Conversation with Jerome

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0:00

Moderator Welcome to the Tuesday Night Recovery Speakers History Workshop. Thanks for joining us. My name's Mike. And tonight's presentation is Penny, oh, I'm sorry, tonight's presentation is Conversation with a Long-Timer. We will be led by Penny with Jerome S.

0:20

Moderator as our guest. We meet here every Tuesday at the same time using the same Zoom ID. Next week, I'm told, will be Mike F. presenting on a topic that has yet to be decided. This meeting is recorded and all past audio presentations are available at recoveryspeakers.com.

0:44

Jerome We are not affiliated with any 12-step organization, though our focus is the history of AA and other 12-step fellowships. Recoveryspeakers.com is a 501c3 nonprofit dedicated to preserving and sharing the audio history of AA and the 12-step movement today and for future generations. We also send a daily email featuring a speaker talk from our archive, recordings from these meetings and information on upcoming presentations. To subscribe, use the link in the chat or email at info at recoveryspeakers.com. If you're able to support our work, contributions are appreciated.

1:28

Jerome Donation links are in the chat or you can use the QR code on the screen. We'll have a Q&A following tonight's presentation. The chat will now be closed, but you can still message me directly. I'll reopen it after the presentation. So Penny, if you'd like to go ahead and start up.

1:56

Jerome Thank you. Hi, y'all. I'm Penny P. I'm an alcoholic. My sobriety date is October 9th, 1977 and a couple years ago I was talking with my dear friend Joan S.

2:12

Moderator and I really wanted to ask her some questions and other than just the story she was telling and so I asked if she'd be willing to do a speaker meeting like that with me and she said, well, I don't want you just asking me questions. She said, I'll have a conversation, but I'm not going to just have you ask me questions. So we started conversation with a long timer. Mike was nice enough to give us this Zoom room on the last Tuesday of each month. And so for the past couple of years, we've been doing conversation with a long timer on the last Tuesday and all of the long timers that I've talked to have had 50 or more years of sobriety and I'm really grateful that Jerome was willing to be with us this evening.

3:21

Moderator Jerome and I met last year sometime last October, a year ago, October, I think, in Spruce Grove, Alberta, Canada. And we were the guests of the conference committee there and I got to meet his beautiful bride and boy, they treated us so well up there. They were just so kind and the food was really good. That's what I remember is that the food was really good. So I reached out to Jerome.

3:57

Jerome I really enjoyed visiting with him in Glenis that weekend and I reached out and asked him if he would be willing to come and do this this evening. So Jerome, I'm going to ask you to introduce yourself. Give us your name, your sobriety date, your home group and we'll go from there. Okay. My name is Jerome Scott and I'm an alcoholic of the hopeless variety.

4:31

Jerome My sobriety date is June 6th, 1973. My own group is the Bellflower Big Book Group. We meet on Monday night at 730 in the city of Bellflower and I have a sponsor in there. His name is Jim H. Well thanks.

4:50

Moderator Welcome. I'm so glad you're willing to do this. It is a little different format. I really appreciate you being willing to come and do this. So we don't talk about since we've got 50 years, 53 years of sobriety, 55 and a half years or 52 and a half years.

5:14

Jerome So we wanted to hear about recovery. So what was June 6th, 1973? What was going on the beginning of June of 1973 that you found your way into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous? Had you known about AA before this? Had you been to meetings?

5:34

Jerome How did you get to your first meeting that day? Well, my first meeting was in Camarillo State Hospital in 1972. And the only reason I was at that meeting was a girl on a ward. Her name was Winnivere, AKA known as Bonnie from Brooklyn, New York. She looked good and she liked me.

6:00

Jerome And she would say she knew about AA, I didn't know anything about AA. And we were on the Alcoholism Treatment Ward. She said, so I'm going to go to a meeting at 830 and they're going to have donuts, cookies and coffee. And she invited me and I got real testy with her. But out of lust and loneliness, I went to that AA meeting.

6:32

Jerome And that was in 1970. You went from the hospital to the meeting? No, they had institutional meetings at the hospital. They had an AA meeting there every night at Camarillo State Hospital, seven days a week. Someone in Ventura County would bring a meeting into the hospital.

6:54

Jerome Seven days a week into the hospital, that's fabulous HNI service. Yes, it was. I rarely had a dark night when I was there. That's fabulous. So how long did you go to meetings while you were there?

7:13

Jerome Did you hear anything? Did anything appeal to you? No, I would get lost in the preamble, but Bonnie got out of the hospital, I'd say about six weeks before I did. And one Wednesday night, I just went to the meeting. It was an all men's meeting.

7:37

Moderator It was a men's tag meeting there in the hospital. And I was the only one from the hospital who went to the meeting looked like that night. And so every man and about 10 men in the room, they all shared, and they had a few minutes and they asked me if I had anything to say. And that was the first time I ever heard myself say, my name is Jerome, and I'm an alcohol. Wow.

8:14

Jerome So- But I had a dilemma. I didn't know how to deal with this God thing. I thought me and God didn't have anything to do with me. But I left out of that meeting. And it was a Jesuit priest because the priest would come into the hospital and minister to the patients because there was a, they had a facility up there in Camarillo.

8:47

Jerome And he was in the garden and he was in there praying. And I abruptly interrupted him with a tirade of anger and rage and venom about why God hadn't did this and why God hadn't did this for me and blah, blah, blah. And he listened to me rat and rave. And after I finished, he gave me a track and he said, God is whatever you want him to be. And that track has been one of the hallmarks of my recovery.

9:27

Jerome Okay. So you get out of Camarillo- I get out of Camarillo is the story to that. Bonnie and I had decided that we would consummate our relationship after we got out of the hospital. Of course you did. We didn't want to be like some of the patients on the grounds like that.

9:53

Jerome We wanted a sheets, pillowcases, and a home. And Bonnie had got out of the hospital, got into Mary Lynn Foundation, got a job as a waitress and had got a sponsor and our sponsor let her use the car to come and pick me up to take me to a meeting. And I'll never forget there was a Sunday night. My dad had decided to take me in off the street because I had been on the street selling whole blood every 58 days and plasma twice a week for three years. And I had started by drinking and he was getting ready to put me out.

10:44

Jerome And I said, this girl is going to come and take me to AA. And our job was what we had planned after the meeting, we would go to the motel. I said, no, let's go to the motel before the meeting. And I badgered her all the way into the meeting. And I got in front of the meeting and I made the best mistake of my life.

11:18

Moderator I said, Bonnie, we don't need this AA stuff. I'll sponsor you and you sponsor me and we'll keep each other's. And it was this little guy standing up there at the meeting. The commitment was to welcome people into the meeting. And the oldest one and the shortest one left his commitment because he heard this conversation and he stepped right in between us.

11:50

Moderator He got in my face and he said, I'll be your sponsor. And he said, Jack K is my name and sobriety is my game. Call anytime. And he gave me his card. Well, that's a very brave man because you are not a small guy for someone to step in front of you.

12:17

Jerome But he had three friends with him. So I'm not going to ask what happened after the meeting with Bonnie, but did you? No, I can tell you nothing happened. She took me back to the... She didn't want to have nothing to do with nobody drunk.

12:40

Moderator So when was that, that Bonnie took you to that meeting? Was that still 1972? That was 1972. So then you didn't get sober until June of 73. So what happened in that time in between there?

12:56

Jerome I would go to meetings and I would drink, I would go to meetings and I would drink. And I would go to that Wilshire Normandy meeting and my sponsor, he would always be there and he'll see me. How are you doing, Jerome? How are you doing? And I had that newcomer line, I'm fine.

13:24

Jerome And what was different in June of 1973 that you came and you didn't drink? What happened? What happened was I ended up back in Camarillo in the hospital. I had ran away from AA, didn't want to have anything to do with AA, because I figured that was the only place I could function and live within institutions. And there was another young man on the ward, his name was Raymond, and he had that card.

14:01

Moderator Jack K is my name and sobriety is my game, call any time. And Raymond called Jack, I didn't know him. Raymond called Jack Collette that Sunday morning before Memorial Day weekend. And Jack left his home in West Hollywood and drove up to Ventura County to pick him up. And Jack spotted me, my sponsor spotted me, and he came up behind me.

14:31

Jerome I didn't see him. He saw me. And he said, Jerome, what are you doing here? Because I had knew him, kind of knew him in the 80s, I said, damn, he done followed you to the nut house. And I told him the truth.

14:53

Jerome I said, Jack, I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't know why I drank like I drank, act like I do and come to places like this. And he didn't talk down to me with some AA philosophy guru. I knew that man cared for me. And he just simply said, Jerome, if you follow what I follow and you do what I do, you won't ever have to take another drink as long as you live.

15:33

Jerome And you won't ever have to come to a place like this unless you choose to. And I cursed him. I don't want your help. I don't want your pity. He wasn't offering me no pity.

15:52

Jerome I knew he cared. I could look at him in his eye and know he was not judging me, ridiculing me, and thought he was better than me. But see, you know, I ain't nothing. I ain't never been nothing. I wasn't going to be nothing.

16:15

Moderator So in my little mind, why waste his time? That baseless pride. Because I know I'm an all-time loser and I'm always being an all-time loser. But did you get in the car? Nope.

16:32

Jerome He just looked at me and said, you know, Jerome, I understand and I care. And Raymond left. But the irony of that is I'm sober today, but Raymond died. See, he came up there for Raymond. But he carried the message to you.

16:53

Jerome Yeah. Yeah. Because they found Raymond in a sleazy motel in South Central L.A. with undissolved second of all tablets and a fifth of Jack Daniels. And all the ID he had was his card.

17:10

Jerome But see, you know, my father was going to take me back in again. He sent me $67 to catch the bus. I got the $67. I got drunk. I arrived at his house in a blackout and I beat him down in his own house.

17:31

Jerome The police came. They choked me out. I got out of jail on a OR. And I got drunk and came back over there and threatened my aunt. She pulled out a gun on me.

17:48

Moderator And the police arrested me again. Now I know I'm getting ready to go to jail for 366 days. Because my probation officer came up there to that hospital with his 90-year-old mother to bring me a message. He said if I ever got arrested for spitting on the sidewalk or jaywalking, the next time he violate me, I was going to do 366 days in the Los Angeles County Jail. And I wouldn't get one day a good time.

18:26

Jerome I would do every one of them. So I know I'm going to jail. On that jailhouse floor on the 5th of June in a drunken stupor, I had a spiritual awakening. A spiritual awakening to me is nothing more than I need to make a radical change of course in my actions and my behavior and my conduct. In the decision I made that day, I said if I could get off this floor, if I could make it back to AA, I'm going to find that little man Jack, and I'm going to do whatever he asked me to do.

19:15

Jerome If he asked me to jump, I'm going to ask him how high. So Jack Kissel became my sponsor for 36 years, 5 months. I love Jack Kissel. In 8 days, he walked me through the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. But before I got back to Jack, I broke into my parents' house and my mom confronted me.

19:42

Jerome She said, your dad said if you ever come on his property again, he's going to kill you. And I got smart with her, and she said, sonny, you might not be familiar with B.B. King's new record. She said, don't nobody love you but your mama, and she might be jiving too. And I went down to that Friday Night Beaty, that 9604 South Figure or the Beginner's Group.

20:17

Jerome And that AA group was my buffer and my sponsor for almost a year and a half until I ran back into Jack again. So did you not have a sponsor that you were working with until you ran into Jack again? Yeah, you know, no I didn't. For a year and a half, skating on thin ice. Because I didn't think AA was going to work for me, honestly.

20:51

Jerome So let me just pause for a minute here. For those of you that are in the room, you know, Recovery Speakers has a massive inventory of tapes. If you have not ever heard Jack Kissel speak, please, please, please check to see if Mike has a copy of a Jack K. tape in the library and listen to this man. He carried, he just carried a fabulous, I just adored that man, he carried such a great message of recovery.

21:29

Jerome You know, I heard you talk about Jack when you were speaking up in Canada when we were at that conference, and I never put it together with Jack, I, ugh, I'm sorry. I just I so you run into Jack a year later and you ask him to be your sponsor. Yeah. Well, I run into his wife and she said Jean said, oh, chat would love that Jerome. And he asked me to do three things.

22:07

Jerome Okay. What did he ask you to do? Do what I say I'm gonna do be where I say I'm gonna be. What is it? Do what I say I'm gonna be where I say I'm gonna be.

22:27

Jerome Be where I say I'm gonna be and be with who I say I'm gonna be with and if any of those three things change, you need to know about it 5 seconds before God knows about it. He says I'd rather start a problem with you than come in and try to clean up the mess in your problem. So if you have any problems, let's go on these problems together. So 1973 getting sober in 1973 II got sober just a few years after you 1977 and so we didn't we weren't studying the big book. We didn't we didn't have the white brothers.

23:19

Jerome We weren't studying the big book the way people go through the book today. How how did Jack get you into the steps or into the recovery or how did how did you go from there in to get to get into the program? Jack recognized that the book Alcoholics Anonymous is the basic textbook of Alcoholics Anonymous and he explained it because he had a history and literature from Notre Dame and he says a textbook the AA book is a different kind of textbook. See most textbooks after each chapter, he said have their review questions at the end of the chapter and he said Bill Wilson felt like the alcoholic would not wait to review the questions at the end of the chapter. So he sprinkled the questions through the chapter.

24:22

Jerome Yes. And the first thing he had me do when I first started was we needed to get a firm understanding of the first and the second step. Okay. And he had me to read the doctor's opinion. He said, I can read Bill's story, but we get back to that.

24:48

Jerome He said, I want you to read the doctor's opinion. There's a solution more about alcoholism. We agnostics in chapter five. And he said, I want you to stop at the paragraph where it says in chapter five, we're now at step three. He says, I don't want you to go any further than that.

25:15

Jerome Okay. And I want you to go back and review those questions and ask each question. Do you relate to it? Have you experienced it? Is there any insight into your life that you could draw from these questions?

25:34

Jerome Some of the questions didn't register. Like the Wright brothers and their flight, you know, that didn't click. But like the first questions in the doctor's opinion, what is the solution? There's no right answer. You just have to ask yourself, what is the solution for you?

25:58

Jerome And that's how I was able to get a firm foundation that I am a real alcoholic and that I suffer from this malady. I don't have a disease. I suffer from a spiritual malady. But again, I came to that roadblock of how to acquire and develop a personal relationship with a God of my own understanding. And then Jack gave me the suggestion and he says, well, why don't you do this, Jerome?

26:35

Jerome Why don't you read the last chapter in the big book? The last chapter in the big book is We the Agnostics. And he says, I want you to read it every day. And as I read the fourth chapter, We the Agnostics every day, and it jumped out at me. It jumped out at me.

27:02

Jerome What jumped out at you? I think it's on page 53. I'm not a page thumper, but it says, when we became alcoholics, crushed by a self-imposed crisis, we could neither postpone nor evade. We had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is or either God is not. What is your choice?

27:28

Jerome And it dawned on me that I had to make that choice every day. Because he asked me this question one day when I was trying to get a grip on the first and second step. He says, Jerome, what is the first step in recovery? I leaned back. I said, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol.

27:55

Jerome And he says, no, Jerome, that's not the first step in recovery. And he explained it to me in depth. He said, the first step in recovery is in chapter three. We learned, which is a process, he says, to concede. We learned to surrender.

28:17

Jerome It is a learning process. To whom? Our innermost self. And he explained the plural to that. He said he didn't say just self, it's self, which he said, whenever you use the plural that way, it's got to be two or more.

28:39

Jerome And he said I had to learn to surrender to me, myself, and I. Because I is always trying to ambush what I want, what I need, and what I need to do. And when I decide to take a drink, it has to take me and myself with it. So I got a little insight that I am bodily and mentally different. Because see, I couldn't understand after some of my escapades that I would go back and drink.

29:17

Jerome It was baffling to me. You know, you get those moments of clarity, and you say, you have some rational thinking. You're not that deranged that you cannot differentiate that. Why do you do this? And Jack told me the answer was in the book.

29:39

Jerome Read the book. He said your answer's in the book. It'll tell you why you drank. And there it was. And there is a solution.

29:52

Jerome It jumped out at me. We don't know why you're going to take a drink. We can't answer the riddle. But we know this. Once I put anything into my body, because these allergic types cannot use alcohol in any form, okay?

30:13

Moderator And there are other forms of alcohol. Once I put it into my body, something happens in the mental and the bodily senses that make it virtually impossible for me to stop. I'm going to follow my pattern. Every time. Only thing, the pattern gets worse.

30:35

Jerome It never gets better. Because I only drank the four states. If I pass out, black out, fall out of my mouth and encourage someone to knock me out. And I always end in handcuffs. Because I'm not a criminal.

30:55

Jerome I'm just a public nuisance. My sponsor pointed out the paragraph after, or the sentence after the sentence that we had to concede to our innermost selves that we are alcoholic. This is the first step in recovery. And my sponsor pointed out, the next sentence is the delusion that we are like other people are presently has to be smashed. And that's when I learned that Bill doesn't use the word denial.

31:31

Jerome In the first 164 pages, he uses delusional and defiant. And there I was. It is delusional to do that. Yeah. Yeah.

31:41

Jerome See, I will go 23 hours, 59 minutes and 55 seconds and I put up a gallon straight not to drink. And that last five seconds when I'm on the verge of walking through something, facing something in life, I'll say two tears in a bucket and I don't care. And when I say I don't care, I'm inside. It's not permanent insanity. Right.

32:12

Moderator I take it. I take, sometimes I hear people say, don't give up five minutes before the miracle. I'm an alcoholic. I don't have five minutes. I don't.

32:27

Jerome I really don't. I got now. I got five seconds. I got five seconds. I know.

32:35

Jerome I know. I know. I've done this again and again and again and again. Five seconds. I'll make that choice.

32:46

Moderator And I pick it up. And I know on some level, it's not going to be a good decision. That's why it's really, you know, that thing they say in chapter two, for reasons obscure, that the alcoholic has lost the power of choice in whether he will drink. That has happened to me way before I even knew it. But don't you love the language that that Bill uses in the book when we've got some time and we're looking for reasons obscure.

33:28

Moderator Yeah. It don't make sense. Right. Sometimes it would happen and I wouldn't even think. Right.

33:37

Moderator Right. And then soon as it rises to my brain, I say, dang, Jerome, why did you do it? And right behind that thought, right behind it, I tell myself that I handled it this time. I think this is going to be different. Or you might as well go on and do it.

34:02

Moderator You have to have a good time. I never had a good time. This has been a fabulous conversation. But you've had such an amazing 50 years in sobriety. What was your first service commitment?

34:19

Jerome I got to be the secretary. Well, I asked for a commitment. They gave me a mop at 9604. I mopped the floor. Yeah, I mopped the floor at the Friday Night Beginner's Group.

34:35

Jerome See, you can have a burning desire to share, you know. You couldn't have a burning desire. If you want to share, you can get there early and share with us. Or you can stay late and share with us. Okay?

34:55

Jerome But during the meeting, you had to have 90 days of continuous sobriety to share. And the secretary put your sobriety date in the book. I'll never forget when I worked at my sobriety date. And you ought to see my hand shaking. So I knew it wasn't going to last.

35:20

Moderator But I put it in there. And what other service commitments have you had the privilege of having in the time you've been sober? I've been secretary many, many times of groups. Many, many times of groups. And AA as a whole, have you served in general service or intergroup or any of those commitments?

35:47

Jerome No, I haven't served as a GSR in any service groups. Okay. And so 50 years sober, what do you do in AA now? You know, I had somebody, I celebrated an AA birthday last October. And I had somebody say to me, God, why do you keep coming to AA the way you do?

36:13

Jerome Why are you so involved? Why are you so involved, Jerome? Why do you keep coming to AA? I'm like, Dr. Bob.

36:23

Jerome And Dr. Bob gave me, I don't know if I could use it for freedom, but it is an obligation. No, it's a commitment to give back what was so freely given to me. That's real important to me. And it also helps me ensure that I stayed sober because, see, I suffer from a spiritual illness.

36:52

Jerome And the best conquer for a spiritual illness that I found for me is love and service. And it's true that I need to be of maximum service to my God and the people about me. I think all of those things are critical. And plus, it makes me, I like to think more human, more authentic, that I've found a master design for living. So I'm gonna, we've talked a lot about in the beginning and the first step and so forth, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna first step and stuff.

37:40

Moderator I really, did you have Jack as a sponsor up until, up until he passed? Yes, I did. Jack was my sponsor to the day he died. Okay. So I've also gone through the loss of a sponsor and, and I, we've got people with time in the program that come to, that come to this particular meeting.

38:08

Jerome So I, if you're willing to talk about, how did you go about what, when Jack passed, Peg Martin was my sponsor. When Jack passed, how did you go about finding a new sponsor, moving forward in that? Did your sponsees play a part in that? Could you, are you willing to talk about that a little bit? Yeah, sure.

38:37

Jerome Yeah. It was like, it was, you know, I had both my parents have died. My mother passed, but it was totally different loss. It was a totally different loss. I'm not saying one was greater than the other, but losing my sponsor was a profound hole in my life.

39:01

Jerome Because the first thing I thought about was who, who am I going to call now? Yeah. So you have to have a relationship with someone to call. And that relationship has to be built on trust and respect. And you just don't snap that up.

39:23

Jerome So my wife helped me. My wife is a member of the Bellflower Big Book Group before I joined them. And I was just stumbling around there in the days for about a month. And they had asked me to talk at one of the, at the Step in Tradition meeting. And she said, Johnny, ask Johnny to be your sponsor.

39:52

Jerome So Johnny H. became my sponsor for 16 years after Jack. And Johnny just passed away this past year. Yeah. And once again, who are you going to call?

40:05

Moderator And this man, he stood out. It's hard to explain why he stood out, but he stood out as someone that could help me. And he happens to be what? He's been sober 40 years. So sometimes it's not the length of time that you need as a sponsor, as opposed to the length of living experience that you can lean on.

40:36

Moderator And I liked his temperament, his emotion, his dedication to the program. Because I had watched him too. I'm a people watcher in the program. I'm watching everybody all the time. I don't know.

40:53

Jerome I think everybody in the meetings could help me. Not just my sponsor. Thank you. Thank you for sharing about that. I went through some when Peg passed.

41:06

Jerome And we knew that her health was failing. And I started looking around and went through a similar process. So you said in the beginning that you were you were angry at God when you got here. What helped you to get, I'm assuming you got past that anger. And where are you today in a relationship with a higher power or a belief in that?

41:38

Jerome Oh, man, my God is awesome. I have awesome God. You know, it's like that Jesuit priest, he gave me that track, right? And this really scared me. It was a spiritual experience.

41:54

Jerome It scared me. He gave me this track and it says, oh, how constant is your precious love. Oh Lord, I seek protection under the comforts of your wings. And I was in that mental institution and I would say it over and over again that night and the words just came out. I call it my sobriety prayer.

42:22

Jerome I've been saying it since I've been sober. As a matter of fact, my wife loved it so much she said if I ever get a chance I'm gonna marry him. She liked that sobriety prayer. I'll share with you right quick and it's oh how constant is your precious love. I seek protection under the comforts of your wings.

42:53

Moderator For you have made this day. Let me rejoice and be glad in it. For today is the first day of my life. For the rest of my life. One day at a time.

43:09

Jerome And thank you dear God just for this day. And may you lead and may you guide me in this prosperous new life. And may I never forget. During the sunshine of my life. During the storms of my life.

43:28

Moderator And after the rains of my life. There's peace with you dear God. Always and forever. In all praise to the loving living God to whom all praise is due. And see in that time in the mental institution, I just wanted to just be in God go off into the sunset.

43:53

Jerome But God said, Jerome, you forgetting your fellow brother, your fellow sister. And that was the connection. You know, Jerome, this has been thank you so much for being willing to do this. We're not done yet. But um, but I do want to give people in the room the opportunity to come in and ask some questions.

44:21

Jerome And if they don't have questions to ask, you and I are gonna, you and I are going to continue chatting. But I do so much want to thank you for sharing. And so if if you all want to just thank Jerome, let me I think I can ask all to unmute and then I will. Thank you. Thank you so much, Jerome.

44:52

Jerome Thank you, Jerome. Thank you, brother. You're the man. Love and service. Don't drink.

44:59

Jerome Don't die. Okay, so Jerome, I did just mute you again. If you would unmute. Let me ask you to unmute. There you go.

45:11

Jerome And so does anybody have any questions for Jerome? Anything that came up that that you made a note of? Well, well, well, we were chatting and Sarah, we'll start with you. Hi, everyone, Sarah, alcoholic. Jerome, thank you so much for coming on here tonight and Penny for your service.

45:36

Jerome Jerome, my question for you is I throughout your story, you were talking about that the different kind of path you took to find your God. So what would you say is your 11 step process now you're you're continued getting to know God and getting improving your conscious contact with God now? Well, I pray every day. I meditate every day. And I try to take a 10 step every day.

46:10

Moderator And sometimes my 10 step leads me to the point of how I pray and what I pray for. Alika from Maui. I don't know if I pronounced that right. Would you like to unmute and come in and ask a question? Sure.

46:30

Jerome Hello. Hello. My name is Alika and I'm an alcoholic. Thank you so much for this platform. And Jerome, man, that's my father's name.

46:43

Jerome You know, I was I was at that World International Convention. And fortunately, I had a friend over there that for some reason, man, she got us on that floor. And when I heard you talking, I took out my phone. I took a little note and I got got down some of the key points that you mentioned about the in the convention. But today I heard you say something and I text my friend, but I kind of wanted you to repeat that for us.

47:24

Jerome It's something about do what I say I won't do. Be where I say I won't be. And there's something else. There's three points. Can you repeat that again for us, please?

47:41

Jerome Thank you. Do what I do what I say I won't do. Be where I say I won't be. Be with who I say I won't be with. And if any of those three things changes.

48:00

Jerome I need to let my sponsor know or my wife know five seconds before God knows. That means I don't keep no secrets. I believe secrets is like a cancer. It is spread through your sobriety. So I try to be as transparent as I can be.

48:23

Jerome And not out of virtue. I don't like to make men so. Reggie, would you like to come in and ask Jerome a question? I sure would. Reggie White, alcoholic.

48:37

Jerome And Jerome, thank you so much for opening yourself up to this. And I didn't think I didn't think I could hear anything new. I've been hearing Jerome for, shoot, about close to 40 years now. Jerome, you did say something that I didn't know. Talk to me about that year and a half that you spent leaving Camarillo, coming to 9604 and staying sober for that year and a half before you got with Jack.

49:14

Jerome What did that look like? What were you doing on a day to day basis? How did God's grace keep you sober for all that? I have to say, it was the men and women of 9604. They were sponsoring me by committee.

49:35

Jerome And one lady in particular, she helped me out a great deal. Her name was Marion C. She came and offered me a job. See, she believed that an alcoholic should be gainfully employed. I had no job skills.

49:53

Jerome She offered me a job more than the line once a week, more than the line twice a week, and setting the trash out in exchange for living in a converted garage. And that's where I rediscovered God in that converted garage. And she saved me from going to jail for a year. I didn't know she was a probation officer. She talked to my probation officer for me.

50:27

Jerome And I can't thank Donna A. enough, because Donna introduced me to my first spirit of miracle in AA. Donna said if I attended a meeting and didn't drink before meetings or during meetings or after meetings, a miracle would happen. And she described the miracle. She said I wouldn't want, need, or crave a drink.

50:55

Moderator I wouldn't even remember the last time I did. And it was 67 days sober. I asked myself that question. When was the last time you wanted to drink, needed to drink? And I could not remember.

51:12

Jerome As if that obsession and craving had just been lifted out of me. But they talked about this in 9604. You got to work to keep it. They gave me a strong foundation. Strong foundation in 9604.

51:29

Jerome I'll be forever grateful to men and women in that hall. It was too numerous to mention. Herb King gave me my first. See, it was important. Sobriety is important, but it was important that I do something with my sobriety.

51:48

Jerome See, I had never been able to stand on my own and be self-supporting through my own contributions. And they insisted on that in 9604. It was something that they expected you to do. This guy named Emmett, he pulled off the side of taking me a ride from a meeting. I said, Emmett, I can't get no job.

52:16

Jerome Nobody will give me a job. And he said, we're going to treat it spiritually. And Emmett began to pray. And the next day, I'm sitting in the AA clubhouse and a guy walks in off the street. He says, anybody in here want a job?

52:39

Jerome I said, damn, God, not so quick. See, that's been a real important part of me because I came here. I was on aid to the totally disabled. I used to tell Jack, he said, Jerome, why are you getting that money from Social Security? He said, Jerome, why are you getting that money from Social Security?

53:07

Jerome I said, Jack, I'm crazy. Then I revised it. I said, I'm not real crazy. I'm just playing crazy for the money. And Jack said, there's a distinct line between playing crazy and being crazy, Jerome.

53:25

Moderator Sometimes you think you're playing, you skipped across the line. And he insisted I work that job for a year. Then my psychiatrist gave me a job as a peer counselor, which led for me to become a licensed marriage family therapist for 23 years. Go back to school and get a master's degree. See, he insisted, my sponsor insisted that I just not settle for sobriety is enough.

53:59

Moderator Because he said, sobriety is enough. The man is not thinking. He insisted that I do something with my And I'm so thankful that he was my sponsor, that I was willing to listen to him. A lot of times, I didn't want to do what he told me to do, but I would do it. And I was willing to listen to him.

54:30

Moderator A lot of times, I didn't want to do what he told me to do, but I would do it. You know, I'm reminded of Clancy used to do, when he used to do a history talk, there was, he'd say, you know, and right here, we could have lost this thing. And we could have missed all this. We could have missed all this. So, I want to thank you for coming and doing this this evening.

55:08

Jerome But before we go, I want to ask, is there anything that you like sharing when you share at a meeting, a speaker meeting, or this kind of a meeting, which you've maybe never been to this kind of a meeting before, that you would like to share with the group? Anything that you would like to leave us with before we close the meeting? I can't think of nothing, Penny, as a closing statement, is that you have to understand that Alcoholics Anonymous is still in its first hundred years. And we consider anything or anybody that's part of a movement in the first hundred years is on the ground floor. We're all here.

56:04

Jerome And this is a movement. This movement that started on June 10th, 1935, has transformed thousands and millions of lives and is still doing that today. And I think that's God's handiwork. And not all of them alcoholics, either. No, of course not.

56:25

Jerome There are 5,000 different entities that use the 12 steps. UCLA did a study on who was using self-help based on the 12 steps. And they came up with 5,000. I don't know all of them by heart, but there's a lot of them. And there is.

56:47

Jerome Well, Jerome, thank you so much for being willing to do this. I so appreciate you being willing to come here and be accepting of this format and answer the questions. And why don't we close the meeting now? I think we're going to close the meeting now. One more thing I'd like y'all to do for me, if you can.

57:17

Jerome If you run into a lady named Guinevere Knight, aka Bonnie, tell her Jerome is looking for her and he wants to thank her. I know she's somewhere out there in the world, and I haven't seen her since. And I know God did for her what he did for me. So, if you happen to run across somebody like that. Jerome, I want to share with you that last October, right after my 48th AA birthday, I got to have breakfast with the woman that sat next to me at my very first AA meeting.

58:04

Jerome So, I hope you find your Guinevere Bonnie. I hope so. If you'd like to take us out with a closing prayer, I'll ask all to unmute. Okay. I'd like to take you out with the Lord's prayer.

58:24

Jerome Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass Ivan.

58:58

Jerome Thank you, Jerome.

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