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Source: DICOBE-00252 – Stan C – WEST CENTRAL REGIONAL FORUM – 1980-03-16.mp3 File: dicobe-00252-stan-c-west-central-regional-forum-1980-03-16.mp3 Duration: 00:48:50
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I feel better already. Well I'm replacing Tom this morning. You can tell that I'm not short and I'm not fat and I'm not bald, so I may have some trouble in replacing him this morning. I came to understand something very quickly after arriving here and attending the Friday night meeting and watching the election for our new Secretary-Treasurer. I came to understand that you people down here also know something about running a railroad.
I'm not sure how this is going to go this morning because I'm not a morning person, I'm a night person, and it's been suggested that I even have a lot of difficulty believing in God before noon, but I'm going to try. My name is Stan and I am an alcoholic. I was christened with the name of Stanley Norman, aliases Charles Alexander David C., and I'm not sure what that means to anyone here, but apparently it meant something to the people that were close to me because they expected a great deal from me and the only thing they really received was a lot of disappointment and a lot of uncomfortable feelings about this thing that they called a son and a father and a husband.
I'm not sure why I'm here this morning because I still have difficulty in accepting the fact that I could be here or anywhere else sober. I was watching a television program many, many years ago and it was a show about a drunk that came out of the bar and he got on a bicycle and he took off down the street and right behind him were two policemen on foot in hot pursuit and the faster he pedaled, the faster they ran and the faster they ran, the faster he pedaled and in typical alcoholic fashion he lost control of the bicycle, hit a curb, bounced over the handlebars and was laying by a park bench on his back when the two officers arrived panting and they checked him over and asked him how he was and he thought that he would be all right.
They asked him if they could do him a favor by taking him home and he thought that that would be all right. They asked him where he lived and he said, well, officer, if you take me down here two blocks and over there one block and down there half a block, he said, no, officer, that's not right. He said, if you take me down here one block and over there half a block and back that way one block, he said, no, officer, I don't think that's right either.
Come to think of it, I don't think you can get there from here. And that's sort of the way I feel this morning and that's sort of the way I feel every morning I get up feeling good, that I'm not sure that I could be here from where I came from. I have two brothers that are a father, a mother, a wife, a son and a daughter and I vividly recall my first Christmas being sober. I recall sitting after a beautiful Christmas dinner, first Christmas of being home with family for a long, long time.
My father sitting there sipping on a glass of brandy, which didn't make a lot of sense to me, and he wondered why I was the type of person that I was. He was trying to come to understand why I drank and lived the way that I had drank and the way that I had lived. And I didn't have an answer for him. And he asked my brother, who was some 11 months younger than I am, why he didn't drink. And he said that he didn't drink because he didn't like what it did to him.
He didn't like the taste and he didn't like the effect. And so he didn't drink. And he asked my other brother, who was some 15 years younger than I am, why he didn't drink and why he didn't live the way that I lived. And he said, well, Dad, you may not be aware of this, but when I was 16 years old, I took the family car, a bottle of whiskey, a package of cigarettes, and my girlfriend and we went to a drive-in theater.
He said, we watched a movie, we smoked a package of cigarettes, drank the bottle of whiskey, and we had a sexual relationship. And he said, I've never had time for drinking, smoking, or drive-in movies since. I don't know what that did to help me, but I became aware very quickly that I had a lot
[00:05:07]
of problems. Before I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, my wife was attending meetings of Al-Non. She was attending roundups and A.A. Open meetings. And we have, in our province, a small, dull, uninteresting roundup in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. My wife was attending this roundup and she asked me if I would like to go with her and listen to this speaker on a Saturday night. And I told her that I really wasn't interested in that.
I couldn't understand why I was going anyway or why she would even want me to go. And she went to this evening meeting, came home, and during the interim I had had a couple of drinks and I was sitting there very comfortable, very mellow. And she walked in and she said, I wish you'd have been there tonight. She said, the speaker summed up your whole life in three simple words, impulsive, compulsive, and repulsive.
And I always thought it would be interesting to meet him because I'd like to give him a rap in the mouth. And a couple of years ago I was at a meeting in Los Angeles. This guy stood up and introduced himself and said, I can sum up my whole life in three simple words, impulsive, compulsive, and repulsive. And I had this grave desire and impulse to run over and hit him in the mouth. So we're not going to spend a lot of time talking about what it used to be like because he summed it all up for me, impulsive, compulsive, and repulsive.
I do recall the last drunk I was on, and I guess that's the one that's important. But what I recall about it was a Sunday morning ringing my doorbell. What I recall about it was standing there not knowing where I'd been or why I'd been where I was. And the reason I was ringing the doorbell on a Sunday morning was because of the fact that I wasn't allowed a key to our home in those days. And my wife came to the door, and I pray to God I might never forget what I saw that morning because I saw in her face all the things that I had done to her in those short years that we had been married.
I saw all the loneliness and the fear and the frustration and the anxiety, and I saw all the hopelessness and the helplessness and the futility. And I said to her for the first time that I have this problem and I don't know what to do about it. And she looked at me and said, don't tell me about it. Try and find a solution. And there's a bed made up that you might sleep in that's in the basement. And so for the next three weeks, that's where I stayed, in the basement of our, I was going to say home, but it was a house in those days.
And I couldn't eat, and I couldn't go to work, and I couldn't sleep, and I paced the floor because I was afraid. I knew that if I left that house and went to work, I would once again meet some of the old gang and I would be right back where I was. And I knew that I didn't want to drink anymore, but I knew it was also impossible for me to stop drinking. And so I stayed there hiding with all the fears that anyone could imagine.
And it was three weeks later on a Saturday afternoon, and a guy came to our home ringing the doorbell. A guy that hadn't been in our home for three and a half years because I had thrown him out because of the way that he had lived. And he had with him a wife and a little girl. And he sat down and he started to tell me a story. He started to tell me a story about what it used to be like and what had happened and what it was like that day.
He talked about the places we'd been and the things we'd seen. He talked about the jobs that we'd had and the times we'd been in jail together. He talked about the jobs that we'd had and the families we'd destroyed. And he talked about all the things that I didn't want to hear anyone talk about. And as the afternoon went along and it was time to sit to the table for dinner, and they all sat to eat, and I sat to just be with them because I wasn't capable of eating.
And after they finished dinner, he went to the car and he got a suitcase and he went to the bathroom and he was having a shower and he was singing and he was whistling. And he came out and he had a suit on and a clean shirt and a tie and his shoes were shined.
[00:10:05]
And he said, Stan, I'm going to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. Would you like to go with me? And I told him that I wasn't interested in Alcoholics Anonymous and that one thing for sure that he could bet on was that he would never see me there. For you see, I had looked at Alcoholics Anonymous when I was 17 years old. I had been sent there by a judge. And my recollection of a typical meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous in that year, year and a half that I was with you, was in a clubroom basement full of smoke.
There was an old round table with a gray wool blanket on it. There was a cord hanging from the ceiling with a single bulb. And a bunch of guys sat around there and they played cards. And one of them would leave and get drunk and the other one would come shaking back. And they would say, I hope that you're well enough, Harry, to sit and play cards because Pete's away drinking. That was my understanding of Alcoholics Anonymous.
I had never seen a big book. I had never attended a meeting as we understand meetings. I had never seen the serenity prayer. I had never heard the preamble. I knew absolutely nothing about Alcoholics Anonymous. And I just knew that there was nothing there for me. He said nothing more except to whistle a little bit and walk out the door. And I went and sat in that old couch or Chesterfield or whatever it is.
And I hear a lot of talk in Alcoholics Anonymous about a spiritual awakening and when it starts and how does it happen. And I like to believe that I had a spiritual experience that night. For before he could drive away from our home, something took me from that old couch to run to the door and holler at him and ask him to wait while I could have a shower and clean up and go to that meeting with him.
Alcoholics Anonymous is a program of attraction and not one of promotion. And I like to believe that I was attracted to you people through him. Because the only time he had ever left our home before that when he had a clean shirt and a clean suit and a tie and shine shoes were when he had my shoes and my suit and my tie and the keys to my car. And he was a hopeless drunk because he was my wife's brother.
And she used to tell me to do something about my drinking and I would say, and I ever get as bad as your brother, I'll surely do something about my drinking. Because I knew I could never get as bad as her brother. But you see, he had found something that I wanted, I guess. And he took the time out of his life to come to our house uninvited, unsolicited, and to share with me his experience and his strength and his hope.
So that I too might find another way to live. And he took me to the meeting. And it was a large meeting. And he was the speaker that evening. And he stood up and he talked about what it used to be like and what happened and what it was like now. And he told all you people what kind of a person he brought to the meeting. And I couldn't understand why he would stand there and tell you all about me. And I was angry.
And I was full of despair. And there were people at that meeting that I had swore that I had been at their wake. There were people there that I had lost touch with, that I hadn't seen in a long, long time. We left the meeting. We went home. I have no recollection of him telling me to go to another meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I have no recollection of him even suggesting. I have no recollection of him giving me a meeting list.
But what I recall was finding myself at another meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous on a Monday night and on Tuesday night and Wednesday night and Thursday night and back to that same old meeting where I had been the first one on a Saturday night. And I listened to you. And I didn't really understand what you were talking about. And I didn't understand why I was there. and understand why I was there. And a couple of months went by. And I went to a meeting,
[00:15:09]
and I'm sure to this day that it's the only meeting that's ever been held in that city that talked about sponsorship. And I got the impression of what a sponsor was. It was somebody that was vague, and he was mean, and he was ugly. And he picked you up when you needed picking up, and he kicked you back down when you needed kicking down. And I looked around the room, and there was a guy that I had worked with many years before, and his name was Corky.
And I went over and said, Corky, would you be my sponsor? And he looked at me and said, Stan, since I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I've become a very busy person. I have a wife and a family, and I have a job and much responsibility. There are a number of people that walk in this fellowship that I have an obligation to be with and to help. And he said, and furthermore, I only sponsor successful people into Alcoholics Anonymous. And he turned and he walked away and left me standing there. And I walked out of this old church basement with my head down and wondering what it was all about. And there, leaning against a tree in the darkness, came this voice, and it was old Corky. And he said, Stan, if you'll do some of the simple things that I ask, I will try and show you a new way of life. And the first thing you will do, as long as you call me, refer to me, or suggest to others that I'm your sponsor, is that each and every Sunday morning you will be at a meeting, a meeting where there's breakfast at nine and fellowship till ten, a meeting from ten to eleven and fellowship again from eleven till twelve. And from this day forward, that's where you will be from nine o'clock on Sunday morning until twelve noon. And what I didn't know then, but I found out when I was a year sober, that the reason that Corky agreed to sponsor me and the reason he demanded my attendance at that meeting was that he had a resentment that his old group had started a new group and was looking for members. And I started going to more meetings, but I still was not an alcoholic. For you see, I still had the same old wife and the same old kids and the same old banker and the same old job. And I had a car and a couple of cars and a couple of mortgages.
I didn't identify with divorces and spending long times in jail and some of the stories we hear, some of the stories we hear that give us stature in Alcoholics Anonymous. But as I look back now, I had all the stature I could handle before I came to you. I didn't recognize it then, but I knew that I'd had it. And I went to a meeting on a Tuesday night. In our town, there are a lot of small meetings and discussion meetings. And the chairman was, that was leading the meeting, was going around the room asking people to share. And there was a guy at the meeting that night that I hadn't seen before. And he was a big, tall, skinny guy, and he was from out of town and he wasn't dressed very well and he didn't look very good. And I'm sure if I'd have got close to him, he wouldn't have smelled very good. And they asked him if he had anything to say. And he got up from where he sat and walked up and put his hand on the shoulder of the chairman and introduced himself. And he said, I'd like to tell you a story about what it used to be like and what happened and what it's like now. And he told a story about loneliness and fear and frustration and futility, about helplessness and hopelessness, about a madness and a blackness that was around him that he could never understand, about a thing that grew and developed inside that nearly drove him insane. And how as a result of one day walking in the door of Alcoholics Anonymous and walking and talking with the people, that the loneliness and the fear started to leave, that the frustration and the anxiety and the madness and the blackness slowly went away. And the helplessness and the hopelessness and the futility were gone. And that the greatest message he had ever received was one of hope. And that the message had come by walking and talking with the people in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I went home that night knowing for the very first time that if he was an alcoholic, then I too surely must be. For that was the way I had spent a lifetime. A lifetime of hopelessness and helplessness and futility and fear and frustration and anxiety and a madness and a blackness that was about me, that drove me mad and drove me insane,
[00:20:05]
that allowed me to destroy every single thing that came in touch with me, that I could never understand. And so it became obvious to me that if I wanted to change that, that I should walk and I should talk with you. And I talked to this old sponsor. And he said, it's finally come to the point where you have accepted the fact that you are alcoholic. And he said, as you tell me about yourself, Stan, there is no doubt in my mind that your life is totally unmanageable. And he said, we will give you three guarantees as a result of this admission. One is that you will become happier than you ever thought possible. Two, that you will never have to spend another night in jail.
And three, that you will be helpful and useful. And he said, it will be necessary for you, absolutely necessary, that you come to believe in a power greater than yourself and that you learn to live by some basic spiritual principles. And that if you can't come to believe in a power greater than yourself and if you can't come to believe in some spiritual principles, then we in Alcoholics Anonymous have absolutely nothing to offer you. And I told him that that wasn't possible because I had no understanding of anything spiritual. There were no concepts of spirituality, that there were no gods or powers greater than I. Because I had never been in a Sunday school or a church, I had never picked up a Bible, and I knew nothing about anything that might be spiritual. Nothing. And he told me very simply, for you, Stan, God may never ever be anything more than the good orderly direction you get from Alcoholics Anonymous. So take the direction, the direction that will be orderly, and the orderly direction that will be good for you. And allow this fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous to become a power, to become a power that can help you to find a new way of life. And just turn your selfish, self-centered, egotistical being over to the care and the direction of Alcoholics Anonymous. And hopefully you will find there what many of us have found. Keep going to the meetings, read the book, and walk and talk with us. And I went to the meetings, and I read the book, and I walked with you and I talked with you. But I wasn't finding what you were talking about. And so I went back to this guy that had taken me to my first meeting and I said, Garnet, you had never been in a church in your life or a Sunday school. You didn't know anything about anything spiritual or any principles. How did you come to believe in this power greater than yourself? How did you come to find this happiness and this usefulness and this purpose? And he told me a story about how he used to sit in the meetings very belligerent when they would talk about God or a power greater than themselves.
And how he, who was a man of six feet tall and weighed 220 or 230 pounds, was a power unto himself. And how he would argue and fight with everything that was said in Alcoholics Anonymous about God and about spiritual things. And how one night when he went to a meeting and the chairman of the meeting decided they would have a meeting on step two and step three. And it continuously kept coming back to God and to a power greater than himself and spiritual things. And Garnet said he kept arguing with them and kept being belligerent.
And he said finally the chairman of the meeting got up from his chair. And he was a big man, he said. He was six foot six and he weighed 300 pounds. And he walked over to where I was and he grabbed me by the arm and threw me across his shoulder and I hit the wall. And he walked over and he picked me up from the floor and he threw me back into my chair. And he said, Garnet, he said here is one power that is greater than you. And I said what happened then? He said I came to believe. Well I wasn't big in fighting because I'd
[00:25:00]
plain run out of teeth. But I kept, I kept being with you. And my sponsor said to me one day that I should take an inventory, a moral inventory without fear of what I might find. And I reluctantly agreed to do that. I didn't know how to do it, but I did it. And the only reason I did it was because he told me that he had arranged an appointment to do a fifth step. And I knew that it was a little difficult to do a fifth step if I hadn't done the fourth step. And I knew that I had to do a fourth step because in that particular group they wouldn't allow you to pay contributions to GSO and to the provincial assembly until you had done a fourth and a fifth step. Because they didn't think that if you would stay sober until you had done a fourth and a fifth step. And they didn't accept you as a part of Alcoholics Anonymous until you had done a fourth and a fifth step.
And they had found out about the tradition of not accepting outside contributions. And they wouldn't take these outside contributions from me. And God how I wanted to belong and be a part of the thing. I had no desire to be apart from any longer. And I know now that that's why I did that fourth and fifth step. I did it because I wanted to belong. Because I wanted to belong. So we admit and we accept. We associate one with each other. And we initiate a route of action. And hopefully we continue to initiate the action necessary to keep us happy and to keep us sober. And to develop an ongoing relationship with God as we understand God. But you see my old sponsor moved away. And I didn't know any better. And so I stopped doing the things that he had told me to do. And I found myself a year and a half sober.
Feeling the same way that I had felt when I came in. All the loneliness and the fear and the frustration were back. And the hopelessness and the futility and the madness and the blackness had returned. And self had totally taken over. And there was an old man that happened to go through the town that I was living in who stopped and asked if I would go with him to a meeting which was some hundred miles away. And I agreed that I would go with him.
And on the way back from the meeting he said, Stan how are you? And I said I'm fine. He said how are things really? And I started to tell him about this problem I had. This lack of tolerance with others. About this hopelessness and helplessness. And he told me that it had been his experience. That there was a direct relationship between the lack of tolerance with others and the fourth and the fifth step. There was a relationship between the lack of tolerance with others and step 10, 11 and 12. And of course my first reaction was one of anger because everyone knew that I had done a fourth step and a fifth step.
But I wasn't well enough to tell him how angry I was. But it ate on me. And a few days later I found myself one more time with paper and pencil and I started to do a fourth step the way it says in the book. We listed the topics of resentment and fear in sex relations and posed the questions of who and why and what was the effect on me. And we went and we made an appointment. And we sat down with a little Anglican clergyman. And we talked about the nature of the wrongs. We talked about the causes. And I came away from there for the very first time. Believing that selfishness and self-centeredness was my problem. But before I left, he asked me if I truly was an alcoholic and if I truly believed that my life was unmanageable. He asked me if I had come to believe in a power greater than myself.
[00:30:05]
in turning me over to Him. And I told him that I had, and he asked me if I had done it in the manner in which it is suggested in the book, with another person. And before I realized what was happening, I and that old clergyman went on our knees asking God to accept me in His care. And then that old clergyman suggested to me if there ever should be a time in my life when I should be ready to have these things stand between my usefulness to God and my fellows removed, that it should be at that time. And the next thing I knew, we were one more time on our knees humbly asking God to remove these shortcomings.
There was a new peace and a new serenity. There was a new freedom. There was a new way of life that opened up. The good started to return. All the old fears and frustrations dropped away. The madness and the blackness were gone. And I was only lonely now when I chose to be lonely. And a guy came into the group, and he wanted to know if I would be his sponsor. And I said, Otto, let me tell you something. Since I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I have become a very busy person. I have this wife and these kids, and I have this job and this boss, and I have people in Alcoholics Anonymous that need me. And furthermore, I only sponsor successes. But if you will do some of the simple things I tell you. And so Otto and I started to build with him, for both of us, what turned out to be a great and wonderful life. And Otto phoned me one night and he said, Stan, he said, I think I should do this fourth step. And I said, Otto, I thought you had already done that. And he said, but I'm not sure how to do it. So we agreed that he and I would sit and I would get him started doing this fourth step. And so when I left, he said, I'll be back to you in a couple of days and I'll let you know how this is going. And a couple of days later, Otto phoned me and he said, I've dealt with all the fear and I understand what the effects of it were on me. And he said, I've dealt with all the resentments and I understand what all the effects were on me. But he said, this thing is sex relations.
He said, Stan, you know, I'm a bachelor. And I said, and what's that got to do with it? He said, every time I look at the topic, he said, I can't get started to write because all I can think of is have none, want some. I want you to know that Alcoholics Anonymous works because Otto is now a happily married man, seven children. So it would appear that it's necessary that we fully concede to our innermost selves, that we are alcoholic, that we are absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge. That when we have had all the pain and humiliation and degradation that we can stand, that we come on bended knee and ask with as much humility as we can muster for help. And that the help is available. And we come to understand as we walk and talk with the people, that this power, this God of our understanding will come to all who will seek him. And as we seek and as we walk one with each other, as we initiate the action necessary, that all kinds of good things begin to happen to us. You see, we come to understand that the degree of our anxiety is in direct relationship to our distance from God. And we come to understand that anyone who continues to live in the past is to admit that there's nothing to live for today or for tomorrow. And we understand and we come to understand that the action in Alcoholics Anonymous is 10% deciding and 90% action. And so we spend a small amount of time deciding what we should do and how we should do
[00:35:06]
it and spend the rest of the time burning energy and calories getting it done. And I know that it works because it's worked for me. I know that it works because it's worked for me. And so we admit and we accept and we associate and we initiate the action so necessary. And as a result of that admission and acceptance and association and the action, we come to have a change in attitude. We come to have a change in attitude. And I know that I came to have a change of attitude because I am now capable of sitting down and enjoying a visit with my mother-in-law. I have a mother-in-law that speaks 180 words a minute with gusts to 250. I have a mother-in-law with a Teflon tongue. You can't wear it out. But she and I have been able to build a great relationship. It is amazing what Alcoholics Anonymous has done for her. It just amazes me. But I've learned that in order to have a friend, I must first be a friend. And I had never been a friend in my life to anyone. I was not a giver. I was a taker. And I spent a lifetime taking and not giving. I came to understand when I walked in the door that I was given a key. And that if I would walk with you and I would talk with you, I would come to understand what that key was all about. I would come to realize that I could acquire some knowledge about the problem. And that I could, if I walked with you, find the enthusiasm to live with the solution. And that with the knowledge and the enthusiasm, I would learn to be myself, just to be me. And when I get up in the morning and I make a decision that just for today, it's not going to be important to be right. And just for today, I'm not going to be particularly concerned what someone else might think about me. I don't have any trouble at all.
For you see, as a result of being with you, it's not nearly as important anymore to be right. And I have been given a gift. So it doesn't really matter anymore what people might think. And it's no longer necessary to please each and every single person and situation and circumstance. I know that as I stand here, that the promises that they made for me, the gifts, the things that he told me that day have all been true. For you see, I have never found it necessary to take a drink since they took me to that first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I've never had to spend a night in jail since I went to that first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I have become happier than I ever thought possible. I have been given a reprieve. And as it says, or Bill wrote, that it's contingent upon the maintenance of my spiritual condition. But I'm still capable from time to time to move away and not maintain that spiritual condition until I'm reminded of the only two disciplinarians in Alcoholics Anonymous. When I am reminded of the disciplinarian of great suffering from the past, and the recollection of the great love that I have had since I came to you people, and the love and the respect that has returned from that house to become a home. For you see, I still have the same old wife and the same old kids. I have a different job now. But I wasn't asked to leave the last one I had. And that is something different. And somewhere along the line through all this, I acquired a spirit of service. And I believe with all my heart that for me to fail to acquire a spirit of service would be to have missed the whole object of Alcoholics
[00:40:05]
Anonymous. For you see, I believe that my purpose is to serve God by serving my fellows. And if I couldn't have acquired a spirit of service, I could not have found that purpose, nor could I have fulfilled it. It says in our writings that most of our spiritual awakenings are based on calamity and despair. And there's no doubt in my mind that mine was based on calamity and despair, because I had destroyed every single thing around me. I also know and agree with the concept of a spiritual experience being of an educational variety, because my experience has been just that. You see, while you walked with me and you talked with me, while you shared your experience and your strength and your hope with me, while you smiled and made me a part of instead of apart from, while you took me in when I had nowhere to go, while you gave me all the things I needed when I needed them, that I came to believe in a power greater than myself. And I learned to live by some basic spiritual principles. I came to understand that power as being one of God. And I came to understand that that came about as the good orderly direction that you gave me. I have had a spiritual experience. That spiritual experience has been as a result of the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. And as a result of that spiritual experience, I have tried to share with others what I have found. And I have tried to carry this message that I was given to other alcoholics. And I've tried to do that by practicing the principles that I learned since coming to you, the simple principles of truth and honesty. For you see, I am not well enough or I do not have enough ability to find other principles in Alcoholics Anonymous. I have been able to find two simple concepts, the one of truth and the one of honesty. And when I am honest with me, I can be truthful with you. And when I'm truthful with you, I have all the tolerance in the world and everything goes fine and it's smooth. But when I become dishonest with you, when I become dishonest with me and untruthful with you, then I start to find all these little inadequacies and all the shortcomings in you. I come to find all the things that build up and start to move back to let the very thing just creep into my life that at one time destroyed me. I know that it's there's not one of us that could be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous that would fail to give thanks for what we have found. But it is also necessary for me to give thanks for a wife that understood, for a wife that was there when I was in a great deal of difficulty and trouble, for a wife that had a great deal of love when I was unlovable, for a wife that told me the truth when I needed to hear the truth. And so between my wife, God as I understand God, and Alcoholics Anonymous, I have become a very grateful alcoholic. As Bill wrote, that he was thankful for having once suffered the pains of alcoholism. He was thankful for the negativeness and the He was thankful for the negativeness and the sickness that reduced him to a state of hopelessness so that he might accept the gifts of God. He was thankful for the
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miracle that had happened in his life as recovery was bestowed upon him. He had been thankful for the cheerfulness and for the laughter. He had been thankful for the privilege of communication. And he was thankful for the increased willingness to know and to do the will of God. And he was thankful for the devoted service of the many, many non-alcoholics. And I too am thankful for all those things. For you see, I came to understand a long time ago that were it not for the Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous, this fellowship of men and women might never be what it is this day. And I think it's important as we walk and as we carry this message of hope to others that we tell the whole story of Alcoholics Anonymous. I wonder how many people sit in our meeting rooms that have no understanding of what they belong to. They understand the recovery part of Alcoholics Anonymous. But do they understand what they belong to? Do they realize and do they appreciate the fact that Alcoholics Anonymous is first and foremost a fellowship of men and women who by sharing their experience and their strength and their hope, one with each other, that we can solve this common problem and that we can help others to recover from alcoholism. Do we tell the person sitting in our group that is shaking and is uncomfortable that there are no dues here and that there are no fees? Do we tell them that we're self-supporting through our own contributions? Do we tell them that we're not allied with any sect, denomination, organization, politics or institution and do we tell them why? Do we tell them that we can look and we draw from the experience of those that went before us? And can we not look back and find that from the middle 1800s when six alcoholics banded together to form an organization that grew very rapidly and very quickly and brought much help and relieved much suffering and pain for the alcoholic, that allowed others that were not alcoholic to come into their midst and involved themselves in great controversy of wet and dry and that the very purpose that they set out to create, the very tool that would have made them useful for others, they lost sight of and it destroyed them. And so it seems to me that it's important for us to share with those that are coming, for those that are already here, what Alcoholics Anonymous is, why it works and how it works.
Because as you shared your experience with me and as I've shared my experience with you, hopefully you and I will have found strength. And as a result of that experience, I hope as a result of that experience and as a result of the new acquired strength that we have hope. We have hope that we can stay sober this day, retiring this night, knowing that the sun can shine one more day tomorrow. Thank you very much.