The Fellowship of the spirit convention in Akron, OH

Morning, everybody. My name is Darryl. I'm an alcoholic,

guys don't mind. Let's why don't we start with some prayer real quick.

Father, I just I asked you allow us now just to set aside all the things that we think that we know about Alcoholics Anonymous 12 steps topics related to it that we can have an open mind here. We desire to have a new experience and that we have a good time today. We just thank you for the people that are here. Amen.

I just want to thank, thank Michael for the invitation. So it's great to be here. And Todd, thank you for being a wonderful host. Again. It's wonderful to be your place.

So why don't we imagine for a moment that we're in a Funeral Home and you know, we don't know the people that that well, but we're but we're there because, you know, we've been invited and it's the right thing to to show up. There's some, we have some interest and as we get there and

the guys getting ready to start sharing about, you know, this individual's life and share the message for the day, Somebody's phone goes off

and they start laughing about that and everybody looks at and they cut it off.

So they got that taken care of. They're getting ready to start again. And a couple of people get up and they they leave

kind of loud when they're leaving,

they come back in or kind of loud when they come back in. Guys trying to get on track. And then there's a couple meet people in the back that are kind of talking and you can hear it. You're not sure what they're saying. It's enough to distract you and you turn around and people are laughing about it.

And this whole time someone finally has enough and says somebody is somebody died here.

Now, that would probably be an uncomfortable situation for us to be in.

And yet there's times whenever we go to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous where they're very well be people dying

and we have all those things happen.

Matter of fact, we have all those things happening, People on the phone talking about what's happening, right

When I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I was dying and I went to 210 meetings in 90 days.

And the only time that I ever felt decent

was whenever I was with you. So I came for an hour. You guys seem to be in a good place. That encouraged me. I was a bit of a quick study. So I I buddy up to the person that had something profound to say and then I'd go try to repeat that somewhere because I was so concerned about what you thought of me. And I kept playing that game. And yet I was dying and Alcoholics Anonymous

and there were a number of people that never came up to me and said, well, you understand what the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is. And it took me a long time. And I finally got online and begin to listen to some big book studies. And I found a guy in my hometown of Indianapolis and it's sponsored. A bunch of the guys are putting on these workshops. And this is over like a span of 20 years. This is where we share some sponsorship lineage. And I went looking for that guy because I was desperate,

because I wasn't getting the things needed in the meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous to relieve me of the things that were happening mentally for me.

See, I believe that if alcohol is your problem, the worst it's ever going to get is detox.

So worse as it will ever be,

if alcoholism is your problem, then when we put alcohol down, things can get back

because that's whenever untreated alcoholism kicks in. The thing that used to be my solution and give me relief has been taken away.

So I thought I need to come to a whole bunch of meetings and get that and I didn't find that.

So I want to, I probably have some time to finish up a couple of those points. But let's just talk a little bit about, you know, because the the book of Alcoholics Anonymous has got specific instructions of how it will work, the program about clocks Anonymous. How many people in here believe that the meetings are the program of Alcoholics Anonymous?

You believe that the meetings are the program of Alcoholics Anonymous?

Anybody here believe that meetings aren't the program about clocks on this

right?

So we got a three-part disease happening. We got something physically that goes on with us and we begin to drink. If you're a true alcoholic, seriously, Alcoholics, the guys who write the book that wrote the book, once we start drinking, we can't stop.

We also have something going on mentally for us. You know that when we put down

alcohol and the insanity kicks in, the most bizarre thing that I ever did is I picked up a drink when I was stone cold sober,

knowing what the consequences have been when I started drinking before. So I got this mental thing going on. But then there's also a third part to this thing that really is what I think meetings can can be a part of, which is the spiritual issue that I have going on, which is a book called Spirituality.

Meetings are an opportunity to begin a spiritual journey

of which hopefully someone introduces us to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, the 12 steps. And I thought it was an opportunity for me to learn a whole bunch of stuff, one, how to not drink or how to control my drinking.

And what I've discovered, it's really an opportunity for me to discard old ideas, to get rid of the things that I think are the answer to the problems that I'm facing in life. So some of the little things that if we're doing these, we need to be sensitive to it.

And I think for me today, I have a different level of respect for Alcoholics and I'm saved my life. But if you have to go to the bathroom,

you have to go to bathroom. But you know, at my age, I don't pass the bathroom too often without using it. So step in there before, right? If you have a coffee,

coffee is wonderful.

Fill up your coffee before

and if you think you're going to want two cups, spring for a bigger cup. Bring your own cup,

right? Because what's happening if one or two people begin to do that, imagine if all of us have that mindset and we all just kind of got up and moved around at the same time.

Especially whenever you came in and you were full of pain and you were looking for some hope

and all you really get is a bunch of activity and activity emotion around you. So pay attention to the coffee piece, right? The other thing that I've discovered is that, you know, we're asked to come in here and to share our experience, our strength and our hope.

We're not asked to come in and extend to share all of our problems,

right? There's an opportunity to do that before the meeting and after the meeting

and also with our sponsor, there's an opportunity to do that. But what we've been asked to do here is to carry the message to the still suffering alcoholic. What's the message, the messages that I can recover from alcoholism, from this hopeless state of mind and body. How do I do that? I do precisely what the book is laid out because the guys that wrote the book did a specific set of actions and they had an experience that was sufficient enough

to remove the obsession for them to drink. So if I need to hear that

and all these other things are happening and I'm not sensitive to the fact that somebody in this room may be dying right now, or they maybe have never heard that or they're just ready to hear today. And I'm coming here just for the social aspect. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm contributing to that person not getting well without realizing it. The other thing about sharing our experience, strength and hope

is that we really shouldn't share past our experience. You know, I've been in meetings and somebody says we're going to talk about the Step 9 today, our mids

right this big room. There's probably some people with some long term sobriety that have some great stories to share about how to properly make an amends or how their life changed and the power God showed up during them is. And it gets to me and I say, you know, I haven't really made any amends, but

This is why I think it would be like right now. I know I need to talk to my mom. I know I need to talk to my mom.

And what happens is if, if we all do that, we're not sharing any solution. We're sharing our illness.

You're not sharing any experience with me. You're sharing your opinion. And I came into Alcoholics Anonymous with a bunch of opinions about experiences I hadn't had,

thinking that I'm going to contribute something inspiring to you, and that's going to be the change. The change doesn't come just because we're sitting in the rooms. What we're supposed to do in these rooms is to guide other people

so that they can connect with the power greater than them that can solve their problem,

right? This is that's what we're supposed to do here. But I was ready to talk about, you know,

she's treating me bad again. I'm having a problem with my boss. I can't believe that that guy doesn't put a dollar in the basket, man. She's looking good again, you know, and on and on and on. And if I'm only contributing to the problem of Alcoholics Anonymous,

you know, and Michael made a great point and had some of that has to do with sponsorship, I'm really not going to get the benefit of when people say, hey, give it away to keep it, they don't mean give away your garbage.

Well, actually, there's a spiritual truth there.

You keep giving away your nonsense, you get to keep your nonsense.

It's actually a form of bondage.

We keep telling everything that's wrong with me.

You know there's a place in the book, right? So the way that our books laid out real quick, you got 164 pages of the basic text. The 1st 104 of those pages, in the Doctor's opinion are dedicated steps.

Of those

half, 43 pages, in the Doctor's opinion, is dedicated to step one.

Now, if we weren't supposed to have a step one experience, why would the writers of this book with specific instructions have dedicated half of the real estate to the first step,

right? So there's something to that. I, this concept that I work my first step before I got here. You know, I had trouble before I got here, but I didn't, I didn't work my first step until I got here. I didn't work my first step until I understood that there was something about putting alcohol in my body that that caused this reaction that I wasn't going to have any control over. I thought it was my 15th or 16th or 17th drink. I discovered it was my first drink.

It caused me to break out into this craving and that my life's unmanaged will not because I wreck cars and went to jail

and had divorces and and which all those things happen. My life's unmanageable. On page 52 of our book it talks about the devilments. So if you guys can relate to any of this, just let me see your hands right? Prabh is a personal relationships. Anybody have any of those? Pray to misery and depression.

Unable to control my emotional nature which means I go zero to 60 like that. You guys might as well keep your hands up. I'm full of fear.

Tough guys in here aren't raising their hands right. I can't seem to be a real use to other people,

right? So those things are symptoms of untreated alcoholism.

And they're, you know, the world suffers from that as well. Other people suffer from that. But there's an opportunity to come here and to hear about a solution for those things. Now, if I come in here and I'm sharing past my experience and I haven't had any experience with that solution, and I'm in a meeting and filling it up with things about me to impress you or make myself feel better. And somebody needs a solution for those things because the only solution they've ever found is to pick up a drink to give them relief from all that

you're contributing to that person's illness without really meaning to do that.

And I never understood that until somebody said, quit sharing beyond your experience. We want you to share

from your heart, right? But if you haven't been exposed to the solution of Alcoholics Anonymous, find somebody that has gone through this work, had a spiritual experience as a result of it, the obsession of drinks been removed from them and asked them to do that for you.

Because when that happened for me, I started discarding all the old ideas that I had it that I thought was going to help you but never helped me. And it changed the way that I thought, right? So my problems were still there, but I was able to come to a meeting and offer encouragement to people and say, this is what was happening in my life. But here's the principle that I applied to that and the books full of tons of spiritual principles. Here's the step that I applied to that. And as a result of that, this is what's happening in my life,

right? Because I kept wanting to think my way to another,

another way of living.

And what this is a spiritual program, right? And the only way for us to connect with the spiritual power that's offered to Alcoholics and AAA is for us to take action, not talk about it.

So I got to meetings and and I met with this guy was telling you about Jack and I share the same sponsor and I said

he said, why don't you tell me? You know, he showed me the circle and the triangle. Everybody familiar with that symbol, anybody not,

it's OK. If you're not, you're not. So this is an old spiritual symbol. It's a triangle and has a circle around. You can find it on the back of the dollar bill. And Bill Wilson introduced that in 1955 at the Saint Louis convention and he talked about 3 legacies in Alcoholics Anonymous and matching up with the three parts of our disease, physical, mental and spiritual. He said one side's unity, one side's recovery and one side service. And the idea was that if we're working all three parts of this program,

then we're going to be able to find ourselves whole.

So I went and I sat down. He says, well, let's talk about your program real quick to understand what's happening.

What? Tell me about Unity. What do you think that is? I said, well, that's the meetings, that's the fellowship, He said, sure, that's great. How you doing there? 210 and 90 days? I'm golden, he said. But how are you doing?

And see, I admitted to him that I'd never thought about suicide until I started going to these 210 meetings. And I'm sober

because the things that we all just raised our hands to, all those things were happening in my life and I didn't, I had no way to deal with them any longer. And had you asked me during active alcoholism if I would have ever thought about suicide, I said absolutely not. It's the most selfish thing anyone could do. And it's for weaklings. That was my egotistical response to that. I've known my wife for 40 years. And I called and he said, I'm not trying to be dramatic, Tracy, but I feel like I feel like I want to die. As a matter of fact, I'm contemplating dying. I'm thinking about how that would happen. I know we would. You guys would be better off without me. I'm worth more money,

had been alive. So I started going said, So what you're telling me is you've gone to 210 meetings in 90 days and and that's working for you. And I said, well, no, I guess it's not, it's not working for me. He says, well, tell me about the other part of the triangle. What are you doing in recovery? I said I've been to 210 meetings in 90 days,

he said. Well, you're not in recovery.

Now that really made me mad. So what? You got to be kidding me. I've gone to 210 meetings, 90 days. So, Darryl, you may be hanging out with some people in recovery. I don't know where you're going.

Then he took me to page 59 of the book and says, here's the program recovery, the suggested program recovery. As a newcomer, we suggest that you take the program recovery. If you take our suggestion, the 12 steps are mandatory for you to have a spiritual experience,

so he said. Then he asked me a question that's really important to me, said Did you ever go to a bar

and watch somebody else drink and expect to get drunk?

I said come again. Did you ever watch somebody else drink at a bar or party and expect to get drunk?

So absolutely not. Because why would you then come to Alcoholics Anonymous, go to a day workshop or go to 210 meetings or go to the parking lot, listen to what everybody else says, Expect that that's going to splash off onto you in a way that's going to change the way you think and feel

and be a spiritual experience sufficient enough to remove the obsession for you to join. How do you think that's going to happen? By rubbing up against Jack.

Absolutely not. You need to take these steps so that you bump up against this power that's mentioned in the book that can solve your problem. And I said, why believe in the power? You know, I was raised in this type of home. I went to that type of church goes, no,

it's not the beliefs that I'm talking about.

So he's a newcomer coming into Alcoholics Anonymous. If you're a real alcoholic, you're like a drowning man or woman underwater.

You may believe that there's air at the surface. You may even have faith that there's air at the surface,

but it's not going to save your life.

It may give you a eternal position.

I desperately need to access the air in my life. I desperately need to get to God.

I couldn't get to God through just going to meetings.

I found that if I took the steps precisely laid out in the Big Book and tried to apply them to the best of my ability and surrender my will and my life to God

and start adding juice in my life through prayer, meditation, but I truly begin to wanting. I begin to think about you more than me. I begin to not have my default reaction be that uncontrollable response to my emotional nature.

You didn't irritate me when you cut me off in traffic. Before, I'd say, don't you know this is my lane? I switch lanes. I go, don't you know, this is my lane,

right? So it's important guys, when we're here from an etiquette standpoint, that we treat this as somebody that could be out of funeral

because I bury a lot of friends.

Imagine you guys have buried some friends, you know some people have died.

Addiction and alcoholism.

And if all I'm doing if look, babe, if I can't stay put for 45 minutes or an hour, I should, I should pray about that and say, you know, is this really what I would do with my time tonight? Because without meaning to, you're disrupting an opportunity for somebody else to have the experience that they so desperately need. And it may be life saving for somebody.

So if you go to a bat, you go well to it's a bad meeting, like plenty of those because made-up of people,

that's an opportunity to practice some prayer,

passion, some tolerance. Matter of fact, my sponsor, you got to go find some bad meaning. If you meet because you want to beat people up with everything that saved you, you know it's not your responsibility to everybody's mind, right? It's your responsibility to love them, to serve them.

So go to a bad meeting. Pray,

but don't go to a bad meeting and check Facebook all week.

Some of you guys might have come in here and you have courts on court cars assigns that happen in Ohio.

Don't disrupt the meeting and go grab that thing. Don't come in 10 minutes late and they go grab a 10 minutes before those it's over.

I won't sign it,

Absolutely not,

because I have too much respect for the place to save my life to allow you to come in 10 minutes late. Toss it down. Clump over to the coffee. Grab that. Flip your phone up.

You know, make eyes to, you know, the beautiful one and then come grab your meeting sheet before you're done.

You know, I would imagine that's probably not anybody here today because you're here today

and you don't have to go slice somebody up. But if you see people that are doing that in a group that you participate in, help them, talk to them about the proper way to conduct themselves and Alcoholics Anonymous, go look, if you got to be here for the judge, cool. But there's some people in here that really have a problem,

so just hold up for an hour. Just hold up

right

and if you want to talk about the 9th step amends, make them.

Thank you.

And the crazy thing is if you're if you're kind of dragging your feet, I realized that this is a walk in the park compared to what alcohol ask of me.

This is a day at the spa for me to go through this work. And it's not I'm going to go through because I have to now. It's giving me so much freedom and peace in my life that I pursue it

today for me. And this is, this is what I share in me. This is what I want to leave you with.

The only opportunity for me to ever have peace and freedom is to be able to somehow find a way to get to get in this present moment with you.

This is the only place that I can experience grace. It's the only place that I can experience or offer forgiveness. It's the only place that I can exchange a smile. It's the only place where I can receive any hope.

It's the only place that I can be changed.

So what that tells me is that must mean that the power of God

can only be accessed in this place, in this moment.

And as an alcoholic man, I spent so much time about worrying about what I did with my remorse and my guilt, my shade, so freaked out about whether it's not working out the way I want it to. Somebody's going to take something I want. I'm not going to get things that I want. And I had no ability to get with you here, and I had no peace in my life. You want to hear where somebody's at? Listen to him. Out of the mouth comes the abundance of the heart. On and on and on, right?

So this place taught me to share when I can be harmonious

that can contribute

the last. So this is the moment that we have to get to in these spiritual principles in the 12 steps taught me how to be present.

Our first tradition says our common welfare should come first.

Personal recovery depends

on a a unity.

That does not mean that you're going to agree with everything you hear an Alcoholics Anonymous, but our responsibility is to be harmonious.

To be harmonious

so that when people come here, there's somewhere that they can live again,

right? I can't be in harmony if I'm doing all the things that I was talking about.

So if you don't have anything to share right now, contribute to the harmony of Alcoholics Anonymous by being part of not separating yourself by your phone or whatever else is happening. Be a part of, is what I'm saying and doing, contributing to the harmony of Alcoholics Anonymous. If it is, then like the common welfare of the group is coming 1st. And guess what? My personal recovery

depends on,

so the people that came before me that kept the lights on, that remained harmonious, and that's how we're supposed to conduct ourselves. You know, those traditions tell us how to be with other people. That gave me an opportunity to find out I was a real alcoholic and for someone to guide me through this process so that I could come back to a meeting and understand how to conduct myself and share within my experience and finally be free.

I will know the word serenity, right? I would know, Sir, we know. I'll have peace.

That's all I've ever wanted,

and I can only have that when I'm connected to this power through you. So thrilled to be here.

Thanks so much. God bless you guys. My name is Darryl. I'm a recovered alcoholic.

Yeah.