The 19th Annual Payson Roundup in Payson, Arizona

Paul Fisher, alcoholic

Did you guys have fun this weekend?

Wow.

It is a privilege and an honor to be here.

I would like to start by thanking Guy, Holly and the rest of the committee for your hospitality and your kindness. We've had an absolutely wonderful time this weekend and we're coming back.

This is probably one of the best roundups we've ever gone to for something special about patient people. You guys, you guys are beautiful.

Did you guys laugh this weekend?

Did you? I did too. I don't know about you. I didn't laugh before it got sober. Have you guys ever noticed what happens when we laugh?

You can't think.

Try it. Next time you laugh, try to think. You can't laugh and think at the same time. It's just impossible. I learned that in Alcoholics Anonymous and I have a guarantee for everybody in this room,

especially the people who are new

and the people who have not completed the 12 steps. I can guarantee you that if you take the medicine outlined in the Big Book of Alcoholics noms, because that's what we call it in a, we call it our medicine. And that's what I've discovered. That's my medicine. And if I take my medicine, it is impossible to drink. It's impossible. And that's been my experience in the time that I've been here. I mean, because of good sponsorship, little bit of willingness on my part,

I no longer have conversations with Captain Crunch in the grocery store.

And I seriously doubt you'll have that experience either. And for the newcomers here, I want you to be aware. As a result of going through the steps and being a little bit willing, I can also guarantee you that the CIA, CIA is no longer putting microphones in your teeth.

I got into this program and I was so paranoid.

I also want to thank the women of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I came into this fellowship

and you women were impressive.

I looked around, I saw how beautiful the women were in A and my head said, I think I can do this.

And you brought me back to meetings.

Your beauty brought me back to meetings. You didn't keep me sober, but you brought me back long enough until I could get hooked up with a sponsor and go through the steps and get active in this fellowship.

It wasn't until I came into AA that I discovered that there's some things different about me in the non alcoholic I

one of the one of them happens to be the way I drink.

But one of the major differences I began to see as a result of going through that book with a sponsor

is that my mind doesn't work the same as it does with a non alcoholic. That we Alcoholics do something that non Alcoholics don't do when it comes to alcohol and that is distort reality. They just don't distort reality. For example, we know for a fact that non Alcoholics have been known to get DUI's. They simply drank and drove and got caught.

That person gets arrested. They bail out of jail. They go home. They clearly make the connection between drinking and driving.

What's one of the major streets here in Payson

Main Street mean? What is it,

87?

Now here's what separates me from the non alcoholic. I get a DUI, I bail out of jail and my head says I'm not going to drink and drive on the 87 anymore. There's too many cops on that street.

I do not make the connection between drinking and driving. I simply don't. Another example of that is when I was still drinking the women I was married to at the time, I

she had a company party and I went with her to the company party, you know, with all her bosses there. Now my recollection is that we had a great time

in the next morning. I remember describing to her, wasn't that fun, the musics general or jail or dancing and we all got him on the tables. We took our clothes off and we were rocking out. She says honey, you were the only one that did that,

huh? That's how my mind works. I don't recall things the way the non Alcoholics do. I simply don't.

What I love about Alcoholics Anonymous is that book.

See, I don't know about you guys, but

when I came into,

I felt like I was less of a man.

I felt like there was something wrong with me. I felt like I was defective to the core. I felt the guy was flawed. I felt like I was weak. I mean, I come from a strong Irish family, you know, long lining drinkers. But there was always the attitude if you want to stop drinking, you just grab yourself by the bootstraps and you stop. And I couldn't figure out for the life of me, all the time I was trekking, why I could not stop drinking.

That's all I can really tell you about my drinking is I could not stop

and I felt broken. And I came into this fellowship and I got hooked up with a sponsor and we start going through that book,

this one here, maybe some of you have seen it, it's called The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Here's what I discovered about that book. Here's why I love this book. It answers all the why questions why I drink the way I do.

I'm not defective. I'm not flawed, I'm not broken. What I discovered in that book is the authors explain why I drink the way I do.

It separates me from the non alcoholic. It explains why I drank. It's because of simple things like no obsession, phenomena of craving, abnormal reaction and loss of control. And I don't know about you, but that appealed to me and it comforted me because it explained for the first time in my life why I drank the way I do.

Then I have an illness. I have a spiritual sickness. It's called alcoholism. It answers all the right questions. And the time I've been sober, it's been my experience that you see, if the right questions don't get answered, it doesn't matter what it is. In sobriety,

if the white questions don't get answered, there are minimal options and there's no change.

And that's what's so beautiful about that book. It answers all the why questions. It explains why I drank the way I did. It explains why I think the way I do. It explains why I did the things I did when drinking

and because the Y questions get answered now there are many options and there's major change. And that's exactly what happened when I came in here.

I'd like to tell you about about my very first meeting and Alcoholics Anonymous. I was 19 years old. I was serving a 13 year sentence here in Arizona, Florence State Prison for narcotics

and I thought it might be a good idea if I start going to some any meetings. I love you here. And Bob last night talk about taking meetings into prisons. You were one of those guys that brought meetings into the prison for us guys that were locked up. Now, I didn't go to those meetings because I wanted to stop drinking.

I went to those meetings because I wanted it to look really good on my jacket. So when I went before the pro board, they could say, hey, he's a good little convict, let's let him go home. He doesn't have to do these thirteen years anymore.

Now to to to understand or relate to the experience I had. Try to think like a 19 year old, just for a minute.

Try to think like a 19 year old. Everybody in that meeting was at least 30.

They even have people in their 40 and 50 years old. When they're 19, that's old.

That's really old. I remember looking around the room thinking, geez man, if I was that old. Hot foot drinking too.

End of the road, no more fun.

I didn't end up doing the entire 13 years. I ended up doing 5 and I got out

and what happened next was I would love to stand up here and tell you that I had a moment of clarity going to those all those meetings in prison and I stopped drinking and that's not what happened. What did happen was this. For the next 7 years I bounced in and out of a

God's over, got drunk, God's over, got drunk, got sober, got drunk

and for the life me I couldn't stop drinking. I used to go to meetings drunk.

Nobody ever ever 86 million from NAA meeting.

And the old timers were so patient and loving and kind and tolerant

and for life. Me, I couldn't understand why I couldn't stop drinking. And you guys were no longer drinking. See, at that time I confused the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous and the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. See, I was under the impression that the meetings was the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I believe that fellowship in our program is an important part of our sobriety. I believe it's an integral part.

You see, that's all I did in that seven-year period. I overlooked a couple of details,

what I thought were minor details. You know, things like the 12 steps,

getting a sponsor, learning how to pray and meditate, making amends, being of service to other people. And that's why I didn't say sober.

And then something came along and helped me a great deal. One day I had an, I guess you would call it an argument or disagreement with Phoenix Police Department

and I ended up assaulting 3 police officers.

They see at that time the state of Arizona, they had a statute that if you're in, if you're, if you're an ex-con, that you know that's done time for a felony and you assault any law enforcement official with your hands over the weapon. It's a flat 25 years,

so I'm looking at 25 years back in the penitentiary.

That helped me to come back to Alcoholics Anonymous. That was my motivation.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to stop drinking. You see,

alcohol was my solution to my drinking.

That was my solution. That was my medicine. And you want me to give that up?

I was too afraid. I felt stuck between a rock and a hard place,

was terrified. The idea of continuing to drink because of what was happening to me and my body.

And I was also terrified what would happen if I didn't think, if I didn't have that medicine.

And I knew for certain one thing. And that was that pain that was deep inside of my gut right here. That emptiness that I tried to fill

couldn't be filled with. It couldn't be filled with enough women, enough money, enough booze, enough drugs. And I wondered that pain. I wanted that suffering to go away. And I was living in a constant state of fear. I think my vocation may have had something to do with the fear. I was living in Tucson at the time, and I was involved with, I guess you would call it, the import business,

making frequent trips 3-4 times a week down to Mexico,

you know, and I had a really fast car and they didn't have the 55 speed limit back then, and the police couldn't catch me. And so I was living a life of danger for a number of years there. So that probably had something to do with being paranoid, you know, and being afraid.

So I went back to Alcoholics Anonymous and I did something I never did before in the seven previous years. I got a sponsor.

We got through the first three steps rather quickly. I did the 4th step the best I could. I show up at his house

to do the 5th step and I'm really nervous because for the very first time in my life, I'll put everything because that's what you guys told me to do. You told me to put everything down on paper.

If I didn't do this, I wasn't going to stay sober. And for whatever reason, I believed you.

So I get over his house and I'm really nervous. When I'm nervous I got a pee. OK, So I go to the bathroom and I go in this guys bathroom. Now what I see in this guys bathroom in one respect shocks me in another respect appeals to me. I walk in this guys bathroom and I'm not exaggerating. The entire ceiling and all the walls is covered with pornography. And right next to the toilet he's got a little night stand. He's got the 24 hour book on it.

And I'm thinking, hey, this must be spirituality,

you know, I think I can do this, you know, because I like women. I like magazines, you know, a little bit of prayer, a little book, a little bit of porn, you know. Anyway, I get done with my business and I go out in the living room. He's nowhere to be found. He calls out from the bedroom. He says, hey, I'll be out in a minute. About two minutes later he comes out

completely naked,

comes over assistant next man says we're going to get down to the naked truth. And I said I don't think so.

I've been locked up. I don't play that. Okay, now that really had an impact on me because you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm going to meetings,

I'm going to meetings and I'm hearing you guys to and you gals talk about your sponsors. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm hearing you guys saying things like, I just love my sponsor. I was thinking, yeah, I bet you do.

Yeah, my sponsor is really good to me. I said I'm happy for you.

And I saw and also I saw the men hurting men.

I'm not a homophobe, you know, but you know, maybe I'm, I'm sharing this to give you some perspective of who I was at that time. But I saw men hugging men. I thought I don't know about this, you know, and hear what you guys are saying about your sponsors. So you might say I had a little bit of a trust issue with sponsorship.

OK,

that very same week, a couple days later, I go to a meeting

and I hear this man talk

in a way I've never heard anybody speak in Alcoholics Anonymous before.

I don't know if these words were being spoken before and I didn't hear him or they weren't being shared. I don't know. But the words that these men that this man used was, they were formed to my ears. You know, he said. Things like step one guarantees that we're going to get drunk,

that if we're truly powerless, we don't have the power to stop that.

And he also said things like, did he no longer have the power to choose whether he would or would not drink, and that there was absolutely nothing that he could personally do to keep himself sober?

I never heard those words before. I always thought Stephen was, well, yeah, I'm an alcoholic. Move on to Step 2.

And I don't know why he came up to me. Maybe because I look like a newcomer. I mean, I was a great specimen of a man when I came into Alcoholics. And almost at that time I was wearing a whole 130 lbs.

And that's after point, a little bit weak and I thought I was looking good,

so he came up to me and this man only asked me one question. Only one.

He said, do you have a sponsor? And I said no. He didn't ask me if I wanted one. He said, well, you got one now. I later discovered he is what we often refer to in our rooms as old school A, A that in the beginning of Alcoholics Anonymous, it was not up to the newcomer to get a sponsor. It was a sponsor's job to reach out to the newcomer

and I was so full of fear. I was so afraid of being rejected by you guys. And so when he said

I'll be your sponsor,

I was relieved. I was also a little hesitant. And we sat down and talked and, and of course I had some of my own conditions. I said, I'll work with you on one condition. He said, what's that? And I said that you promised me you'll keep your clothes on.

He said, what the hell are you talking about? And I told him what happened. He said, oh, my goodness, that is the sickest SOB in the entire valley of Phoenix. How did you get hooked up with him? I said, I have no idea. I thought that was a reflection of Alcoholics, Thomas. That's what I thought you guys were. And I thought that's what you were all about.

And justice to Fast forward a little bit, just to put your knees. I love hugging men today. I'm OK with that. I don't have a problem with that.

So what happened is we sat down and we started to go through the steps. Now I'm a relapser. I said no, I, I stand corrected. I was a relapser. Any relapses in here?

I since discovered an alcoholic pseum and said we relapsers have several things in common and I find and found at the time I've been sober, every single man I've ever worked with in AA who was a relapser possessed the same characteristics that I did. That all relapsers have the following in common. Number one, we have secrets

and GNS 7 year period. I had a lot of secrets.

I wasn't willing to go to any length.

You see what happened to me in that seven-year period

where I wasn't able to stay sober, I was doing half measures. You see, it was you guys that taught me about the Coke machine in Alcoholics Anonymous. Some of you may already know about the Coke machine. You go to a Coke machine and it takes a dollar to get a Coke.

I kept putting $0.50 and expecting to get half a Coke.

You pay $0.50 in that Coke machine, you're getting nothing.

Half measures avail does nothing. And that's one of the reasons why I didn't say sober. So I was willing to go through the steps with this guy,

but I still had one little secret. I wasn't willing to tell it and see it was in the rooms of a A that I discovered that secrets are not limited to conduct.

See, I had an attitude and then attitude was I didn't believe that the toseps would work for me.

I was convinced that we're working for you because I saw it in your faces. I saw it in your eyes.

Go to meetings. You had that

happy ear to ear smile.

So happy

Alan had to throw up

when I saw how happy you were. And and the other thing that I wanted to throw up about was you talked about God all the time. It's like, jeez, here we go again.

But he was my little secret. My motive for going through the steps that first time with that man was not to have a spiritual awakening.

That was not my motive. My motive for going through the steps the first time was to prove to you that they don't work. So we go out. So we could go all the way through the steps and I could go back in and I could shove it in your face and say, see, this doesn't work.

So we go through the steps concepting magical happen.

All of a sudden, the compulsion of their drink was gone.

Here's what I discovered from that experience,

that it doesn't matter how much doubt, it doesn't matter how skeptical, it doesn't matter how disbelieving I am. My doubt cannot stop the power a spiritual principles contained in the 12 steps. It's identical to this water right here. So if my friend John here comes up and says here, Paul, I have some water and I guarantee you that if you drink it, it will quench your thirst. And my response is that hasn't got to work. Water doesn't quit your thirst. He said try it. Just try drinking the water and I guarantee you

there's and I can drink it with the attitude.

See my doubt can't stop the water from quenching my thirst. And that was the experience I had in those 12 steps. So if there's anybody here that's new, if there's anybody here who hasn't completed the 12 steps, and you have any doubt whatsoever,

any disbelief,

it can't stop the power of the steps in our lives. And that's exactly what happened to me.

So he took me through the steps somewhere between four and six weeks.

I went to treatment for 30 days. I moved into a men's halfway house, and it was shortly after that that I hooked up with him. Do the math. And then he cut me loose. He said OK, now I want you to go out and I want you to start taking others through the steps.

My response was I'm going to kill somebody. He said that's not possible. All you have to do is simply duplicate what I've shown you.

So I went out and I started doing that. I got a lot of Flack from some of the old timers because there were some people in my area of the attitude. You know you you're not so long enough to take people through the steps

with the attitude you should be sober at least a year. I don't know about you, but I can't find that anywhere in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. What if Bill and Bob did that?

You guys aware of how long Doctor Bob Smith, our cofounder, was sober when he worked with the first alcoholic? Two days and they had no book. They had no book. They had no steps. They had no air group, They had no Home group. They had no roundups,

but they had some hope. That's what they had

and that's my understanding of why we're here today, and that's my understanding of what we're supposed to be doing in our meetings. It's a carry message of hope. That's the only purpose of meetings. That's what I was taught,

that the only function for me in an A meaning is a carry message of hope. I was also taught that meanings are not a place for me to take my problems,

that that's what the phone is for. That's what coffee before the meanings for. That's what coffee after the meanings for. And also, there's a difference between dumping in a meeting and sharing a problem along with a solution. Now, I don't know about you, but that gives me a lot of hope when I see a guy or a gal bring a problem to a meeting and they talk about it and then the next breath they start start talking about the solution that they're using to walk through that problem.

You see that first sponsor of mine, he gave me a guarantee, and I can give this guaranteed to anybody in this room who hasn't completed the steps.

He said that if you follow the instructions in that book, I can guarantee you that you have a foundation that will be unshakable.

And that's been my experience in the entire time I've been sober, that that foundation has been unshakable. Now, that unshakable foundation does not mean I will not feel.

It does not mean I will not grieve. It does not mean that I won't experience disappointment, anger, sadness, and so on,

because that's because I've also learned along the way that we have this thing called spiritual condition in our rooms. We also have this thing called the human condition,

and they're not to be confused. In other words, it doesn't matter how spiritually fit I think I am, my friend guy here can come up to me and pinch me and I'm going to say Ouch.

I'm going to experience pain,

and they're not to be confused. I had a wonderful sponsor who taught me about accepting my humanness, which has been a big struggle for me throughout my entire sobriety, is to accept that I have limitations, that I'm going to make mistakes and I'm going to screw things up.

So along the way this court case is proceeding.

Hand sponsor goes with me down to the courthouse for the sentencing

and he stops me outside of the courthouse. He says I'm going to talk to you before we go in here. He said, hey, I want you to know

that's not up to the judge whether or not you go back to prison. So what do you mean? He said there's a higher court operating. It's called God,

he said. If it's God's role for you to go back to prison, just think of all the Alcoholics you could be of service to.

Thank you for that inspiration,

he said. If it's God's will for you to be of service out here, we're going to walk out of that cornice together and that's not going to happen. That's

happen. I resigned the idea that I'm screwed. I'm going back to prison for 25 years. I'm 31 years old at the time. We get in there, the judge starts to ask me some really weird questions. He starts asking me questions about my drinking, He said. I understand you have a drinking problem. Yes. Are you doing anything about that? Yes, I'm going to a, he says. I understand they have

sponsors in AA. You got one of the MBA S right back here, he said. Also understand they have 12 steps. You doing those? Yeah, wonderful. He scribbles something on the on the on the paper

and he leans up and he says and he sentences me to one year unsupervised probation. I had to replace three uniforms. I had to pay their hospital bills, which were extensive. I had to replace one pair of boots because somehow during the disagreement the officers boot got stuck in my mouth and I penetrated his his boot and broke his toe.

And they said, don't ever come before me again.

Now, don't get me wrong, I was elated and I was grateful to be walking out of that courthouse. But I turned to my sponsor and I said what the F was that?

I'm in shock. He said there's a higher court operating here and it's called gone. He said it doesn't matter what the circumstances are, it doesn't matter what the law say. If God wants something to happen, it's going to happen because there's a higher court operating

and I walked out of there. Freeman

And that proceeded along the way in sobriety. And I'm out there and I'm sponsoring guys and I'm picking guys up off the streets and I'm taking them to detox. I'm taking them to halfway houses and I'm taking them to meetings. And along the way I got cocky and I had one of those magical disappearing glove boxes. And you have one of those, you open the glove box and you toss traffic tickets in them and you shut the glove box and they disappear.

And I kept getting all these traffic tickets, you know, and I

sliding them in the old glove box.

After a period of time, I'll come back around and and I'm going through the steps again because I had a sponsor

who educated me about the steps in the traditions. And nowhere in our literature doesn't say we go through steps one time and rely on the maintenance steps 1011 and 12. It says we practice these principles and we go through the steps on a repeated basis and that's what we were doing and come back around to another inventory. And I happen to mention the tickets. He said you probably got some bench warrants out for your rest. You better check into that. And through a series of phone calls, I discovered, sure enough, there were several bench

of my arrest. And through another series of phone calls, I made arrangements to go see a judge. I didn't pay attention to the name of the judge. And so I could go down there and make arrangements to pay off these tickets. So I get I get down there and I'm sitting out in the outer office of the judges office and I'm thinking about what I can say to this judge. Well, I've got this. I mean, it was a big old pile of tickets.

Here's what I plan to say to him. Your Honor, I've been busy.

I've been saving lives. I've been out there picking up drunks off the street and taking them to AA and taking them to detox and taking them to Halfway Oz. You know, just short of my goodness knows, no balance, you know. Anyway, secretary comes out, says judge will see and I go to the judges office and it's the sentencing judge. And I remember what he said when I walked out and I call room. He said don't come before me again.

So I go in there and he says, hey, what's up with these tickets?

And what fell out of my mouth was

I've been irresponsible.

This is what do you want to do about this? And I said, well, can I set up a payment plan? He said, sure, how much can you afford? I told him. He said that's fine.

Started asking me those weird questions again.

He said, hey, he's still going to those meetings. I said, yeah, you still got that sponsor? Yeah. Still doing them steps. Yeah. Wonderful. Don't come before me again.

I slayed one more time

about 3 months later.

My Home group at the time was called the Rush Hour group

and I had to work late, so I didn't get to the meeting until about 2025 minutes after the hour and it was speaker participation.

They get to the meeting, Lake now, walk in the doorway and I look up at the podium

and there's that judge sharing his experience, strength and hope.

I had no idea

there's I don't have the power or the capability to orchestrate anything of that magnitude. It's just not possible.

I came into Alcoholics Anonymous now as a liar, cheat, thief and a slut

and I was busy.

And then

18 years ago, I met the most wonderful woman I know,

my current life mate Jan, who spoke this weekend.

I'm going to go.

I'm not a slut anymore.

I came in here with no morals. I had no character

and I was full of fear

and I had no plan.

When I came in after that seven-year period of relapsing in and out,

a word started to fall out of my mouth that never came out of my mouth.

And it's a word that those of us that have been around a while, we come to recognize it rather quickly with the newer person. And it's typically a word that indicates that the person is teachable

and is willing. And it's a 2 letter word and that word is okay.

It was suggested that I go to treatment for 30 days. I said, OK, I didn't think it was going to work because it was my fourth treatment,

because the three previous treatments, both all times I would get discharged and I immediately went to a bar because you see,

I had a plan.

I had a plan how to do this deal and I didn't have to do it like you people.

I never going to meetings early on and watching people introduce themselves. Hi, my name is John. I'm an alcoholic.

We're thinking how lame.

What if I what if I got myself into here, you know,

and then all that talk about God,

but the word okay kept falling out of my mouth and after trading it well, Hey, Paul, we recommend that you move into this Mens have we house and I said okay, Paul, we recommend that you get a sponsor. Okay, we suggest you go through the steps. Okay, we suggest you get a Home group, okay?

Because when I met that guy

at that meeting who spoke in a way I'd never heard before,

we sat down on the table and I told him a little bit about my, you know, my history and how long I've been bouncing in and out. And he asked me the question that we typically ask all relapses.

What do you think you'll do different this time?

In the words that fell out of my mouth at that time, I had never spoken before, and those words were I don't know.

I just don't know anymore.

I had run out out of ideas. Today I'm grateful for every single drop of alcohol that I drink because what it did for me is it brought me to my knees and it got me ready to surrender.

And see, I'm like that soldier in his army who's been defeated by another army. The way for saying that soldier does is he surrenders his weapon.

He always surrenders the weapon for one reason,

when reasonably he doesn't want to die. And he does not surrender the weapon of an attitude,

he surrenders it willingly. And that's sponsoring educated me about my weapons and my weapons are simply my ideas. I can stand up here. I there's not one single thing, not one thing that's positive that's in my life today. That's a direct result of the original idea.

It was never my idea to go to meetings. It was not my idea to get a sponsor to the steps, play, meditate, make amends, work with others, et cetera, et cetera. It all came from you guys, came from someone else. I'm convinced that my ideas don't work most of the time.

And then something happened right around 16 years. I'm forced to talk about this today

because Jan talked about it yesterday. I've talked about it before in previous talks and it's no big deal. But you know, sometimes I don't talk about it. But she forced me into and she talked about my dried trunk

right around 16 years of sobriety here. Here's what happened to me.

I started back off on some of the disciplines. I'm talking about meditation. I'm talking about Evening Review. I'm talking about being honest, about being accountable. The arrogance came back. I wasn't approachable. I was abrasive with people and I started to lie and I started getting into some dishonest behavior. And there's some people around me who love me enough

to conduct an intervention.

One of them was my sponsor

and my wife. We had attended, a matter of fact. We were at the Prescott Shoestring Roundup. And that weekend I thought it was kind of interesting. A couple of my friends from Texas were at that roundup and hadn't seen them in a couple years, thinking, wow, you come all the way out here for this round though, huh?

Walked into a room, they're all sitting around in a circle and I said, and

there was an empty chair.

Yes, during my sponsors. Hey, what's going on? He says. Hey, we're having a meeting that's about you

now. I came to sit down. I said, all right, this is what we're seeing. And they all did it with love. And I couldn't deny any of it. And he gave me some specific instructions. And one of them at the time was he said, I want you to give up all positions of leadership

because I've been in a lot of service work through the years.

And I said I'll do that because I was willing. I was willing to go any length at that time. And that dry drunk lacid year and a half, maybe two years, I was experiencing what I like to call sobriety

because that's what it was. It was not sobriety. It was so dry. And it's been my experience that I'm only going to experience one of two things that Alcoholics Anonymous, and I've seen it consistently happen in all rooms. I'm only going to have one or two experiences. I'm either getting better or I'm getting sicker.

And I've had those periods where I wasn't drinking, but I was getting sicker.

There were things I was overlooking. There were things I wasn't being honest about. There were things I wasn't willing to talk about. There were things I wasn't willing to face

and I'm grateful that it wasn't necessary to drink in that period of time.

I find it to be a miracle.

It's a miracle that all of us are sober here today. I don't know if you're aware of it, but miracles defined as unexpected or unexplained event

and I've come to believe that my sobriety is solely through the grace of God.

Grace is defined as unearned favor or gift.

I didn't work for it. I didn't earn it. Yes, it's important for me to be willing.

But it's so slowly, through God's grace, and I'm sober. And I've also come to discover that it's my job

to take care of that gift called sobriety.

This is not my sponsors job. It's not my home groups job,

it's my job and I've also come to understand that there's only one way I will drink.

It has nothing to do with being alcoholic.

Doctor Silkworth, who wrote the chapter

Doctor's Opinion. He wrote a paper called Slips in Human Nature. He clearly identifies in that paper why the alcoholic drinks again? Who's being exposed to the solution in AA?

You see, my sobriety is my responsibility. That's not to be confused with

I have the power to keep myself sober, but rather it's my job to make the amends. It's my job to do the prayer. It's my job to do the meditation. It's my job to do the evening review. It's my job to work with others,

and he explains in that paper clearly that's the only reason an alcoholic in the A will Drake again, who's been exposed to solution more Simply put, I wasn't doing what I was supposed to be doing. So you see, I can't, I can't fall back on the excuse I drank 'cause I'm an alcoholic.

And I've also come to discover that drinking again under those circumstances has nothing to do with being an alcoholic. It's not a characteristic of an alcoholic to drink again. Who's not taking their medicine, who's been exposed to it. It's kind of like the diabetic. You know, the, the diabetic has a condition, he knows about it. He doesn't deny it. He takes his insulin, he maintains his food plan. So if he refuses to take his insulin, is that a characteristic of being diabetic?

No, it's a characteristic of being human,

and that's what Doctor Silkwood says in that paper. If I drank again, it's a characteristic of me being irresponsible.

I've taken care of that gift. See, He gave me this precious gift.

You know, it would be like my friend Michael here giving me a precious gift. Let's say it was a grassbone figurine of a horse,

and I can appreciate that. Again, I'm not going to leave that laying around somewhere where some knucklehead can come in and step on it and crush it. I'm going to put her up someplace safe and I'm going to protect it and I'm going to take care of it.

And as a result of going through those steps on a repeated basis and being of service to others in this program, I've learned a lot of things from you guys. You guys taught me, especially the men you taught me about in, in, in, in my part of the valley in Phoenix, what we like to call Big Boy AA.

We have Little Boy A A We have Big Boy A

in big boil areas where there's accountability. I have two home groups. One of them is a stag group and the other one is the literature meeting

and something happens in stat groups that I don't experience in mixed meetings.

Few gals that their unwell, even some of you men that may not be aware of it. There's no such thing as a bad hair day in a stack group