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Source: Les H – BOX OF CHOCOLATES – 2025-06-05.m4a File: les-h-box-of-chocolates-2025-06-05.mp3 Duration: 00:46:54
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and Box of Chocolates for inviting me to come out and chat with you guys. My name is Les Hardwick and I am an alcoholic. Steve and Annette, were you doing box of chocolates when COVID first hit or was that a different set up? Because I think I spoke. We started right after, right after it. Because I think I remember speaking for you guys while I was in Germany. So, yeah. So maybe we'll get to my Germany story.
I think we will. I like the name of box of chocolates because you don't know what you'll get. And I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to say. I've told the same story for 18 and a half years. And yet it's never been the same story. It's always a variation. There are some really great stories I like sharing and I forget sometimes. Then there are stories that I don't know that are going to come out that end up coming out.
But, you know, I'll tell you right off the bat that my story is not spectacular, right? I didn't end up underneath a bridge. I didn't do any hard time. I spent a night in a drunk tank in 1980 on my 21st birthday for DUI or DWI. We call it a deuce back in California. It used to be a 502 drunk driving. So I really have no idea what's going to happen here. But I do thank you guys for asking me to speak and welcome to everybody that's dialing in here.
That's on the Zoom meeting here with us. So, again, my name is Les Horvick. I am an alcoholic. My sobriety date is November 8th, 2006. I have a sponsor. I sponsor men. I have a home group here in Prattville, Alabama. And I couldn't be much happier with my life than what it is right now. The hurrying around that Ramona mentioned at Area Assembly is really more centered around fixing rooms, reservations, and returning lost phones, it seems like.
My job is really to chair the meeting, which is just a small part of that responsibility. But I serve at the pleasure of Area 1, and I humbly accept that responsibility. Just a small way of getting back. Service has not always been my story. I hope to speak about that in the midst of my story tonight. But really, I'm going to tell you what I was like, what happened, and what I'm like now. And obviously, service is there.
I am fully invested in all three legacies of recovery, unity, and service. So, you know, if you've heard my story in the past, which you may have, some of you may have, I usually start off by telling you about my social birth defects, that my name was Leslie or is Leslie. My middle name's Sherman. I was the redheaded kid. I had freckles. I was chubby. And I was a mama's boy until the fifth grade. And I got beat up regularly because of that.
But in the fifth grade, I realized that I was bigger and taller than most of the other kids. So, the beating up part stopped. But the harassment of my name and my red hair and freckles and then acne kicked in, right? My father was an abusive man, I would tell you, in the past. And by today's standards, he was. But what I've come to learn about myself recently is that I was just a frightened child. And I was a frightened adolescent.
And I was a frightened young man. And I was a frightened adult. And fear still drives me at times. And it was that fear that drove me to certain behaviors of exaggeration, of lying, of manipulation that made me who I was. And then that fateful day came in junior high school. It was before middle school. It was junior high school, where me and Ron Doolittle and Steve Luisotti ran off to the Oakland Hills.
And we got liquored up on a six-pack of Old English 800 talls. And you know what? I wasn't afraid anymore. Life was put on pause. I wasn't worried about my father being abusive. I wasn't worried about the kids calling me redhead or freckle face or chubby. You know, they use, you know, I was a husky kid back in the day. We don't use that term these days. But, you know, all those fears just evaporated.
And I like to say that I was able to exhale for the first time in my life, and that gave me such joy. You know, there's, yeah, it gave me great joy to be able to have that freedom from the fears that I was consumed with my, you know, in my life. I didn't get drunk every day from that day forward. But every opportunity I had to alter my reality, I did, because once my reality was altered, I could live in a fear-free zone.
And that was definitely what I was pursuing throughout my years.
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I am a real alcoholic. I'm not a pure alcoholic. And if you don't know what that means, it means that when alcohol wasn't available, I sought other methods of alleviating that fear, even though I didn't realize that at the time. So I did the usual things in the 70s that a lot of us did back then. But when push came to shove, I always went back to alcohol, and it became the tool in which I used to survive.
And what that meant in my early adult years is that I wasn't drunk every day. Like I said earlier, usually it was restricted to paydays because I lived paycheck to paycheck. I got married young, and we were paycheck to paycheck couple. And so on payday Fridays, I'd go out and get my liquor or my beer, whatever it was, and get loose or get tight, depending on how you talk, what your preferred language is there.
And that was enough to carry me through the next two weeks. I rarely drank at work. If I did, it was on a payday, go out and get a burger and a beer, but I'd go back to work. I suffered really no severe consequences for my drinking for 30 years, except for that DUI on my 21st birthday. I say that, and I used to say, but don't ask my two ex-wives or my kids because they have a completely different perspective of my alcoholism.
Looking back, I was probably diagnosable at the age of 21 as an alcoholic, most certainly by myself as well. But it was a manageable alcoholism in that it didn't threaten me, but others suffered severe consequences. Again, the two ex-wives and the children that I'm blessed to have as adults today, that it certainly appears that they have not inherited my flaws that led to developing the obsession and the craving of alcohol.
So, you know, I went through life, you know, drinking and having fun and ended up with a career that I ended up throwing away 16 years working for a very prominent disc drive company in Colorado until that fateful day where I needed a mental health day sometime probably 2004. It was a spring day. I remember my boss was out of town and my calendar was clear and I decided to take a mental health day.
And I went into the one bar in town that was open at 7 a.m. And it was called the Office Lounge and the Office Lounge smelled like piss and puke when you walked in the front door, not the bathroom, but the front door. And I'm there in my, my, my dockers and my, my penny lopers and my button down shirt. And I decided to get liquored up and I got good and liquored up by about 10 a.m. And I went home and took a nap and now it was lunchtime when I came to and went to my favorite lunchtime spot, which was Michael Shays, which was my favorite drinking spot as well.
And I went there and had lunch and got liquored up again and found my way home and took another nap and came to and it was time for happy hour, which I did every day after work. And my wife was cool at this time with me going to happy hour. And I got good and liquored up and I went home and on the way home, I stopped by my favorite drive-thru liquor store and got some, got some beer to finish the night off.
So this was a world-class day for me. I was able to pull off three pretty good, strong and heavy buzzes or as I decided to call it getting liquored up and my intention was to go to work the very next day. And I had done this sort of thing kind of in the past where I've taken a mental health day and got liquored up, but I found myself back at the office lounge at 7 a.m. I didn't get back to work for 10 business days, two weeks, and that had never happened to me before.
I got up in the morning, a little groggy. I need something to take the edge off. So I called in sick the next day and I called in sick the next day and then I used the vacation day and this was completely out of behavior for me. I had gone from a manageable everyday hard drinking drunk after work to a nonstop insatiable drunk. This carried on for, like I said, two weeks. I was able to break that cycle.
My wife is freaking out. My boss is freaking out. My boss knew I was a heavy drinker, but it never got in the way of work. So for the next year and a half, I struggled with maintaining sobriety. I struggled with being able to go back to work. The idea of alcohol alleviating my fears was gone and out the window.
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It increased my level of paranoia about life, about work, about my second marriage, which I was well into now. I'm going to back up here a second. My first introduction to Alcoholics Anonymous was the summer of 1991. I'm out with a bunch of co-workers on a happy hour and my pager went off. Anybody remember a pager? And I'm on call. So I go to the nearest payphone and I called the number and it was, hello, Alcoholics Anonymous, and I hung up.
I figured somebody was just punking me. Chances are they weren't punking me. Chances are it was a strong hint. My next introduction to Alcoholics Anonymous was in 1996. I was dating a woman that had gotten clean in the rooms of AA. And when we broke up in 97, she left me her big book and the number to the local Alcoholics Anonymous clubhouse. So shortly after she left, she had moved to Peru. That's what I do to women.
Sometimes they have to leave the country. Well into a bottle of wild turkey, I call that number. And this very bright and cheery voice, kind of like Ramona, said, hello, Alcoholics Anonymous, how can I help you? And I said, well, what's the problem with being a functional alcoholic? Well, the word alcoholic is in that sentence. Thank you, goodbye, click. Probably a few expletives were in that sentence, right?
So those are my two introductions to AA. In February 14, 2005, I walked into my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting crying like a pinched baby. Now I'll tell you, I'm about six foot tall and I was about 200, 225 pounds that time. And me crying is a pitiful sight. I've been on a bender for I don't know how long. My second wife had left me about half a week earlier. And that gal that had left her big book for me, I had reached out to her and she said, you need to get to an AA meeting.
So I went to this AA meeting and this guy named Alec, wearing bib overalls. Now remember, I'm in business dress, button down collar, dockers and penny lopers. And Alex is wearing bib overalls. And Alex introduces himself. And after the meeting, he makes himself available to be my sponsor. What I did hear from that meeting is find somebody that has something that you want. Well, Alex wasn't that guy.
Alex talked like Will Rogers, meaning that he talked in stories and I didn't understand a word he said. But I see this guy that's in a button down collar, dockers and penny lopers. And after the second or third day, I went up to him and I said, hey, I guess I need a sponsor. Will you be my sponsor? He said, sure. Let's see where you're at in two weeks. And I'm like, okay, cool. I'm getting a swing of things.
This is a meeting. I'm in business. I know how meetings are ran. There's a person in charge. There's a chairperson. You guys have a format. You say this crazy prayer and then you do these readings that I'm kind of catching on to. And then we all share. And then you just close with the prayer. Yeah, I can hang out for two weeks. The problem is, is that on day 13, I got drunk. Not because I wanted to get drunk and not because I was planning to get drunk, but because I had untreated alcoholism.
I've learned this in retrospect. Thus began my journey in and out of the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous for almost two years. Hearing that the first drink gets you drunk, hearing that, welcome back. Here's a half cup of coffee. Don't leave before the miracle happens. But nobody told me what the miracle was, which in hindsight was frustrating. On November 8th, 2006, after throwing away that career in high-tech and wife number two in the house going to foreclosure.
I walked back into Alcoholics Anonymous. And guess who was there? Alec. And Alec reached his hand out to me and he said, are you done? I said, Alec, I'm scared to death. He said, well, let's get to work then. And I sat all the way down in the chair with Alec and began working the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. I got all the way to step eight with Alex. I was it back. There's some pieces. I'm leaving out here intentionally, but I can tell you that.
But I can tell you that my first, fourth, and fifth step, I used to say were the world's worst
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fourth and fifth step because they were only about this big on a piece of paper. That's everything. Fears, resentments, and my relationships slash sex inventory all fit on one page. Today I will tell you that it was the world's greatest fourth and fifth step for one reason and one reason alone is that everything I had at that moment I brought to paper and I gave to Alec. I hid nothing from that man and Alec said, he said, some things may come up in the future and when they do, you just go through this process again because chances are that some things are going to come up in the future and he didn't look at my fourth step and tear it up and tell me to go do it again. He didn't set it on fire and he didn't demean me or degrade me for my bad effort. He just said, if things come up in the future, you do this process again.
As I mentioned, Alec and I got to the eighth step. I then moved back down to Albuquerque, New Mexico where I had previously put together six months of abstinence. Being on a roll, having done my fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth step, I'm feeling pretty confident and I got a sponsor in name only and I had hooked back up again with the girlfriend who was that gal that I was with in 96, 97 who I thank dearly that helped me on my path of recovery. She was out of town and it was Christmas day 2006 and I woke up and it snowed in Albuquerque and it was cold and it was brisk and it was clear and the snow was sparkly. For those of you that know how snow looks when it's on a cold day like that and my first thought was, what a great day to get drunk.
My second thought was, I need to get to a meeting. I went to a meeting. As I'm walking into a noon meeting, my phone rings and it's a phone number from the Bay Area, which is where I grew up and it was my father or it turns out it went to voicemail and it was my father. I listened to the voicemail after the meeting and I said, I need to write some amends letters because I didn't ever see myself going back to Colorado.
I think that decision to write some amends letters allowed the universe, some gears in the universe to turn and some pulleys to go up and down and inspired my father to call me a man I had not spoken to in at least three or four years. A man that I said that I would either, excuse the language, piss on his grave or dance a jig. Held that mentality for a long time. I can say happily that I was able to make an amends to my father and that I successfully completed the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous for the first time, probably by the end of January that year. My first five years of recovery were pretty flat and pretty boring. My girlfriend was not an advocate of the fellowship of AA. She believed that once you did the work, you can carry on with your life and go to a meeting every now and then.
Our relationship ended some five years later. I got involved with another woman and then my AA world exploded because I started going to different meetings. I started hearing the same thing but from different perspectives and different languages being used. I was voluntold that I was going to be the GSR, which I am not a fan of or an advocate of being voluntold into positions of general service. You can be voluntold into being the cookie guy or being the coffee guy or being the greeter, but I really believe that you need to have some understanding of the responsibilities that you're going to hold before you get voluntold into them and understand the commitment that's involved in that.
I crept along in that GSR position and did a very, very poor job as I understand the responsibilities of GSR today, but what it did do is it did get me to district and it did get me to area assembly. Now, I wasn't a very good voting member of the district in that I voted the way that my friends voted because I didn't understand the responsibility of what a GSR was and the same thing with area assembly. I went there and I hung out with my buddies and there were some people there that I knew and I respected. They had long-term sobriety, so I voted the way that they
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voted. I know these are things that you probably shouldn't admit in public, but that's what I did because I was uninformed of the responsibilities. During an area assembly in 2013, down south, and you'll come to me later, I had gone to area assembly without having a service responsibility because I enjoy going to area assembly and in strolls this woman as if she was walking on a cloud of air, very statuesque, stunningly beautiful, and I leaned over to my buddy and I said, there goes my next ex-wife. Well, she turned out to be my wife and she's still my wife and there's no plans to make her my ex-wife and that's Patty who's on here. Patty, I give credit to, to getting me involved in understanding general service. I became more knowledgeable in not only the letter of the traditions, but also the spirit of the traditions. We ended up moving to Germany in 2018 because of a job offer that she had there.
She worked for the government and I thought, well, this is a chance just for me to be a regular AA member. So, we find a home group there in Stuttgart, Germany. It's an English-speaking group and after a couple meetings or a couple weeks, this fellow, a long-timer, approached me and said, hey, would you mind being our alternate GSR? Now, I'll remind you, I didn't go there looking for a job in AA. I just went there to be a member of AA. So, I went there to be a member of AA.
I just went there to be a member of AA. Maybe find a sponsee. I said, well, you know, if the group votes me in, sure, I'll be glad to be alternate GSR. Well, the group wasn't very well-informed either on how a group operates or should operate according to the AA group pamphlet and they ended up voting me as alternate GSR. After a couple weeks, the same guy approached me and said, hey, would you mind coming to our district meeting, which they called intergroup there. They don't really have districts. It's a different service structure over there.
They fall under the Great Britain service structure, English-speaking AA in Central Europe. I said, well, if intergroup votes me in, then yeah, sure, I'll come to your intergroup meeting and he wanted me to be a group representative and I said, sure. Well, I get there, they vote me in. So, now I'm the equivalent of a DCM and he's kind of the equivalent of a DCM chair. So, next thing I know, I'm involved in general service over in Germany under the Great Britain service structure, which meant that I traveled to Prague, Czechoslovakia. I traveled to Varna, Bulgaria, Brussels, Belgium, because that's where they held their area assemblies. Each intergroup would bid on area assembly and people complained about the cost of travel here.
My stipend was 600 euro and that included airfare, hotel, and food, right? So, they had a little bit different understanding of the cost of doing business of AA there. So, I think I represented our intergroup well there, excuse me, and that we were able to affect some changes in the way that our intergroup was being led is what I'll say. I was at one time, I'm not going to tell that story. There's no need to tell that story. So, I'm fully indoctrinated in the way that Great Britain does their service structure in that I thought I knew what I was talking about when I talked about general service over there in Great Britain, but when we came back in 2021, one of the first things Patty and I did was went to area assembly. I know that this isn't, as I pause here, this isn't a coherent story, but this is what it was like and what happened and what I'm like now, right? Because service is a very big part of my story. So, Patty and I go to area assembly and I approach Luke, who's the area chair at the time, who's now our area delegate for Alabama Northwest Florida, and said, hey, I just want to work, man.
Is there anything I can do for area one? And turns out that the CPC chair had to give up his responsibility because he moved south down to Destin. So, I went to the CPC committee,
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I was nominated, I was voted in, and I served as CPC chair for area one from 2021 to 2023. And I really enjoyed that opportunity. In 2023, during our voting session, I was not elected to anything, although I stood for various positions. And after that election cycle, I went up to our area chair, which was Connie Boya, Connie M., who's now our alternate delegate. And I said, hey, Connie, is there anything I can do? I just want to work, man. I just want to get back to AA.
I really got the service bug at this point in time in my life, right? And Connie says, well, you know, one of the responsibilities for the chair is to find alternative venues to hold area assembly. And it's a pretty big job. Would you mind taking that on as an ad hoc committee chair? I said, yeah, sure. As long as I can have a committee. She said, well, yeah, you can have a committee. So next area assembly, which would have been March or April of 2023, I think, if that's right. I can't do math in my head. I don't do public math. I crashed the DCM meeting and I held them hostage and said, I'm not leaving until I get five volunteers to be on my venue committee. I got five people from the north, south, and mid of area one.
And we began the arduous task, the laborious task of calling up venues, hotels, high schools, private schools, convention centers, the Elks Clubs, the Shriners Clubs, trying to find any suitable venue. And we came and we probably searched, I probably put my hands, email, and voice to, along with the other committee members, I would say close to a hundred possibilities. We narrowed that down to just a handful. And then Connie and another person, Michael S., our area one secretary, provided a venue as well, a venue option. And we ended up voting on some venues. And we ended up landing on this venue that we're currently at in Birmingham, Alabama.
During my tenure as the ad hoc committee chair, I was able to have the ad hoc committee become a standing committee, which we now call Location Plus. And that's being chaired by Eric J. out of, don't tell me, district 10. And I believe that he is the DCM for district 10, and he now chairs that committee. So if anybody in area one has any recommendations, north, south, east, west, or central, please feel free to contact Eric J. during area assembly, or myself or Steven and that can get you his contact information.
So, my tenure's coming up. I'm continuing on with, I ended up changing sponsors due to availability and needing a little bit more direction as far as service growth and just growth as an AA member during this time. And and upcome elections in October of 2024. And I had heard by a member that I respect that if you're able, but you're not willing, why in the hell aren't you willing to give back to AA and trust the group conscience?
So I ended up standing for, you know, delegate, even though I didn't think that I would be a very suitable representative, good representative of area one as a delegate. That ended up going to Luke, I stood for alternate delegate, even though I didn't think I was ready to be an alternate delegate either that went to Connie. I went for, I stood for area chair, and that ended up going in the hat. And I believe somebody else on here was also in the running for area chair, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, Patty, and ended up going to the hat between me and Michael. And my name came out of the hat. And then Michael ended up being voted as our area secretary. I don't know that I've ever been more intimidated by a service position before, as I have been with area chair, mostly because I hold this fantasy idea of perfection, that I see you up there, See you up there chairing Area Assembly, Luke or Connie or the person before that was a fellow
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named Craig who moved to Texas, and I just saw it being delivered with impeccable integrity and presentation, and I see every minor mistake that I make, and I'm missing this detail, and I tell you, well, that's the last mistake for this weekend, and I step it in again, right? I'm finally becoming a little bit comfortable in this responsibility. The reason I bring all this up is that I think the main theme of my story is that I don't know what's around the corner.
Even today, I don't know what's around that corner. When my girlfriend and I broke up at when I was five years sober, I expected my life to be what it was with her, and that was go to a meeting once a day and have a non-eventful, relatively non-fun life. I get involved with a gal that is really involved in AA, going to different meetings, going out to dinner, going to lunch, going to the picnics, traveling, having fun, and that relationship ended, and then I end up meeting Patty, who's very invested in general service. Patty actually was voted area secretary of Area 46, and that's where we had met, which is New Mexico, so I'm learning a lot from Patty.
In 2015, I was involved in a hit-and-run accident on the interstate on my motorcycle, and I ended up spending 30 days in trauma, and by about day two, three, or four, I'm allowed to have visitors. This person comes in, and they're like, oh, Les, you're so hurt. Is there anything I can do for you? Can I get you a Coke? Can I get you a pizza? How about a Snickers? I'm waiting for this, right, because I'm tore up. I am tore up. I won't go through the myriad of injuries that I had, but I'm pretty tore up, and I'm thinking, I'm due a little sympathy. I'm due a little pity here, right, and then I get a call from a friend of mine, and I'm like, oh, I'm sorry. I'm and then she goes into a 30-minute diatribe about how bad her day was.
Now, I'm bandaged from wrist to shoulder with road rash, road rash on my back, road rash on my legs, on my face. You know, I've got some pretty severe injuries, and this gal is talking about how bad her day is. I'm thinking, well, that's kind of weird, and then she leaves, and next, in comes the next person. Ooh, ah, Les, is there anything I can do for you? Can I get you a pizza? How about a Snickers? Maybe a Coke? I'm thinking, yeah, okay, we're back on track. We're back on track, and then they go into about how bad their day was, how their stepsisters, ex-boyfriends, third cousin's cat puked on the floor, and they stepped on it this morning, and again, you know, I can't even, I don't even know if I'm up and walking yet to go to the bathroom by myself yet, right? And I'm thinking to myself, what the hell is going on?
Is this really happening? And I hear a voice, audible voice in my head. This is your job. And I say to myself, huh? Yeah, this is your job. You can't do anything else but listen. So listen to these people. And it was at that moment, I had this profound understanding that no matter what the situation is, apparently, that my higher power, the universe, has found it fit for me to sit there and listen to people complain about how bad their day is while I'm suffering physically, physically in pain, despite the pain management they're giving me, that my job is to listen, that I don't get a day off in AA, right? A few years later, we moved to Germany. I didn't go there to be alternate GSR. I wanted to go there and be a regular AA member. And next thing I know, I'm alternate GSR. And this isn't bragging. This is me talking about not knowing what's around the corner, right? Next thing I know, I'm the intergroup slash DCM within the Great Britain General Service structure.
Wasn't looking on that. Wasn't planning on that. Didn't expect that. I didn't see that coming to me around the corner. I didn't see me sponsoring some guy from Sweden via Zoom meetings. Didn't see that. I saw maybe me sponsoring somebody
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locally in Stuttgart. Saw that. Yeah, sure. But not some guy in Sweden. We get back to Germany. I just want to work, right? Straighten up chairs, being the trash guy. Next thing I know, I'm the CPC committee chair. Didn't see that coming. All of a sudden, now I got to jump into CPC, which I knew nothing about beforehand. Didn't particularly have a passion for CPC. Don't really have a passion for CPC today. It's not my thing, right? And that's okay. But I was able to guide and steer and lead that committee and hear from the representatives from the different districts and home groups. Didn't see that coming, right? That responsibility ended. And then I go up to the committee. I go up to the area chair and say, hey, I want to help out, right? I'm thinking maybe something sexy and glamorous, right? Well, I'll tell you what, the venue chair wasn't sexy and glamorous, right? It's a lot of hard work, and yet it turned out to be a very high-profile position for some reason. It became a very, I don't know, maybe because we were given, maybe because I was giving quarterly reports. I'm not really sure. But I didn't see that coming either, right? I don't know what's around the corner in AA for me, right? I had this vision before we moved to Germany. I'll tell the story. It's embarrassing, okay? It's embarrassing.
I was asked to speak. We were, Patty and I were asked to speak at a small convention in Florida. And I've always fancied myself a good speaker. Now, I don't know if I am or not. I just know that I'm not afraid to speak, right? I used to have this dream, reoccurring dream as a child of me speaking to a vast stadium of people. And it wasn't political, and it wasn't religious. All I knew is that there were tens of thousands of people there, but I had no idea what I was talking about. So, I get asked to speak at the, we get asked to speak at this convention. We say, yes, of course. And earlier in the year, I had spoken at Area Assembly 2018. And of course, I was told, hey, great job. I really like what you had to say. Patty said, you did a great job. People were patting me on the back. Oh, you're doing a great job. And then I get asked to speak at this convention. Well, you know, circuit speaker is kind of attractive. I wouldn't mind having that gig. And then we get the news that we're moving to Germany. Wow. The convention's next year. I'm not gonna be able to speak at the convention. I'm a little bummed. Well, then I'm approached to speak at the, I believe it was the Florida State Convention. And I have to respectfully decline because I'm moving to Germany because my wife's got a job there. Then I get asked to speak at the New Mexico State Convention. I have to respectfully decline that. Now, I'm a little grumpy, not resentful, just a little grumpy at my wife because she's derailed me from being a internet or being a circuit speaker here in the States, right? Because I can see myself doing that because I put on a tie. I can look pretty good. And like I said, I think I'm a good speaker.
Whether I am or not, I don't know. I don't know what's around the corner. We find this great deal and we go to Malta to an AA convention. And we walk into Malta, the convention there. And somebody approaches me out of the blue and asked me, how long have you been sober? I'd tell them however many years it was at the time. And they said, would you like to speak on a panel? Well, yeah, sure. What's the topic? And they tell me and they said, you'll be joined by a long timer. His name escapes me, but they became good friends, he and his wife. And they were from Scotland.
And so I get a chance to speak at a convention in Malta. That's pretty cool. We go to the Canary Islands and that couple is there again, coincidentally. Maybe we went there intentionally because he was celebrating an AA birthday, I think. And no, I didn't speak at the Canary Islands, did I? I did not. I spoke in, oh, I know where I spoke. I spoke in Slovenia. So we go to this convention in Slovenia and it's the 30th anniversary of AA in Slovenia. And they invited English speaking AA in Slovenia to join them. And I walk in, how long have you been sober? And they asked me, would you speak for us Saturday night? I said, yeah, of course, sure I will. And they give me
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a topic. To this day, I think one of my best AA talks and I had a translator. So I'm having to pause, let them translate, speak, pause, translate. And then we go to another convention in Belgium and I'm asked to speak there. Now, none of these were pre-planned. I had no intention of speaking at any of these conventions before I got there. I don't know what's around the corner. Those three speaking engagements that I potentially had that Patty robbed me of my glory were given back to me in Europe. I just think, I think the irony is funny there that I had this great big idea of being this, being this speaker, right? The circuit speaker. And today I'm just in awe in the ability of circuit speakers and the way they're able to communicate their stories. I don't believe I have that skill level and it's definitely no longer on my plate of things to do is to become a circuit speaker, right? But I had to tell myself because I've really fallen in love with general service. And if I ever tell my story again at the home group or a district event, I'll be happy, right? If it doesn't ever happen again, right? It's not on my list of things to do. My ego has been right-sized in that regard. And the same thing with general service, right? I always want to be a help to AA. I want to be able to serve where I can, but if my service, if the group conscience sees fit that my service ends where it does, I'm okay with that because I don't know what's around the corner, right? I've been fortunate enough to sponsor men since my early sobriety, right? And I've come to see the value of even working with a guy on steps one, two, and three, or step one, or helping a guy qualify and then never seeing them again, right? I have sponsored a busload of guys in my sobriety time and only a handful of them have stayed sober. And I really believe in the saying that some people plant and some people water, but God gives the increase, right? I really believe that I love Alcoholics Anonymous. And when I am right with my higher power, I believe and trust that all of you love Alcoholics Anonymous as much as I do. When I allow personalities to trump principles, i.e. my personality to trump principles, I am no longer walking in the fellowship of the spirit because I become judgmental and I don't want to be that guy. I want to be the most approachable guy at Area Assembly, at my home group, and at district.
And you know what? This is not approachable. I mean, this is my happy face, right? So I have to make an extra effort to remember to smile, which I haven't done much tonight, so that when people are going through their phone and they need to talk to somebody that they're able to say, yeah, I want to talk to Les. I don't want to be the guy they say, nope, I ain't calling that guy. I'll wait till my sponsor gets home from work. I don't want to be that guy. I want people to feel comfortable enough to reach out to me because a man reached out to me and I reached out to him. And because of that, I'm sober today.
If you're new, welcome. If you're returning, welcome back. I really believe that there's a solution here in Alcoholics Anonymous. I know I found one. And thank you so much, Ramona and Steve and Annette for allowing me to speak to you guys tonight. Thank you. Thanks, Les. That was great. Thanks so much for joining us tonight where you never know what you're going to get. You'll have to keep coming back. And we surely hope we see you next Thursday.
Our guest speaker is Pat Y. from Palm Desert, California. She's got a story. If you like this meeting, please do as Bill Wilson always said, pass it on. You can help others right from your phone or your computer and tell them about this special meeting. Everyone is invited to hang out. And if you're new, welcome. Meeting. Everyone is invited to hang out with us on the back porch, and Les, would
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you mind, if you have any closing comments, close us out, and then would you lead us in a prayer of your choice? Sure. Again, if you're new, welcome, if you're returning, welcome back. Please, please, please, I spent almost two years going in and out of the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, not doing the work. If you're struggling, don't be afraid to reach out. If your sponsor isn't taking you through the steps the way that you want them to, have a conversation with your sponsor. I believe that my life depends upon the conscious contact with my Creator, with my higher power, and the Twelve Steps allow me to establish and maintain that conscious contact. My sobriety is a byproduct of that conscious contact, and it's the only solution that I know. So I believe that if you want to get sober, you do what we do, you're going to get sober. I believe that. I believe that wholeheartedly.
With that being said, how about we close out with the responsibility statements instead of a prayer. As Luke likes to say, let's, let's, let's, everybody, can we unmic everybody? In a glorious, angelic harmony, let's recite the responsibility, the we version of the Responsibility Declaration. Who is responsible? We are responsible. When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, I want the hand of the hand always to be there for them. We are responsible. Thank you, everyone.