me I can't drink anymore. I knew about Alcoholics Anonymous prior before I'd ever been there. You know, I was, I was quite certain that I knew what you people were going to tell me what was going on. And

he said, well, you know, that's, that's nice, but

I'm, that's still the suggestion for you. If you want to keep your job, then that's probably what you're going to need to do. So I I showed up. I showed up my first meeting about how ex anonymous,

I'm pretty sure I was not alcoholic. I could probably admit that I had a little bit of a drinking problem. I the last night that I drank,

I gone out that night and I decided to, I wanted to have a sandwich. I was kind of hungry and I went to a bar. It happened to be a bar that I worked at. I was a school teacher down in Florida at the time. And I got this bartending job on the side. And I went to this bar to have a sandwich because I lived alone and I needed something to eat. And I thought, well, I'll just go there and have a sandwich. So I went there, sat down the bar and a guy that was a regular there said, can I buy you a beer? And I thought,

you know, I wasn't going to drink tonight, but I could probably just have one beer. And I got to tell you that with the absolute

most every fiber of my being. In all honesty, I believed that when that guy offered me a beer,

I was gonna have a sandwich, I was gonna have a beer and I was gonna go home. That was my full intention to do those things. What I didn't understand that at the time was that I'm an alcoholic and when I put any amount of alcohol in my system at all, I absolutely cannot predict what's going to happen to me.

And I pick up a drink and I put down the drink. And he said to me, you know, I'm gonna have a shot of tequila. Would you like a shot of tequila? And I thought, you know, I kind of like tequila. I think I will have a shot of tequila. And so we shot a little tequila. And then I'm really not sure what exactly happened. Tequila does funny things to me or it used to anyhow. But at 3:30 in the morning and I'll say the county, Florida jail cell, I'm going, what the hell happened? I went out to have a sandwich. How did this happen to me? And, and I've been to

bars at that point, I'd drank many other things, but the absolute uncertainty. But what's going to happen to me any time that I pick up a drink is an absolute,

is essential that I understand that I'm alcoholic and that's what happens to me and drive. Silkworth noticed this about Bill Wilson and the other Alcoholics that he worked with very early on. He described it as a phenomenon of craving, as an allergy that once I put any amount of alcohol in my system at all, becomes virtually impossible for me to stop drinking. And then when I don't put it that alcohol into my system, I become unable at certain times to bring it to sufficient memory. That's suffering. A week of or even a month ago, I'd wake up every single morning and I'd so say, Jim,

this is crazy. You can't do this anymore. This is nuts.

And I'd stumble through the morning and I get some coffee and I go off and I'd go to try to be the school teacher. These kids. I was a special education teacher. I work with students with emotional behavioral disorders.

Yeah, a little chuckle from the peanut gallery back there,

you know, and here I am, and I'm supposed to be this teacher, and I have more emotional and behavioral disorder disorders than any of these kids that I'm working with. And every morning I'm thinking, I got to stop doing this, but how am I going to stop doing this? I found out how I'm going to stop doing this. When I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I was sent here because some other member of Alcoholics Anonymous wouldn't talk to a treatment guy. And he said, this is what's going to help this guy out. And they suggested that I come here

and then I went through the law enforcement system and they said, you know, I think you could probably benefit from Alcoholics Anonymous. I went to outpatient treatment. They said you need to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. Everybody around me was saying you need to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. That doesn't happen by coincidence. People went out and talked to correctional facilities. They went out and talked to treatment centers. They went out to detox as they went out and shared the message of Alcoholics Anonymous with non alcoholic people so that we could try to be of usefulness to others. And that's the spirit of service. That work had to be done in order for me to sit here today and be with you today

in this absolute phenomenal, because I get to see people like Ted, who walked in the door today, who's a different human being

than he was when I knew him before. There'll be people that'll be in your lives that'll say he's not the same as he once was. He's a different human being. Things have changed in such a dramatic way that we're given a life that we absolutely probably don't deserve in a lot of ways. So how's this all come about,

Bill Wilson? I don't know if I didn't really know today what my job was exactly to do. So let's talk a little bit about service, how it's maybe affected me in my daily life.

So I kind of started to think a little bit about

what a service, what does it mean to be of service? So I have learned a little bit in sobriety. And when I don't know something now, I'll either ask somebody or if I can at all, if I can avoid that at all, then I'll go look it up either on the Internet or in some other literature source so I can don't have to humble myself quite so much to ask another human being. So this time I went into into the the dictionary and I and I looked at the word service and,

and it said. What did it? What did it say? I'm not really sure what it said.

Let's say here, oh, there it is, said the occupation of a servant. And I thought a servant, huh, you know, coming in Alcoholics Anonymous to be a servant for another human being did not sound like a real appealing thing to me. Then I thought, well, what does it mean to serve? And I looked up that word. It says to work for, as a servant, to do services for, to aid, to help. And the word servant is defined as a person devoted to another or to A cause.

There was a guy named Abby TI. Don't know how much history stuff you guys get while you're locked up in here,

but there was a guy named Abby who was approached by a man named Roland. And Roland was a member of an Oxford group. And Roland, actually, Roland came from a huge amount of money. They, they sent Roland overseas to try to sober up. They put him underneath the care of a guy named Charles Young. Now, if anybody knows anything about psychology or anything, and he's a pretty bright guy, pretty well respected in that field, that's the guy that they sent

Roland to go and see. So Roland went and see all this, saw this guy and,

and he was, he was with this guy and he was going through treatment. He's getting the best treatment the world has to offer him at that time. And when he left that treatment center, he said, I had such a firm understanding of my inner workings and the things, the triggers that could set me off that to drink was unthinkable. He was, he got the best treatment center they had to offer. I'm sure that the treatment center that you have here is a wonderful, wonderful treatment facility. I'm sure they're presenting you with tons of information. I hope that is useful,

everyone of you. When Roland left that treatment center, he was drunk in an extremely short period of time. And he came back to the great doctor and he said, what's the deal? What's going on? I left here and I'm drunk. Then he goes, what can I do? And the doctor goes, I don't know, man. I'd hire a bodyguard and I'd stay up the streets because there's there's nothing I can do for you. I've given you my best crack. This is all I've got,

and Roland said. Is there no exception? This story's in the big book if

if you're not, if you'd like to get the unabridged version. But he goes, what's the deal? What do I do? And he asks, is there no exceptions? And the great doctor says, yes, there are exceptions. They've been, they've been happening since the beginning of time. It says here and there. They just seem to be a matter of phenomena that these things kind of happen. And

he said that he was trying to help him out and bring about these. He said they seem to be of a vital spiritual experience. And and he said, I've been trying to help you out with this role in but I just haven't been successful with it. He goes, in fact, I've never been successful with somebody that's as low as you are. So Roland left and I don't know what's he going to do. He's going to die. He's been the best doctors life's his life screwed and

he got in Group. He got in touch with a group called the Oxford Group. The Oxford Group was a Christian group and it lived on principles. And the Prince. Some of the principles that it lived on were these basic ideas that I was going to try to be honest and I was going to try to be of usefulness to other human beings. And that I was going to tell another person about all my dirt. And I was going to try to clean up the wreckage of my past. And then I was going to try to have God be a central part of my life.

Roland got this information. Roland had somewhat of an spiritual experience, and he stopped drinking. He'd never been able to do that before. He presented the information to another guy who used to get drunk with all the time, named Evie. Abby then sobered up. As a result of this, Evie went over and talked to another guy

named Bill Wilson. Bill Wilson, if any of you are familiar with, is a co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. And Abby presented this information to Bill.

Each one of these guys that presented the information to the next guy was never called. They were never asked to come and see this guy. They actively sought out and tried to find another person who was willing to accept the information they had with eagerness. And, you know, there's a lot of times I go to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous now and we hear a lot of times, well, when they're ready,

they'll come in.

And, you know, there's a lot of people that don't know what the hell Alcoholics Anonymous is. There's a lot of people that don't know what the message of Alcoholics Anonymous is. There's a lot of people that don't know that where to find this. And it's our job to go out there and to not actively recruit people. But it's our job to go out there and let people know where we are, how to find us and how to be of useful and how we can be of usefulness and to offer that to them.

Bill Wilson got approached by Abby. As a result. He's ended up sober now. He then went and carried the message on to Doctor Bob to save his own butt

while at the Mayflower Hotel in Akron. And you know, our if you if you look at what is service and what is the ability to try to be of usefulness to another human being is that it's been around since our very existence. The very fact that I'm standing in front of you today is because somebody else got off their butt and they went out and they tried to help somebody else out.

Roland went out and tried to help Evie. Abby went out and tried to help Bill. Bill went on help to try to help Bob. And in between anyone of those things, there's a ton of unsuccessful adventures. If you read any of the Alcoholics Anonymous history books, Doctor Bob and the good old timers a comes of age. These are they're full of these phenomenal stories of how they tried to work with other Alcoholics who were unsuccessful, but yet they continue to try to work with other Alcoholics and eventually they found somebody else. Sarah told us a little bit about the history of Alcoholics Anonymous and how that it skyrocketed with its population.

Um, she mentioned a time in 1941, I think it was 1941 where,

excuse me, wasn't, yeah, was 1941 where the information about

set the Saturday Evening Post came out and the AIDS population went from 2000 members to 6000 to excuse me to 8000 members in one year. What happened is they put out this information about Alcoholics Anonymous and they put it out in the Saturday Evening Post. The post goes out. Bill Wilson and one other lady who's the secretary are working in this office in New York City, and as a result of this article, they get 6000 pieces of mail

into this little office of theirs. 6000 pieces of mail. AAA at this time was 2000 whole members worldwide, 2000 members. That's all we got

a bunch of different little groups, 6000 pieces of mail that will quadruple their fellowship size come into this office. There's two people there. There's do the math, it'd be about 3000 apiece, I guess. And, and Bill goes, there's no way we can do this. He goes, this is absolutely, there's no way that we can answer this, this many letters. And then he goes on and and you know, and Ruth is, yeah, well, I'm glad you can see that, Bill, that we can't answer all these letters. But Bill goes, we have to answer the one of these letters and we can't give them a form letter. We can't just send

blow out. These are people who are dying from alcoholism that are looking for a solution. And we have the obligation, the responsibility to respond to each and every one of those letters.

So Bill Wilson at that time said for the first time what they did is they tried to call on the groups.

So we've got these groups around the United States and Canada that have started up. And he said for the first time we're going to try to call on these groups and give them responsibility to take care of this problem because Ruth and I can't do this. He says in the group he goes, if it was anybody's business, it was theirs. And I think that was one of the first times that we start to see where Bill Wilson and Doctor Bob started to hand over the responsibility of what our service work is to do from themselves and as the long timers and Alcoholics Anonymous to our fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. And every one of those letters was answered.

Everyone of those people were seen

to the best of my recollection. I hope so. Nobody got in. Nobody got forgotten in there. But but they did the job that was in front of them to do. You know, there's a speaker that got up here before and he said Alcoholics Anonymous is not for people who need it. He said it's for people who want it. And I'm not here to disagree what he said at all. But I heard another guy say Alcoholics Anonymous is not for people who want it. It's not for people who need it. It's for people who do it. Alcoholics Anonymous is a program of action.

The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous outlines very explicitly

what actions I can need, what I what actions I can take in my life, and it also tells me the results I'll receive from taking those actions.

Every person that's got up here and spoke today so far has told you that I've done these things that are outlined in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And as a result, not only do I not drink anymore, but I have a happy, useful life, better than anything I could have ever expected. And I hope that each meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous that we go to where a person's gone through the steps is that we have that common thing to share. You know, my life today is absolutely phenomenal. I get to do things that there's no way I should get to do. It's a, it's an absolutely incredible life. I got married last year.

I met my wife

not in Alcoholics Anonymous. Actually, we met at work and some years passed by and and we got married. I am not capable of being married. I want to, I want you all to know that I am not capable of putting somebody else's thoughts or feelings or ideas ahead of my own. If you don't believe me, you can talk to Dustin for a couple of minutes who tries to just get in a word edgewise as I try to have a conversation with him, which is more like I just like to talk and I try to get him to listen.

I don't have those capabilities. And yet today, and neither does she. I mean, she's no saying either. I gotta tell you that. OK, She's a drunk. Selfishness, self centeredness that we think is the root of our trouble, is driven by 100 forms of fear of self delusion and self pity. We step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate seemingly without provocation. I had to read that a couple times. My sponsor pointed that out to me. Right, It says. But we find that invariably in the past we've made decisions based on self, which later put us in a position to be hurt. So our troubles, we think are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves in the

is an extreme example of self will run riot. But he usually doesn't think so,

you know,

Oh no, it was my fault. I didn't. I was you know, that's A and how can two people like that come together and have a blessed union with one another? How can two people like that have a marriage together? How can two people like that get to share their lives with one another? There's no there's no explanation. Two people like that should kill each other. You know, that's that's what should happen. But we get but that's not what happens. You know, we've removed all the sharp objects from the house. I want to know, but no,

no, we're given a life that that we that we probably don't deserve to have, Bill Wilson wrote. He says our 12 step

carrying the message is the basic service that a fellowship gives. This is our principal aim and the main reason for existence. Therefore A is more than a set of principles, it is the Society of Alcoholics in action. We must carry the message else we ourselves can wither and those who haven't been given the truth may die. Hence, an A service is anything whatever that helps to reach the fellow sufferer, ranging all the way from 12 step itself to a 10 cent phone call and a cup of coffee

and to a as general service office for national and international action.

The sum total of all these services is our third legacy of service.

I got to 1st learn about being of service to another human being into Alcoholics Anonymous

really because of the work that was done by other other members of Alcoholics notice before I even ever got here. And once I got here, I was given good suggestions right away. I was told to get a Home group. And if you've never read the group or excuse me, the pamphlet, the A group, I think it's a great pamphlet. I'm not real hip on a lot of our pamphlets. All that's just my little opinion, but the A group is a really good little pamphlet. It's got a lot of good information there. It talks about the absolute necessity for most people

to try to go out and to try to find a Home group. He says it's a huge part of their life and Sarah talked about it today. My Home group is known as the Common Welfare group. We meet at 8:00 PM on Wednesday nights at the Lakes Area Element Club in Brainerd, MN. If you're ever in Brainerd, MN, we would love to have you come by and see us. We're a closed meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. We are interested in work with people who have a desire to stop drinking. If you think you have a problem with alcohol, you're welcome to attend our meeting. And we're not an open discussion meeting. We're not an open topic meeting. We talk about Alcoholics Anonymous and the solution from alcoholism.

And if, and I think if you come to that meeting, what you'll hear is people who will say you can get well, there's a way out. There's a way out from the suffering that you have and you can get well. And if you'd like what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you're ready to take certain steps. And if you don't like what we have, or if you're not willing to go to any length to get it, well, then you're not ready to take certain steps. And

I, I never thought about it that other way until I was somebody told me about it, an alcoholic synonymous, you know, it says that we're willing to go to any length to get sober or to get well.

And if I'm not willing to do those things, then I'm probably not ready to take the certain steps.

I was introduced to get a Home group. When I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I got a Home group. Inside that Home group, they said, you know what? We need this guy to come on. We've got an inner group area, and we need somebody to be represented for that. And. And they said you should go and do that. And because I was scared and I didn't know what else to do, I was afraid to say no. I said, OK, I can do that. And what's that? Oh,

I can hear. Yeah, hear the training. Come on. Yeah, Little railroad, that whole little thing there. I got to tell you that I you know, I'm not against railroading. I hear the trailer to comment. I hear those kind of things. They told me what they expected me to do. They said, we need you to go to this meeting once a month, go there, come back, give us report. And I said, yes, I can do that. The only fear that I have with railroading people is that sometimes what we do is we say, hey, while you were in the bathroom, you're the new GSR.

You're the new group service representative or a general service representative. You're going to need to go to the district meetings. And sometimes what we end up doing is we get people into positions where they have absolutely no business being, not because they're sick or bad people, but just because they're not willing to do those things. You know, Bill Wilson talks a great deal about leadership and Alcoholics Anonymous and about using our best judgment and trying to find people that are willing to do the job and can do the job. And I couldn't do much, but they said, can you make coffee? Yeah, I can make coffee. Can you clean up cigarette butts? I can clean up cigarette butts. Will you greet people at door? Yes, I can greet people at door.

Will you go to do this in a group Rep? Yep, I can go and do that. And I started to do things that I wouldn't have normally done

in that, and they weren't my ideas. I was, I did them because I was at a state of desperation when I was willing to do certain things that I didn't really believe in necessarily, but I didn't know what else to do. And I started to try to be of usefulness and service to another person. I don't even know that that's what I was doing at the time, but my body took the action and I started to do some of those things. And I got to and I got a chance to meet new people. I got a chance to experience new things. I left Florida at a year sober or a little less than a year sober. I moved back up to

actually right around here. I lived in Monticello for a couple of a couple of months, went a few meetings and got a job up in Brainerd, MN. And I moved up there. And I knew that when I came to Alcoholics announced, they told me it's a good idea to have a sponsor and have that person be the take you through the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. And if you haven't been through the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and your sponsor isn't willing to take you through the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, then it would probably be in your best interest to find a person that would be willing to do those things and have that person be your sponsor. And that, you know, the last, the last thing that I needed

truly when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous was somebody was a friend. Don't get me, I needed a friend. I really wanted a friend. I wanted a really good friend that would to listen to how hard it was for me each day

and how it just really, really if they knew the whole story, it would be near sainthood, martyr, martyr type of stuff. I really wanted that kind of a friend

and I ran all those people away, but I needed a person whose life I really respected, whose opinion I really, you know, I really respect the person. They had a life that I wanted to have, but they were doing the things that it says in Alcoholics Anonymous to do. And and that that's a person that I end up with a sponsor.

I lucked out to be honest about it. I just asked some guy to be my sponsor and that's the kind of guy that I got. And he would say things to me like, you know, how's that going for you? Is that working pretty good? How much you paying that guy to rent that much space in your head, getting a lot of use out of that gym not working out pretty well for you? And I come to him at night and I go, man, I don't know what's going on. I can't sleep at night. I'm staring up at the ceiling and I just, I can't figure it out what's going on. I just can't get out of my head. He's like,

how much coffee you drinking at the meeting gym. I go, I don't know. I drink a lot of coffee. I don't know why. I don't know why I can sleep at night. I know what's going on. We were joking. We went over to this study thing over here, this Hubert Humphrey study thing in between speakers and they said that there was a study done and I want everybody to hold tightly under your seats. Shocking information coming up that in this study done by some university, they found out that Alcoholics drink more coffee

and smoke more cigarettes than the average person

I know. It was huge. Huge, yeah.

Unbelievable stuff. Unbelievable stuff.

The hell was I talking about?

What

coffee. I love coffee. I had about quite a bit of coffee. Had a sponsor. My wife's going like this. Want to speed it up? What that means? Service. We're talking about service, right? All right, trying to be of service. We got the sponsor. He's telling me to get involved. I started to be this in a group Rep. I moved back to Minnesota. I'm getting this scope. They told me to get a Home group. I need to go get a Home group. I got a Home group and loaded this Home group. I meet Sarah actually at a business meeting where I literally have the 12 and 12 in one hand, my fist in the other, and I'm screaming at the top of my lungs about how spiritual I am and how they need to listen to what I'm saying

because I know the right thing to do, OK? And if you just listen to me and if you knew the information, that's my big downfall. If you knew what I knew, you'd think what I think.

Is anyone else out of that problem? If you knew what I knew, then yeah, you'd think what I think. And then when people don't think what I think, then what I try to do is I try to give them all the information that they obviously don't know.

Yeah,

wow. And I thought I just had a drinking problem when I came in, you know,

you know, I came back to Minnesota. I got this Home group, my Home group that I, that I have today, it's a different Home group than that group that Sarah saw me. And not because that was a bad group in any way. I, I just, there's a lot of good groups out there. God was just saving them from me at that time. You know, it was kind of like women. I was told that when I came to Alcoholics now, and it's my first bounce. He said, Jim, there's a lot of nice girls out there. God is just protecting them from you right now.

Yeah. He wasn't watching off for her in the back though. Yeah,

should have done your meditations that morning, huh? No,

now I get to be a part of this Home group though, right? So I get to go there and I get to get other people's opinions and I get to hear other things. And what I got to learn is our home groups name is our common welfare group. OK, our first tradition of Alcoholics Anonymous, our common welfare comes first. Personal recovery depends upon a a unity.

My recovery depends upon a a unity, Bill Wilson goes on and writes. He says that if there was not a group, we found that most of us would never survive.

Sarah said that, you know, if it was just me in the room in a big book, I'd probably, you know, sell the big book and get a six pack. I don't know. You know, I mean, I would find something else to do other than what it said there. I needed to be around other people. I needed to have that unity. You know, we hear sometimes, you know, the most important person sitting in that room is that new person sitting in there. Sometimes we say, oh, the most important person, they're sitting there is me. No, the most important thing in there is that group. The group always,

always comes before the individual. That's our first tradition says. And that's a real humbling thing for a guy like me when I think that I'm the most important thing that's going on. And if you knew what I knew, then you'd think what I think. And you know, I just got a bum rap here and I don't know why you people won't come out and help me a little bit more and do some of the stuff that I need to have done in my life. Why my family won't support me on these kind of things,

why this is going on in my life and everything else. And

the group always comes first. My Home group doesn't do everything that I think they ought to do, but that's a group conscience. And I would believe that God works in our group conscience. And then we got opportunity and we get to, we get to get that opportunity to experience those things. I get to stay sober today. A lot of having a Home group, if you're, if you're in treatment here and you get out of here and you think, you know what? I, I'm willing to try to do this thing and I'm willing to try to get on the sobriety thing and really try to have a better way of life. I highly encourage you to get a sponsor.

I highly encourage you to get a Home group. I think going about this in any other way other than having at least those two things in place, you're going to have a really tough go of it. So I think those are essential things to do.

If you're not that serious about it, guess what, you're not going to do either one of those things either way anyway. So it doesn't matter what the hell I say. Really, isn't that what it comes down to? You know, if you want what we have, and I'm willing to go to any length to get it, then you're going to do these things. If you're not willing to do those things, well, it doesn't matter if they've got some speaker that comes in from Brainerd or from New York or Jersey or from the West Coast or the East Coast. Nothing matters. What matters is that people that come in and