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Source: Scott J – BOX OF CHOCOLATES – 2025-02-20.m4a File: scott-j-box-of-chocolates-2025-02-20.mp3 Duration: 00:49:35
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Last November, we had. Well, hi, everybody. My name's Scott and I'm an alcoholic. And thank you very much, Ramona. Thank you. It's so nice to be here. And thank you very much for the invitation to be here at the Box of Chocolate. And we were here a long time ago. And I'm not sure who we came. We came to listen to somebody here one night. This is our regular home group meeting night. So that's one of the reasons why we don't get to many Thursday night meetings.
That's why Carol's going to buzz out of here pretty soon and go set up the coffee for the for the group tonight. And I'll be discarding the tie and the jacket and heading up there after seven o'clock. They'll allow me to be late, I think. Oh, let's see. My dry dates, March 1st, 1976. My home group is the Aurora, Minnesota Big Book Group. And we meet tonight and we meet Tuesday mornings also. And we spend a little time reading the book Alcoholics Anonymous most nights.
And then we try to share our experience, strength and hope on what we've read. We try to not spend too much time philosophizing, theorizing and, you know, over-examining it, but sharing what we did with what we read, our experience, because Alcoholics Anonymous is about our experience and identification. That's not about knowledge. It's about what we do here. And, you know, it's just been a wonderful experience for me.
You know, I came in, I was 23 years old and I came to my first meeting in my hometown. I'm 23 years old. I walked through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'd been to treatment. I'd had a spiritual awakening as a result of the fifth step. You know, I was walking on cloud nine. Everything was going great. And I followed directions when I graduated and I went directly to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I walked through the doors of AA.
And I guess I had expectations that I wasn't aware of. But I walked through the door of Alcoholics Anonymous. And it was full of old men. It was full of guys that were my dad's age. They all worked with my dad. This is mining country. There's a big taconite plant outside of town. Everybody worked out there. I didn't work out there. But, you know, and I'm walking in there and I'm going, oh, my God, this is not good.
I mean, here with all these old guys and a lot of them are the town drunks. You know, they all have reputations in these small towns. And then I started looking at them and some of these guys had you got to remember the 1970s. And what people were wearing, not not my generation wasn't wearing them, but these old guys, they were wearing this multi colored plaid double knit polyester clothing. And this stuff is still in the landfills just like they bought it.
I mean, this stuff will never deteriorate. It will be there forever. And I'm thinking, oh, my God, what have I gotten into? And then a couple of them came back up and they had on the worst toupees I had ever seen. The one actually looked like a patch of grass. I mean, it was I mean, it was dark colored, but I mean, it didn't match the gray on the sides of his head. And you could see most of the rest of his scalp, too.
But I mean, and I'm thinking, holy crap, what have I gotten into? And I just thank God that nobody came up to me that night and said, if you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, because I certainly didn't know what they had. But what I was seeing, I didn't want anything of it. And you know what I did that night? I separated myself from them, from what I saw. And I guess what that gets down to when you do an inventory is it is a prejudice.
It's what it is. You know, I had this I want nothing to do with these people, even though they're alcoholics or having an AA meeting. I went to the meetings faithfully. I went there was no such thing as 90 and 90 around here in those days. It was impossible unless you were willing to drive 100 miles on some nights or something. But, you know, most most nights it was within 20 miles one way. We would go to a meeting and we'd catch a meeting.
I'm going to four or five meetings a week and I'm going with other people. They're picking me up. I'm I'm getting in the car, as they say, just get in the car and I'm going. And things are pretty good. I'm getting, you know, I got my job back. I had been unemployed for 13 months before that.
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I got my job back.
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So things are going very well in that respect. I'm living with mom and dad. I'm paying rent to them. I'd never paid rent to them. And I've lived with them off and on for four years. I'm giving them some extra cash because I owe them some money. I'm going fishing and hunting and life is starting to get really good, really good. And. Pretty soon, I'm starting to think, well, what am I doing going to all of these meetings? Why do I need to go to this many meetings now?
I don't have I guess maybe I had a sponsor, but I had a sponsor when I got out of treatment. You know, they used to tell you back in those days, you have to get a sponsor or we won't let you go. It's like they're going to keep you in the hospital for the next 10 years or something, you know. So, you know, I got a sponsor. And he was a home group member of the group I was going to, but he was slacking off.
He was slacking off and eventually he just dropped out after a couple of months of my sobriety. So I'm kind of doing this deal on my own. I'm going to these meetings. I'm doing this and I'm kind of getting bored with it. You know, I'm starting to think, well, you know, why am I going to these meetings with all these old guys? Why am I doing this? I don't really care for some of these people who are even taking me to meetings.
They're kind of weird, you know, like I'm not weird. But, you know, the thinking starts and then mom and dad are going off to Yellowstone for two weeks that summer. Ah, I have the whole run of the house. I got the place is. I could I could probably have a drink. I could, you know, I would get sober before they get back home again, you know, and this thinking has started in my mind and I'm not even recognizing that thinking for what it is. That's how subtle the insanity of alcoholism is.
Don't really know that I'm doing it. Lucky for me, I'm going to a meeting, a group, this group is hosting what we call a round up, a get together, a conference up here. They're the host of this little gathering of, I don't know, four or five hundred people at the time, I think. And they finally coerced me into buying tickets to go to this thing. And, you know, they told me something like, well, you'll be able to go dancing.
And I thought. I hadn't gone dancing sober in my entire life. I'm not so sure I'm going to start now. So, you know, this was not an enticement for me to go to go to this thing, but I went to this thing anyways, and I listened to these speakers and these speakers were from all over the country. And it was a life changing experience for me. I think conferences sometimes are life changing experiences, especially for new people.
You hear these messages and you feel this. You feel this fellowship. That unknown thing that I think is probably love, it just is in the room. And I went there and I listened to, I don't know if anybody here, I know Al knows some of these speakers, Paul M. from Chicago, who sobered up in 1947, and Don N., who sobered up in, I think, 47 or 48 out of Moorhead, Minnesota, and Wesley P. out of Pompano Beach, who again sobered up in the 47 or 48.
And Wesley's message especially just seemed to go from his heart to mine. I was able to hear, I was able to see, and the biggest thing that I was able to know is how dangerous of a place that I was at. That it seemed to wake me up to the fact that you are walking on thin ice. You need help and you need to ask for help. And I went back to that home group on the next Monday night after that, and I asked those gentlemen for help.
Those old guys with the multicolored plaid double knit polyester clothing and bad toupees, I asked them for help. And by golly, you know what? Now that the barrier had been dropped, I was able to go back to that home group and I had surrendered. The help was there. It had always been there. But I was incapable of receiving it as long as I put something between you and me.
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And this old guy, the guy with the worst toupee in the room, I mean, I mean, honest to God, if he'd have bent over, it would have fell off. There's no way it could have stayed on on its own. This thing was bad. Thank God he abandoned it about a year or so later, but. He he holds up the book Alcoholics Anonymous and he says, do you have one of these? And I said, yeah, they gave me one in treatment, he says, then I suggest you take it out from wherever you've got it put and start reading it.
And when it says to do something, you do it. This is the instructions to the big book that I received my very first time through the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, says when it says to pray, you pray. When it says to write, you write. It says to make the amends, you do the amends. When you get confused, you call me. And he took me, that was my first time, I can't say he took me through the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, but I was directed through the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, for the very first time in the summer of nineteen seventy six.
And it's a love affair that has not ended since I don't think I've ever kept my nose out of the book, Alcoholics Anonymous. It's always revealing something beautiful to me or an instruction that I need to look at again or perhaps at one of my character flaws that are numerous that I maybe should take a peek at it one more time and and ask God to remove them or make amends. You know, things happen to us when we get sober.
I mean, it's it's funny how you take these inventories and. You still miss things, I was sober many years and I don't know if we were at a meeting or where we were at, but the thought came. That on January 2nd, nineteen seventy six, my mother drove me 70 miles. To the local work farm. And I never once considered how that made her feel. Until that night or that day, some kind of self-examination or some kind of God deal.
Made me realize. That how selfish I truly was, that I most of the time in my drinking life, my drinking career, I never once considered how my actions affected other people. And made me start to look at myself a little bit closer, it's not just in the past, but how am I behaving today? Do I consider others? At all, as my life turned from being inward, self-conscious to being a little bit more God conscious.
And my life, I think, has it really has. And the other thing that had happened to me after this guy introduced me to the book Alcoholics Anonymous, they held a business meeting in that group. I hope you belong to a group that holds business meetings. Because that's truly a group. If you got a group that never holds a business meeting, maybe you belong to a meeting, I don't know, but our group holds a monthly business meeting.
And it was at this meeting, they held this business meeting and I was elected co-chair of the group, this is pretty high esteem for somebody who's about three months sober. Wow, I, you know, look at me, I've climbed the ladder of success already here. Yeah. Well, you know, and then after a while I got thinking. They never had a co-chair before me and they never had a co-chair before me. They never had a co-chair after me.
They just made this job up so that I would stay and keep coming and become a part of. They taught me how to be a part of. You know, we hear today, we hear things like the middle of the bed, the middle of the herd and all of these kinds of things. They just elected me to a job and said, you'll be here every week. And I learned about becoming a participant in Alcoholics Anonymous, I became a part of.
Life-changing thing. I have been a part of Alcoholics Anonymous for the. Art of Alcoholics Anonymous for the last nearly 49 years because they simply said, here, come
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do this. Even though I had no responsibilities, one of the things I did when I was the co-chair though, I, I sitting at the, you got to sit at the front of the table. You didn't have any responsibilities. It didn't have to make the coffee. I didn't have to set up the meeting. I didn't have to have the topic, none of those things. So I just sat next to the guy that did all of that work and, you know, you get some credit for it.
But I'm sitting there looking down the meeting room as the meeting's going on. Of course, I'm not paying attention. I'm thinking about me and, and I, and I start to divide the room up into two parts. There's this bunch of people in AA who come to Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, right? When the door opens, you know, they're there, they set up the coffee, they do all the chores. They're the ones running around, rubbing up against, shaking hands and hugging and doing all of this stuff.
They pick the topics, they make the coffee, they make sure the AA group functions and the meeting has got a direction. And then there's this other bunch that show up. You know, the meeting starts at eight, they show up at eight, they show up at 801, 805, and they come in and they sit down. And they usually just pass when it's their turn to talk. And then when they, when they do say something, you kind of wonder, you know, I used to think, oh my God, you know, you kind of wish they hadn't shared after they got done sharing, you know, and it's like, oh, and then, you know, you get looking at them.
This bunch that's doing stuff seem to be having a good time. They're laughing and joking, and they got this whole thing going on. This other bunch is very miserable looking, unhappy. The old guy up in Winnipeg used to say, they look like they smell something, like they got a turd in their pocket. And you know, and I'm going, holy cow, this is a revelation to me. I don't know what's going on in the meeting, but this is going on in my head.
And then I had to ask myself, what group do you belong to? And I discovered that, you know, I think the people who are having a great time and loving this thing, they aren't asking the question. I'm asking the question. And I think I want to be like that. Attraction in Alcoholics Anonymous, cheerfulness and laughter make for usefulness. It draws in people like me. It makes me want to be a part of. You see, if I wanted to sit around being miserable, I could go back up to Hank's bar and be miserable as ever.
And God, Alcoholics Anonymous, for the most part, isn't like that. You know, we can still go once in a while to a meeting and see somebody with a sour puss, but, you know, that's okay. They might be having a problem that day. You know, that's just the way it is. So anyway, my life was changed that night. And I got involved in Alcoholics Anonymous, I got involved in a brand new group, the group I belong to now.
And I was elected GSR that first, very first night of that group, they elected me to GSR. And I asked them, what is GSR? And they said, well, you work for the railroad, don't you, Scott? And I said, yeah, I work for the railroad. Well, he said, you've just been railroaded. Now this is not the way to be electing a GSR. I will never give you that instruction. But this is my experience. And they actually said this to me, you know, which is probably one step up from electing the guy who went to the bathroom.
And while he was gone, you elected him to some position, you know. But they gave me the information of who to contact. And they gave me a card to fill out on how to register the group. And I and I followed through and I did these things. And in a few years after serving as GSR and serving in the group in different positions in the district and DCM and in the area in some different positions, I served as the area delegate in 1988 and 89.
And I went to the General Service Conference and was a part of our group conscience. And what a privilege it was, truly was. It was a disturbing experience in some ways, but it was a it was a also an experience that's
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life changing. You know, it's it's to see the group conscience of Alcoholics Anonymous in action and to be a part of that is an amazing experience. It truly is. You know, and I always like to talk about the things that I think have become important for me as an older member. There's five things that I've always liked to talk about. And the first thing is, is that I have an illness, that I have alcoholism.
I don't have alcohol-wasm, I have alcoholism. And as far as I'm concerned, the big book describes exactly what is the matter with me and I don't need any other resources at all to complicate that picture. This Dr. Silkworth's doctoral opinion explains very well the physical aspect of my alcoholism. Bill calls it a sensitivity, an allergy, Silkworth calls it. And I have this abnormal reaction to a drink that when I take a drink, it sets off a craving and an abnormal reaction that most people don't have.
I can watch my father and those days I could watch my father have a beer after having supper and sitting down and watching the news. He would have one beer, even though he had a whole case. He only had one and he might not even go for another bottle of beer for a week. Now this is not my experience. I would have never waited for the news or after supper if I had a case of beer for sure. And it would have been the whole case of beer and then I had to go uptown and finish the drunk.
Because you see, when I take a drink, I have this abnormal reaction. It sets off this craving that I have to have another one, the sensitivity. And when I heard this news in Alcoholics Anonymous, it made sense of what went on in my life while I was drinking and while I was trying to, in the end, trying to control and enjoy my drinking, which was an impossibility, never, never accomplished that, by the way.
The other part of this is that I have an obsession of the mind and I just simply call this the liar that lives between my ears. It will tell me anything so that I'll go have another drink. And it told me the craziest things and it would tell me things even on January, on New Year's Eve 1975, I'm going out, I've got to be in jail on January 2nd. I'm going to go out and have a drink. Now when I take a drink, there's no guaranteeing when I'm coming home.
My mother knows this. Now I'm living with them and she's standing in the doorway pleading with me. The frothy emotional appeal that Dr. Silkworth talks about not to go because she knows as well as I do that I may not be back home by January 2nd. But yet I went out and I had the drink. I came home in an ambulance that night, but I got home in time anyway, got home in time to meet my appointment at the work farm.
Lucky me, you know, we sometimes forget about how successful we were in life, at least in my life, there was not any success. It was alcoholism. So I have these two aspects of this illness. And then I have no mental defense against the first drink. We were reading this just the other night. Where does this defense come from? It comes from some sort of a power greater than ourselves. This is the solution offered by Alcoholics Anonymous and I can tell you what, I'm an agnostic when I walk through the doors of AA, I don't know about anybody else.
I am not the belligerent, violent, resentful kind of agnostic. I'm the ignorant kind. I know nothing of spiritual matters. Never read a spiritual book in my life. Never went to church as an adult or hardly as a child. I had no resentments. I had no interest.
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It's still the word higher power, just kind of, you know, no thank you, you know, I don't want to get too good too soon. I was like what Don P used to say from Colorado when he was complaining to his sponsor about getting too good too soon and he didn't want to be like that guy in the airport wearing the orange robe and all of this stuff and he said, hell, that guy's doing better than you so don't be complaining about him, you know.
He's got a job. He's got a direction. You know, what do you got? I had nothing either. So I just remember this thing so much. And you know, the thing is, is that I've been sober nearly 49 years. I still have alcoholism and I hope and pray that I never forget that, that obsession to return. I have this illness. I will always have this illness. It's permanent. I will die with it and I pray that I don't die from it.
It's a powerful, powerful illness and I will always have it. And I've been here long enough to see a lot of people forget that they have alcoholism. They think now I've been sober a while, no biggie, nothing to worry about and it never works out good. It never works out good. You know, and I've seen so many guys come in that have slipped and they come back and they try again and they do really well for a while and then they fall back into the same patterns they used to do before they slipped and they slip again.
And it's like cunning, baffling, powerful. I need to always be vigilant in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and in my activity, in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous also. The other thing is, is that I've always had a home group. I've always had my anchor down in one place, in a group. It's where I learned how to become a part of the fellowship. It's where I learned how to become of service.
It's where I learned how to make coffee. I learned how to make coffee in AA. I didn't know how to make coffee. I'm 23. I didn't drink this stuff. It wasn't, it wasn't Starbucks back in those days, you know, it was mom and pop coffee shops. You could usually see the coffee in the bottom of the cup if you drank it, you know, it was not the same world we live in today. It's where I learned to be of service.
The group I belong to is a three legacy group. We talk about traditions, we study AA comes of age, the tradition section. We have business meetings and we talk about service. I need to be an integral part of Alcoholics Anonymous and be involved. And I was talking with my sponsor today and he said it's hard for him to sit in business meetings anymore. He's almost 60 years sober and 80 years old, he said, but, and he belongs to a big group.
So, you know, your presence isn't always needed. I belong to a tiny little group and I suspect I'll be sitting in a business meeting still the day I die. And it's a privilege to become a part of and stay a part of, and an equal part of, not a senior, but an equal part of Alcoholics Anonymous. I better look at my clock here, okay. Sponsorship, sponsorship has been kind of a topsy-turvy for me at different times.
Like I said, my first sponsor quit AA, you know, I was, so the guy that introduced me to the book Alcoholics Anonymous, I used him as a sponsor and I never asked him to be my sponsor, but he guided me through the steps. And he was the guy that I trusted. He's the guy that I respected enough to listen to what he had to say. He's the guy that I would pick up the phone when I would having my newcomer problems and talk to him.
So in every way, except for the title, he was my sponsor. And then I got the sponsor that I had for the next 35 years, Kenny, and he was, you know, to the day he died, he was the guy that I wanted to be like when I grew up. You know, he was just that example, always the example of Alcoholics Anonymous. Old fashioned AA, I've grown up with old fashioned AA. The first guy that quits, I think he sobered up in a couple of years before I did.
But the guy that took me through the book sobered up in 57. My sponsor, Kenny, was my sponsor. My sponsor, Kenny was my sponsor, and he sobered up in 65. And when Kenny got dementia,
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I went to another guy, and he had sobered up in 63. And he, his cancer got him. And then I, then I had the worst sponsor I ever had. And, and, and I can tell you, I, I, it was bad. It was, it was a bad relationship. I sponsored myself for a while. Because you see, I had a little trouble finding anybody good enough for me, you know. I'm over 40 years sober now. I gotta find somebody. I gotta do some shopping around and looking. You know, the liar that lives between the ears, the ego. And I about destroyed my life in a year or two, you know, sponsoring myself.
Uh, lots of making my own decisions, and aren't they wonderful? Well, when, when everything collapses, and you make a surrender again, and I had to do that. Everything collapsed. I surrendered again. I called a man I sponsor, and we went back through the book Alcoholics Anonymous. And in that time, then I was able to find another sponsor. You see, I need to have another human being's perspective on my life. Even though I'm in my late 40s, sober, I still need somebody else's perspective. Because my ideas are always good, aren't they?
Yeah, until you ask somebody else about them. You know, when I go to my sponsor, Kenny, I'd have this big problem that we always have, you know. And he would give me some stupid assignment. And I mean, some things, I mean, it's like, this, Kenny, this doesn't have anything to do with what I'm talking about. Just go do it. So, I would go do it, because I follow directions. And you know what? In a little while, I'm not thinking of my problem. I'm focused on what he's got me doing. I have forgotten about my problem completely. The one time I made the mistake of telling him I was bored, and he told me, that's because you're boring. He said, get up off your butt and go do something. Go help somebody. You won't be bored anymore. And he's absolutely right. I need somebody else's perspective. The other thing is the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I don't really know that I have enough time to take you through that.
But to me, the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is contained in this beautiful book we have called Alcoholics Anonymous. It's not contained anywhere else. We got Bill's essays on it in the 12 and 12. We've got a lot of other outside books. We've got some wonderful books in Alcoholics Anonymous, not belittling them. But I'm saying the solution, as far as I'm concerned, is only in the big book, Alcoholics Anonymous. Everything else is there to support that solution.
And as I was saying earlier, it's a life changer. I'll tell you a quick story about making amends. You know, I got to the point of making amends. And I'm living with mom and dad. I'm the thing that lives in grandma's basement to the rest of the family. That's one of my nicknames. And I'm at eight and nine. And I'm trying to figure, I'm living in the basement. They're upstairs. And, you know, we're seeing each other all the time.
And I haven't made amends. Like I said, I'm paying rent. I'm paying extra money. But I know after doing my inventory, that I need to do more. And I finally, I went to a speaker meeting. And the speakers that night were the founders of this little group over in White Lakes. And he was AA and she was an Al-Anon. And she stood up and told her Al-Anon story. And they'd been sober, I think, since 66 or 67. And he'd been in and out of AA since 49.
And she stood up and told her story. And she told about how sick she got from alcoholism in their home. Not from his drinking, but from alcoholism in their home. And she got sick and sick. And she's, it was a horrible story. And finally, she said, I got so sick, I started peeing in his whiskey bottles. And I'm thinking, oh my God, no wonder the poor guy drank. Holy crap. Of course, my second thought was as a good alcoholic and a new person, I wonder how that would be. I had snus. I've had a few cigarette butts. I don't know if I've had
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any urine cocktails, though. But, you know, it was like, whoo. And I thought, well, you know, no wonder the poor fella drank. Then he stood up and told his story. And he's the town drunk. When the bartender would find a set of false teeth, you know, on the floor or someplace in the bathroom, they would call his house to see if they were his. Emo lost his teeth all the time, evidently. He had a reputation. He was the town drunk. Like I said, he'd been in and out of AA for 20 years before he got sober. And he told his story. And it was terrible. And you wondered, why was she wasting her time peeing in his whiskey bottles? She should have probably just shot him. You know, it would have been a lot easier. I mean, this guy, there was no redeeming qualities at the point of his alcoholism, his drinking.
But he tied this whole horrific story. You know, I'm 23, and I'm listening to these old people talk about these things. I'm going, oh, my God. But he says, before I go to work every morning, I tell my wife three times that I love her. He said, because I never did those things. And I owe so much to my family that I always tell her how much I love her every single day. And there was something about that message, you know, that thing that goes from one heart to another. And it struck me, the first thing, it wasn't just the amends. It was the last time I told my parents that I loved them. And I couldn't think of a time. I couldn't think of a time when I told my parents that I loved them. I'm sure as a little tyke, I probably did. I don't know.
So I went home that night, and I went down into the basement. And I picked up the book Alcoholics Anonymous and read that part again about making amends. They were upstairs watching Johnny Carson or something. And I went upstairs, and I asked them for a little bit of their time. And they gave me their time. And I sat down, and I made amends to my parents. And, you know, I didn't drag them through all of the horrible things that I did.
But I made amends to them. And I told them that I loved them. And it changed my life almost right on the spot. Those promises that they talk about that we read, probably read too often, they started to come right away. I was free. I seemed to be free of so much of my past. It was amazing to me. But the story doesn't stop there. 20 years later, my mother died, and I'm telling the pastor that story. And my dad is standing in the middle of the living room.
And I'm telling the pastor about making the amends. And he turns around, and he points at me, and he says, I remember that day. I remember that. You see, it wasn't only the day that I became the son and part of the family. It was the day he knew that he had his son back. It's the day he knew that he had his family back intact. You know, the principles that I struggle with to do sometimes because of fear and guilt and all of those kinds of things are life-changing experiences for me, but they changed others. These principles are capable of changing the people around us if we live them and do them.
And I truly believe that because I saw that that day. It's an amazing, amazing thing. And I have so many more stories, but we don't have time for those much more. I'm sure I got a couple minutes before my alarm goes off. The other thing I like to talk about, the fifth thing, is God. Now, how can somebody like me, an agnostic, sit around talking about God? Because my life has been changed with the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous. What does it say in the big book? What is this book about? It's to help us find a power greater than ourself. It's to help us find a God.
That's what the book is about. Doesn't the 12 steps say, having had a spiritual awakening
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as a result of these steps? Not just having the plug in the jug, not just drinking, not drinking and going to meetings, but I have had a spiritual awakening. And I have had a spiritual awakening. And I know I don't like to focus too much on it. I know some people get all excited and resentful about talking about God, but remember, the book says, choose your own conception. And today, I choose to call my conception God. Call yours what you wish to call it.
You know, I'm just absolutely thrilled that that line is in the book, choose your own conception. And every morning and every evening, my wife and I spend time together talking to God in morning and reading spiritual books and preparing for the day and concluding our day with God and trying to include him throughout the day. That's where the trick gets to be. But, you know, there's the most special time of the day, I think, is my morning time with my wife, reading spiritual books and praying and meditating and talking about this beautiful life that we've been given.
And I guess I better tie this thing up pretty quickly. But the other thing I'd like to say about God is that I think there's a couple of reasons. First of all, I needed to have a new way of living, and it needed to be a spiritual way of life in order for me to live life as I wish to live it as I live it today. The other thing is, remember, in the beginning, I talked about that I can't remove my alcoholism, that only God can remove this obsession to drink. I can't do it. If I could remove the obsession to drink from my life, I wouldn't need to come to Alcoholics Anonymous. I wouldn't need to go to all of these meetings, even as enjoyable as they are.
My obsession has been removed by a power greater than myself that I found through taking the actions of Alcoholics Anonymous. Carol and I have been married for 46 years. We have a daughter who's 55 years old and a stepdaughter. And I, if I had time, I'd tell you about being a stepfather when you're 25 years old, and you don't know nothing about parenting, and you got an eight-year-old going, who the hell's this guy? Yeah, so, you know, that's a fun story. But some other day, I have a granddaughter. She's 23. She's the same age I was when I got sober. She doesn't look like she needs this right now, or maybe not ever. And I got a great-granddaughter who just celebrated one year, just one year birthday. She's 13 months now, I guess. And I had a felony conviction that was removed by the good people in AA, went through a whole bunch of legal rigmarole, and I sat in front of the Board of Pardon in the state of Minnesota, the governor, the attorney general, and the chief justice, and had that removed. I have had so many blessings, retired from a company with 30 years, even though I had an injury, I was able to still retire with a pension. What a blessed life I've had. What a blessed life.
And I'd like to just close it off with something Bill said in 1947, that ours is not a success story. Ours is the story of colossal human failure converted to the happiest kind of usefulness. The divine alchemy, the living grace of God. Ours is not a success story. You see, on my own, I destroyed my life, and I can do that today through selfishness and self-centeredness. I can still destroy my life without God's help.
Human failure converted to the happiest kind of usefulness. What is the happiest kind of usefulness? It's not getting a new Cadillac or a new home. That's not what this is talking about. It's talking about this peace that's inside of our hearts, this laughter that we hear in the meetings. It's that cheerfulness and laughter that help me stay here. The happiest kind of usefulness, it's when you see your great-granddaughter, and you see the smile.
Granddaughter. And you see the smile on her face when she sees you. That's the happiest kind of usefulness anybody could ever have. To see a friend or to talk to a friend that you've known
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for 45 years in Alcoholics Anonymous, man, and the joy. But really, the joy starts when you open up your eyes in the morning and you know you have another day at my age. And that you know you're going to get to talk to your wife and do some prayers and meditation. Happiest kind of usefulness. Converted, happiest kind of usefulness, the divine alchemy. We all know what divine is. We talk about God all the time in AA. The alchemy, the ancient mythical science of turning something plain into something ordinary, extraordinary, something ordinary into something extraordinary.
Turning lead into gold is what they used to do, or they used to tell people they could do. Turning lead into gold, to making just the ordinary thing into something very special. And isn't that what happened to, I know that's what's happened to me in Alcoholics Anonymous. It turned somebody who was pretty much useless, a gutter drunk, laying in the streets of Aurora, Minnesota, 3,000 people. I mean, mom and dad knew I laid in the streets in the gutter in Aurora, Minnesota. That uselessness. You turn that into something that's useful, into a useful member of the community, into a useful member of Alcoholics Anonymous, into a father, into somebody who has 46 years of marriage, into somebody who retired with 30 years, into somebody who, but it's just amazing to me. How does this happen?
It happens through the living grace of God. What is the living grace of God? I, my friends, am looking at the living grace of God. You, my friends, are the living grace of God. And I thank you all very much for my recovery. Thank you for having me here tonight, Ramona. Thank you so much. Oh, that was, I knew it was coming, and I still wanted, started to cry. 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 week, next Thursday night, same time, same station, where we're going to have a friend that we haven't had a friend, haven't had him here in a while.
Myers R. from, I know, I know, I know, Texas, Ingram, Texas. Yeah, yeah, I know. And it's not the one that wears the patch. And it's not the one that wears the patch. He's the bad brother. That's what they, that's what Myers tells me. So if you like this meeting, please do as Bill Wilson 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 on the back porch, where we're going to just chit chat and have a good time. And Scott, do you have any closing comments or, and would you lead us out with the prayer of your choice? I have no closing comments, but I would certainly love to lead the closing prayer. And traditionally, our group always closes with the Lord's Prayer. So with all those who would care to, please join us in saying the Lord's Prayer. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen. Thank you. Thank you, Scott. Thank you, Scott. Thank you.