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Source: DICOBE-00176 – Greg M – WEST CENTRAL REGIONAL CONF – 2004-01-15.mp3 File: dicobe-00176-greg-m-west-central-regional-conf-2004-01-15.mp3 Duration: 01:07:00
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Let's open this meeting with some serenity prayer, followed by a moment of silence for the still-suffering alcoholics. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, to change the things I can, and to listen to those who can. I'd like to welcome everyone to our Saturday night speaker meeting, especially those who are attending their first regional conference. Those who are attending your first regional conference, please raise your hand.
I'm going to read our anonymity statement. There may be some here who are not familiar with our tradition of personal anonymity at the public level. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and film. Thus, we respectfully ask that no AA speaker, or indeed any AA member, be identified by full name and published or broadcast reports of our meetings.
The assurance of anonymity is essential in our effort to help other problem drinkers who may wish to share our recovery program with us. Our tradition of anonymity reminds us that AA principals come before personalities. At this time, I'd like to ask the people on each end of the chairs here to come up to the end of the table and pick up the basket. We're going to honor our 7th tradition. Jim Lee, are you still in the room? I haven't seen you yet.
Will you pick up the basket when I get back that far? I've asked Lance from Casper to come up and read the AA preamble. Hi, everybody. I'm Lance. I'm an alcoholic from Area 701, District 6. This AA preamble, Alcoholics Anonymous, is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism.
The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA membership. We are self-supporting through our own contributions. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution, does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses or opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.
I've asked Rob to come up and read how it works. My name is Rob, and I'm an alcoholic. How it works from the big book, Alcoholics Anonymous. Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program. Usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves.
There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault. They seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those too who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest. Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now.
If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps. At some of these we balked. We thought we could find an easier, softer way, but we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we begged that we would be fearless and thorough from the very start.
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Some of us tried to hold on to our old ideas, and the result was nil until we let go absolutely. Remember that we deal with alcohol. Cunning, baffling, powerful. Without help it is too much for us, but there is one who has all power. That one is God, and you can find him now. Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked his protection and care with complete abandon. Here are the steps we took which are suggested as a program of recovery.
One, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable. Two, we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Three, we made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. Four, we made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Five, we admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Six, we were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Seven, we humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings. Eight, we made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. Nine, we made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Ten, we continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
Eleven, we sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out. Twelve, having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs. Many of us exclaimed, What an order! I can't go through with it.
Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is we are willing to go along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection. Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter two of the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas.
A, that we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives. B, that probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism. C, that God could and would if he were sought. I've asked John to come up and read the Twelve Traditions. Thank you. I'm John. I'm an alcoholic. In our Twelve Traditions state that, One, our common welfare should come first. Personal recovery depends upon AA unity. Two, for our group purposes there is but one ultimate authority, a loving God as he may express himself in our group conscience.
Our leaders are but trusted servants. They do not govern. Three, the only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking. Four, each group should be autonomous, except in matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole. Five, each group has but one primary purpose, to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers. Six, an AA group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the AA name to any related facility or outside enterprise.
It leaves problems of money, property, and prestige diverse from our primary purpose. Seven, every AA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions. Eight, alcoholics anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers. Nine, AA as such ought never be organized, but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
Ten, alcoholics anonymous has no opinion on outside issues. Hence, the AA name ought never be drawn to public controversy. Eleven, our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and film. And twelve, anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all of our traditions. Every mind is to place principles before personalities.
You can find the right page now. At this time, I'd like to introduce our West Central Regional Trustee, Ted Stoen. Thank you, Don. I'm very happy to be here. My name is Ted Stoen. I'm an alcoholic. And I am sober tonight by the grace of God and the miracle of the Holy Spirit. Thank you. I'm Ted Stoen. I'm an alcoholic. And I am sober tonight by the grace of God and the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous.
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And my job tonight is to introduce our main speaker. And we're very privileged, and I know you'll feel that way if you don't already after you hear his story, to have your general service, general manager of the general service office. Greg is a man that I met when I was a delegate. He served as a trustee, and I didn't get to know him very well at that point in my service life. But since I've gotten to, had the privilege to serve you as West Central Regional Trustee, I've gotten to know him pretty well.
And I don't know about the rest of you, but when you go into a new service position, you're somewhat, a little apprehensive, and you're kind of feeling people out a little bit. And I asked Greg a lot of questions when I first got there. Some of them pretty blunt, and some of them pretty personal. And I never got anything but an honest and straight answer from him. And he's always, and I know you've seen that from his service here, and from the service at the different forums around the region that you've attended, because I know many of you have, he's always handled his job with integrity and class.
And we're very privileged tonight to have him be our speaker. And without any further ado, I'd like to give you my friend and your General Manager of the General Service Office, Greg. Hi, everybody. My name is Greg, and I am alcoholic. Hi, Greg. And for me, those are beautiful words, knowing that I'm alcoholic. It took a long time for me to come to know that I was alcoholic. And I really enjoy being here this weekend with all of you, because I've really felt your expression of love towards me.
I don't feel like an outsider coming in. I feel like I'm just someone coming home. And I really want to congratulate you, because that's, for me, that's the AA spirit at its very best, when people come into our communities, and they feel like they've always been there. And I want to thank you for that. And Don and his wife, Rebecca, and the host committee for everything that they've done for me this weekend.
And, again, it's my gratitude that's expressed to them. My good friend, Ted, I tell you, you should be very proud of him. And I know you are. One of the neat things for me about being around for a little while, not only in my personal recovery life, but in being given the pleasure to work with men when they're new and watching what happens as God enters people, and that transforming spirit happens, and through the 12 steps somebody comes back to life.
Well, that's the same thing that happens, from my viewpoint, in service, when people take new service jobs. And like Ted said, when we really met four years ago, and Ted started this adventure, I've seen him put on his trustee's coat and wear it very well. You can be assured that Ted has assumed the responsibility, the fiduciary responsibility, and the spiritual responsibility of a trustee of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And it's not easy, because you've got to stand up and be counted. And sometimes when you have to stand up and be counted, it hurts, and you're all alone. And yet you know it's right, and if you don't do it, you'll never be able to live with yourself. And Ted has done a magnificent job. Applause So I get to, it's my turn at the podium. Everybody in AA gets a turn, and it's my turn. And I said I was alcoholic, and what I did is I declared my membership.
I'm a member of AA, and that truly is a privilege. And even though you'll hear my story, I mimicked you in the beginning, and I said I was alcoholic. It was, now I know, a couple of years before I really assumed my membership. I was going to lots of meetings. I was very active. I was doing things. But I didn't understand what membership in AA was all about. So if you're new, and I know some of you probably are, because I've heard you say from the microphone this weekend that, you know, you're a little green and this is new to you, I really want to express to you, please stay.
Don't go away. I know you've heard this over and over again from your sponsors or your friends or the other people in your meetings, but God, don't go away. It does get so much better each day, each and every day, Each and every day that I practice this way of life, new visions open to me, new visions
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about who and what I am and what I'm supposed to be doing, how I'm supposed to be carrying the message of Alcoholics Anonymous to the next suffering person. If you're not sure whether you're an alcoholic or not, that's great, you're in the right place. I mean that's why we come to AA is to discover if we fit here. And for me, I got to AA and I was here for all the wrong reasons. I was trying to get a wife back, trying to get some children back, I was living in a car and I was trying to get back in the household so she could take care of me. And I was saying all the right words and I was going to meetings, but I was so embarrassed to be with you. I mean it was just over the top. But when I was in the meeting with you, I felt good, I felt a part of you and I really, you know, it was really wonderful. Almost every meeting I had a little spiritual tidbit, a little bit of an awakening. But as soon as I stepped out the door, I was so ashamed to have this illness I didn't want anybody to know about it. And to tell you the truth, it took about five years for me going to AA every day, being involved in service, doing everything my sponsor told me to do. Someday, one time, I don't know why, somebody said something and I stopped being embarrassed and I embraced in my innermost self that I have this incurable illness called alcoholism. And it was glorious. It was, I really saw in that moment that this is why I traveled the journey that I traveled for so long. And at that time of that awakening, I hadn't repaired all the damage. But I saw that I could because you had shown me how you had done it. And I knew it was possible. And I stand before you tonight knowing that that wreckage has all been repaired through these steps and traditions, our way of life.
So if you're new, stick around. If you're still not comfortable, I mean, it's scary. My whole story is about me being totally uncomfortable. Somebody else lived inside this body and I didn't know who it was. And, you know, I was just crippled. And it's through the steps of this program and rigorously going back and peeling the onion and working with my sponsor and being in a home group and letting go of secrets. God, always. I mean, it was just painful, these secrets I had inside. And they weren't biggies, but it was my perception of me. Somehow, I had learned that I had to be this. And this wasn't me. And I wanted to be me, but I didn't know how because I was so frightened. And it was through the steps that I learned how to celebrate myself. I learned to get comfortable inside my skin.
But what I discovered in those steps was that I was born with the wires weren't all connected. And the best way I can describe it, it was like I was an empty vessel. And I needed, just like I needed that woman to take me back and press me to her bosom and tell me that I was all right. I needed that experience since I came out of the womb. I needed to be loved, cherished, cuddled. And the fact of the matter, I was. You know, when I look at my family in my early years, I got more than I deserved, but I didn't have a bottom to my vessel. And so it just kept flowing through. And I demanded more and more and more and no matter how much I demanded and no matter how much you gave, it was never enough. And so very early I was very dissatisfied with you. And so I learned how to fear you because you had that kind of control over me. And I was 31 years old when I got sober and I knew nothing about this part of me. And it was only through these steps that I got set free and that I knew what was wrong with me. So the way that I handled being a broken vessel is I was a deviant. I mean, the best way I can describe it is the kid
[00:20:06]
sitting in the corner on the stool with the dunce cap on that has to sit there all day because he shot paper clips at the back of the teacher or he cut some pigtails off or he had a fight in the schoolyard. I was always a screw up. And somehow that negative energy coming back, that vessel had a bottom to it. And I thrived on it. It was a tension. I mean, I was so twisted that I really thrived on that kind of darkness. That's the best way I can describe it. Where the love and the light wasn't doing the deal and I went to the darkness. And so I lived that way for quite a few years until I found that magic elixir. And I remember that day. It may not have been, you know, very true of me, it may not have been the first one. Maybe dad gave me a sip or something happened. But the one that worked, I can go back there in my mind. And I was in a room with some boys I didn't know. I was with mom on some kind of summer vacation I didn't want to be on. I was pouting.
I was miserable. And they were passing around a bottle of beer. And they passed around and I drank it and I got lit up. So all I can describe is I got so lit up, those boys became my long lost buddies. I mean, they were comrades in arms. I bonded with them at depth. It was the first time I ever had a gut laugh. Acted silly and they were acting silly. I could do no wrong. And from that day to the day I found you, Dr. Silkworth describes exactly why I drank alcohol every day. For that effect, to relive that moment of release. Even in the end of my drinking, when I had lost the ability to decide whether I was going to drink. I had long since lost whether I was going to stop or start. I was drinking around the clock. But still, each day, it was to relive that feeling. I craved the effect produced by alcohol. That vessel also had a bottom. And I could fill it and I could feel whole and at one, no matter how dark and how miserable it was. For me, I don't know that I could honestly tell you I ever had a happy drinking experience except for that first one. Because even after that, I was the great pretender. I wore a mask. I was the puppet on the end of your string. You would say jump, I would say how high. Because I still craved that love and attention. I didn't know who was in here. I was very frightened of it. I was frightened of you and I wanted to be loved. What happens for alcoholics like me is you get rejected, right? You can't supply that much love. So then I would strike back. And I would strike back with my mind. I don't know that I struck back that much physically.
But I killed you over and over and over and over again in my mind because you had rejected me. And I could go on forever. And I didn't know how to turn those feelings off. Those feelings of hate, loneliness, despair. Once I started feeling those, I couldn't turn them off. When I first puppy loved, I think I proposed to the gal. I couldn't turn that off either. I didn't know how to just moderate these feelings. So I was really an emotional cripple. Now in my family, nobody had ever gone to jail. Nobody. Except me. And I couldn't stay out of jail. Again, it was one of these character traits. We would be doing something from heisting a store, a fight, burglary. Something was going on. Cops would show up. Everybody would run and I'd throw up my hands. And the only thing I can figure out now is I wanted to suffer some more. That was my gig, right? More pain. And I remember it got to the point where really a sad thing for me was my dad, I don't know what time it was, he'd come walking
[00:25:01]
down the jail corridor to get me out. And there I am behind the bars. To look at that look in his face. I mean, I love my dad. Everybody loves their dad or their moms. And I had that look that he didn't want to call me son anymore. I had taken him to the limits. And that look in his eyes had hurt my heart that day. And I think I was only 15 or 16 when finally he had to give up on me and ask me to leave and get out of his life. And I did. It wasn't too long after that before I started getting into some really serious trouble. The Superior Court of Los Angeles County gave me two choices. They either gave me, I'd been doing some county time and some jail time, but they were going to up the rewards this time. It was either that or get out of L.A. County and never come back. So my parents had divorced by then and my mom was living in San Diego. So I said, I'll take San Diego, Your Honor. Thank you.
And part of it also was that I had to seek psychiatric help because of my actions. So I did. I have sought the comforts and the directions of professionals a couple of times in my life. This one was mandated by the court. And Dr. John was fabulous. He was great. What we used to do, I mean he, I don't know that he knew much about alcoholism, but he probably was treating me for the destruction of a marriage, right? And he was looking at damaged goods.
What we did every session is we would practice how to run when the cops came. And I'm very serious. I would be sitting in his office and he would announce police and I would get up and run out the door. And it was almost like Pavlov's dog theory. You know, you practice it over and over again. Well, I was getting in a lot of trouble in San Diego. Alcoholism is progressive. Eventually, I thank God for Dr. John. I left before they caught me and I went to Hawaii. And I was 17 years old and won a couple of bucks at the racetrack and got a flight to Hawaii. Oh God, talk about paradise. It was heaven on earth. I ended up in Lahaina, Maui in the middle of a whaling spree. And that was a celebration of the annual whale hunt where they put roadblocks at both ends of town and they drank around the clock for four days. And the police, there was two elder gentlemen that were the police and they were there to roll you off the street into the sidewalk area so you wouldn't get damaged. And I came into that and I didn't go home. That was it. And I lived there until I got sober. Now, this is probably the hard part of any alcoholic story. It's wonderful and we can laugh and it's gay. We know inside I'm dying because I don't want to do a lot of the things I'm doing. I'm a blackout drinker. I'm doing stuff I come to and I'm not happy with what's going on. But this is where other people get involved. So I get married. No, I shouldn't have been married. I'm an alcoholic. I'm 23 years old. We have a child. I'm not ready to be a husband or a father. I'm a drunk. That comes first in my life. I don't know anything about sacrifice or putting aside my desires or compromise. The world revolves around me. So that was really a part of my life where I damaged some people very dear to me today. And it was at that point in time that probably the defining episode that I've found the greatest strength today out of. I think I probably have helped more people with this part of my story. I'm one of those people that killed somebody while driving a car. I remember coming to in the floorboard. I'm down there and going to the hospital and the guy's in the back and he's dying. And I remember all those feelings that were going on with me. One more time I swear off food.
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Twenty-four hours. I was drunk again. And again. And that spiraling downward type of drinking to kill that kind of shame, pain, took about seven years until I had eaten up that family and eaten up everything and was now living in a car. And so I'm in, this is 1978 and it's winter in Hawaii and I'm living in this car on Maui on the beach. Not too bad if you're telling this story in New York. I mean, living on a grate in New York in February is tough.
I'll never forget my first general service conference I took my wife, I'll tell you about, and my little children with me and we're in the Roosevelt Hotel in Reanim's 3 and Sterling's 1. They were New York hotel rooms. Well, not the one we're in now, but New York hotel rooms are very small. And I remember my daughter looking outside and seeing this man on this grate and it's snowing and she wanted me to go out and get him, bring him inside the room.
What a lovely thought. That's why children are so beautiful, they have that kind of innocent love. But I've told this story in New York and so living in a car on a beach in Maui isn't a bad deal, but as you all know it's an inside thing. And I wanted out, I really did. I didn't know how to take myself out. If I would have had a gun, if I had some way to do it and if I would have been drunk enough or had the courage, I wanted out that morning. It was February 14, 1978.
And it's really neat because the AA group, at the time on Maui there was only 7 meetings and they were all over the place, but I was the prospect. The guy that I worked with was now sober and had been talking about me in the local group for weeks. And they'd really been instructing him about you can't tell him he's bad drinking, you can't do that, you can just say I'm not drinking today, you've got to be attractive, don't promote AA, just be there. And so that morning when it happens for all of us in the room, that's the man I sought out because he had really portrayed sobriety so well.
And I went to pick John and I said, John, I can't stop drinking, can you help me? And he said, great, if you can stay sober from now in the morning, this is on a construction site at 7am, until 7 o'clock at night you'll be at my house and I'll take you to meetings. And I was able to do that for about 12 hours. It was amazing. By that admission, that asking for help, I received some grace that allowed me to get through that very first day. And I had not been able to do that since God knows when. I could not get through a day without drinking or using something.
And I showed up at John's house and he came out and sniffed me and looked at me and decided I had followed the instructions so he piled on his car and went down to the local meeting. Now, I'm 31 years old and I've been drinking around the clock for a number of years and I'm still strong though. I mean, it's nothing like I know now where I could have gone. I view myself now as a silk sheet drunk because I've been in AA long enough to see what alcoholism really is. I've got a long ways to go to qualify for the wet brain club, believe me.
But John took me to that meeting. But the resiliency that I had at 31 and so embarrassed that I asked a man to help me. Because real men don't do that. You know, you don't ask people. I'm supposed to be able to do life on my own. And I wanted to take it back. And I remember sitting in the car outside the meeting. Not one, I mean, I'd embarrassed myself already with my friend. Now he wanted me to go into a room full of people and say that I needed their help. Thank God I still had some of this grace and my ego had been smashed enough. I went in the room.
It was so wonderful to be 12-step by an AA meeting. It was a step study meeting. I don't know what step they were on, but they reverted to step one. And each one of those members talked to me and to my heart.
[00:35:03]
And it was only 10 people in the meeting. But by the time it got around to me and I said my name's Greg and I'm an alcoholic, I was bawling like a baby. And I had another spiritual experience. Not an awakening, but an experience. I had this relief. And I knew, maybe not consciously, but I knew something had happened to me. And from that day to this day, by the grace of God, I have never drank again. I've never used anything. And it has nothing to do with me. It has everything to do with us. Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous works.
I needed to surrender. I needed to ask for help. And in that magical moment, that group of men and women grabbed me. And for the next several months, I was their newcomer. There was no treatment centers or anything like that in Maui. In fact, the local hospital, they didn't like alcoholics at all. You had to lie about your ailments to get in there if you really needed to be detoxified. I didn't. I was 31.
And they took me into their homes and they floated me around from home to home. And all of them told me their story. I heard so many stories, but everybody 12-stepped me. They would sit there and tell me their life story and get the book out and show me the stuff and do the deal. Every day I was told somebody else's story. I was 12-stepped. The greatest thing that happened for me that day, I didn't leave that meeting without the book Alcoholics Anonymous and a sponsor. Big John became my sponsor. First thing he told me, he says, this book here, you will open that front cover, you will read from this page, and you won't stop reading until I tell you to stop. And he meant it. And I read it three times before he told me to stop over a period of time.
And we didn't wait to jump into the steps. We didn't wait until some magical moment. I immediately was involved in the steps. Third day, I'm on a 12-step call. I'm out there with my sponsor, with some drunk that's puking and drinking, and I'm learning how to clean up the puke and I'm listening to my sponsor and I'm doing that stuff. Fourth day, he's in front of a group. Raises his hand and said, I got this newcomer with me. He needs to know about anonymity. Let's talk about anonymity tonight. He knew that I liked to look at who's on whose arm or what car you're driving or what watch you're wearing. He knew about this character, that those things were important to me.
But the group talked about our oneness, our similarity, all about alcoholism. That's what they talked about. That's what anonymity is about. It levels the playing field. Ten years later, I'm in a home group. In this particular home group, the meeting starts an hour ahead of time. The meeting after the meeting goes on to an hour later. I'm sitting there talking to some guys about football. My sponsor comes up and walks by and says, what are you doing? This is AA. You don't talk about football. You come to an AA meeting, even if it's before the meeting, the only thing you talk about is AA. There may be somebody that doesn't like your team. You're here to talk about AA.
You go out here, you go home, you can talk about the football team or anything you want, but when you're here for AA, we talk about AA. I was so happy this afternoon to sit in a workshop and I think about six of you shared, either read from or talked about AA Tons of H. That's the next book my sponsor let me read. After he figured I'd read the big book enough, he said, now you will read this one and I'll tell you when to stop reading that one.
It was truly in that book that I saw the hand of God in AA. The big book touched me deeply, but I saw God's handiwork in AA Tons of H. I'm really amazed how we sell and distribute or give away 8,000 to 900,000 big books every year. Your office does that. You purchase them. We only distribute 11,000 AA Tons of H every year. I may be biased to that book, but that book is such a powerful example of how God kept this fellowship alive and well for me when I came here a number of years later.
[00:40:18]
If it hadn't been for the many sacrifices by those men and women hammering out those steps and traditions and the way AA works, it wouldn't have been here for me. I'm so grateful and the way that it all is explained by Bill. He's obviously a fan of the way he writes. When I was newly sober, I had lots of time on my hands. I was still very prideful. I would accept the love from the people who were 12 steps ahead of me kind of conditionally. Whenever I could, I would go back out to my car.
Well, it wasn't my car, but I'd go back out and live on the beach in this car because I didn't want to bother the folks. What it was, I didn't know how to accept that kind of love and I surely didn't know how to give it. But I had lots of time and so I would read that book and I'd read that book. My first immense transforming spiritual experience happened when I read that part of our book when the threefold nature of the disease was described to us, the one of allergy and compulsion and the strange mental twist preceding that first drink.
I read those words and I got set free. I had thought all along that I was a bad person. I was 31 years old and for 31 years, the view that I had of me, I mean I was less than less all because I couldn't control alcohol and I tried and I tried. And so that made me a bad person in my mind. And here I read those freeing words that said I had an illness and that I ingested alcohol and I developed this compulsion and this craving and I couldn't stop. And it was because my body metabolizes alcohol different than other people.
But more than anything else that set me free was all those times and I clearly saw all those times that I could rationalize picking up a drink knowing the devastation that had happened to me time and time and time again. And that's when I took step two. I took step two at depth that day and I knew that that was pure insanity and I knew that God, as I was coming to understand God, could help me in those moments, those insane moments that preceded that first drink.
And I had a very moving experience that day. As I continued to get sober in AA, I'm just so fortunate that I got sober where I got sober and I know all you feel that way and that's exactly how it's supposed to be. But what was really exciting for me is AA was very small and so we did everything together in the AA community and we had to travel long ways and we would go 50 or 60 miles to the other side of the island to pick somebody up and then drive 50 or 60 miles back and go to the meeting and take them home 50 or 60 miles.
And I was learning how to do that stuff. Never had I ever thought of being of service to somebody like that when there was nothing in it for me. I remember one time we're in a car and we're going somewhere and we end up in a meeting and I'm sitting in the back. I'm still very frightened of you. I haven't gotten used to that yet. And so I'm sitting in the back of the room and settling into the meeting and these two guys get up and square off and start having almost a fist fight. They're yelling and screaming.
And when I see emotions like that, I don't know how to handle them so I'm a runner. So I'm almost out the back of the meeting and they hug and kiss and sit down and continue the meeting. And I find out I'm in an intergroup meeting. And what was fascinating for me, and it still is today, how AAs, or I should say mature adults, resolve conflict. Could be so angry to have this happen. I could be so angry to have that kind of outburst. I mean, I could do that if it was just you and me.
But I was so sensitive. I'm such a people pleaser. You know, if there was other folks in the room,
[00:45:05]
that would inhibit me from showing those types of emotions. Like, I wouldn't kiss a girl in front of all of you. I mean, I'm showing an emotion, you know, and just something was wrong with me. I couldn't do that. So here these men had this thing, and then they turned 180 degrees, kissed, hugged, made up, and I was fascinated. I wanted to know how to do that. I was totally fascinated how people could do that.
So I got involved in service right away, right in intergroup. And what was neat for me is that I now know that I was delivered the three legacies. Nobody ever said I was learning the three legacies, but it was small town AA, and so you did everything. And so I was very new, and we were also at a point in recovery in AA where AA was brought to Hawaii in 1941 by a service person that wrote to the General Service Office. And for a lot of years, the structure of services happened out of intergroups.
And the long timers would appoint the next delegate for the General Service Conference, and that's how we got delegates. One of our delegates, a beautiful man, a Hawaiian man, Harry L., came back from the General Service Conference in the mid-70s, 75, 76, and I'm sober in 78, with the General Service Conference plan and said, we're going to create a General Service Conference structure. So that's what happened.
And so I'm getting sober in the middle of this, where intergroups are having to divest, doing PI, CPC, prison work, and they've made a decision to give it to the upstart General Service folks, and this area assembly is forming, and they've made districts by going to an island on a map and drawing an X on it, and that's the districts. And it's just so exciting. And what's really neat is that the structure of services were set up just like in a service manual, a mirror image of everything in that service manual. And so there wasn't anything.
We never had to have a structure and guidelines for any of it. We just always used the service manual. But it was so fascinating. I now know, in my belief only, that it took Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob and the early timers about 28 years to finish writing the program of AA. For me, the program is the three legacies. There is no separation. That's the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And so I'm always amazed when people come to AA and they get sober at the Twelve Steps, and they live this wonderful life, a transforming life, and then they get to a certain stage and they start wondering about traditions and they grow into the traditions, which is wonderful, and then they become sober enough, I guess, to get involved in General Service.
That wasn't my experience. It was all on the plate right at once, and I'm really grateful for that because that's how I've always viewed Alcoholics Anonymous. And I've been very active ever since then. I've never known another way of being sober. Love and service. That's the code. That's what you do. Love and service. And I'm a real fan of that great Vine article. It's in Language of the Heart. It's called The Next Frontier, Emotional Sobriety, or it's Emotional Sobriety, The Next Frontier, one of the two.
But it's a wonderful article by Bill, and really the upshot of it is that word discipline. Oh, God. Discipline. Discipline. Discipline. I am so undisciplined when it comes to this way of life. And that's been my challenge all my sober life, is to discipline myself. I started learning how to do that in making a commitment to find God. My family never had any religious training, so I never had that experience.
And so when I got to AA, I was one of those guys you'd see in the bar debating the existence of God or the non-existence, depending upon the discussion, and I was totally ignorant. I was just babbling, and I knew nothing of the realm of the Spirit. And so my quest to find God is a wonderful, wonderful adventure. And somewhere along the line, I started having this transformation where,
[00:50:02]
I'll never forget the first day that I came to, I woke, and my first thought was about my higher power. That was the first thought. And my next thought was, what meeting am I going to tonight? My sponsor taught me that. He says, you plan your life around AA, Greg. Because every day when you wake up, you say, what meeting are you going to? You make the plan. You allow God to direct the action. Some days I won't go to it, but I still do that today, every day.
I figure out a meeting where I'm going to go. And for years, as I discovered more and more about this higher power, he was always on my mind. Somewhere I was sober 11 or 12 years. And I woke up, and God wasn't there. And I kind of didn't think about it for a while. But after several months of God not being there, it doesn't mean I didn't pray in the morning, but he wasn't there. And I couldn't find him.
And one of the things my sponsor helped me do was look really at that 11th step. And it says, Sot. It doesn't say anything about found. It says, Sot, Greg. You continue to seek. That is what you're supposed to do. And I was dry of an experience with God. At least I thought I was. What had happened is I had changed. God had really become a part of my existence. And it wasn't the childlike or immature ah-ha that I was so used to of a God.
It became a part of me. And I realized that after about four years of seeking, that God had not left me. I had just not understood. I had not come to a level of understanding about my relationship with God. And that's come back now, and I have a different relationship with this higher power. I know that truly I am his tool each and every day. My home group, my current home group, is the Bocanico Hills group of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Fabulous group. And I felt that way about my first group on Maui and my second group on Oahu. I mean, the best groups ever. And I know you feel that way about your groups. But this group in Sleepy Hollow, New York, I really enjoyed listening to Chapter 5. I don't read Chapter 5. And I really miss hearing that because it kind of sets the stage for me. It evens me out. But I'm the greeter Tuesday night at the front door.
I do the hugging and kissing as you come into the meeting. It's a closed meeting, a step-study meeting. The meeting right after that is a big book meeting, and the meeting right after that is a step meeting. On Wednesday night we go to the outpatient treatment center and we do a beginner's meeting there in the treatment center. On Monday night we have two meetings we take into the local hospital to detox.
One is on the third floor and one is on the fourth floor. On Tuesday night we've got a group that's going into the prison, into the men's prison in Westchester. The women have a meeting on Wednesday night, and the men have this wonderful men's meeting on Thursday night. And I hated men's meetings. But all the meetings in my home group were either step-study or big book meetings, except the Sunday night meeting.
And that's a family meeting run by AAs. Only AAs talk. But literally the families come. Not the Al-Anons. The families. The children and the aunts and uncles. And on birthday night you can see mom and dad weeping as their child is up there telling about their story. It is so phenomenal. What I want to tell you, wrap up. I mean, I get carried away sometimes. But I want to tell you something about what I told you about my gift that I think God has really bestowed upon me.
And it came out of that car accident. And I always tell about being one of those people that killed somebody. I think it's very important. And I've had men come up to me, and women, that have had that same kind of experience and haven't resolved it yet, or they're ashamed or fearful. So I'm always open to share. I was in the prison a couple of months ago. And it was my turn to carry a meeting, and I was talking and did the meeting.
[00:55:01]
And we're wrapping up and hugging and kissing with the folks inside. And I'm noticing this young kid hanging out over here. He's waiting until people are done talking, and he approaches me. And he's 19 years old, and he's in the joint. He's been sent there for a year, and he's manslaughter charged. He killed somebody while he was drinking. Nobody in the joint knows why he's there. He's scared to death.
He's in with all these adults and came up to me. I spent some time with him. And it's so wonderful to know God is working through you. And I'm not saying this in a prideful place at all. I know I'm channeling. I know that that's my gift of being an alcoholic, that I have the ability to use words that are full of love, and they heal. And so I spent time with this boy, and I know he was scared. And after we talked, you could just see he felt better.
He felt hope. He knew that we'd be there. The home group would be there when he got out of the joint, when we'd take him into the meeting. Our 12-step is so—I mean, that's what I yearn for all my life, to know how to love and share those kinds of feelings. And I was so afraid of him, and now I embrace those feelings. I'm not frightened anymore. And I can love more things, and I can accept your love.
One of the things about my job that is really fabulous is I get to travel the world, and I get to travel around the country, and I get to see AA, IMO, and I've had so many wonderful experiences. I want to close by telling you a couple. Several years ago, I was down in Mexico at their seventh national convention, and it was in Puerto Vallarta. And I had to give a talk in Spanish to 12,000 people at one breakout session.
There was 35,000 there in their national convention. And literally, they came on burros and on feet and buses, and they filled up this whole town. We're sitting in the main square. It's a dirt floor. It's a typical Mexican square with high walls. It's a city center. And I'm sitting on the stage, and the man at the microphone, he's talking about how he got sober in a prison. And he's got tears running down his face, and he's explaining the gratitude that he has for the prison committee that carried the meetings into the prison that helped him get sober, that helped him get an early release and get him back into the community and the family and the children.
And he's just weeping his heart full of gratitude. And I'm just caught up in his story. And then he says, he describes where he was in prison. And the prison was 100 miles offshore on three islands. And the AA groups, the prison corrections committee, would carry a meeting in there. But the boat only traveled once every 10 days. And so when you were doing prison work, you got on the boat, and you went and lived on the island with the prisoners for 10 days and carried meetings into the three prisons.
And I said, okay. And then he said that there's standing room only to get on the committee to go do that kind of prison work in Mexico. And I said, oh my God, have I got something to learn about gratitude and action. I don't know what it's like to really give of myself. Similarly, I had the opportunity to be in Hungary several years ago. And that's one of the great things that this fellowship gets to do is sponsor countries.
And so we've been, along with Germany, we've been sponsoring Hungary for quite a few years with their literature and helping them build their structure of service. I remember getting off the train in Budapest. There was a sign, a circle and triangle. There was my name. And I met some Hungarian folks. And they whisked me away right to a meeting. They whisked me away right to an AA meeting, and it's down a dark alley and around the corner, and we go into this little meeting hall, and we're sitting there having this meeting, and I don't speak Hungarian, but if you go to enough foreign language meetings, you don't have to speak the language, it emanates from the heart, and you know about it, and the door opens, and here is this drunk, walks in the door, and for the next two days, I watched this group, Twelve Steps, this man,
[01:00:19]
and they didn't leave him alone, they took him to their little office, and they had a cot in the office all the time, sat with him day and night, helped him detox, got him involved, he started sweeping and mopping the floors, he started participating, it was so wonderful to see that kind of love and service firsthand. Most parts of this world, AA is the people that are getting sober and starting AA are street people, they've never had anything, they're the lower classes of society because most of the parts of the world, the upper classes are still drinking because alcoholism is not an illness, it's a moral issue, and only the lowlife drink.
I was ever so grateful to recently see AA emerging in Africa, and to be there in South Africa, and going to some of the townships in Soweto, I had to be taken in there with other black African men to go into those communities and see AA and the spirit of AA starting in that part of the world, and knowing that it transcends all kinds of political barriers and all kinds of challenges. I think most heartwarming for me was recently I spent some time in Turkey, and it's a very Muslim country, although it's secular, they're starting to have, that's probably some of the issues that are going on, they're separating church and state, but it's still a very strong Muslim country, and to sit in meetings with Muslims and Christians that are talking about the same steps, and celebrating the same spirit, and leaving all the other stuff at the front door, it's just breathtaking, absolutely breathtaking.
One of the things that I know for me is that my alcoholism is hereditary, it's in my family. I can look back and see self-diagnosed alcoholics, I really love that part of AA where nobody can diagnose you as alcoholic, that's something that you've got to do your time in AA, sit in a seat, and you eventually know whether you're one or not, right? And we allow each other enough time to do that. There's a lot of drinking in my family, and only a couple of self-diagnosed alcoholics.
But I think it's hereditary, and I have children. And I must tell you, it really hurts my heart. A couple of my children are drinking, and they're getting into some trouble with their drinking. You have a picture of my children selling their fanny on the street for some booze, like I had to do? It just scares the living shit out of me. I don't want that to happen to them. I don't want that to happen to anybody.
Nobody in this room, I pray to God, nobody ever goes drinking again, because that's what we do. Yet I'm a realist, and I know about alcoholism. And I'll tell you, whenever I'm thinking about my children, the only thing that gets me on through the day is I know my commitment to you and your children. I mean, I'm living in grace. This is grace. And my membership, what I told you, is very sacred to me.
I've been given a gift. And I'll go to hell and back again with anybody to help them not drink today. And I know a lot of you personally. And I know a lot of you intimately, because you're alcoholic, and I know you feel that way. And that's the only thing that gets me on each day when I have those visions of my kids, is knowing that if they reach out, you'll be there. And you'll do what it takes to help show them how not to drink.
And you can rest assured that that's what I'll do. Each and every day that I have a breath, my life is about AA.
[01:05:02]
And this has nothing to do with my job. It's about me being a drunk, a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I feel that strongly about it. And we've come to the end. I just, if you are new, and if you're not sure, and if you're still uncomfortable, please don't go away. Just stay. And no matter how scary it is, let somebody know you're frightened. Reach out. But some of you don't know how to be loved. You don't know how to love when you're scared.
I mean, we're all in this deal together. We either stay together or we sink together. And I don't think God has brought us this far along that that's in his plans. I think it's only in his plans that we do more. And that we reach deeper. And we go in prayer and meditation with our higher power and ask for directions so that what I think is our mission, I think that every man, woman, and child, and I'm not saying this from an evil place or a prideful place or a high place at all, but I think every man, woman, and child should know what AA is, what it's not, and how to contact it so that if they ever need us, they know where we are.
And I think we have lots of work to do. And it is just a great blessing that we're sober to be able to do that. And once again, I thank you all for embracing me this weekend and loving me and bringing me into your AA family. Thank you. Thank you.