But they died. The seventh step is the way. Humbly asking Him to remove our shortcomings. When we’re ready to let God do it to us with His heart and maintain sanity that we don’t want to live the way we used to live, but we’re condemned to live the way we used to live unless we don’t go on. We get the spiritual courage by practical experience in living the steps in our own lives to where we get to the point that there’s no situation too difficult and no unhappiness too great that cannot be overcome, and that a drink of alcohol will never make it any better, make it worse. And when we’re ready, we say, “My Creator, I’m now willing that you shall have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength as I go forth to do your bidding.” Now, step six and seven, that’s the anchor and the glue of the recovery program for Alcoholics Anonymous. The true test of our willingness to let God do it is the next two steps, the amend steps. Every one of us here in this meeting right now, if we’ve got something that we haven’t let go, I don’t know about you, but I’m gonna tell you, the only problem I have one day at a time, people are not doing what I want them to do. That’s all. Okay. Insurmountable obstacle, but we have to try to remember that no matter how well we perform, this is one step that we’ll never really complete or finish. And if there’s anyone foolish enough in Alcoholics Anonymous to believe that we only make a list of the persons we harm, come, co-come, before we come to Alcoholics Anonymous, leave plenty of room down at the bottom because if one thinks they’re not gonna harm another human being after we get sober, you’re nuts. Now, now if we made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, the time now comes we need to redouble our efforts to see how and how many people we hurt. Reexamining and reopening these emotional scars, some we have forgotten. Some will look very painful at first and some too useless without any purpose whatever. But here, once again, the key requirement is willingness. The most difficult obstacle will start right up front, and that is forgiveness. And our emotions start to run on defensive just remembering our broken relationships with another human being or human beings. And a lot of times it’s hard to find an excuse for looking and searching for the wrongs we have done another. We automatically start resenting the wrongs he or she has done. Look, well, look what they did to me. So with enthusiasm, we’ll jump on his or her behavior as a perfect excluse, excuse to slough over and not do anything on our own. And this is where I believe we need to bring ourselves up and stop and realize one thing, and always remember that when dealing with other people, us alcoholics are not the only ones that are hounded by sick emotions and screwy behavior. We have two cooperating fellowships that are hounded by sick emotions and screwy behavior, and many of them didn’t even drink alcohol. We’re not the only ones in this world, but we’ll use it as a hammer on our head. I’m supposed to act that way, after all, I’m an alcoholic. You betcha. There are millions of people running around Tennessee and in Georgia and Arkansas and southern Missouri and northern part of Louisiana, Mississippi, with a bunch of little problems and no way to solve them. Ours is too big to hide. We have time after time strained the patience of our best friends to the snapping point and brought out the worst in those, some of them didn’t think much of us to start with. Many times we brought out, uh, when, and when dealing with other of our people, people whose troubles we have increased. So if we’re now about to ask for forgiveness for ourselves, why then should we begin by forgiving them one and all? Now, when we start to list the people whom we’ve harmed, we’re going to run into another obstacle because we’re going to get a rather stiff shock or awakening when we realize that we’re getting ready to make face-to-face admission of our stinking conduct to those who were hurt. Sure, it was embarrassing when in confidence we admitted these things to God, to ourselves, and another human. But now the thought of facing face-to-face or even writing those people concerned certainly doesn’t look like the most pleasant thing to do when many of them despised them. They despised me. I had to put people down on my list who told me, “Don’t you ever show up in front of me again. Never. If you do and I don’t have a gun or poison or atomic bomb or a knife or something, I’m gonna, I’m gonna kill you.” I’ve had people tell me if I’m crossing the street and they’re in a car and they see me, they’re gonna run over me. I’ve had one of them told me, “If you’re walking on the sidewalk and I’m driving down the street and I see you, I’m gonna run over you.” I went to my sponsor, and I said, “I cannot go make an amend to him.” He said, “Why?” He said, “‘Cause he said if I showed up, he’s gonna kill me.” He said, “You’re gonna make the amend.” I said, “Did you hear what I said? He said he’s gonna kill me.” You know what my sponsor said? “That’s okay.” “At least you’ll be sober when he does.” A good sponsor’s got an answer for everything. I don’t mind telling you. And so as a result of, you know… Yeah. These are another ways in which fear combined by our pride blocks the way to making a list of all persons we have would harm, you know? You know? Some rationalize, well, you know, they never did drink at home, paid their bills, family didn’t suffer because they were at work or on the job. Their businesses didn’t suffer. Some of us are even foolish enough to really believe that our personal reputation didn’t suffer, you know? Only a few knew about our drinking. Only our alcoholic playmates, and surely they wouldn’t squeal on us. They’re the first ones to squeal. Any good, respectful, drinking alcoholic knows that if you can get another human being to believe what you tell them, you haven’t got a problem. And there’s enough suckers running around the world that’ll try to believe an alcoholic. And if you don’t believe what I’m telling you is the truth, ask any member of Al-Anon. They are experts in believing the unbelievable. You betcha. Although making restitutions to others is of prime importance, it’s just as necessary to dig out from this examination of ourselves every scrap of information about ourselves and understand the fundamental difficulties arising from our personal relations with others. Unmanageable relations with other human beings have nearly been, you know, one of the immediate causes of our problem, including our alcoholism, and no area of investigation will give us a more valuable and satisfying reward. Now, why does AA do this? We are condemned to relive our lives as it affected others after we get sober, unless we have got a way to get rid of the fear and the shame and the ones that we dread to go see the most. Because now we have the opportunity to go far beyond those things that always appeared to be ugly on the surface. Now, what do we mean when people harm each other? What kind of harm do people do to one another? Well, if you define harm in a practical sense, we might cause the results of instincts and collisions which cause physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual damage to people. If our tempers are consistently mean, we arouse the anger in others. If we lie and we cheat, we not only deprive others of their worldly possessions, but of their emotional security, peace of mind, and this usually brings about revenge, physical violence in some instances, in some instances, legal action. If our sex behavior is selfish, we usually invite jealousy, misery, and in many instances, a strong desire of the opposite sex to retaliate in kind. That’s just some of the more prominent harm. But I like to talk about some of the less obvious, very damaging harm. How about our relations with our blood kin, emotionally attached, and families when we’re misers, cold, hard, callous, and irresponsible? How about when we’re full of that nitpicking criticism, irritable, impatient, and humorless? What happens when we constantly play favorites with only one member of the family and neglect the others? Particularly when our family’s favorite member is not one of the children, it’s the dog or the cat or the canary or the parakeet or the bird dog or the horse. I’ve been in drunks’ homes. You know, you walk in, favorite member of the family is the poodle. God, they’ll take that poodle down to the poodle house and have it shampooed, plum tail, plum head. They don’t go down and get a heart collar. They get one of them diamond collars. Then they have all them little nails painted orange and purple and striped and green and red and brown. And they go to the butcher shop and get this finest of meat and have all the fat trimmed away. And the kids come running in the house, “Hey, Mama, what do we got for supper tonight?” Mama says, “Here’s five dollars. Go down to Pizza Hut.” Kids say, “We don’t want to eat at the Pizza Hut. We want to eat what the poodle’s eating,” you know. And what happens when you line your family up by military law and order, minute, minute directions, demanding how each individual member… I used to line them up like a drill sergeant in the Marine Corps. I’d line them up, and I didn’t like their hair, and I didn’t like what they did, and I got mad at my wife because she’s putting things away on layaway. And I had to get sober to find out that’s the only way she could buy anything, is put it away on layaway. I told her one day, I said, “Woman, if you don’t quit doing all those things, I’m gonna take your car away.” She reached in her apron and pitched me the keys and said, “Here are the keys to the car. You might as well have them. The bank’s getting ready to repossess it anyway,” you know? Now, and so no wonder, you know, the kind that makes dating, living with us as active alcoholics and, in many instances, sober members of Alcoholics Anonymous. Sober. Unbearable and sometimes very unbearable. Yeah. Yeah. And usually very difficult. Shoot, no wonder our families, our friends, want it out. And this list could go on from now until doomsday. As a result of having such a constant and daily way of life as active alcoholics, and sometimes sober members of AA, no wonder we took and take such personality defects into our offices, into society in which we live, where they then do the damage and harm, almost devastating as we’ve caused at home. Now stop and think. Is it only ourselves we harm? You betcha. It is suggested each individual should be thought over. Now, this step is a great mental conditioner, and willingness is the main key. Learning to live with others is not only a necessity, but can and will become a pleasure. We must always take the objective view, for Step Eight is the beginning and end of isolation. And when in doubt, call upon what AA’s experience and wisdom clearly shows us by remembering what this step has meant and is meaning to others. And I, one of the lists I had to put on the list was our oldest son. He was going to kill me when he was fifteen years of age. Because you see, whatever success, and they’re tremendous successes today, both sons, their father didn’t have anything to do with it. I didn’t have anything. It was their mother. Their mother was their mother, their mother was their father, their mother was their Santa Claus, their mother took them on vacations, their mother took them on little band trips and football trips, their mother took them to Cub Scouts, later on Boy Scouts, their mother. And the oldest son was going to kill me one day because their mother was the only link to sanity those two boys had, and they couldn’t stand to see what was happening to that link of sanity, their mother, her emotional being because of me. The wildness left his eyes, and he spat in my face, and he said, “You’re no longer my father, and I’m no longer your son,” and he walked out of my life. And I had no real communication with him for a number of years. Now, I’m sober three years, and he came home one weekend from the university, and we had one of those knock-down, drag-out verbal battles. I didn’t like the kind of courses he was taking down there, and I didn’t like the way he looked, and I didn’t like the way he acted, blah, blah, blah, blah, this. And he says the, he says words that’ll hurt you more when you’re sober than anything else, when the blood can look you in the eye and say, “You’re just like you were when you’re drinking, except you’re not drinking. I’m not coming home anymore. I don’t want to waste my time with you.” And he went in the room and locked the door. Now, here I used to lay in wine hotels, and I’d be in jail or I’d be somewhere. Why can’t I be, if I just had the opportunity, to be the kind of a father I really want to be? And here I have the opportunity in AA, but I’m not letting step six and seven work in my life on a daily basis. And I’m running away the ones that I want to love. Not drinking. Not drinking. Doesn’t do me any good to call my sponsor. I don’t care what you call it, what time of the day. He gives you the same answer. Don’t drink. Read the big book. Go to meetings and work with drunks. I don’t know about you, but every time I open up the big book, it’s right where I need to read. I opened it up. Guess where I was? The family effort. And it says, “When you have a breakdown in relationship, one is demanding too much and the other’s accused of not giving enough.” I said, “Uh-oh, I’ve sat on both sides of the coin.” I said, “Thank you, God, for allowing me to live to find people who put this book and now people who are in AA that are trying to live it.” It makes more sense than anything I’ve ever… When you have a breakdown in a relationship, one is demanding too much and the other’s accused of not giving enough. And the next morning, I knocked on his bedroom door. He said, “Who is it?” I said, “It’s your father.” He opened the door. “What do you want?” His name is David also. I said, “David, I need to talk with you. I do not know how to talk with you. Will you help me talk with you?” Now, those were not my words. I learned that sitting in coffee tables and in hospitality rooms, at conferences and conventions and groups and people’s homes and in coffee shops and over ice cream. Up to that time with him, it was, “David, I need to talk to you, at you, and about you,” but never was it, “I need to talk with you.” And then I said, “Will you help, help me so we can both talk?” Made him a part of the solution. Then he looked at me and he said, “Daddy, you bring the drunks home and y’all go places and they give you the freedom for you to tell them about you and you give them the freedom to tell, for them to tell you about them?” But when it comes to brother and me, it’s you, you, you, you, you. There are things that we wanna tell you that is churning within us that other little boys get to tell their daddies, but you won’t let us. Daddy, we wanna love you, but you turn your back on it. And from that time on, these last twenty-seven years, we have not had one cross word between son one and son two, and I darn near missed the deal. He was absolutely correct that my ego and deflation had run out of air, and it needed a lot of patching, and it certainly did. Now, you see, step eight and nine is the true test of our spiritual growth because what is there? There’s God, you, and me. That’s all that’s in this world. That’s all, God, you, and me. That’s it. And it’s when we’re honest with another human being and how we get along with people, that’s… And isn’t it wonderful how well it makes the day go? Why? Because the spirit of the human being that comes with each and every birth is pleased with the flesh and the bones and the hair and the veins that cover that one magnificent thing that comes with each and every one of us at birth, that still, small, but powerful, silent voice. Yeah. Our conscience. You betcha. And so as a result, we’re gonna make these amends. Step nine, make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. This business of making amends may take a, a long time. It may even take years, but it assures it’s not haste that counts because many of us may well agree to the effectiveness of AA way of life, but many of us feel, uh, uh, fail to receive the true benefit from it because why? We’ve not properly evaluated our alcohol illness. We have them come in, you know, “Well, you know, I, I, I never been in jail, and I never gotten a DWI, and I never a divorce and still have my business, and I still have money in the bank, still belong to the country club, still got a fishing camp, still got all this and all that,” you know. So they don’t believe themselves to be as sick as him. Look where he come from. Yeah, the nuthouse. Okay. Right there and then, the member that judges somebody else an alcoholic is not, is the sickest member of AA. You betcha. Because why? You start to realize they don’t have to inconvenience themselves to get well. That’s all. Now, we don’t arrest our, our, our alcoholism or gain recovery by just merely agreeing with the principle of the program. We’re gonna have to live them. But how many of us stop and realize and face the fact, honestly, that our own names head the list of those whom we have wronged? And by living the program on a daily basis, our way of life, we make daily amends to ourselves, to our bodies, to our confused minds, and our troubled spirit. Now, it’s not too difficult to list the names of the people who suffered because we drank or suffered because in between drunks. Our real damage is to arrive at a state of mind that accepts the damage that we have done and they’re willing to amend it. Because step AA is faced with many roadblocks in making amends, and I’m gonna talk about making some amends. I’m talking about making amends to friends, people who we should be friendly with, but we’ve severed our relations with them because of resentment, pride, imaginary wrongs, some we’ve treated with unjustly, with rough and harsh words and ugly behavior, and with whom indebtedness is not or has not been a factor. In today’s modern electronics, you can go to any of the Bureau of Credit Services, give them your Social Security number. They’ll have a printout for you, how, who you owe, how much you owe, what the delinquency is, and how long it is. And if one wants to get it, start paying it off, they’ll even… where you can go to have it done. They won’t charge you anything. And get your ducks in order, period. And I couldn’t tell you this unless I experienced it in my own life. It may mean that one will have to do without some things they think they really need to do. But, but it doesn’t do any good just to foolishly think in one’s head That just because we’re a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and you get one of those letters in the mail say, “If you’ll put up a five hundred dollar deposit, we’ll give you a corresponding five hundred dollar credit on a credit card,” because it’s the same old defects of character overspend, the next letter you get, “Please cut that card up and send the pieces back to us.” You’re overextended, and you haven’t paid your bill. There’s something about squeezing and paying that bill. It does something to one’s fiscal wellbeing. Now, I want to talk about making amends, friends. Before I do that, I always say a little prayer before I go see them face to face, as long as I’m not writing them. The writing’s another story. And I say, “God, give me the strength to do what you gotta do.” And I go in. I’m gonna tell you about one I made recently. I went in, and I told him I hadn’t seen him in a long time. He cared very little for me. He looked at me, and he says, “You’re not drinking alcohol, are you?” I says, “No.” He said, “Well, how long have you been sober?” I said, “Ever since I found out how.” You see, when I’m making amends to a non-member of AA, I don’t tell them I’m in AA. If they’re AA, that’s another story. They know it. But I don’t… I, I’m not there to, to ride on AA’s coattails and to ride on AA’s good principles. Just because I’m in AA, I really, honestly mean business. I’m there because David means business, period. And then I’ve had them ask me, and this last one asked me, he said, uh, “Well, um, uh, religion, church?” “No.” He said, “Hypnosis?” I said, “No.” He said, “Acupuncture?” I said, “No.” He said, “Antabuse?” I said, “No.” He said, “AA?” When he said AA, then I said, “Yeah.” Then he asked me, he says, “Well, what is Alcoholics Anonymous?” And I just simply said that Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other to may solve their common problem and help others recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is the desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees paid in membership. We’re self-supporting through our own contributions. AA is allied with any sect… not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution. Does not wish to indulge in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety. You know what he said? “The heck,” he said. And then, “Now, look, you know nothing about AA.” Well, that’s what AA is. That’s why it works. That allows the how to work. Now, you know nothing about AA, and I owe you, every one of you, an amend, and I come to you, and I put this on you. Brother or sister, I’m here because I’m now a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and ever since I’ve made the decision to give my will and my life over to the care of God, I’ve come to find out that we’re all God’s children, and I’ve got to be good to you, and I’ve lied to you, and I’ve cheated you, and I come here to make amends. And two weeks later, you see my picture on the morning edition of the newspaper, me being pulled out of a car drunk and run into a school zone, running from little children. Now, what would you think about Alcoholics Anonymous, and what would you think about this God in Alcoholics Anonymous? You know what you’d always say? “Oh, I should have called it one of David’s, another one of David’s con games.” Because when we go to someone, and we mention that now we’re in AA, and I’m doing this for my sobriety, we cannot guarantee any human being, including our own self, that we’ll be sober tomorrow, next week, next month, six months from now, a year from now, five years from now. Can’t do it. And they don’t understand the one day at a time. They don’t understand I’m a recovering alcoholic. They think it’s recovered. They don’t. And in some instances, our sincere attempts will, uh, be rejected. I had them rejected. I went to the first one. I told him I was sorry, and I got away with it. Second one, I told him I was sorry. I got away with it. I went to the third one. I said, “I’m sorry.” He said, “Just a minute. You’re darn right. You’re good and sorry.” And I got mad, and I ran to my sponsor, and I said, “I went to him, and I told him I was sorry, and he said, ‘You darn right. You’re good and sorry, David. Now get out.'” You know what my sponsor said? “You are sorry.” He said, “David, how many times have you gone to people and said you’re sorry, and you did it again to them over and over and over?” I said, “Every time.” “But how many have you gone to and told them, ‘I have been wrong?'” I said, “Never.” “Well, you have to. Just tell them you’ve been wrong.” Well, I went to an old cantankerous bird that was on that list, and I walked in there, and I, “I just want you to know I’ve been wrong.” And he was so speechless, he had no defense. He’s had so many tell him how sorry he was, you know? Yeah. Amidst the families, the deceased. Yeah. All of those good things, you betcha. Because, you know, our problem with deceased will not be as difficult, but we make amends to the living relatives. Yeah. Yeah. I want to tell you about an amendment I made. There was a gentleman, he was almost like a father to me, and I was ugly to him when drinking, and I was so embarrassed and ashamed, but I went to him. He’s one of the early amends. And a few years ago, quite a few years ago, he called me and he said, “Are you still interested in Alcoholics Anonymous?” And I said, “Yes, I’m in, not only interested, still sober.” He said, “We have a problem, but I want to ask you first. I don’t know whether you, you people could help us or not,” he said, “but we, I have a, we have a granddaughter that’s been on alcohol and drugs and everything else, and she’s been in and out of adolescent units, and she’s such a grave concern to my wife and myself and our son and our daughter-in-law, they’re her parents, causing nothing but trouble. Do you think maybe you can…” “Well, we have to find her first.” I said, “Where is she?” And he gave me a rough area where she would be. I said, “We’ll see what we can do.” So I called two members of Alcoholics Anonymous in that area, the kind that will go out in a blizzard, in a flood, or if it’s 180 in the sun. They know where people are, whether they’re in penthouses or in outhouses. Doesn’t make a bit of difference. About two hours, they called me back, said they found, they found that little darling. I said, “Where is she?” “She’s in jail in this town. What should we do?” I said, “Keep her there. I’ll call her grandfather.” I called her grandfather. I said, “Grandpa, we found your little daughter.” “Where?” And I said, “She’s in jail.” “What town?” I said, “Why?” He said, “Well, I’m gonna call our son and daughter-in-law, and my wife and the four of us, we’re gonna charter a jet, and we’re gonna go get her.” I says, “Uh, Grandpa, how many times have you, uh, gone after her?” He said, “Oh, this would be about the fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth.” I said, “All you’re doing is killing her. Why don’t you let the pros take over?” Then he said, “Well, how’d you find her so fast? We paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for the finest of private detectives. We had the FBI looking for her.” I said, uh, I didn’t tell him that AA has a pipeline faster than Western Union. He said, “How’d you find her?” I said, “Well, let me put it this way. Grandpa, if you ever want to find a lost dog, you send another dog to find her because a dog knows how a dog barks, a dog knows how a dog smells, and a nog, a dog knows how a dog lives.” Actually, I, it went over his head. I says, “Now, when we hang up, in about not more than forty-five minutes, there will be some people will call you and your wife and your son and your daughter-in-law. They will identify themselves as members of Al-Anon, and they will make some suggestions how you can release with love. And now let the pros take over.” Called him back, said, “Get her out of jail.” I was doing an all-day service meeting in Amarillo a few years ago, and my- Years ago, this beautiful young lady came up to me and she says, “I know you and you know me, but we’ve never met.” And she told me who she was. I said, “What are you doing?” She said she’s going to this university out there in West Texas, and she says, “I have a part-time job, part, uh, part-time self-supporting through my own contributions.” And she says, “The nice thing about it is this, that grandpa and grandma and daddy and mama are not contributing one penny to my education. They don’t need to.” She says, “I found the, the freedom in AA that if I was ever gonna grow up and quit being dependent for people to bail me out, I had to start standing on my own two feet and start doing something with my life.” Yeah. And, and two years ago, she called me. She calls me grandpa. She said, “Would you come out to San Francisco? I’m graduating law school, and I want you to be there.” Now, that’s not an unusual story. It happens all the time in Alcoholics Anonymous. Our kind, we don’t need charity. We need an opportunity. That’s all, just an opportunity. Every one of us are given an opportunity for our lives once again when we come to Alcoholics Anonymous. You betcha. And it’s a tremendous thing. It certainly is. We make amends, you know, and you hear a lot of things in AA, you know, uh, all these promises, you know. Well, you know, you know, we’re painstaking about this phase of our development, and it is painful. Yeah. We’re gonna be amazed before we’re halfway through. We’re going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity, and we’ll know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we’ll see, now see how our experience can benefit others. When does this come about? Steps one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, halfway through the ninth step. That’s how it comes about. The feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. It doesn’t go say it’s run off and hide. We lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Yeah. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook on life will change. Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us. People will never leave us. We live in a people-centered orientated society, but the fear of people will leave us. The most beautiful members of AA are those who have been sober many, many, many years, 40, 45 years. Retired when, when you used to see this retired, you can retire on $295 a month, and they stand by a golf course, and here’s a palm tree. $245 a month in those days. And you look at them and say, “Well, all you got is a little Social Security and a little retirement with inflation and everything. How do you do it?” They’re also the first ones that always have a little gift for the little children at Christmastime, whoever they sponsor. You betcha. When you have a eating meeting, they’re always… They don’t bring any Kentucky Fried Chicken, man. They make that kind you put in a paper sack and dust it in flour. Yeah. Lard fried. Yeah. Mm-hmm. They don’t care nothing about cholesterol. Smells too good. Yeah. And every kind of bean salad and freezer ice cream with peaches. Mm. Mm. Plum pudding. All them good things. Buttermilk biscuits. And they look at you. How do you live on such a limited income? They look at you, and they give you that beautiful smile, and they say, “God has brought us this far. How far will He really take us?” And that’s the answer. It certainly is. So, you know, we will intuitively know how to handle things that used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. That is the measure of our spiritual being, one day at a time. Sometimes i-it can get so simple it scares you. Yeah. It scares you. Step 10, continue to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admit it. After we’ve been sober for a few days, sometimes weeks, hours of alcohol, alcohol’s not… Alcohol’s completely out of our system. I’m one of these in AA. I’m not gonna argue with you one hundredth of a second how long it takes alcohol to get out of your system when you stop drinking. In AA, if we’re not taking the first drink of alcohol one day at a time, you can’t get any better than to not drink in the barber. It is likely that a psychic quirk started us on our drinking careers in the first place. We hear it all the time in the personal stories of the members of Alcoholics Anonymous. You hear about the youngster who said, “I come from a fine Christian home, had a fine Christian upbringing, went to Sunday school, revivals, encampments, and everything. And when I went into the Army, I promised the preacher, the preacher’s wife, and all the deacons in the churches, and my aunts and my uncles and my grandparents and my mother and my father, my cousins, and neighbors that I never was gonna drink whiskey, smoke cigarettes, or run around with loose girls.” And he said, “I went into the service, and every morning I’d read my prayer book, my meditation book, and I’d sing a little hymn” And I’d do the same thing at night before I went to bed while the rest of them are down at the slop chute getting drunk. And he used to call me Little Jesus and John the Baptist. And he says, you know, it’s lonesome when you’re doing the work of the Lord and no one’s paying any attention to you. And one night I decided to go down to that slop chute tent and show them, by God, what a real Christian was. And I went in there. They have an old saying in there, once you let the head of the camel in the tent, the body is soon to follow. And I went in there and I grabbed something, a brown bottle of drink, and I spat it out. And I said, what’s that? He said, beer. Got anything any stronger? Yeah, I drank this. I drank it. But it went down. And I didn’t spit it out. I took another one. It trickled down in my chest. Took another one. Got in my tummy, running around my navel about four or five times. Took another one. Started going down the right and left leg, heading for them toenails on each foot. Took another one. Started coming back up. God, it felt good. Took another one to be sure it come all the way back up. And that’s the first time I drank alcohol and the first time I got drunk. And I left there and went to my cot, reached under it, got my footlocker, took my Bible, hymn book, prayer book, meditation book, and threw it away and hadn’t hit church since. We hear it all the time in the personal stories of the members of Alcoholics Anonymous. We hear about the youngster. He was cross-eyed, knock-kneed, tongue-tied, pigeon-toed, had kid bumps all over his face. And he stuttered and he stammered and he was uncomfortable. And he’d go to a high school dance and his feet like they’re nailed to the gymnasium floor. And a beautiful girl would come by and say, would you like to boogie with me? And he’d go, with his britches and everything else. And he said, one night during intermission, I went out to a bunch of fellas. They were hood of the car and they’re drinking something out of a sack. And he said, what are you doing here? Have a drink of this. And I took a drink. And he said, I had to hit two of them in the head to get the second and third drink. But let me tell you what happened. I felt my face. The kid bumps were gone. My eyes straightened out. My knees went out. My toes went out. I quit stammering, stuttering. I ran in there and grabbed that gal and I boogied like Michael Jackson all night long. That thing that does something for us. The greatest thing when it happens. Yeah. You betcha. And as a result of it, you know, A, as long as we’re going to think straight, we’re going to remain sober. It’s important that we continue to take personal inventory. Perhaps we find ourselves criticizing some other member’s method of staying sober. Instead, congratulate them for doing a fine job. I don’t care how anybody stays sober. In AA or out of AA. If they’re out of AA, I don’t care. If they’re an alcoholic and they’re not drinking, the greatest thing in the world to have come. But for us in AA, it is the only way. We have to remember that. A lot of alcoholics don’t want sobriety in Alcoholics Anonymous. They’re not willing to go through this process of squeezing self out of self. Deflation of ego in and out of death because it is painful. They want an easier, softer way. And there’s nothing easier or softer than going to make an amends, the kind that you hate more than anything in the world. It’s important that we continue to take personal inventory. Perhaps you may resent something I have said, am saying, or going to say. Forget it. One of these days, they’re going to ask you to talk. And you’ll probably offend somebody yourself. In AA, if you’re going to develop the capacity to put it out, you’ve got to develop the capacity to take it. Yeah. Perhaps maybe you don’t think the family is congratulating you. Or if you’re working the Boston because you’re in AA. Or your grandchildren are not congratulating grandma because she ain’t spaced out all the time. She’s sober. Forget it. I don’t deserve to be sober. I do not deserve to be alive. I do not deserve to be running loose in this world. If I’d have gotten exactly what I deserved, I would have been murdered or electrocuted long ago. Or locked up one of them goony roos running up and down them cages with my toes and fingers babbling like a baboon the rest of my life. I’ve been given an unmerited, undeserved gift. So take time up. Check up. If we’re doing the best you can, don’t worry about it. You’re doing the best you can. Which again, now it’s in this step we find that we’re not cured of alcoholism. All we have is a daily reprieve contingent upon the maintenance of our spiritual condition. So as we come through the ninth step, right here and then, that’s the true nature of our spiritual being. So now we’re going to have to maintain it. And those defects they refuse to recognize as moral, those defects that made our lives unimaginable, resentment, selfishness, dishonesty, and fear are still very daily dangerous to our sobriety. That’s the reason for our continuing to take personal inventory and when we’re wrong, find permission. And so now this brings us to step 11, sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. Well, you say, well, when you get here, what have I got to meditate about? Will it be answered within a few days and after we’ve just become associated with Alcoholics Anonymous? For the first time in our life, we’re giving of ourselves, and the first time in our life, we’re receiving something that’s good. You wake in the morning with a clear head and clear eye. I have the greatest spiritual awakening every morning I wake up sober than any member of Alcoholics Anonymous anyplace, anywhere in this world. Had a tremendous one this morning. When I woke up, I was on the pot instead of in it, and that’s a tremendous spiritual awakening for a drunk like me. And I can smell them cooking bacon or ham or frying and not get sick. And I looked under my bed the other morning, and my bed, my shoes were there. And I looked up on the wall, and the picture of the little children were my grandchildren and somebody not, not somebody else’s. That’s a spiritual awakening, a physical one anyway. You betcha. You betcha. And you don’t have to worry about your money is in your pants pocket. Doesn’t look like somebody shot you with a buckshot, scattered all over everywhere. You don’t have to run out to see if you came back on three rims and a tire. You don’t have to run out to see if anybody’s in the backseat. Yeah. If the windshield is still on, you know. Happiness begins to shine in the faces of our loved ones. And we’re beginning to have some sort of desire, some sort a they want to, some sort of an untapped power to help others. Surely we have much to meditate on. And when we meditate on this new way of living, we cannot realize, yes, there is a God above guiding us through each successive day and night. As we become more conscious of this guiding power, we’ll soon be able to better understand this guiding power. And before long, we find it easy to pray. But easy, don’t let it bother you. I talk to God just like I talk to you. I clean up the language a lot. I certainly do. And so we give thanks for His help. Now, in the tenth step, it’s Thy will, not mine, be done. And the tenth step knocks you out of the way from me so I can turn to the eleventh step with a clear channel to this Power greater than myself and communicate with Him because it is vitally necessary. I cannot talk with God with honesty. You see, you can’t love and hate at the same time. You can’t steal and be honest at the same time. And if I have a resentment against you and I’m not willing to put it down and get ready to make it and then turn to the God of my understanding, I’m so thankful for you that you’ve given me this desire now, and I can talk to the God of my understanding one-on-one. So it goes from Thy will, not mine, be done to the third prayer in the book, Thy will be done. Period. Yeah. And I’ll tell you, if you’re having trouble staying sober, I suggest you get you another God. You, I suggest you get you a sober God, a God that you know that wants you not only to live sober more than anything else in the world, but also, I’m going to add something, wants you to be a good member of Alcoholics Anonymous one day at a time. You betcha. And stay. You hear it all the time, and they keep coming back. Well, why don’t we just stay, and we don’t have to worry about keep coming back. Yeah. Step 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to Alcoholics, practice these principles in all our affairs. Well, if you’ve gone through the first 11 steps, you’ve come far, and now we got our life to continue to work. You’re going to be asked to talk to some, a prospective member. We suggest you don’t lose any time in doing so. You say, “What do I tell them?” Tell them a story, our own personal story, what it used to be like, what happened, what it’s like now. Yeah. Even if you’re new, remember, you’re older than they are as far as sobriety. And you go to a lot of meetings, somebody will walk up to you. It won’t be long, you’ll have somebody that you’ll be a sponsor. Then you have something to live for. You worry about them. You’ll hover over them. You’ll guide them to the best of one’s ability and suffer with them as they come out of their alcoholic fog. But in doing this, we’re giving of ourselves, and we’ll find new joy in living. And we have to remember that the more we put into AA, the more we’re going to get out of it. And bear in mind that our alcoholic problem is the first thing that needs to be tended to one day at a time. It comes before everything else, for without sobriety, we’ll have nothing, no family, no friends, no sanity, and we may loss of life itself. And we have to share this life with others, and it pays thousands and thousands over and over. And as an alcoholic, if we take that one drink of alcohol, that’s it. At that time, if I go insane and take a drink of alcohol, at that time I take that drink, at that time I am not a member of Alcoholics Anonymous with no assurance I’ll ever be one again. And I’m not thinking drinking. I’m thinking sober. I’m thinking sober because I’ll tell you, I had all I could take. And when you get here half dead, uh-uh, it’s too great a gift. And if any time one feels uncertain of himself, read the steps carefully if you’re having problems. Usually, we never have to get past the last half of the first step. An unmanageable life is trying to manage a situation that unmanageable life can’t manage. Don’t be thrown by the word spiritual experience or awakening. If we can remember this simple thing, the entire structure of Alcoholics Anonymous is built on something that we see when the laughter, and we see in the eyes, it’s built on love. The word love has many synonyms, such as charity, grace, goodwill, tenderness, generosity, kindness, tolerance, simply mercy, and many, many others. When we help a fellow human being, when we are kind to one another, we are performing a completely spiritual act. Spirituality is just simply the act of being selflessly helpful with no expectation of a reward or gain whatsoever. And if we can start with this simple explanation, I believe the green light will be flashed on. After all, there are not but two great commandments, to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. And I want to tell you, how do you learn to love yourself? If you don’t love God, you don’t love your neighbor. If you don’t love God and you don’t love your neighbor, how are you ever gonna love yourself? There ain’t no way. That’s what makes AA so great. We may not like each other, but we love each other. That’s what’s so important. Yeah. And what you don’t understand, don’t worry about it. Now, where does this awakening come by? Steps one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12. And then we try to carry this message to alcoholics. Now, with your permission, I’m gonna talk about making some 12-step calls on a wet drunk. I’m gonna talk about the highlights of some of them. Yeah. I have a drunk. This has been going on 20 years. 20 years. He calls up, “David, do you know, you know that hook rug in my den?” “Yeah.” “David, there are millions of black worms dancing out of it. What should I do?” I said, “Turn the rug over.” He drops the phone. You can hear him huff and puff, and he turns the rug over, and he comes, “David, it’s a miracle. The worms have disappeared. Where’d they go?” I said, “Well, you turned them over. They’re dancing into the floor.” “Oh, David, you’re so smart.” Grace said, “Are you going to the meeting?” I said, “Well, knowing him, and he thinks like I think, in about 40 minutes he’ll call me back.” But it wasn’t 40, it was 30 minutes. “David, there are millions of black worms dancing out of my rug.” I said, “You turned the rug back over, didn’t you?” He said, “How’d you know?” I said, “Because I’m a, I’m an alcoholic and I can’t leave nothing alone. That’s the reason why every cake I bake, it’s off. I can’t keep my hands off of it.” Then he says to me, “David, when the go, when the worms gonna quit dancing?” I said, “When they get sober.” “Get sober?” I said, “Yeah, they’re your worms.” “Oh, David, you’re so smart,” and hangs up. Now, this has been going on for 20 years. God, has he helped me. He has helped me more than anything in this God’s world. I made a call on a, on a husband and wife. I rang the doorbell, and this is a huge lady. She wasn’t fat. She’s just big boned, about six foot three. She weighed over 300 and some odd pounds. Big arms. She looked down at me, “Who are you?” I said, “I am David A., and I’m from Alcoholics Anonymous.” And her big arm went out. “He’s in there.” And I went in there, and he’s in the living room sitting in his La-Z-Boy in his kimono. He’s drunk. His face looks like a center cut piece of bologna, hair running out all ends. He’s sweating and he, and he’s grunting like a root hog. And she said, “Look at that sorry, no-good drunk. Look at him. He’s no good, sorry drunk.” And I knew exactly how he was feeling because she’d been gnawing on him like that for three days. And if you ever ain’t ever been gnawed on like that, you don’t know what gnawing is. And I said to him, “Would you like to stop drinking?” She said, “He’s a liar.” Every time I asked him a question, she wouldn’t let him answer. She’d butt it in. And I knew what was going through his mind. If he wasn’t so drunk, he’d get out and kill her. And I was gonna fix, show him a way that he could do it. May take a couple months. But anyway, she went… So finally after 15 minutes, I heard, “Lady, do you have a phone?” She says, “Yes, it’s in the hall.” I said, “I’d like to use it.” I got on the phone. I called my wife. I said, “Grace, I got one for you.” I come back out. I said, “Lady, you’re wanted on the phone.” She said, “Who, me?” “Yeah.” She left. The minute she left the room, you should’ve seen the eyes on that drunk. God, his chin came up, his eyes opened up. As drunk as he was, he’s trying to get out of that La-Z-Boy. He said, “Mister, I don’t know your name. I do not know who you are. I don’t know what you’re here for. I do not know what you represent, but I’ll tell you one thing. If you can get rid of that bat that quick, what do I have to do to join you?” Now, he thought, he thought she was the problem. But in order to get down one-on-one to the nature, I had to … We have to divert the distraction and let her find her problem with the blood, kin, and emotional attachment or the family and the drunk. Now, I made a call on a drunk. It’s the largest house I’ve ever been in my life under roof. For me, about almost 40,000 square feet. And you went to the doorbell, and it’s one of those deals with a speakerphone out in front. “Come in,” in a buzz. And I said, “Where are you?” And I went in the ba- living room, big enough to play basketball with this expensive furniture. I went in the dining room, and it had a banquet table for 13, 14 with a chandelier down low, breakfront with expensive china, and said, “Where are you?” I opened up these doors in his den, and his den’s about the half the size of that room over there. That’s cut that two. And there he was, and he was laying on a big leather couch rolled up in his sheet. And when I came in there, he got out of that couch. He was drunk, and the sheet started unraveling, and he’s stark naked, and he had a carbine in his hand. He said, “You stand right there.” Now, what happens if you’re ever asked to go on a 12-step call, and they’re drunk, and they’re a gun freak, and they got a, a loaded gun in their hand? And that’s where you got outward surrender and inward coward. Then he said to me, “Who are you?” And I says, “I’m David Ayotte from Alcoholics Anonymous.” That’s the last question from him I answered. I just let him start answering his own questions. Then he can’t put any blame on anybody. He said to me, “You mean I am that drunk that I would call Alcoholics Anonymous?” I didn’t say, “Yes, you are.” He’s got that gun, right? Boom. Head here, body here. “I’ll show you how drunk I am,” boom. He said, “You mean I’m that drunk that I would call Alcoholics Anonymous?” I didn’t say one word. He said, “God, I must be that drunk.” “Are you sure?” I didn’t say one word. And until they tell you to sit down, you stand. He answered his own questions. Well, I tell you about that one. He come to AA, sober about six months, went back to drinking, came back, stayed sober three months, went back to drinking. He went to Europe under the finest of psychiatrists, every sort of aura thing you could think of. Tremendously extremely wealthy human being. The family had all they could do. They took all the money away from him, put it in trust funds for his children and grandchildren. And he ended up in the alcohol recovery unit at the state hospital for many years, staying about 30 miles from Dallas. We’d go see him. And he was eligible to release, and he … We’d bring him back to AA, and he stayed sober seven months. Failed to enlarge his, develop his spiritual life. He got drunk, and on his last drunk, he took that carbine and stuck it in the roof of his mouth and blew his head off. So in AA, you win some, you lose some. If you understand baseball, the ones that get rained out, they’re the toughest to make up. But now I’m gonna tell you about the 12-step call that for me still tugs at my heart. You go into a house that’s no longer a home, and e- if the utilities have been paid, everything that’s on is on. Little children, some in diapers, some of them five, six, seven years old, they have to fend for themselves. They come, they grab you by the legs. And the ones that can talk, they’re, “Are you here to fix Daddy or Mother?” The animals have … Their cages haven’t been cleaned out. They haven’t been fed. There’s not a clean glass, plate, dish. No food in the refrigerator, in the pantry. The non-alcoholic spouse or maybe a single spouse, they’re usually in the bedroom. It’s a nightmare. This is not the way it’s supposed to be when we got married. And the drunk drunk is somewhere. I always carry me a list of Alateens. They’re the best because they’ve been through that, and they’ll take them out, and they’ll roast weenies for them and marshmallows, and they’ll get toys for them, play with them, and get the Al-Anons over there for the non-alcoholic parents. And you don’t ask any questions. Are they live-ins, live-outs, married, not? Mm-mm. Human lives are involved. And then the drunks can go work on the drunk. And then you go off to a meeting someplace about three years or four years later off away from the area, and you walk in, and it has to be birthday night. And a beautifully dressed lady Will come up to you and said, “David, do you remember me?” And you look at him, and you don’t remember him. And then she starts to tell about the night. She said, “David, you and some of the members of your group, you came, and y’all helped clean the house.” And then she said, “You got Grace and the other ladies to come over and talk to me. And you got some youngsters over there. Y’all cleaned up the house, and you got milk for the kids. Got cat food and dog food.” And she said, “You see him over there? He’s celebrating three years tonight.” And you look at him, got his hair all blowed out. Got on one of them three-piece Taiwan knit suits on. Brand-new pair of unborn linoleum shoes, you know. Got one of them ties on looks like somebody threw up all over it, you know. And he’s grinning just like a jackass eating briar, you know. And here come these little kids, and kids grow like weeds. And they got on their party dresses, and they got ice cream and cake on their face and in their hair. Folks, that’s Alcoholics Anonymous. You’re not gonna see that on As the World Turns, and you’re not gonna see it on television on birthday night in Alcoholics Anonymous. What a joy it is to see in this meeting here all these little youngsters. They had one here last night. Yesterday, he was seven days old. His mama carrying him in his crib. Yeah. That’s Alcoholics Anonymous. That’s Alcoholics Anonymous. To practice these principles in all of my affairs. Well, when I, I went to my sponsor, and I told him, I said, “I’m having trouble practicing these principles in all my affairs.” And he said, “David, you will always have trouble practicing these principles in all your affairs until you cut out some of your affairs.” And he made practicing the ones that needed to because we restore ourselves to sane living, you know? Yeah. We admit we get help from God as we understand Him. We rely on the 12 steps to inspire us with worthy, uh, emotions and power. And we admit and accept the injury our drinking illness inflicted upon others and not duck it and dodge it. Ask God’s forgiveness for these acts and make amends to personal harm. Share the experience of our recovery with alcoholics who need our help, and continue to live the AA way of life. And, you know, and giving, giving in all of our lives. One final give. You know? One final example. You know? Joy, sobriety, honest sobriety, fun sobriety, loving sobriety. Ever using all the principles that are given to each and every one of us. And we have some paradoxes in AA. What we give away, we retain, and what we lose, we gain. And I’ll add a third one. And when we die, all we’re gonna have left is that which we have given away. I want to thank you for your attention and your attendance. God bless you, and I love you, and thank you. Thank you so much. David, in appreciation from, uh, the Bluff City Fellowship and Alcoholics Anonymous in this area, we want to give you a small gift, but it’s with a lot of love. Thank you very much.
