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Source: Lill G – BOX OF CHOCOLATES – 2026-07-09.m4a File: lill-g-box-of-chocolates-2026-07-09.mp3 Duration: 00:50:01
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Hi everyone, my name is Lil, and I am an alcoholic, and I'd like to thank you for having me, and my sobriety date, April 26, 2003, that means I have 23 years, my home group is Common Welfare Group here, I am sponsored by Hiroshi S. from Long Beach, California, and I sponsor, so that's my, yeah, so I am, I introduced myself as, I was told I could read something, so I'm going to read something, and then I'll talk, and Ramona said that that would be okay, like, yeah, okay, okay, so, if you want to follow along, I'm reading out of the Big Book, on page, it'll start on page 60, and down at the bottom, okay, the first requirement, and I'm changing we to I, by the way, the first requirement is that I be convinced that my life run on self-will can hardly be a success, on that basis, I am almost always in collision with something or somebody, even though my motives are good, I try to be self-propulsion, I am like an actor who wants to run the whole show, is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery, the rest of the players, in my own way, if only my arrangements would stay put, if only people would do as I wish, the show would be great, everybody, including me, would be pleased, life would be wonderful, in trying to make these arrangements, I may sometimes be quite virtuous, I may be kind, considerate, patient, generous, even modest in self-sacrificing, on the other hand, I may be mean, egotistical, selfish, and dishonest, but, as with most humans, I am more likely to have varied traits, what usually happens, the show doesn't come off very well, I begin to think, life doesn't treat me right, I decide to exert myself more, I become, on the next occasion, still more demanding, or gracious, as the case may be, still the play doesn't suit me, admitting I may be somewhat at fault, I am sure that other people are more to blame, I become angry, indignant, self-pitying, what is my basic trouble, am I not really a self-seeker, even when trying to be kind, am I not a victim of the delusion that I can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if I only manage well, is it not evident to all the rest of the players that these are the things I want, and do not my actions make each of them wish to retaliate, snatching all they can get out of the show, am I not, even in my best moments, a producer of confusion rather than harmony, I am self-centered, egocentric, as people like to call it nowadays, I am like the retired businessman who lulls in the Florida sunshine in the winter, complaining of the sad state of the nation, the minister who sighs over the sins of the 20th century, politicians and reformers who are sure all would be utopian if only the rest of the world would behave, the outlaw safecracker who thinks society is wrong to me, and the alcoholic who has lost all and is locked up, whatever my protestations are, am I not really concerned with myself, my resentments, my self-pity, selfishness, self-centeredness, that I think is the root of my troubles, driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, self-pity, I step on the toes of retaliation, sometimes they hurt me, seemingly without provocation, but I invariably find that at some time in the past, I have made decisions based on self, which later placed me in a position to be hurt,
[00:05:11]
so my troubles, I think, are basically of my own making, they arise out of myself, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though I usually don't think so, above everything, I must be rid of this selfishness, I must, or it kills me, God makes that possible, and there often seems no way of entirely getting rid of self without his aid, many of us have tried moral and philosophical convictions galore, that's me, but I could not live up to them, even though I would have liked to, neither could I reduce my self-centeredness much, by wishing or trying on my own power, I had to have God's help, and this is the how and the why of it, first of all, I had to quit playing God, it didn't work, next, I decided that hereafter in this drama of life, God was going to be my director, he is the principal, I am his agent, he is the father, I am his child, most good ideas are simple, and this concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arch through which I pass to freedom, when I sincerely take such a position, all sorts of remarkable things follow, I had a new employer, being all powerful, he provides what I need, if I keep close to him, and perform his work well, established on such a footing, I become less and less interested in myself, my little plans and designs, more and more I become interested in seeing what I could contribute to life, as I felt, as I feel new power flow in, as I enjoy peace of mind, as I discover I can face life successfully, as I become conscious of his presence, I begin to lose my fear of today, tomorrow, or the hereafter, I am reborn, and my name is Lil, and I am an alcoholic, and this describes me, to a T, and that's why I chose it, and that's why I read it the way I read it, because it speaks of my alcoholism, so to give you some background, I had introduced myself as an alcoholic, the first drink I had, I was 12 years old, up until that point, I had dreams of higher education, and academia, I was a straight A student, and there was no reason why, as long as I continued on the course I was going, that higher academia with a full ride was in my, it was in my trajectory, but that is not what happened, what happened was, I went to sleep over at my friends, and there was a bottle of rye whiskey, Canadian rye whiskey, and there wasn't very much in the bottle, I don't even think I got more than a sip of it, but this is what happened, I took a sip, and I almost didn't bother, because like why bother, there was so little in the bottle, but this is what happened, I took a sip of that alcohol, that beverage, alcohol, that rye whiskey, and it was instantaneous, it was like a lightning bolt went through my entire being, my entire being, and I pulled it away, and I looked at it, and I knew, I knew that I was going to do that again, whenever I could, however I could, with whoever I could, drinking whatever I could get my hands on, and how as often as I possibly could, basically what I'm describing to you is, I surrendered my life and my will over to alcohol when I was 12 years old, and that became my whole new motivation for living, and somehow the dreams of higher academia, they got, I had no time for that.
I just wanted to drink, and I sought out people who drank like I, who wanted to drink like I wanted to drink, and I had a whole new, I just found people, I had a whole new circle of friends, by the time I was 14, I'd had my first blackout, by the time I was 15, I didn't even go to school anymore, I dropped out, I dropped out.
[00:10:16]
It's crazy, but like I said, I surrendered my life and my will to alcohol, and I was, and I became a daily drinker, some people say, oh you can't be a daily drinker when you're a teenager, yes you can, and I wasn't the only one, and there were other people who did that too, and so that's it. And so I've seen the underbelly of society, I know a lot of people have not, but I have, I know that a lot of people have, and a lot of terrible things happened, a lot of terrible things.
At 14, thank God, I was behind the wheel of a car, I had no business driving a car, but I was, no, I didn't have a license, you don't get licenses at 14, at least not then, and not where I lived. And the car was full of people, and I went flying over into the busy intersection, and I totaled a sports car that was being test driven off the lot, and car doors went flying open and people went flying out, and thank God nobody was killed.
And that's just, you know, just kind of a snapshot of, yeah, like I said. I became a juvenile delinquent, I did not go to school anymore. I would register to go to school, but my drinking always got in the way. I always ended up drinking with the same kind of people, doing the same kind of things, out the back door, so, and I went to a lot of funerals, and I'm going to jump ahead. I didn't want, that's not the life I wanted. I never wanted to do that. And so, but, selfishness, self-centeredness, that we think. I always had a plan. I always had a plan, I could always figure things out.
And so I had a plan. My plan was to get married, and so I got married, and then I had a couple of children, and I put that marriage and those children between me and alcohol, except, you know, it happens, right? That didn't work very well. And now I have people complaining. Well, actually, people always complained about my drinking. Why do you drink so much? Because things happen. Lots of things happen.
And so, that didn't work, and I tried school. I went back to school, and I got a university degree, and I really liked drinking at university. It was, I found it was legitimate drinking. Somehow it was, when it was really juvenile delinquent stuff, and the lower, the underbelly of society, that was not legitimate drinking. But in university, that became legitimate drinking. It's full of crap, you guys, if you're not picking up on that. It's just like, all this, you know, figuring it out, figuring it out, and, but I didn't want, and like I said, I went to a lot of funerals, starting when I was 12.
And I, because when you drink, like I was drinking, and like my friends were drinking, people, they die. They die of alcohol, there were homicides, there were suicides, there were horrible, horrible accidents, people went to prison, people went to the hospital. I mean, it was a constant thing, where we were going to people's, and we were kids, and we went to funerals. And I thought that was a normal experience, until I became an adult. And it's like, what? This is your first funeral? Like, what? How is that even possible? But anyway.
So I didn't want, I didn't want to be, I didn't want to be an alcoholic. So I'll cut to the chase. So I'll cut to the chase, from 1990 to 2000, I stopped drinking, willpower, just like the
[00:15:06]
man of 30, who knew he couldn't run his business in More About Alcohol in our book, and so, but then he retired young, and out came the carpet slippers and the bottle, okay, so for ten years I didn't drink, and I worked my tail off, I did not come to AA, I never wanted to come here, and I attended therapy, because my father was an alcoholic, I come from an alcoholic home, I always said my father's drinking was getting me drunk, that's a joke, it was convenient to blame my father, I was always blaming someone else, just like in this reading, if only people would do as I wish, the show would be great, everybody including me would be pleased, life would be wonderful, I try, in trying to make these arrangements, I'll do whatever I can to make it happen, that's called manipulation, anyway, so I stopped drinking from 1990 to 2000, I did not drink, and during that time I attended workshops, I attended therapy, I was a scout leader, a youth group leader, a Sunday school teacher, I tried different faith traditions, different faith communities, I studied meditation, this was my very last, and oh, by the way, in the doctor's opinion it talks about being irritable, restless, and discontent when not drinking, well, that's what happened, because when I'm not drinking, I'm not happy, and you won't be happy either, as Bob Dee says in Las Vegas, he says, I don't suffer well, and I don't suffer alone, and I will make you suffer too, and people were complaining about me not drinking, can you imagine, now I'm not drinking, they were complaining when I was drinking, now they're complaining that I'm not drinking, it's like, get off my back, seriously, seriously, there's no pleasing these people, but I didn't want to drink, and I thought, I thought, just stop drinking and have a happy life, right, it's a drinking problem after all, isn't it, no, it's not, it's a living problem, if you're an alcoholic of my type, you have a living problem, if you're an alcoholic of my type, alcohol is your solution, not your problem, and it was, and it was my solution, and you take that away, and you have a very unhappy person, so I was irritable, restless, discontent, just like it says, and I like to change that language to be, to update it a little, full of rage, anger, depression, self-pity, self-justification, self-rationalization, judgment, full of self, just like the reading I read before I started talking, I was full of self, and what happened was, in 2000, I was at a staff meeting, and somebody pushed a drink my way, and I took it, I've always had the allergy of the body, I described it when I was 12, and once I put it in, I don't know, I have no control, just like our book says, I have no control over the amount I take, I have no control, I have alcoholism, and I've always had alcoholism, there was no line of crossing, I took a drink, and I had it, and I took a drink after 10 years, and I had it, and that ease and comfort, which comes at once from taking a drink, washed over me, now, that night that I, that day that I took a drink, I was supposed to go to a banquet, there were visiting dignitaries from other countries, it was a tremendous honor to be invited there, and I didn't go.
You know why I didn't go? Because I took a drink. I took a drink, I had, I was standing up, coat on, scarf on, I'm in, you know, much further north than most of you, and somebody says, oh, just have one, just have one, and so I said, okay, just give me a little one, just a little, what's a little one? It's been 10 years, I knew I couldn't have a drink, I knew that, I knew I could not control
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my drinking, nobody ever had to tell me that, it was very clear, and I took one, and then I looked at the time, and I said, you know what, I have time, give me another one, the next thing, you know, I'm sitting down, and I had, I wasn't drunk yet, but I had a lucid thought, and it said, you know what, I thought I wanted to go to that banquet, and I don't even care, I don't even care if I go, I don't want to do that, I want to do this, meaning I want to sit here with these people and get drunk, that's what I did.
And so there was three more years of drinking. What happened was, I had my last drink on April 25, 2003, I was in Las Vegas, and drinking had always kicked start the party for me, it had always started the party for me, it always made the world go from black and white to technicolor, it always made you look so much more interesting to me, it always, it freed me from the bondage of self, always, except, it didn't.
Oh, I got drunk that night, April 25, 2003, I got drunk, I was in Las Vegas, but there was no party, there was no party, I was just a depressed sot, as they say, and so I got drunk and went and passed out, imagine that, Las Vegas, party town, no, and so I didn't drink again. Now, I didn't come to AA immediately, it took a few months, I came, but I eventually came, and when I came, it's like, I give up, I mean, I gave it my best shot, I fought the fight of alcoholism, and I lost completely.
Bill Wilson talks about it in his story, Bill's story, at the beginning of our book, I had met my match, I, alcohol was my master, and so what do you do when alcohol is your master? We come to AA, and I embrace this, and I read these pages, and I see myself in this, where it says, am I not a victim of the delusion that I can wrest satisfaction out of this world, if only I manage well, no, yes, I am a victim of that delusion.
I still can be a victim of that delusion, but the reality is, is I fought the good fight, and thank God I don't do it for very long anymore, right, because I can't, I cannot force, because that's what it means, wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world, if I only manage well, I cannot force satisfaction and happiness out of this world, I cannot manage well, I can't, and you know what you do when you can't do that?
You come to Alcoholics Anonymous, and you embrace the program of recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous, and I found a power that's greater than me, that's greater than the illness, the spiritual malady, because I am afflicted by this spiritual malady, I have a tremendous ability to feel bad, I've always had that tremendous ability to feel bad, maybe some of you are like me, I know my sponsor is, I have highly developed feeling bad skills, and I left to my own devices, that's where I go, that's what happens to me, I have to live this program, I have to follow these spiritual principles, I have to, or else I suffer, I suffer from unmanageable, step one, part two, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol, okay, yeah, got that, dash, our lives have become unmanageable, my life is unmanageable if I am not embracing these principles, that's why they were complaining
[00:25:05]
about me when I wasn't drinking, they will complain about me now, God, I'll complain about myself, I become suicidal and depressed, maybe some of you are like me, and there may be people in this meeting right now who are suffering from alcoholism, and they've got some time, it's like, why am I suffering, why, and it's like, I need to do these things, I need to embrace this, and in the chapter of We Agnostics, on page 53, it says, when we became alcoholics, meaning when we admit it to ourselves, because as soon as I took a drink, I was an alcoholic, crushed by a self-imposed crisis, I could not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that God either is everything, or he is nothing, God either is or he isn't, God is more powerful than me, God is more powerful than alcoholism, and I always come back to that, I'm going to tell you a story, and God is big, and my concept of God today, I don't even know if I can put it into words, it's so big.
So there's an instruction in step 11 that many people miss, or ignore, and it says, be quick to see where religious people are right. It doesn't say that religious people are right, it says where religious people are right. So one of the things that I do, and that I have done, and I continue to do, is I investigate faith traditions, all faith traditions, because there are spiritual people there, and there is God there, and my experience of God is no one faith tradition is big enough to actually capture and enclose God.
It's just too big. So here's a recent example, very recent, a few weeks ago, I don't know, three maybe? I think it was three weeks ago. So it occurred to me that I had never been, now I've been, I've done Native spirituality, and I've received teachings from elders, and I have participated in spiritual practices of Indigenous people. I've been to a Sikh temple, it's actually, that was mind-blowing, going to a Sikh temple and talking to those people, and experiencing the beauty and the wonder, and listening to them talk about their experience of God was absolutely mind-blowing.
It was so incredibly beautiful. I studied, my last solution, while I was in the 10-year dry time, 1990 to 2000, my last solution was, I studied under a Buddhist master, and every day of the week, for over a year, to become a meditation instructor, and there was theoretical as well as practical. And I traveled to Thailand, and I went on a jungle trek, and I camped in the jungle, and I received my certification, and I've been to so many Buddhist monasteries, and I've received so many, oh so many, Buddhist teachings.
But it occurred to me, a few weeks ago, that I'd never been to a mosque, I'd never been to a Muslim mosque, I didn't know very much about Islam. And so, a woman I work with, she's a Buddhist.
[00:30:03]
with you one day? And she said, OK. And so we went a couple of weeks ago. That's what I mean. This is really recent. So she took me to the mosque. Here's what happened. I listened and I learned about their spiritual practices. So, Ishmael is 5,000 years old. It originated from Abraham. Abraham had Ishmael, and that is the branch from, Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. Isaac became, oh, by the way, I've studied Judaism as well.
That's the branch that became Islam. So she's, here's where I'm going with this. She's telling me about spiritual practices, 5,000 years old. She's describing spiritual practices that the indigenous people follow. What? Yes. The indigenous people of North America have been here for 12,000 years. How? Like, what? That's like mind-blowing. How does that happen? That's impossible, right? It's not. Nothing's impossible for God.
God is either everything or He is nothing. It's hard to see where religious people are right. It's like, what? I get chills when I talk about this. She described, I said, that's what indigenous people do. And she goes, yes. And I was like, what? You know why? Because God is that big. That's how big God is. And in Alcoholics Anonymous, I'm so, we, we are so fortunate. I am so fortunate. Be quick to see where religious people are right.
And it opens it up. And I can investigate any and every, I've done, I've been to a retreat, Toltec. Somebody's saying, what is that? That's an ancient spiritual tradition that the, very ancient, that the Mexicans follow. And it's like, it's so beautiful. And the more I investigate, the more I experience, the more I find. And then it's like, my conception of God, too big. But God is either everything or He is nothing.
God really is everything. And I really can surrender my life and my will. Oh, my goodness. I gave my life and my will over to alcohol. Almost killed me multiple times. It certainly killed my friends. I've seen it. I'm sure all of you have seen. You've gone to funerals. We've all gone to funerals. People who, you know, don't get this thing. People who go back out. Or they don't go back out. They off themselves because they're suffering from alcoholism.
Because people suffer here. I will suffer here. I do suffer here if I don't absolutely embrace this. My feeling bad skills, I have to work continually to surrender that. My feeling bad skills are my character defects. That, you know, I create a problem to solve a problem. Maybe you do that, too. Maybe you do that and you don't even know you do it. Get this. I've been doing that. I didn't know I was doing that.
That's actually not that. That's actually really recent that I have come to uncover that. That's what we do here. We uncover, we discover, and we discard. That's it. That's the whole deal. And embrace the spiritual principles. And, I mean, alcoholics are undisciplined. We allow God to discipline us.
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It's a spiritual program. Divinely crafted. AA is divinely crafted for somebody like me. For us, that's an amazing thing. I don't know any other, yeah, and I've, you know, done a lot of studying, that says be quick to see where religious people are right. What religious people? All of them. All of them. Why not? And what do I find? I find this power that's beyond anything that I can describe. I recently was watching a documentary about our solar system.
And I'm going to really garble this. And what they had found within us, within us, is the star stuff that they find out there. We're all one and we don't see it. We can't experience it. I can't experience it because selfishness, self-centeredness, is the root of my troubles. I don't even recognize when I am being selfish and self-centered. When I use a problem to solve a problem, that's selfishness and self-centeredness.
When I say no when I should be saying yes, and when I say yes when I should be saying no, or when I stay quiet instead of saying something, I have created so much trouble for myself. And you know what? I didn't know it. I didn't even know I was doing that. You know how I come to know that I do that? From inventory. After you've been here for a while and if you're new, if anybody's new, I hope I'm not losing you.
I may have already lost you. But the numbers come off the steps. They're spiritual tools that I use. So if I need to inventory, I do an inventory. If I have to admit my powerlessness, my unmanageability, I do that. I need to come back to the chapter we agnostics. It's called we agnostics because there's agnosticism in all of us, meaning we are not convinced. And there's always parts of us that's not convinced.
It's got to be because I'm finite and God is infinite, right? I mean, think about that. God is infinite and I am finite. Yeah. So there's always areas of my life that need to be uncovered and surrendered. And then I can know for those people who are, the word surrender is not in the big book. However, we fully concede to our innermost selves. That means surrendering. We cease fighting. In step 10 it says we cease fighting anyone, anything or anyone, even alcohol.
I'm paraphrasing. I might not have that quote correct. That's out of step 10. Ceased fighting. When I cease fighting, I surrender. I surrender to this power. I'm always seeking this power. I suspect I will always be seeking. I've had spiritual experiences, but just, okay, this is funny. Just like the way I always wanted alcohol, I never had enough alcohol. I never had enough. There was just never enough.
I don't typically pass out. I black out. So I'm driven to seek this power that I call God.
[00:40:08]
And it's this power that gives me the power to carry out these instructions, these spiritual principles. Because, and I read it, I will read it again, where it says, because I tried that. I tried. Darn it. I read it tonight. Now I can't find it. Many of us had moral and philosophical convictions galore. But we could not live up to them, even though we would have liked to. I would have liked to. I wanted to.
I couldn't. I couldn't. Ten years. Ten years. I put the plug in the jug for ten years. What happened? Letting it go means not drinking at all. And not only that, but when I wasn't drinking, they were complaining about me. They were complaining about being irritable, restless, discontent, full of rage, anger, depression, self-pity, self-justification, self-righteousness. They were complaining. I could not live up to moral and philosophical convictions galore.
I could not. Not without God. Power comes from God. Right? When we sincerely took such a position, all sorts of remarkable things followed. We had a new employer being all powerful. He provided what we needed if we kept close to him. And that's what this program is about. It's about me staying, enabling me to stay close to God so I can actually do this. In the agnostics, it says it in a different way.
It says if a mere code of morals or a better philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcoholism, many of us would have recovered long ago. I would have recovered long. I would not need to be here today. I would be out there living my life. You know, just stop drinking, have a happy life. That is not what happens to alcoholics. What happens to alcoholics is they've stopped drinking and then they start suffering.
They start suffering from the spiritual malady. I do. Spiritual malady is described on page 52 of our book. We were having trouble with personal relationships. We couldn't control our emotional natures. I never could. We were a prey to misery and depression. Ditto. We couldn't make a living. Yeah. I would never be happy at it either. I was always quitting. We had a feeling of uselessness. Yeah. Yeah.
We were full of fear. I've lived my life full of fear. That's what alcohol did for me. It set me free. We were unhappy. We couldn't seem to be of real help to other people. That's unmanageability of alcoholism. If you're suffering from these things, I'm telling you there is a solution. The solution is in AA. The solution is in our spiritual program. The solution is living according to this and finding, you know, the great reality deep down within you.
The great reality deep down within me. In the last analysis, it is only there that he may be found. It is there where I find him. And being quick to see where religious people are right, it tells us to take advantage of the spiritual people among us. And aren't we so fortunate in 2021?
[00:45:03]
I can participate in Indigenous sacred spiritual practices and go to a sweat lodge. I can study under a Buddhist monk and become a meditation instructor, although I did that when I was drinking. It's very useful now, Bill. It's a very useful practice to have now. I can go to a Christian, any Christian church. It doesn't matter. They're all right. It's not saying that they're completely right. We're all humans. No human can be perfect. No human can be right. And no human created.
If we could create perfection, we wouldn't need God. I know I wouldn't. I wouldn't need God. I am imperfect. Imperfectly perfect. Yes. So it's constant. It's constant seeking. It's a constant growing. It's a constant putting these practices. It's constantly doing inventories when I need to be to do inventories in God's hands, not my own. Yes, because deep down within every man, woman and child is the fundamental idea of God.
It may be obscure by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or other, it is there. I've worshipped other things, other people, money, prestige, power, fear. I have made fear into my God. If fear is more powerful than God, then fear is God. If any human power, any human being is more powerful than God, then that is God. If money is more powerful than God, then money is God. And so it's constantly putting these things into practice and walking hand in hand with the Spirit.
And I think that's all I've got. And I'd like to thank you again for having me. And I hope somebody got something out of that and it wasn't just a rambling. Anyway, thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining us tonight where you never know what you're going to get. You just have to keep coming back. We surely hope to see you here next Thursday. Our special guest is Bob Ash from Dallas, Texas. If you like this meeting, please do as Bill Wilson always said, pass it on. You can help others right from your phone or computer and tell them about this special meeting. Everyone is invited to hang out with us afterwards in the meeting after the meeting, the porch. Will, do you have any closing comments?
And would you please close us out with a prayer or reading of your choice? I'm going to take us out with the 11th step prayer. Lord, make me a channel of thy peace, that where there is hatred, I may bring love. That where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness. That where there is discord, I may bring harmony. That where there is error, I may bring truth. That where there is doubt, I may bring faith. That where there is despair, I may bring hope. That where there are shadows, I may bring light. That where there is sadness, I may bring joy. Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted, to understand than to be understood, to love than to be loved. For it is by self-forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is by dying that one awakens to eternal life. Amen.
Well, that was fantastic. All right, everybody, you can give a little big thank you. You can unmute. Fantastic, Lil. You knocked it out of the park. Thank you very much, Lil. Great. Fantastic. Thank you, Lil. Thank you, Lil. Thank you, Lil. Great chat. Really appreciate it.