Audio
Transcript
Source: Ernie G – The Seven Month Slip Fort Wayne, Indiana – Date Unknown.mp3 File: ernie-g-the-seven-month-slip-fort-wayne-indiana-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:24:47
============================================================
Comes from Ohio, which was the, more or less the birthplace of Alcoholics Anonymous, where Bill and Bob got together and started this movement that has been such a godsend to so many of us, and it is my understanding that he was one of the first one hundred to come to Alcoholics Anonymous to solve his problem and has been successful in Alcoholics Anonymous ever since. Without further ado, I'll give you Ernie.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good evening, friends. You wouldn't need this speaker to hear me speak, because I talk pretty loud. I get wound up once in a while. But it's really a pleasure to be a part, and a privilege to be a part of a fellowship such as AA, where one can come and share his experiences, both good and bad, and be understood by people who are also trying to solve their problems. I am powerless over alcohol, and my life has become unmanageable. I am one. How much I drank is not too important, but I am grateful tonight that I had a desire to do something about my drinking problem when it became a problem. I started to drink when I was twenty-six years old. I drank for twelve years. I made myself what I am and what I was. Alcohol is pretty sneaky, and it snuck up on me. At the end of that twelve years of drinking, I had a problem. I don't think that drinking was a problem the full twelve years, but little did I know that my thinking would change, my sense of values would change, to the place where I associated all my social activities with a bottle of booze. A person who didn't drink was a pious individual and didn't know what the score was. Having had a little different background than that, it was quite different from the time that I took my first drink. And probably that was good for me because I was very empowered of individuals that did drink up to that age of twenty-six. I didn't care to associate with people that drank, and I didn't. But when I took my first drink, I got a real glow. It did something to me. It lifted me up on cloud nine or seven or whatever you want to call it, and I became a very happy, relaxed individual. I never drank to get drunk. I drank just to get up on this plane of feeling good and to forget my troubles. But towards the last of my drinking, I became, it became a problem because I didn't know whether I was going to take one drink or twenty-five. And usually I took the twenty-five at the most inopportune times. And I think that is one of the things that woke me up.
However, I have to give credit to the good wife who, through her prayers and through her efforts and kindness and consideration, by sticking with me in the last six months to a year of my drinking, was real kind to me. And I became ashamed of myself, and I loved my family, and I wanted my family, and I had to make a decision. And I'm glad that the good Lord created within me a desire to do something about the problem.
Having made that decision, I went to Akron and went to the hospital. I found a good doctor over there, and I didn't know there was such a thing as an alcoholic. I thought people that drank too much were plain common drunks. I didn't like the word alcoholic. I called on the doctor, hoping on this trip that he would say it was going to cost me a couple
[00:04:59]
hundred dollars, or I'd find somebody that was a little bit wacky, or somebody that was
[00:05:05]
a religious fanatic. And I made the decision with my wife that if anybody came up with anything like that, well, I was going to quit. I was just going to walk out of the picture. But I found neither. I found that there was a man that drank heavy who found an answer. He wanted nothing for his services. He just wanted to share his experiences with me. And if I had a desire to find a way to quit drinking, he was willing to cooperate with me. And he put me in the hospital. And I'm going to make this short, because I don't talk too long, and I won't go into all the details. But I went into the hospital and was there a few hours, and some individuals come up and called on me, and I went in sober when I went into the hospital, by the way. I wasn't drunk. I wasn't, I was nervous, but not sick, didn't need any medication, didn't take any medication, didn't eat anything. I wouldn't even take a drink. Because I definitely went in there to find out how to stay away from a drink.
And these individuals, complete strangers, come up and shared their experiences with me, and told me how they drank, and I couldn't hardly believe that anybody could drink like that, and do the things that they did, and have the positions in life that they had, and have the problems that they had, and still be alive. That night, about midnight, the good doctor came in and wanted to know if anybody had been to see me, and I said yes, and I told him, and I didn't think that this thing was for me, that I hadn't drank like that.
And he looked at me and he says, well, of course, nobody drinks as bad as, as much as what somebody else does, and he says, naturally, you just don't think you drink that much. No, I said, I hadn't been in jail, and I hadn't been arrested, and I hadn't had any blackouts, I still had my family, I still had my business, which was broke, and I was broke spiritually, there's no question about it, and financially. And he said, well, Ernie, you only drank twelve years, I drank thirty-five, and he said it was the last ten years that ruined me, and he said, what assurance do you have that you're not going to get that bad? And ask yourself what you're doing here. And he handed me the big book, and he said, I don't want any more whiskey, and your answers are in the big book, you dig them out. I don't care if you do, if you don't. It's up to you. I walked out of the room and left me, stayed there. That was good for me, because then I think I took a good personal inventory of myself. What was I doing in the hospital? What was I doing here? In twelve short years, looking for a way out. What assurance did I have that I wasn't going to get worse? No assurance. And I started to read the book, and I read all night that night. I read the next day, and I come to the conclusion that I was an alcoholic in my life and becoming unmanageable. Here I was looking for a way out. And I made that decision that I'm going to go along and say that. I'm going to recognize and ask myself, what did alcohol do for me?
Well, it made me an envious individual. It made me an envious… I lost my tolerance. I was certainly confused. I certainly became a selfish individual. And my life was certainly out of balance. And certainly my sense of values had changed completely from what they were twelve years previous. Now, I could go along here and tell you a lot of things that happened while I was drinking, but that isn't necessary. That's what it did to me. And they come a time in my life that I have to do something about this. I have to change. I didn't want to be a bum. And so I was willing to accept the first step in our program. Accepting the fact that the science has said that it's an allergy of the body and it becomes an obsession of the mind, period. That's as far as they can go with it outside of a lot of theory.
And I never did try to theorize what it was all about. I know I had the problem. Now the important thing is for me to do something about it. So what am I going to do to stay
[00:10:03]
away from the first drink? And that's AA, as far as I'm concerned. AA has taught me how to stay away from the first drink. They asked me to believe in a far greater than myself. And believing in a far greater than myself was no problem for me. Because I always believed in God. I was taught that. And I have in my experience in AA to find someone yet that don't believe in a far greater than myself. Their selves. And I accepted the first step in this program. And I certainly, if I accepted the first step in this program, I accepted a far greater than myself because I was powerless over alcohol. That is for sure. And certainly, common sense would tell us that there is a far greater than alcohol.
So it wasn't any problem with me. But when it came to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understood Him, that was something else again. I believe that the word understanding is one of the best words put in that step. Because I believe that everybody has a degree of understanding. I had a degree of understanding. How much, I don't know. But all they asked me to do was turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understood Him. So it was a starting place. But I asked the doctor how to do that. And it was really nice how he put it to me. He said, we need a daily program. He said, you believe in God, so why don't you get up tomorrow morning and ask God to keep you sober and help him, ask Him to help you live a little better life. And mean it. And I said, well, that's pretty simple. He said, well, we got an upper room here, and that's a guide to go by, and you read that every morning and apply it to yourself. And he said, you'll get a good thought for the day and you'll get along all right. Well, we've had that in our home long before I heard of AA, that little booklet upper room. Then he said, the second thing I want you to do is to be willing to help another individual that's afflicted with the same illness that you're afflicted with when the opportunity presents itself. Well, living in a town of 1,200 people, I couldn't go back and say I got a hold of something. So I just went back and lived it the way I knew how to live it. And at the end of four months, somebody asked me what was happening to me. I had quit lots of times. I swore off the liquor after every drunk. Then he also told me to come to a meeting once a week, to share in the experiences with others. Come over to the meeting and talk to people who are trying to do the same thing you're trying to do, who you can ask questions and be understood and not be laughed at. You can talk about your problems and be understood. There'll be somebody there that can help you with it that's experienced the same thing. Well, where else could I go but to a place like this among my friends? And so I did those things. And he said to the extent that you do these things, to that extent you will be turning your will and your life over to the care of God as you understand it. Start giving and you'll receive something. And I did. I went back home and with the determination in my heart, I was going to follow those suggestions. To the best of my ability, so help me. And I did, and at the end of six months, I was sober. And I woke up one morning at the end of six months, and I thought I had some accomplishment. Because that's the longest period of sobriety I had in that twelve years from the time I took my first drink. And something happened to me. I was elated, and I thanked God that morning that I didn't need a drink anymore. Rather than that first six months of sobriety, I was a-wondering whether I could drink sometime, maybe, or sneak away and nobody would find it out. And I didn't know for sure if I wanted to quit drinking the rest of my life or not. But this particular morning I woke up and was grateful, and thanked God that I didn't need a drink anymore. And I became, this program became very easy from that moment on. Because I haven't got all the answers. I'm thriving for more and more all the time. That's why I'm
[00:15:02]
in AA and I'm Going to Find a Lot of More in AA Through the AA Fellowship and Activities and That's Why I'm Sticking, I Don't Want to Go Anywhere to Look for Them, Because I Can't Find People and Friends Like Sitting in This Room Tonight. I have made it a policy to take the things that I have and use them in the spirit of love towards my fellow man and I found out that if I give myself, we talk, we hear it so much that I can't get the spiritual part of the program, I don't understand the spiritual part of the program, if I could just understand that, I can get it, personally I don't know just exactly what we're trying to get when we talk about that.
Every day is a new day, a new spiritual experience in accordance with the way we live it. And we're not going to get anything unless we give away what we already know or what we already have. Not for any bouquets, but for the joy of serving and I have found that to be a truth and nobody could ever shake me from that belief. And I have a desire to learn more and I know that I read philosophy and I read this and I read that and I don't understand it all.
I'm reading in the big book right now, I started through it again for I don't know how many times because there is so many things in that book that I have missed, there's so many things between the lines, there's so many things that take on a little different meaning than they did when I first got into it. The proof of that is that it is a spiritual book, it is founded on the Sermon on the Mount and the book of James, put into a drinking man's language, something that we can use every day, it's nothing new, it's just put in understandable language for us guys that had a common problem.
And I think that's what makes AA work, is because you and I can share our experiences with each other and be understood without condemning one or the other for having made a few mistakes. And I think sometimes when we make the biggest mistake of our life is when we look back, I know the hardest thing for me to do was to come up over self-pity, to look back and see the mistakes that I made and say, oh, if I wanted to do this, I'd be so-and-so and so-and-so.
Knowing full well I couldn't turn back the pages, and the only thing that I could do was to live a good life today. And I know that tomorrow will be a good day if I live a decent life today. That is as true as the hills and is a good book. But rather than condemn ourselves for having made mistakes of the past, we should bring it on to greater achievements and start counting the many little blessings while I'm lucky to be alive.
I have fine health, I never was sick a day in my life except from hangovers, and yet I should grumble because I'm not making $20,000 a year or $10,000 a year, or I should grumble because I made some poor investments or something like that. Lost my shirt from drinking too much, lost a store. I lost some money, and I get to wondering sometimes why those things crop up. I don't want to remember those things anymore than I want to remember some of the things that I did when I was drinking.
I don't care to remember those. But I want to remember to be of service to mankind and to thank God each day for the privilege of being associated with a fellowship such as Alcoholics Anonymous. And I want to remember also that the key to continued sobriety is the eleventh step in our program in which we continue to seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for the knowledge of His will and the power to carry it out.
I like that. I think that is the greatest prayer, if it's prayed sincerely, that there is. Just continue to seek through prayer and meditation. Pray only for the knowledge of His will and the power to carry it out.
[00:20:02]
If we do that sincerely and honestly, we'll be here. We'll be around here a long time, because that is a truth. And as we go along sharing our experiences, using the twelve steps as a guide to live by, few experiences can equal the ecstasy that comes into being when the eleventh step is thoroughly understood. It opens the door to our realization of our oneness with God. You know, we can't change the spiritual laws.
They're here. We can only change ourselves to live in accordance with them. And to the method of which we pray and seek and serve mankind, to that method we will follow these spiritual laws, and the greatest spiritual law is serving mankind and making a better place to live. Only then will we find our relationship with our Maker. And I think that that's what my job here is on earth, is to find my relationship with God.
And I have had the fine association with AA that I know that I am a better man today than I was twenty-three years ago when I got into AA. It's often said that I want to remember my drinking, I want to remember my past experiences. I can't forget those any more than I can forget the ABCs. I can't forget the mistakes of the past, but certainly I don't want to remind myself of them every day. I would rather be a little bit more positive with my prayer and meditation in the morning.
I would rather do that for the joy of doing it. And I'd rather come over here and meet with you people for the joy of being here than to think that I had to do that stuff, because if I don't, I might get drunk. Because I know that if I do these things, I'm going to find a spiritual understanding, and I'm not concerned about the drinking, because this is what kept me here. I want to remember the things, I want to remember to have the faith in God, to know that that's where my help comes from.
I don't ever want to forget that. And I want to remember to serve mankind in the spirit of love and service, not for any bouquets, but for the inner joy that one receives in helping another person. And I want to remember what my real purpose on earth is for, and I want to remember also to count and be grateful to count my many blessings each day, particularly when I get to grumbling about my shortcomings.
I don't believe that there is anybody can get rid of worry, and by worrying how to get rid of worry or anger, but I believe that we can get rid of those things by putting something positive in its place. Every person has shortcomings, but we'll never get rid of our shortcomings by worrying about how to get rid of our shortcomings. Each individual also has good qualifications, and let's cultivate those good qualifications, and then we won't have to worry about our shortcomings.
We'll get better with the good qualities that we all have within ourselves. God give us that light and love within us all. And I want to remember that good belongs to everybody, to claim, to feel, and most of all to use, because that creates harmony, and it creates sincerity, and eventually it creates a balanced life, a life of balance in which we can then stay in accordance with the spiritual laws.
And I want to remember the great challenge that's in the big book, and that challenge is as I quote, abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Clear away the wreckage of the past, give freely of what you find, and we shall meet on a road to a happy destiny. Thank you.