The 22nd Annual Mens Fall Retreat in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

He got the wire for sound here. Now I'm Tom Ivester, an alcoholic. Hey Tom, I remember the primary purpose group in Southern Pines, NC. Can't think about losing my voice. I'd be totally disabled if I do that.

Who did?

God, you think he'd sober up by now?

Yeah, Yeah.

Well, it's good to be back, be be back up in this little piece of Vancouver and typically good weather. I told him I said I'm going to wear rain gear the whole weekend because I look at the computer and said this place is going to look awful and it's beautiful. It's just absolutely beautiful and you guys look well

now. Not beautiful now, but you're looking better than you did, I bet you. And it's good to see everybody

will be will be here till noon Sunday and

God only knows what we'll do the

I don't have any real hard outline. I'm not somebody who has canned stuff. I have a lot of notes here, but I don't know where they came from. I just sort of pick up stuff and bring it with me so I'm not lonely on the airplane. And it is good to be here. Good to be back. Thoroughly appreciated when I've been here before and and and think we will this time as well.

I tell you what I what I would like to do is #1

I really like for things to be interactive.

What I mean by that is 2 way communication. I learned long ago is in a college speech class, a guy said something that I've never forgotten and I believed it ever since. Is that when you look at what makes communication effective? Simple little stuff that I've never had really thought of. What he said was when you do one one way communication, like a lecture or a speech,

that at the end of two weeks, you'll be lucky to remember 2% of it, 2% that it just isn't an effective way to communicate. And then if you get if you get involved in the presentation and go up to 35 or 40%, and then if you if you get involved in putting it together and putting it out, it'll go well over 80%. So I like interacting because I just think it's a lot more effective

and I think it's more useful.

And what I mean with that is I'd like for us to just sort of sort of talk with each other as we go along here through the week.

If you, if you just leave it up to me, I'll do it, but you may not like it.

I'll fill it up. You can count on that. But I'd much, much rather it be something that's going to going to fall into to where you are, where you at, what you're, what you're thinking about right now and

what, what I, what I basically would would like to get done some a little bit of tonight would be the one. I'm going to let you know who I am.

The strange thing about about speakers and athletics, Thomas, you, you probably have noticed this. If somebody gets up to speak to an A a group and they don't do what we call qualify, we don't listen to it. If somebody just starts making a speech to a group of a a members, that's an exercise in futility because the screen will just drop. You don't listen to theories and, and, and all this kind of stuff.

You what what what? What really works for us is, is to identification.

And that's the reason we do what we do

Tell you the worst,

I think probably the worst time I have ever had trying to get going and making an A talk at a Group.

A guy, he's an old attorney.

Well, somebody said going through a cemetery, saw a gravestone of an attorney there in that town said here lies a a, a, a an honest,

an honest.

I forgot what they said.

Oh, he said an attorney and an honest man. And the guy that was looking said, my God, they're burying them two to a grave.

So I had an attorney like that that had invited me to speak in Charlotte, our biggest town,

and he had gotten hold of my professional residence

somewhere. And he introduced me with a resume. Yeah, where he went to school, where he worked, all this kind of stuff. And I swear to God, I would just want to sink under the chair. And it took at least 15 minutes to start communication because it just puts a wall between folks. But that's not what we're about, That we're about people who share experience. And

I honestly believe the purest form of alcoholic synonymous.

I thought you coming at me.

You never know about Canadians. I made one. I don't know how they behave

she

but the purest form of communication of the purest form of a a meeting is when somebody does exactly that will share the experience, strength and hope for they were broken and healed. And I what I base that on

is somewhere people know what pages on at the end of Bob's story when he's writing for the big book. Yeah. What is it? Beaten This Woman 8600 Amanda Box 2181

Right. A man knows every word in the book ignores at least half of them,

but he he knows. But is that is that page right before the last page of Bob's story. And he put a little paragraph in there that I think has a lot of a lot of meaning about a lot of things. And he basically what he basically said my words pretty close to his, but not exactly

that he's talking about his meeting when he and, and, and, and Bill Wilson met in that, that Cyberlink has stayed at the gatehouse and most of you've heard of that, you know, that it was actually the birth of Alcoholics Anonymous that that happened that day. Nobody announced it, but that's what it really happened. And Bob, the busy position, Bill was the sober guy. He was the guy that was trying to get a, a going. He was trying to work with other Alcoholics because

that helped him and, and, and in his desperation in Akron, OH, he put out a plea for somebody to, to, to get him an alcoholic to work with. And somebody gave him Doctor Bob. And so him and Bob had this meeting at the Cyberlink gatehouse at their mansion. And if you, if you haven't been to Akron, you get a chance to go by him. He's take a look because it's just like walking into our history and it's very easy to visualize what happened that night

and what happened. They they met over there.

Bob said he didn't have much time. He only had about 15 minutes. And about six hours later they quit. And later on, Bob said, and he and his way said it. And while he wrote in the book, what was it about this man? You know, here's a learning physician, a highly trained scientist and his here's a guy that's marvelous. What was it about this guy? A broken down, decrepit stockbroker from New York

that was different than all the other people with whom I talked.

And then he answered his own question and he said essentially this,

that he was the first person I had ever spoken with who talked in terms of his own experience, didn't try to teach him anything, did try to explain theories of the illness or any of the signs or causation. He talked about his own experience. It said he talked my language and that really set the basis. What I think is the basic tenet of alcohol. Autonomous is what you're weird. Diverse bunch of people here tonight.

But there's one thing that makes us all one, and that's the fact that we were all broken and healed at the same place and that has no respect for our differences. That's the things that that gives us commonality.

And so that's what's important about that thing of, of sharing our experience instead of our ideas and philosophy and knowledge that we have. It's about sharing that experience of what it's like to be broken and healed. And so it's been part and parcel of our of our fellowship. I also think just just allude to this and we'll talk about it later if you want to.

But I also think it's the the fundamental reason why single is a purpose is such an important thing

that that if you don't have seems the purpose so that people can have that that available opportunity to identify, then what we've done is abdicated on our responsibility to pass it on to the next one. And so I think it's the basic tenant that no matter how much we may sympathize with each other, if we identify this at the level of how we were broken and how we were healed,

you know, and therefore makes it strong. So anyway, there's a lot of growth. It's a lot of stuff grows out there. But, but let let me tell you, I'll tell you some version of of my experience and then be thinking if, if, if I'm not saying anything that just last your life up, Be thinking in the little time that you might have available about

things you would like to, to, to to get in discussion about here this weekend.

Yeah, we're going to be spending some time here up on a it's not a mountain, is it?

We're up, we're up here. I don't want to fall off off of it if you can, but we're up here a little ways and it was sent by a beautiful lake. We've got a lot of time. No phones are ringing much and we got a little time. And and what I'd like to see us do is to make this time worthwhile, use it, you know, to get things done that we want to get done. And so be thinking about things that and toward the end of the session,

we'll just ask you to call it out. You have some anything that you would like to see that we covered this weekend, Just bring it up and we'll wait into it. And I don't mean just me, you know, I don't want to be the expert instrument, but I'll take a shot at it and and then invite invite you to do the same. It won't make a discussion meeting out of it, but make it an interactive session, you know, so that if you got something, raise it up. You probably be speaking on behalf of 80% of the group. And so anyway, that's what

I'd like to get it done a little bit tonight.

Yeah, I'm a guy. I can give you a kind of a

a little bit of a scaled down version, but but the storage basically the same, just comes out a lot different. Yeah, I walked into my first A meeting

on the second day of February in 19/19/57 at 1:00 in the afternoon. And I don't believe I have ever felt more out of place anywhere in my life than I did in Alcoholics. Novice. Yeah, I was 24 years old. This was 1957 and a a was just coming out of the shadows in 1957 was not well known. There was just a select few people around the country that were aware of they ate.

And so it was it was sort of a just sort of a blooming reality in our society. The day I walked in, best I can tell, we had 125,000 members and I guess I became 125,000 and one. Yeah, that's the way it's worked. It's just that chain reaction from one alcoholic to another. And but when I walked into that meeting,

I did a bit more believe I was an alcoholic than a man in the moon. I didn't identify with anybody in the room.

Yeah, I was the youngest guy in every meeting. We were waiting on him.

I asked you. We could.

I was the youngest person in every meeting I attended for years. I mean, a lot of years. When we finally got somebody in North Carolina younger than me, if he hadn't been so ugly, I'd have kissed him. And I was glad to see that. You know, people been beating on me and telling me how proud they were of me. A young fella like you. My God, that's great to see.

Didn't look all that great to me. And so

I remember one time the guy was pat me on the head and telling me how lucky I was and I thought my head was going to look like yours when we got through. He's patting them and, and

he said, do you know that you could actually look forward to 50 years of this program at your age? And when he said it, he looked like that guy that hits you on the forehead, you fall out, your eyes kind of rolled back in his head. And you could tell he was enraptured. I wasn't all that carried away with that. I wasn't sure I had it and I wasn't sure I was interested in the cure. I didn't mind getting better, but I didn't want to get good.

I was. I was scared to dead man. They're going to grab me

and they're going to have me chatting the scripture here before you know it. And so I was a little to ask you about that. So I didn't identify things about it.

I was the youngest guy in the group. I went into about by a long shot, most of the people in the group group had drunk more years than I was years old. And I was 24 and there weren't any 24 year olds that I could find anywhere that I ever went. And I tell you what, when you the oddball crowd, that's not a comfortable kind of a feeling.

And I really didn't. I mean, I'd listen to people tell their stories, and

I don't think we particularly lie in a a. But, you know, sometimes if you're telling a story, it doesn't come out right. You know,

you just got to fill in a little something to make it balance out. You know, that's not lying. That's just good, good, good, good, good way to make a statement. Yeah, I said that's as good as it,

but I'd listen to people tell their stories and. And it sounded so God awful to me that I couldn't

some guy talk about our stage. Solid drunk, never sobered up one day for 40 years.

I probably have some truth in it, but not much. Not much. Been married seven times to the same woman one year?

Come on.

But I mean, folks just making a point, you know, it's got some humor in it, whatever it may even be the way they remember it, you know, if they remember like me

and I was listening to that kind of stuff and, and I didn't identify, I, I didn't believe I was alcoholic. You know, when I first heard the notion that alcoholism was an illness or a disease, I found that an awkward, almost embarrassing concept. I thought, what on earth is an illness about getting drunk?

Illness is what happens after, you know that that's not what happens during. And that didn't make any sense to me.

And I hear people have given it lofty explanations that meant less to me. And and I guess that's why it's so important to me. What Bob said is that we identified where we were broken and healed. You know, we identified and and what we experienced together. It's but I went for a long time and then

tell you the the one thing that well, one of the things that kept me coming back to a was I heard just enough to keep me in deceit.

And now some of you know, not everybody here here knows, but some of you know that that my first meeting was in finishing school.

It wasn't refined, but I was in school because I was finished is about what it was. So, yeah, I was in a Michael custody penitentiary And and most of the folk in there were were had had a pretty radically different lifestyle than mine. Anyway. Yeah, I was not a criminal. Yeah, I was AI never was a criminal.

Did some things that could have been mistakenly identified as crime,

but we weren't really. They were they were just sort of the survival mechanism. When you live in places like I did, you going to do some stuff that's criminal or else you going to have to get out of town if you make it. And I was, I spent a good many years and couple of our more beautiful cities in the United States, Detroit, MI, which is a real stellar place. We're going to do our 20th,

our 20th International Convention in Detroit.

I happen to run into well, he was happy. Pure habitats

guys at an airport. I've been at a conference and there was a guy from the office who worked on the international desk, you know the one, that part of what they do is help out with the committee working on identifying sites for the next convention.

And Detroit, by the way, the second competition to Detroit was Vancouver, BC

If you've been both to both cities, there is no competition,

I promise you that. Now that's a fact. And I had a good chance to to to corner that boy. And I said you, you were on the committee picture of the Nationals aide. He said yeah. I said let me just ask you one question.

Were you guys drinking when you picked

it? He said no, my God, no, we weren't. I said, well, why did you do it? I mean, if he was drinking, I could understand it. Do a book anyway. It's it's that's where it'll be at 20. I told him that there's a good chance I might not go to that one.

I'll only be 97 years old, so it's a good chance I may not go to that.

I'm here. I probably will. But anyway, that Detroit is not exactly Mayberry. I mean, it's you. You call it that. It's it tends to be the murder capital of the world and.

And and Flint, MI was the other. The other town is just north of Detroit always. And so those two cities were where I live. My primary base was in Flint

and when I got through trying to work in polite society, I just sort of scuffled around those towns and, and I basically just, it's not exactly wits. I, I think I, I, I survived by my lack of character. And then in that environment, it really wasn't considered crime by the guys there. I mean, it was a matter of, it was like reciprocal trade. You know what, you get me one night and I'll get you the next night.

It's just the way it was. That was the economy

and nobody ever called the police.

God, if they call the police to arrest the whole crowd, you know, where you gonna put anybody worse than the streets in Flint or Detroit, they're going to jail be a promotion. So anyway, it it's it's just now that wasn't you know that I really don't consider that crime polite society life, but I I do and and I've been in jail. God knows,

most of my life in and out, just a typical drunken stuff, you know, just into jail for always lightweight

social nuisance type stuff, you know, just drunk on the street or whatever, you know, or scrapping on the street or stuff like that. It always been that kind of thing and nothing ever serious. Not a criminal. I didn't steal.

Now, if you happen to leave a bottle unprotected,

that's just carelessness. That's not

a victim. Your volunteer. Would you do that? But that's not like plotting and deliberately having premeditated.

Yeah, I never had. Yeah. What What? What I was just a guy that lived in that kind of environment and just just just do what you do in that environment. And. But you know what, Really, what finally brought me down was just like on way over here, we waited the car. So girl, I didn't see it, but

the other guys did. So some girl darting across in the traffic and

when he streets with people just buzz in that direction. She made but it certainly wasn't her fault. You know that that. But I wound up in in a situation like that and woke up one morning in Flint and Flint, one of my regular places and assumed I was in there for the same as always. You need to just drop her hustling or scuffing on the street. And after I wake a little while I mean it was normal for me. I knew the routine very well. 10:00

come by. He walked down in front of the bars and he'd see if anybody wanted to try to make bond or get out or whatever. And so he walked around and I and I called out to him and I said, hey guy, when can I get out? And he just looked at me with just utter scorn and said, I hope never.

He walked off. Yeah. I had no clue what he was talking about. The hell of Black Ops, The hell of Black Ops. And probably a good many of you had it. You know what I'm talking about. It's a total blank. It's not memory loss. It's a total blank. And

and so when he said that I didn't know what was, I knew he was serious. I have no question about that. And he walked on down the hall and I went back into the tank and one of the guys in there told me that he said, man, you know what you in here for? And I said no. And so he told me that the night before, some guy had been driving drunk down the Main Street of that city and struck and killed two people

who were trying to cross the street, just like that girl on that bike was trying to do. But but you're trying to cross the street and, and was, was hit and, and, and that I had been arrested for the crime. I had no clue what he's talking about my, but my mind, it defends itself. When I was given that I just simply couldn't handle the information. You know that I couldn't. I mean, I couldn't believe it, but I just couldn't handle the information, if you know what I mean.

And I just refuse to accept that. And then gradually, gradually accepted what seemed to be the truth that that apparently I had done more damage than any alcoholic ever ought to be allowed to do. And, and I didn't handle that well. Even though I was a character. I've been thrown out of the military for alphabet when I was 20 years old, even though I was a guy that had been just a real screwball everywhere I've been. I was not a subhuman.

I was not somebody who was insensitive to human life with other people's difficulty. I was not there. And so when I was greeted with that, my my defense was I just couldn't accept the fact. I couldn't accept what appeared. And it's the only time I've ever been in jail. Didn't try to get out. I didn't want out. I was, I was ashamed to get out.

I was ashamed to breathe, never mind getting out of jail, shame to look anybody or not. And and all I wanted to do was just disappear.

That's all. I didn't have any plans. No schemes, no nothing, no defense. Yeah, I'm just a, I'm just a dead man walking is what it what it was.

And I don't know why, but there was some policeman. I'll never know because I'm not going to try to find out. But there was a policeman there

who apparently,

I don't know, I guess he saw the shape of it or something. And and what they said was that, that, that I was confessing anything they wanted to confess to. They just said, you do that. Yeah, sure, whatever. I mean, I was just done. So this policeman took it on himself to learn that I had family in North Carolina, made a call, told my folks what situation was that? You got to go up here in a lot of trouble

and if you want to do anything for them, you better come home. Because he's talking himself into more. Because they'd ask me about something I'd say yeah, sure, sure. I bet I did that too. And because I was just just done and. And my family did. I may not say that if we had family here and now I would to

but but I honestly believe that families of Alcoholics are punished more than Alcoholics are punished

because they have to deal with it sober. They don't have the narcotic of, of blacking it out and erasing the members and reality.

Our family, the one has to explain unexplainable behavior and pretend it's not there. And so my family was no different. Yeah, they they got that word and they worked in in a mill in North Carolina, cotton mill made next to nothing. There's a very low plate pay, low pay a job,

but they did what families have done all through the years,

came up to Get Me Out of jail one more time. Wasn't their first one, but thank God it was their last one up until today. And I didn't, I didn't want outage yet, but I didn't know how to say that. I mean, how do you explain to somebody you don't want out of jail? I, I just couldn't do it. And so they came up and got an attorney. They couldn't afford to give a defense for a guy that couldn't even defend himself, you know? And

so they did that. They raised me to get out on Bob. And when I got out, I knew I would not drink. I knew that it had nothing to do with alcohol.

You know, when I was kicked out of the military for alcoholism at 20, that didn't mean a thing to me. I didn't bit more think I was alcoholic than a caveman, that that it was just a word. It didn't mean a thing to me.

And so my resolve had nothing to do with alcoholism. It had to do with just the utter guilt and shame

that that that ate me alive 24 hours a day. I didn't think it would be possible for me to pick up another drink. I mean, how could you pick up a drink after having done something like that? The better question is, how would you not pick up a drink? But I didn't know that. I didn't understand anything about alcoholism. I know that I got out, didn't know what to do myself. Walk streets all day, all night till about noon the next day.

But out on the 17th of July 56 and on the 18th of July that next day I started to drinking from from the 18th of July to the 19th of November

I drank literally like nobody I've ever seen. That's not some macho Wild West story, that's a fact. I have worked with thousands of Alcoholics, not a few. I worked with thousands of Alcoholics and I'm talking about hands on back in the old days when we did 12 step work every day held. And I talked to my aunt while he died. And even as he died, he was protesting and he wasn't like us.

And then what? That. Yeah,

and so I understand alcoholism, but but the

that I had no absolutely no notion of any of that. I just knew that that I just automatically just just started to drink. And during that period, I don't think there's any questions. I was trying to drink myself to death. I I think it was just a a polite form of suicide that I never did analyze it. But I suspect that the reason I didn't just overtly commit suicide and didn't want to leave a family with another burden of could we have done something to prevent it? I think it's the only reason. I guess I thought if I just woke up hit by a train

drug OD or whatever, at least it'd be a question. I guess that would be the twisted logic. Then on the 19th November

I had what I hope and pray will be my last dream has been so far. And that's not my it's not my sobriety date. It's the date of my last drink. And I don't know about you, but I know that I believe there is an enormous difference between my last drink and where my recovery started. It weren't even related other than the fact that I've been drinking. I never would have got started,

but otherwise, you know that that was my surprise. It's just I was locked up

and if I'd have been left to my own devices, I've no doubt I would have. I would have gone right back to it just as a natural reflex, but that's what it was.

But that day I finished off a bottle of gin, had probably that much in a bottle of gin and I finished it off, went to court and and so far that's been my last straight. I knew it was going to be the last one for a long time

because it's going to be tried that day. I was charged with manslaughter and had no defense. They had had absolutely no defense. And and so I listened to the trial as if I were on the jury. I'm listening to stuff that I've never heard before.

I heard the police officer testified of what he saw and I never heard that before. He said he was investigating the crime scene and saw this guy kind of staggering down the street that he identified as me. And,

and so I listened to the to the evidence. So listen to the witnesses and, and, and I would have voted exactly the same way the jury did is guilty and, and I would have had no question about it. Yet the and so I was convicted and sentenced that day to a maximum of 15 years, 5 to 15 years sentence in the in the state prison of southern Michigan, which was in a place called Jackson.

And that's where I was when I went in to to that institution. I remember the day I walked there, walked out. Well, walked is a little bit of a little bit of

a little more upbeat description. I was, I was led into that prison on a, on a, on a chain with five other guys.

And when I walk through that wall into that institution, I've never been in a prisoner. I've been in jails in stock age and peak farms and all that kind of stuff, but I've never been in a penitentiary. I never even seen one to know what I was looking at. I knew they existed, got a lot of my buddies went. And so when I walked in, I had two thoughts in my mind with one just clear thought. You won't hurt anybody else.

Second was that I would never come out of their life.

Both of those were very real, very real. And, and, and I didn't believe, you know, normally they didn't keep a guy of, you know, a crime like mine certainly is serious crime. It's so serious that there is no adequate punishment. How do you adequately punish somebody for two human lives? You can't, you have to imbalance no matter what you do. And so there isn't any way to punish it appropriately.

And but normally that kind of an offense that they don't put in maximum custody that normally is not needed because it's not predatory behavior

And and and and my age, you know, 24 year old guy normally didn't go into that penitentiary, but they made an exception to Mikey. I think they looked at my and mine was not AI mean. I had a lot of arrest, but they're all lightweight things and Lucius things and wasn't a single everything in my I had a three inch thick record guy showed it to me and

the wasn't a single thing. Everything in there was drunk and

whatever do you name it. Yeah, he's in there. And and so he got through that thing, showed me that record. And he said, man, you've had a lot of trouble with booze. And I said, yeah, I mean, that was pretty apparent yet. And he said, I never heard this before. He said, we have an, a, a group here at the institution. I think you ought to go now. We were far removed from the way we tend to do it now. You know, we're sort of sort of lassoing people and drag

A and mandating and all that kind of stuff. We hadn't gotten that sophisticated back then. We were still just saying, man, you need to go and that. And that's what this guy said. And I didn't even know what he's talking about. I never heard of a a had no clue what he was talking about. He didn't explain it and I didn't ask any questions to finish what he had to say. And I, I walked out.

Then a few days later I got a little slip of paper said you can go to your first meeting 2nd of February 57.

I didn't have to go. That was just a follow up to the suggestion you, you can go. I didn't understand till I got in the group, but they had 300 members in the group and you had to have a chair before you could get in. You couldn't didn't have standing room with 6300 people. That's what was locked up there. Everything's crowded, including a ate as I understood that after I got in it. And and so the day I went in,

I had nowhere to the idea of what to expect. I thought it was going to be some kind of a religious hoot nanny of some sort.

Only thing I never associated with with people working with Alcoholics was those every once in a while in jail there'd be some clean old folks that come in there. They'd get into some testimonies and stuff like that and sing and drive so forth. I get converted every time they came in to whatever they were selling. Didn't matter what it was. And it'll probably last about 30 minutes. And then it then it was gone. And I figured it'd be something like that. But I sat down in the first meeting only guys spoke to him as an officer on the door

name Ivory St. yesterday. So I set out and listed my first meeting. First thing they did was pray.

Same when we do it so many of our meetings. You know, that serenity prayer.

And while they were praying, I'm thinking to myself, Yep, just what I thought, man. They'll be in here in just no time. Shake, rattle and roll and leap and jumping snakes and God knows what all you've got. And I, I sort of breaks from that. Didn't they open the meeting and they started reading? We didn't read much here tonight. We didn't read hardly anything.

This is made-up stuff. Yeah, he he didn't read a thing and he cited something. So, but we they they read a ton of stuff and and

and look churchy to me. Then to introduce the speaker that did not look churchy and this guy got up to tell his story. And now I heard a lot of drunks tell stories, but not their own. Yeah, that normally is a good one that just made-up. But I this guy had to be telling the truth. Nobody going to make that up. My God, I could have done better than that. D TS that guy told that story

and I'm sitting there in amazement. Why is he doing this? Why on earth is a decent? He didn't. He didn't look bad if you didn't get close.

If you got close, he was not a handsome beast.

He's been a professional boxer and I'm not a good one. I don't think

that boy was chopped up some fierce that So anyway, he told that story and I sat there and said I'd never heard that kind of stuff.

I didn't identify with one sound he made. I mean nothing, nothing. Next week, I was back.

Couldn't have told anybody was back. Nobody cared. They wouldn't have missed me. If I hadn't been there. Nobody would have cared. Including me. Yeah. I'm just another face in a crowd of 300 people. Yeah.

What brought me back to my second meeting was that it wasn't the story of that guy. It was the magical enthusiasm that lit up his life. He was one of the most enthusiastic people I have ever known. And the day I met him, he was the delegate to the General Service Conference in New York for the state of Michigan. I thought he was. In that case, how did he do it? Why? Why would a guy put an area, bury himself to 300? Hey, Lake economics. It makes no sense.

And so, but that enthusiasm, you know, that spirit, you know, people just like I do, when they walk in a room, the room changes. They don't have to do anything. They just walk in and it changes. And he was that kind of guy. When he walked in, it lit up. And so that's who spoke at my first meeting and brought me back to my second. He became my first real sponsor when I was about a year in the program. And I've learned what a sponsor was.

I've had one other guy in the group that I, that I, it was a good guy, you know, and I, and I trusted him here and I trusted him. He was a wise fellow,

considerably older than me. He wasn't a counselor, but he was one of the wisest counselors ever saw in my life. It was a really good guy. He basically was stuck up service stations and convening Mart because his profession. But he was an excellent counselor. And so he, he and I worked together a little bit. And back then we didn't take people through the steps like we so often do now, but didn't do that.

It was just kind of fumble the way through. And that's exactly what I did. I fumble my way through the steps

and did the actions that were laid out. I'll tell you a thing that had compelling value to me in in in that setting.

Yeah, We didn't have 300 superstars in there. Just like any group, any group there, there's there's always a solid core of people who take care of business. Then you got people in all phases of development. You know it almost every meet you got people just in the starting blocks and others like me to sold and may not make it through the meat but you got some of those in there.

And what the guys did in that, in that, in that group made that had a value to me,

they would basically do just an introductory thing to tell you what a a was, you know, nothing like a beginner's meeting, trying to get into steps or anything like this. Basically information, what's an alcoholic, what's anonymous, what's the sponsor, what's the homework, Just simple stuff like that. And a guy one day did another guy locked up just like me, was talking about the steps. You know, we all put them on the wall and we had them on the wall. He pointed out he said there are 200 words in those steps

and it will take the action that are laid out in those steps as honestly and thoroughly as you know how to do it.

When you get through, you'll be a different guy

and it doesn't even matter what your motives are.

Well, I caught my attention. I said, come on, man, you got, you got to be kidding. You got to be straight up. You're not going to get something back if you don't push them in. I mean, I, I wrote that off, but you know, the guy told the truth. It's absolutely true because that's what I did. I fumble my way through the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, little guidance or leadership, except for that one old guy that I would just chat with. Somebody went along, but I did the actions as well as I could, as well as I could.

And when I got through,

I'll tell you today more certainly than I would have Then when I got through, I was a different guy. I mean, I'm still the same guy. I'm still 6 feet tall and ugly

that, but I was. But I was a different guy. I had a whole different outlook on life. I was a man transformed, transformed simply by the actions of those steps. I was a guy that for the first time in my life, I learned to have concern for other people.

Yeah, I never did. I mean, I may feel sorry for somebody, but in terms of having a concern, taking time and investing time trying to give support and encouragement, yeah, that was not my in my in my bag of tricks. But I was a guy. I learned how to live with dignity. I didn't even know the word, but I learned how to live with dignity,

to carry myself like a gentleman,

to treat people with consideration.

I learned what integrity makes, and I practiced integrity. If you tell you if I told you something you could count on, it would be done. Those were all brand new qualities for me. I've never known anything about it, and I'm practicing these things in an environment that defies imagination.