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Source: DICOBE-00417 – Wesley P – FALL RNDP – 1978-01-15.mp3 File: dicobe-00417-wesley-p-fall-rndp-1978-01-15.mp3 Duration: 01:08:12
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So Larry come to me today and asked me if I'd do it all over again. I'll do it every night and a week if I can find somebody to listen. My wife tells me that, hell, you'll travel a thousand miles just to lead a silent prayer. And I said, I sure will. It'll keep me sober. That's the name of the game. And to pay my dues for what Alcoholics Anonymous has done for me is something that I can never do. I can't even pay the interest on what Alcoholics Anonymous has done for me.
I found A. A. November 13, 1947, Bob DeKnight was just, I have to call him Mr. Bob. He was, he came in, he said in April, I believe, wasn't it? But he's just a few months older than I am. And so I have to give him the respect of seniority. But I know exactly what he was talking about tonight, about the promises of this program, because this program has gave me every promise that's in this big book.
He read you twelve, but if you go through the big book, I imagine you'd find over a hundred promises that it puts in this book. And I've received every one of them through the application of this program. This program has been good to me. My name is Wesley Parish and I'm an alcoholic. Hi everybody. And the business at hand tonight is to talk about the twelve traditions of this program of Alcoholics Anonymous.
The program of Alcoholics Anonymous, as we all know, is built in a triangle. The foundation of the triangle is recovery. That's the twelve steps. And then on one of the sides of the triangle is unity, which is the twelve traditions. And the other side of the triangle is service, and that's the third legacy in the twelve concepts. Well, I have found through the application of the AA program over the length of time that I've been sober, that it takes more for me to stay sober than just the twelve steps.
I have to embrace in my life the total program of Alcoholics Anonymous—recovery, unity, and service. We have a program that is a designed program for living. It will do for you what you cannot do for yourself if you will apply it to the best of your ability. I'm a great believer. Now, a lot of people may disagree with this. If you do, that's quite all right with me. Anything I say, if you disagree with me, it's all right with me. But I have found what I'm going to tell you tonight to be as near to the truth as I possibly can. It is my opinion, and it's subject to change without notice.
And if you can tell me where I'm wrong, I'll certainly change. I'm not a know-it-all in Alcoholics Anonymous. I've just studied these books, and I have my own interpretation of it. And I might say this in a matter of passing, that anybody that stays sober for thirty years is a true alcoholic like I am. He's got to do something right. You can believe that. Right, Joe? He's got to do something right. And so I followed a program, that's all. I've just followed it, and so I've stayed sober.
The Twelve Steps teaches me to live with myself. The Twelve Tradition teaches me to live with you. And the Third Legacy teaches me to serve you, to be a servant. And so this is the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. If I'm only studying the Twelve Steps and applying the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous to my life, I'm only using one-third of the program. If I am applying the Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions, I'm using two-thirds of the program. And if I'm adding service to those two, I'm applying the total program of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And when anybody tells me that they are practicing the program of Alcoholics Anonymous in their everyday living, I will assume that they are practicing the Three Legacies, because that is the total program of that day. Now, for a long time in my life—well, let's go to this. In April a year ago, I made a talk here. How many of you people was here a year ago in April? Well, quite a few of you. I made a talk on the Twelve Steps, and I gave you a little case history and told you how the Twelve Steps were laid out by the book.
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In other words, when Bill Wilson laid out the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, he laid about it in such a fashion that if we follow them in the sequence that they are written, we will go through a deflation at depth. In other words, and after we reach the Twelfth Step, we will have a spiritual awakening as a result of the previous eleven steps. And I went through this, and I went through the Twelve Steps and showed you how they cause us to deflate.
The first thing he does in the Twelve Steps to deflate is that he tells us that we are powerless over something. And that's unheard of in the lingo of an alcoholic, to tell him that he's powerless over anything. Right? Up to the time that an alcoholic told me that, if anybody, everybody that I knew of was trying to regiment my drinking. They were trying to take away from me the rights to drink and the privilege to drink, and I resented it to no end. And so the more that they tried to regiment me, the drunker I got. But I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, and you told me that it was the first drink that made you drunk. And you told me that you were powerless over it after you'd taken that first drink.
And if you'd left out the first one, you didn't have to worry about the twentieth one. And so therefore, I can understand this, and so I realized that I was powerless over alcohol. And through me realizing that I was powerless over alcohol, I surrendered to the—to alcohol. I surrendered to it. It was bigger than I was, and it's still bigger than I am. And so this started a process of deflation, getting rid of my worst enemy, and that is myself. The big book many times tells me that selfishness and self-centeredness is the root of all my troubles. And if I want to stay sober, I have to get rid of these two things.
And so I went on to the second step, and you deflated me farther because you told me that my life was unmanageable, that I could not manage my life, drunk or sober. And you went along in more about alcoholism and in the big book here, and you told me why I couldn't manage my life, and you made me deflate more. And then you told me that I had to believe in a power greater than myself if I wanted to be restored to sanity. You told me I was insane because I had to be restored to sanity, and I must have came from insanity.
And so therefore, you told me that I was insane through the twelfth—through the second step, and I realized that I was, and only through this power that I find in—in—in the step about the agnostic, you told me about a power greater than myself, and you made me deflate more. And then you told me that I had to—that my way was the wrong way, that I could not manage my life, and if I was going to be happy, I was going to have to make a decision to turn my will and my life over to care of God as I understand him. And that was further deflation.
And from that, you told me I was going to have to take an inventory and look at my life just the way it was, not the way that I pretended to be. I had to face reality, and to face reality, I had to deflate more, get rid of self. And so therefore, I took the fourth step. And from the fourth step, I—then you told me I had to admit to God, to myself, to God, and to another human being the exact nature of my wrongs. That's further deflation. And then you told me that I had—I had to become willing for God to remove all these defects of character. That's more deflation.
And then you told me I had to humbly, humbly, ask God to remove my shortcomings. That step used to say, when it was first written, it says, humbly down on your knees, ask God for shortcomings. And so I knew exactly what it meant when it said humbled. And so I had to deflate myself further. And then you told me I had to make amends to the people that I'd harmed, or become willing to make amends. And then you told me for the first time in my life that I was going to have to start thinking about other people, that I'd hurt other people enough, and I wasn't going to hurt anybody else, any father. And I was going to have to start giving consideration to these things.
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And if I had any amends to make that would affect the well-being of another person, for me not to do it. And this is deflation. And then you told me that I had to continue to do these things. And every day that I was to take an inventory. And when I was wrong, promptly admit it, that I was a human being and I was subject to human error. And from there you told me that I would never have a personal relation, a perfect relationship with God, that this was a program of spiritual progress, not spiritual perfection. And that I had to continue to ask through prayer and meditation, in other words, listening and talking to God every day of my life, and ask him for his will, not my will.
And to keep this process of deflation going forward, and eliminating my self-efficiency, and make myself God-efficiency. Get rid of my self-will between me and God. And when I got through this self-will, then I realized in Sept. 12 that I had achieved a spiritual experience, a spiritual awakening. And I had eliminated my greatest enemy, and that was self. Well, I had this spiritual awakening, and I was about eight years sober in Alcoholics Anonymous, and things started to change. In other words, I started to lose this thing. I started to lose it. I started to begin getting self-importance all over again.
In other words, I followed the same lines that the program of Alcoholics Anonymous followed, and it comes of age. It says here on page 249 by Dr. Thiebaud, a psychiatrist, was the first one that showed any interest in Alcoholics Anonymous. He was Marty Mann, the first woman alcoholic. He was her doctor at the time she came into AA, and how she got to AA was that the big book had been finished, and they decided before they would take it to the printers that they would make 400 memograph copies of it, and take it out and distribute it among people, professional people, that was interested in alcoholism, and that they would check it, and if there was anything in this book that would offend them, well, they wanted to know about it so that they could change the wording of it, and so forth and so on.
And so they distributed these 400 books, the memograph copies, and so Dr. Thiebaud got hold of one of these memograph copies, and he could do nothing with Marty Mann. She would get drunk, and regardless of what he did for her, she was right back in his hospital. And at this time, after he had read this book, he thought so much of it, of this manuscript, that he gave it to Marty Mann and asked her to read it. And Marty Mann read this manuscript that AA had given Dr. Thiebaud to read, to see if everything was in order as far as he was concerned, and she thought so much of it that she joined Alcoholics Anonymous, and she never had another drink after that, and today she—you know who Marty Mann is—she is the first oldest woman member of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And so this was Dr. Thiebaud, and this is how he got interested in AA. And he became such a wonderful friend of AA that Bill put some of his writings in AA Comes of Age, in the history of AA. And this is one of the remarks that Dr. Thiebaud made about ego, and while this deflation has to continue, it says here, it is common knowledge that the return of the full-fledged ego can happen at any time. Years of sobriety are no insurance against its reoccurrence. No AA, regardless of his veteran status, can ever relax his guard against the encroachments of revising ego.
Recently, one AA writing to another reported that he was suffering, he feared, from halitosis, a reference to the smugness and self-complacency which— complacency which so easily can creep into an individual with years of sobriety behind
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him. You see, you never have it made in Alcoholics Anonymous. You've got yourself to contend with. And if you don't keep deflating yourself, you're in trouble. A true barometer of how you're getting along in Alcoholics Anonymous is this, as far as I'm concerned, and this is my opinion. When I've got my mind on myself, I'm unhappy. I'm inflating. When I've got my mind on you, and a God of my understanding, I'm deflating. As long as I keep my mind off of myself, I'm okay. As long as I am trying to apply this AA program to myself, I'm okay.
To the best of my ability. Now, if I start losing interest in Alcoholics Anonymous, I'm inflating. But as long as I can keep my enthusiasm in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I'm deflating. And this is why we always have to be working with others. And this is why we always have to be doing things in Alcoholics Anonymous. This is all the reason why we always, as Joe said tonight, we have to attend meetings. We have to be part of this program. You know, and I didn't know this. I didn't know this. And so I started backsliding. And so what I, what happened to me was this. I started to make a, an excuse not to attend my AA meeting.
And I used the excuse of, well, I had done enough for my group. It was time for me to let the newcomers do something. You know? And so therefore I started to renege on going to my weekly meeting. Or accepting talks at other groups. Because I felt like that I owed my family a little bit more time. And I had to, I had not given them the necessary things while I was, while I was under the influence of alcohol. And I was getting a little older every day and it was time for me to start thinking about security in my old age. And so therefore I'd better work harder. And I'd better start making a little bit more money.
You see, I wasn't satisfied with what God was doing for me. He was doing for me a lot more than I'd ever had before in my life. But yet I became dissatisfied with it. And so what did happen? I said to myself one night, I said, well now, the telephone rang and this man says, would you come out to my house tonight on this business deal? I want to buy something from you. And I said, why sure, I'll be glad to come out there. Knowing in my mind that was meeting night. You know? But I said to myself, I'm cunning, you see.
I said, I've always wanted to go over here to old Joe Blow's meeting on Thursday night. This is Wednesday night. And I said, I've been wanting to go over to this Thursday night meeting for a long time. I'll go out and see this guy tonight and tomorrow night I'll go see, go to see Joe at his meeting. You know? And so I went out this Wednesday night and I made this deal. How sweet it was. You know? Made a little extra money and everything was fine. Well the next night, Thursday night, I forgot about Joe's meeting and I didn't go. Well, the next Wednesday night I went back to my meeting and you know not a soul said anything about me not being there the Wednesday night before. Didn't even miss me.
And I says, hell, I'm not so important. You know? I got, they can take this thing over, they don't need me all this time. You know, I've become complacent. Then I, then I started looking around. And I said, well if it hadn't have been for me, he'd have never made it. You know that quiet pleasure inside of you of what a great job you had done for your group, you know? And you start taking credit for everybody's sobriety there. What a wonderful job I've done for them. How wonderful they're getting along. Gee, did I tell him the right things. Have I been an inspiration to him? You know? And then all of a sudden you become in a state of apathy, you know? You become indifferent. You see that your group can get along without you, you know? They're self, they're self-sufficient without you and so, and so you, you, you become indifferent whether you attend the, the meetings or not. You'll
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say, well I'll go there once a month. And if they've got, and I'll sit back on the back row and, and the new members after the meeting, I'll sit there five or ten minutes after the meeting and they can drop by and I'll drop them a few pearls of wisdom. I'll tell them how to do it, you know? And you become indifferent as to whether you attend the meetings or not. And this goes on for a while. And then all of a sudden you become dependent. You start, you start depending entirely upon yourself. And that's the worst thing you can do, I'll tell you that right now. You're your worst enemy if you're an alcoholic. You see, you become self-efficient all over again. You forget about your God, you forget about your group, you forget about your family, you forget about your friends, you forget about everybody but the big guy, you know? Me. I never needed them people anyhow. My God, I'm not sick like they are. Gee whiz, I can have a few drinks and nobody will ever know it, you know? And then you go right back into bondage again. That's right, that's the way it is. I've seen it, the cycle, hundreds of times. My, my sponsor grabbed me up by the bootstraps when I started depending entirely upon myself because he recognized it in me. And he said, boy you better get back to Alcoholics Anonymous and get back there fast. And so I returned to AA but I still had lost that zip, you know, that enthusiasm that I had before. And I was carrying this stuff away, I was carrying this stuff home with me, you know? And practicing some of it at home. And Rena was, my wife was getting just damn tired of it, you know.
Because I was changing before her very eyes. And one day I opened up the grapevine to the, to the directory where they was having conferences and I noticed where they was having a conference in Durham, North Carolina. And I said, I think I'll go to that conference. And she says, it'll be any good, go. She didn't even argue. So I got ready and I went to this, this conference in Durham, North Carolina. And this one guy got up there and all he could talk about was intelligentsia. He would use that word over and over and over, intelligentsia, intelligentsia.
And when I got home that's the only thing I had, was that one word, intelligentsia. It was just branded between my eyes. This guy used that word a hundred times in his talk. And that's the only thing I can remember about that whole entire weekend was intelligentsia. An old boy up in Virginia, Dutch Whitley, used to say, he said, you don't even know how to pronounce it. I said, hell, I don't know how to spell it either, so what's the difference? But you know, I figured out what that word meant. I never looked it up in the dictionary, but I found out what an intelligentsia was as far as I was concerned. An intelligentsia is a damn know-it-all. And I had become a know-it-all in Alcoholics Anonymous. Now that's trouble, I'm telling you right now, that's trouble. Well I knew the founders of this program had some way or another supplied me the answer. I knew somewhere in this program there was an answer to my dilemma. I knew that somewhere there was an answer where I could grow. I had gone through the 12 steps. I had recovered just as long as I could recover.
I had to go to some other area of this program. And so I went to the grapevine. One day I picked it up and was reading it sitting around the house. And the first thing I did, I looked on the inside of the page, of the first page, and there's always the 12 steps. And then I turned it over to the back page, and inside the back page there's always the 12 traditions. And so I read the 12 steps and then I turned over to the 12 traditions. And I said to myself, well what's the difference between the way that steps are written and the way that the traditions are written? And I looked at the steps and I said, well, the steps are written at the we level. The plural, we. And I says, the 12 traditions are written at the group level. What is the difference between we and a group? And that's a good question.
What is the difference between we and a group? And I turned to the big book and over to where it was talking about the traditions, and I read Traditions 3. And it said that our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence we may refuse none who wish to recover.
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Nor ought any membership ever depend upon money or conformity. Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for the sobriety may call themselves an AA group, provided that as a group they have no other affiliation. Any time that two members of Alcoholics Anonymous gets together for the purpose of their sobriety, without any other affiliation, they are an AA group. Tom Lovering says that all you need to start a group is two resentments and a dozen doughnuts. Well, how many does it take to make we? Two, right? And how many does it take to make a group? It takes two. So we and a group's the same. Now this made sense to me. Believe it or not, it made sense to me. And I said to myself, well, I never practice the 12 steps at the we level. I practice them at the I level. We do it together, but my interpretation and what your interpretation of the 12 steps are is altogether different.
But we practice the things together. We share together and we care together. And I says, well, it'll keep me sober, won't faze you, and it'll keep you sober, won't faze me. But we have the 12 steps, and we practice them at the I level. And I said, why can't I practice the 12 traditions at the I level? I know the 12 traditions are going to be good for me because what is good for my group is good for me. And what is good for me is good for my group.
And that's all there is to it. And I said, there's not a soul in my group that's practicing the 12 traditions. I'll be number one there. Now that's something to be. They don't ever say nothing about the 12 traditions. One time my group got in a big turmoil, and after everybody chose sides, the Republicans got over here and the Democrats over here, and all of a sudden some Independent crowd out. What about, what does the 12 traditions say about it? Well, hell, that was too late, because everybody had chose sides. And the 12 traditions would have done no good whatsoever, because they had made up their minds what they were going to do, that's all. And they were going to do it a bust to gut one of the two, and they said it was a group conscience. Well, maybe it was a group conscience, I don't know. But God sure wasn't at the meeting, I'll tell you that right now. He just wasn't there. And I said to myself, I said, well, you know, these traditions may be what I need. And I said, I'm going to try to practice these 12 traditions along with my, with my 12 steps, and I want to find out what will happen.
Maybe I can find my answer. Maybe they will give me what I've been missing in this program. And you know, I started practicing the 12 traditions at the eye level, and things started to happen in me beyond my fondest dreams. Just absolutely everything went, just turned in reverse. Everything went 108 degrees different, and life became beautiful again, and my steps become alive again, and the program became alive again, and my group became alive again, and I became part of my group again.
And I want to share with you tonight how I live the 12 traditions in my everyday life. And I've got a lot of people in my group today living the traditions because they've asked me what happened to me, and I tell them what happened. And they'll say, well, I think I'll try that too. And you'd be amazed how many people in my group is, has joined me in practicing their traditions in their everyday living. You know, it's not a member of Alcoholics Anonymous in the United States today that's sober that don't practice the 12 traditions in their everyday life. But there's very few members of Alcoholics Anonymous in the United States today that know what they're doing. And how much better would it be if you knew what you were doing, and you could gain the benefits from it? You get what I'm trying to get over to you? Know what you're doing.
You know what you're doing with the 12 steps. Believe me, you can just recover so long, you've got to quit recovering. You've got to find places to grow in this program. You've got to grow, you've got to go, one of the two, and Tom told you that tonight. And that's the way it is. And so I started using the 12 steps at the eye level. The Twelve Steps at the Eye Level, I mean Twelve Traditions at the Eye Level.
Now, I'm not trying to change the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.
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What I'm trying to do is give Wesley P. a way of life that he can live and be happy without alcohol. This is what this thing's all about. Because I was born with a personality that wanted to be happy. And I had a lot of loose screws. I must have been the last one on the assembly line on Friday afternoon, and there was a hurry to go home. And I wasn't put together, or all together, you know, and a lot of loose screws.
And I took a drink of alcohol at 17 years of age, and I said, to me I said, if I'm going to be a success in life, I'm going to have to partake of that stuff. Because it acted just like a screwdriver. It tightened up every loose screw in me. And it made me what I wanted to be. And so, and I made a vow to myself, I was going to religiously take this stuff, and for 17 years I progressed in the disease of alcoholism.
And when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I was just sick and tired of being sick and tired. That's all. I had no other place to go. And through the grace of God, I found you. And I say this without any reservation, that if alcohol would have had the same effect on me as, if castor oil would have had the same effect on me as alcohol, hell, I'd have been a castor oil, it wouldn't have made a bit of difference.
Because I drank, I drank alcohol for the effects. For the effects. Now, I've got to do the same thing with the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I've got to have effects out of this program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, I'm going to say something now that you might disagree with me on, but I feel this way about it. I think and believe that alcoholism is a self-inflicted disease. I drank alcohol for the effects, and so I inflicted my own disease.
I believe in reverse that the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is a self-inflicted program. I am the only one that can inflict it on me, and you're the only one that can inflict it on you. It works if you work. It works if I work. If it is to be, it is up to me. It's just that simple. You can give me all the lip service you want to about this program, but unless I put it into action in my life, I get no benefit from it.
I get no benefit from it. And so I started using the twelve traditions, and I want to go through them with you and show you how I… Now, I'm not going to use all of them because it's just too many, but things that really is pertinent to our living. The first one says, our common welfare comes first. Personal recovery depends upon a unity. At the eye level, I say this, my common welfare comes first.
Now, what is my common welfare? My common welfare is to stay sober. I'm an alcoholic. I've got an incurable disease called alcoholism. I can arrest it, but I can never cure it. And therefore, it's got to be the number one thing in my life. Nothing that can come in front of it. It's got to come before my wife. It's got to come before my children, my job, my business, and society. Because without me being sober, I don't have a wife.
I don't have children. I don't have a job or business, and society wants nothing to do with me. And if you're an alcoholic, you know exactly what I'm talking about. And so that is my common welfare, regardless. Staying sober is my biggest business. I need the program of Alcoholics Anonymous more tonight than I needed it 31 years ago. When I came to this program, I had nothing to lose. What did you have to lose when you came to this program?
I had nothing. Today, I have everything to lose. When I came to this program, I had no self-respect. I didn't have the love of my family. I wasn't acceptable in the community that I lived in. I was a bankrupt businessman, and I didn't even have a god of my understanding. I had nothing. Today, I've got my self-respect. I've got the love of my family. I live in a home today. I don't live in no house.
There's love and there's laughter. I've been a successful businessman since being in AA. I'm acceptable in the community that I live in. But that's not the greatest thing of all. The greatest thing of all is that I've got a god that I can call my friend.
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I can have what I've got today, or I can have one drink of whiskey or one drink of alcohol. But I can never have both because I am an alcoholic. So my common welfare is to stay sober. That's it, one day at a time. My personal recovery depends upon my AA unity. My personal recovery depends upon me living in unity with you. Not you living in unity with me. That don't have anything to do with it. I've got to love you whether you love me or not.
I've got to accept you just the way you are, not the way that I want you to be. I can no more change you than you can change me. And so therefore, you are you and I am me. And I have to leave it that way. The only thing I can do is to have such a quality of sobriety that I attract you. And you can say to me, well what do you do to have this personality? This is the only way I can help you. It's just through lip service.
And you have to put this thing into action in your own life. I cannot change you no more than you can change me. And so therefore, it is my responsibility to live in unity with you if I want to be happy. Now if I want to be unhappy, all I have to do is get in conflict with you and you get in conflict with me and we both will lose what we are trying to acquire in alcoholics and others. And so therefore, I am being dishonest with myself when I get in conflict with you.
When I react to the act and you disturb me, that is my fault, not your fault. It's just that simple. I have to live in unity with you. You know, the greatest teacher on earth once said, what is it to love those who love you? That's nothing. But to love those who hate you is something. Now the world out there don't live that way. Normal people just don't live that way, you know. But we are not normal.
You ever know that? We are just not normal. Try it sometime. Try it in your group. Try it in your group. Live in unity with your fellow man regardless. It's the key to happiness. Don't live in conflict. I have but one ultimate authority. A loving God as he expresses himself in my conscience. I learned about this loving God that I have when I went to see the man and asked him if he would take me to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
There's a word called akapai or agapi. It's a Greek word that describes the type of love that we have in Alcoholics Anonymous. It's the divine love of God. And when I asked this man, I says, Can I go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting with you? He had great big blue eyes. And he looked at me with those great big blue eyes and he said, You can go tomorrow night if you're sober. But I could feel something in his voice that I was needed, that I was wanted, but I had to start doing my share.
I had to earn the joy of going with him the night. I had to do something to show him that I had the desire to stop drinking. He told me that this was a program where you just don't drink. And it's still that way. And he told me that he was willing to go to any limits to help me. And this thing that he was telling me was just spontaneous right out of him. This is the divine love of God coming out of this man that I went to see.
And this is what attracted me to AA. It was a love that was spontaneous, it was unlimited, and it was unmotivated. This man, just in the snap of a finger, just absolutely spontaneously, he was ready for me. What he had to offer me was unlimited. And it was certainly in and nothing about me that would motivate a thing like this. Was anything about you when you first come to AA that would motivate love?
Well, this is what attracted you to this program. This is what attracted you to this program. The divine love of God. And this is a loving God that they're talking about here in this program. The third step, in the third step where you said you made a decision to turn your life and your will over to the care of God as you understand him.
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This is the same God as he expresses himself in my conscience. I've got to remember this, and I, and he is part of me. I am God-efficient, not self-efficient, in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And this is what the big book tells you. I am but a trusted servant, I do not govern. You cannot serve people without loving people. But you can govern people and dictate to them without loving them. You do that through hate.
And trying to worm something and con something out of them. But when you are a servant, you love people. And you serve them because you want to serve them, or you want to be part of them and give of yourself. You come to get, but you stay to give in this program. And that's the key to the whole thing, is giving. Giving of yourself, sharing and caring, in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. You, you will never see a servant that is the boss.
Did you know that? Servants are just not the boss. And we are servants in this program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Number three, it says, the only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking. That's it. The only requirement I have every day of my life, and I join AA every day of my life, the only requirement you require of me is that I stop drinking, that's all. You don't even ask me if I'm an alcoholic.
I diagnose my own case and I say that I am an alcoholic. You never said to me, well, I just don't believe you're an alcoholic. You said you haven't got certain qualifications that you need to be an alcoholic. You never said that to me. You allowed me the privilege of diagnosing my own case. Right? Well, why shouldn't I allow you the privilege of you diagnosing your own case? You know, many, many times I've pointed my finger at a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and I said, he'll never make it.
Ha! He's too educated. He don't have enough. He's got his sex life, he's running around, around boxes. He can't make it with all this sex in his life and this, that, and the other. He's that, he's something else. Something else is wrong with him. Uh-uh. That's a bunch of hooey. Every person diagnoses their own case in Alcoholics Anonymous as to whether they're alcoholic or not. The program of Alcoholics Anonymous is for alcoholics.
We have a lot of byproducts. But AA is for alcoholics. You can't drink pills, Tom, Joe. You can't drink pills. Now, Addicts Anonymous is a good outfit. I've known about it. Born in Lexington, Kentucky. It was enforced in 1947 when I came into AA and they do a beautiful job. They do a beautiful job. And they have a beautiful program. And they use the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. But Alcoholics Anonymous is for alcoholics.
And don't ever forget that. This is it. And the only requirement, and the only requirement is a desire to stop drinking. You see, this eliminates me taking anybody's inventory. And I can spend more time on my own. And so therefore I'm better off. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting groups or AA as a whole. I should always be autonomous except when it affects other AA members or AA as a whole.
The word autonomous means self-governed. I should stand firmly on my own two feet. I should not be led around by the nose just because at that particular time it's convenient that people will think more of me if I don't go and rebuttal. I don't have to live that way anymore. I don't have to be led anymore. I've got a doctor's degree in negative thinking. I'm an alcoholic. I know right from wrong. That's the reason I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.
I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and so therefore if I go along with somebody just
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for the ride and know that I'm wrong, that is my fault. That is my fault. That's a luxury that I can't afford, and I don't think any alcoholic can afford. Because we have to listen to those hounds bark at four o'clock in the morning. We have to pay the penalty for our mistakes. And if we know that we are doing something wrong, and we do it, then we have no one else to blame but ourselves. And we have a sign hanging up in a group where I come from, and it says this. It says, Anything Just About Right is Wrong. Should I say that over again? Anything Just About Right is Wrong. We can't afford the luxuries anymore of doing things, of these old ideas. The big book says we try to hold on to these old ideas, but the results is nil until we let go absolutely. So we know these things are not for us, and we just can't do them anymore. And so therefore we have to be autonomous, and we stand on our own two feet, and we make our own decisions if we want to be happy. And this is what it's predicated on, is to be happy. I'm going to skip number five and come back to it. It says number seven, Every AA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining all outside contributions.
You say, Well what does that have to do with being happy? It has a lot to do with being happy. You show me a person that don't meet their responsibilities, and I'll show you a person that's not happy. But you show me a person that meets his responsibility, and I'll show you a person that is happy. It's just that simple. The membership of Alcoholics Anonymous supports Alcoholics Anonymous, and no one else. We have no strings attached to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And as long as you and I as members support Alcoholics Anonymous, there will never be any strings attached. We are fully self-supporting. You know I used to sit next to a millionaire when I first come in there. He was chairman of the board of Hobb Hats. And I used to sit by him just to enjoy a resentment I had against this guy. And when the meeting was over and the speakers were through and the plate was coming by, he'd reach in his hand pocket and pull out a little old bitty black pocketbook.
And he'd snap that thing open and you could hear it all over the room. And it was embarrassing just to hear it, you know. And he'd go down there and he'd fiddle around in those coins and he'd come up with a Texas half. That's a dime. And when that basket went by, you'd hear it tink, you know. And I'd say, that tight son of a bitch. If he don't put but a dime in it, I ain't gonna put nothing. And I didn't put nothing in there either.
Now who was I hurting? Me. You see, I wasn't meeting my responsibility. You have to meet your responsibilities if you want to be happy. I don't say give till it hurts. And they says don't give till it hurts, but give till it feels good. Everybody knows what they should give. I don't know what you should give. But you give until you feel comfortable. But give never. You see, A.A. relies upon you as members to support it. You know, I wouldn't belong to a group. Now this is how strong I feel about this, me personally. I wouldn't belong to a group that didn't support intergroup, if I had an intergroup in my area. And I have an intergroup. If my group won't support intergroup, I'm gonna find me a new group. I won't support belong to a group that won't support G.S.O. once a month. Because that is my responsibility, to see that G.S.O. is supported once a month. They got a payroll up there every thirty days, and they should get a little check every thirty days from their group, from the groups, because they rely upon the groups. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't be a member of a group that didn't support my service committee of the area that I lived in. Because this is our responsibility.
This is Alcoholics Anonymous. And I don't believe in somebody, just because the group gets in trouble, somebody bails it out. The membership bails it out, not one individual.
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It's just that way. We meet our responsibilities as members. We become responsible citizens in Alcoholics Anonymous. And so therefore, we meet our responsibilities. And if we do this, and if we do this as members, in total, there will never be strings attached to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Never. We've got something the world wants. We've got something that gives us peace within. Something that money can't buy. It's not for sale. Let's keep it that way. It's free as, it's just as free as the air that you breathe, but it's our responsibility to see that we keep it that way, as individuals, as members of AA.
Number five says each group ought to be, the primary purpose is to carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers. Who still suffers. I've been sober 30 years and I still suffer every day of my life from the disease of alcoholism. Now I'm going to ask you a question. Do you still suffer from the disease of alcoholism? Are you here tonight to take your medicine for your disease? Is that why you're here to this weekend? Or this is why you go to your group meeting every week? This is why I go. It's medicine for my disease.
As long as I do that, my disease is arrested. And I suffer from it every day. So if I suffer from the disease of alcoholism every day, it's up to you every time you see me. You know that I suffer and so it's up to you to 12-step me every time you see me. And I know that you suffer, so it's up to me to 12-step you every time I see you. Isn't that a beautiful thought? For we, and I'll call it synonymous, to love each other. To love each other. To share and care about each other. To show each other the same love and the same consideration that we show the new member that's just walking through the door or that we went out and made a 12-step call on. Everybody needs 12-stepping in alcoholics' synonyms. Is it a person in here don't need 12-stepping? I don't know of anybody. Never saw a person in there need 12-stepping. And it says that the primary purpose is to carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers. Don't say anything about a newcomer. Doesn't say anything about an old-timer. It doesn't say a thing in the world about a middle man or who he might be. Everybody who suffers from alcoholism is a primary purpose for this program. So it's up to us as individuals to love each other. This is the longevity of this program. This is the attraction in our community. This is the attraction. If you have this type of feeling in your heart in your group, when a new member walks through that door, I'll guarantee you've got him because you will attract him. He will want what you have because he can see it within your face. He wants this love, this sharing and this caring.
One night I carried a man and we got in a group about 30 minutes early and I carried this new member in. And just as we walked into this group, somebody yelled out, I'll be damned if I'm going to make this coffee anymore. By God, I've been doing it for six weeks and I'm just sick and tired of it. If somebody else don't come in and make this coffee, I'm through. You ever had anything like that happen in your group? And this newcomer turned around to me, he says, boy, I hear that kind of stuff at home. Let's get out of here.
But this happens. You know, this is not Alcoholics Anonymous. This is not AA. We carry the message to each other. We share and we care about each other. And we meet our responsibilities as AA members. We become whole people in this program. And this program is still a program of attraction, not promotion. And so therefore, for your group to be an attraction to a new member of AA, you have to have this feeling, this divine love of God in your group, a love
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that's spontaneous, unlimited and unmotivated. And he's got to feel it. And this is what makes him want to come back and share and care with you. This is the way it is. You know, the old-timers, they say, well, there's no old-timers anymore around. What happened to them? Well, maybe they left out, dropped out to shove outs. I've seen many times an old-timer walk into a meeting and he sits back on the back row. And he's in worse shape than a man that had just walked in the door that night for the first meeting.
But nobody paid attention in the world to him. While he's been sober 20 years, he's got it made. There ain't no such thing in Alcoholics Anonymous as having it made. You can have a business reversal, or you can have trouble or sickness at home, or you can have things like a mishaps in life that is just as bad when you're 20 years sober as if you've been sober one day. It doesn't make any difference. And you become just as disturbed. And you need just as much love after 20 years as you do at one day. And don't you ever forget it.
And maybe some of these old-timers, if you would call them up when you get home this weekend and say, well, we're going to change our philosophy about you folks. Y'all come on back. We're going to show you that we love you too. We need you. We need you in our group. We want you to be part of it. Maybe he'll come back. And this is a very wonderful thing to do. The primary purpose is to carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers.
Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities. To me, I guess the most screwed-up word that I ever had in my mind was anonymity. For a long time I thought that the word anonymity meant that nobody was supposed to know that I was in the program of alcoholic snobs, that it would affect me in business, it would affect my family and social activities, and it would just ruin me for life in the community that I lived in. And I lived in this state of fear for a long time. And I was corresponding back and forth with a guy by the name of Ken Brooks in Toronto, Canada.
And he told me one day, he was a blind fellow, and he was very intelligent about the program, and he told me one day, he said, you've got the most warped opinion on anonymity of any individual I ever saw in my life. And he said, now I'm going to tell you what anonymity is all about. And he said, I want you to remember this. He said, you're living in a state of fear. And he said, an alcoholic just cannot live in a state of fear. And he said, there's no stigma to being an alcoholic, Wesley. He said, have you ever had anybody come up and slap you on the back and pop an OB and say, boy, I'm glad to see you all wall-eyed and loop-legged? Anybody in here ever been congratulated for being drunk? I never have. But he said, I bet you've had a lot of people since you've come into Alcoholics Anonymous, people that slapped you on the back and said, Wesley, you're doing a good job. Keep it up. You're credit to the community. We need more people like you. No stigma to being an alcoholic.
He said, now you have been living this anonymity in a negative state, in the state of fear. He said, now I'm going to tell you positively what a positive anonymity is. And he said, it means to do for others without expecting anything whatsoever in return. Giving of yourself without expecting any enumeration whatsoever. You do it and forget it. And he says, this is true anonymity. He said, you know, the greatest teacher on earth would run around and he let the blind see and he straightened out the limbs and healed the sick. And they would shout with joy and he says, don't do that. He says, go tell no one. Go tell no one. It was not I that did this for you. It was my father. It was my father. And this is true anonymity. It's not accepting anything.
is not accepting anything for anything that you do in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Forget it. One of my greatest assets today, after I learned this,
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one of my greatest assets today is the ability to forget. I don't remember nothing. And, you know, I get full benefit from everything I do. And if I remember something, I don't get a benefit at all from it. It's just that simple. That's anonymity. A lot of people run around, I wish I could remember names. I don't try to remember names. I'm not supposed to. It's not important what my name is or what your name is.
It's not important. The important thing, are we sharing and caring, are we loving our fellow man? That's important. Living this AA program, being a part of it, sharing with our fellow man, carrying forth what Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob has left us. The longer I stay sober, the more I go back to the big book, 12 and 12, AA Comes of Age. You know, it's just sad. It is sad to me because of what I know about this book, AA Comes of Age.
You see, not many people read this book. And I'm going to tell you why I know not many people read it. There's over 30,000 groups of Alcoholics Anonymous in the world. Last year there was only 15,000 of these books sold in the entire fellowship. That's one half a book per group. Now what does that tell you? It tells me that not many people are interested in it, right? Now, I've just witnessed it here.
Now, right here, this weekend, we've gave away books, five books every night, have we not? Not one person that says, I want an AA Comes of Age. I have noticed one that was given away. And this is number two, as far as I'm concerned, the big book. And this is number two, the history of AA. This book will tell you that you are just exactly like the people that founded AA. The first hundred people in AA.
You are just like them. And they made the same mistakes that you make, and you're going to make the same mistakes that they made. And they tell you what they did under those circumstances. This is a great program. It tells you all about the traditions and the history of AA, how people suffered to give us this program. And what hardships they had to go through. I'm not a book salesman, but if I was, I'd sure sell this book.
That's all. It's a wonderful book. Well, now I've lived the 12 traditions along with the 12 steps for 15 years, knowing what I was doing. Things reversed itself, and I've been happy for 15 years. And God has been good to me. He allowed me to build a successful business. He allowed me to raise a son that was interested in the business that I built. My son built, bought my business, and he's running my business today, and I'm retired.
I don't have to hit a lick again in my life if I don't want to. Because I have been in tune with the world through the 12 steps and the 12 traditions. That's the only reason. Because I gave up fighting people. I just give up. I guess I surrendered to you. I surrendered to you just the way you are, not the way that I want you to be. And it was the greatest thing I ever did in my life. I found out after living this program 30 years that God gives me complete freedom every day of my life.
I have a choice. A.A. gives me a complete freedom every day of my life. I have a choice. And if I want to be happy, I use these freedoms that God and A.A. gives me. And then for my happiness, I have to give you complete freedom like God and A.A. gives me. And let you have your own choice. And if I do that, I'm always happy. It's just that simple. This is a perfect program. In closing, I want to give you a little poetry.
How about that? I'm going to give you two poems by Helen Steiner Rice that just to me is just so nice. And I'm going to mix them up a little. One is called Where Can You Find Him? and the other one is The Windows of Gold. Where can I find him? Where can I see his only son? Wise men ask and I'm asking still. Where is this man of good will? Is he far away in some distant place ruling unseen from a throne of grace?
Is there no place on earth that I might see to give me proof of eternity? Did you cry out if there's a God show him to me? Make him tangible?
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There's a legend that's often been told of the boy who searched for the windows of gold. The windows of gold he saw far away as he looked in the valley at sunrise each day. And he longed to go down in the valley below but he lived up on the mountain all covered with snow. And this was a trip that he wanted to make so he planned by day and dreamed by night of how he would reach this great shining light.
And one morning as the dawn broke through and the valley sparkled with diamonds of dew he started to climb down the mountainside with the windows of gold as his golden guide. He traveled all day all weary and worn and bleeding feet and clothes that were torn and finally he entered in this little peaceful valley town just as the golden sun went down. But lo he had lost his shining light because the windows were dark and it had once been bright and tired and hungry and lonely and cold.
He yelled, oh please, oh please won't you show me the windows of gold. And a kind hand touched him and said, high on the mountain is the windows of gold. For the sun going down the great golden ball had vanished the windows of his cabin so small. Now the kingdom of God with its great shining light is not like the windows that shine so bright. It's no far distant place somewhere. It's stretched as close to you and I as a silent prayer.
Your search and my search for God will end and begin when we look for God and find him within. Right in here. So you see it is true that I have never seen his face but his likeness shines forth from every place. The hand of God is everywhere along our life's busy thoroughfare. The things we see and touch and feel, this is what makes God so very real. The silent stars and timely skies are one of it.
And I was children's eyes, a ghost mere wing of a hummingbird, the joy of a kindly word, the autumn haze, the breath of spring, the chipping song the cricket sings. A rosebud in the sun, the vase, a smile upon a friendly face. In everything, both glory and small, we feel the hand of God enough. But who can watch a new day birth, a feel the warm life-giving earth, a look at skies through lacy trees, a feel the softness of the breeze, and say they have never felt his grace, a look upon his face.
I can't because I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Thank you. Applause Shall we just go, remain standing and say the Lord's Prayer. Join hands. 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. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever.