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Source: 1985 Montreal International Convention – Multi Speakers – BIRDS OF A FEATHER AIRLINE PERSONNEL – RS 06417.mp3 File: 1985-montreal-international-convention-multi-speakers-birds-of-a-feather-airline-personnel-rs-06417.mp3 Duration: 01:23:55
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Would you all join me, please, in a moment of silence, in gratitude for all the recoveries that this program has brought in the last 50 years, followed by the Serenity Prayer. God, grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Courage to change the things I can. And wisdom to know the difference. My name is Don, and I'm an alcoholic. Nice looking group. You really are. Nice looking group.
There may be some here who are not familiar with our tradition of personal anonymity at the public level. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, TV, and films. Thus, we respectfully ask that no A.A. speaker, or indeed any A.A. member, be identified by full name or photograph in published or broadcast reports of our meetings.
The assurance of anonymity is essential in our effort to help other problem drinkers who may wish to share our recovery program with us. And our tradition of anonymity reminds us that A.A. principles come before personalities. I don't have any current announcements. Does anybody else? Tapes of this meeting will be available at the tape sales booth in the convention center. I understand there are order blanks in the hotel, but you pick them up at the convention center.
As much as I fly, I'm extremely grateful that some of these folks are sober. Although it was a time that didn't make any difference at all. Where I come from, chairman, chair, and speaker speak. So I would like to give you Ron D. from Illinois and the birds of a feather. Bonjour, mes amis. Je m'appelle Ron et je suis alcoholique. Well, some of you do speak French. Let's try it again for those who don't.
Hi, everybody. My name is Ron and I'm an alcoholic. And I assure you that I won't attempt any more French. Oh, come on. Do you have any idea what it's like to stand up here in front of 500 drunks? It's kind of lonely. But it's the only place in the hotel I can get a place to stand, or sit for that matter. Myself and my colleagues, Kathleen and Grant, represent birds of a feather. That's a group of AA'ers who specialize in another type of high aviation.
And there is a saying, alcohol taught me how to fly, then it took away the sky. The age-old question, which came first, the chicken or the egg, I think arises in our case, flying or drinking. In any case, birds of a feather international is an AA fellowship of private, commercial, corporate, airline, and military pilot. This was approved by the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous in February of 1976.
The spirit of birds of a feather is founded on the 12 steps and traditions. And further fosters fellowship, not only through AA identity, but also through similarity of profession. Throughout the North American continent, for that matter, the world, aviators who by virtue of their work are highly mobile, can attend a birds of a feather meeting and be secure in their anonymity and commonality from the outset.
When I first heard of birds of a feather, I wanted desperately to join, because I liked the name. I had no idea I had to do so much drinking and flying to get on this staff. However, for myself, birds of a feather helped me bridge the chasm of self-recrimination, finding colleagues for whom I had much respect, saddled with the same debilitation. That identifiable process was very important in the first days of my recovery.
Previously held attitudes toward the alcoholic and toward Alcoholics Anonymous had strengthened my denial of barriers, as I'm sure it had yours.
[00:05:01]
For I felt a person who suffered the problem of alcoholism did so because it was a product of their own self-indulgence and a lack of willpower. To couple that attitude with a struggling self-image and an antipathetic posture toward Alcoholics Anonymous is sure to evolve. My low self-esteem was reinforced early in my childhood when I began to realize that our family was more closely associated with the have-nots rather than the haves.
My mom and dad struggled with seven children during the Depression and its after-effects, as well as the deprivations of World War II. Dad was a diagnosed alcoholic by an expert mom. And from what I remember of my embarrassment and confusion during his frequent incoherences, I would tend to agree. However, my impressions were obscured in childhood. Dad died when I was 13. These events took place in a small town across the border, Belleville, Ontario.
There, I was determined to escape the memories of my childhood, the poverty, the social rejection that I had imposed on myself, and the alcohol. To fly was my boyhood tendency, and that I did with Royal Canadian Air Force for almost 13 years. And some say the armed services of those days was the greatest training ground for me. And some say the armed services of those days was the greatest training ground in the world for alcoholism.
And perhaps flying did teach me a great deal. When flying at Air Force, I was frequently encouraged not to drink and smoke. Yet, at Air Force, and in my own support of the tenacity of the Air Force, which encouraged me to persist at functions without showing the effects of my consumption, at least on the children's privacy concerns, unwittingly, I was experiencing recipient alcoholism, or building a strong denial of my existence, and therefore, public dissent towards me.
When I resigned from the ranks of fighter pilots in the Air Force, the pattern of my behavior evaded me to a run-in with everyone, creating a socially Iranian reinforcement of my beliefs, to bolster my self-confidence, and privately my dependency on his tribe and foreign system. I had developed a close friendship with another of my colleagues, and together, we enabled each other, at the expense, I might add, of our families.
His accidental death, as a result of overindulgence, led my drinking to more solitary and intense varieties, and the King Baby Syndrome, with which I'm sure you're familiar, ran the course of my life for the next five years. My awareness of increasing sensitivity to my drinking among my friends and family encouraged me to cease entirely on my own, for two years. But the sobriety that I experienced then was merely an exercise of irritability and depression cloaked in superficiality.
Then, while on vacation, I opted to assert my control over alcohol and return to the happy days. Four months later, I awakened in a hotel room, surrounded by emptiness, including empty wine bottles, devoid of hope, replete with anxiety, afraid, and alone. It reminds me of the story of a fellow on vacation in mid-August. He was flying from Los Angeles to New York, and after takeoff, the stewardess came by and offered him a cocktail.
Being an alcoholic, he declined politely. The fellow beside him, of course, had had a couple already, and he said, What's the matter? You got something against drinking? The guy said, Oh, hell no. He says, It's just that my wife wants me home for Christmas. The details of my being discovered are unimportant, but two close friends and my dear wife spearheaded efforts
[00:10:00]
toward my recovery, for which I remain eternally grateful. But for the longest time, I was resentful for having been exposed and ushered into the ranks of the alcoholic without recourse. It seems in this illness there are no half measures. That was difficult for me to accept, because, as I mentioned earlier, my self-image was so important. Preconceived attitudes and contempt for the absence of intestinal fortitude among alcoholics tarnished that all-important image, and the ship of Ron's pride floundered in the heavy seas of early recovery.
Naturally, I felt the unspoken disparagement of all, my wife, my colleagues, and my children. Of course, these notions were self-imposed and never confronted nor dealt with. They persist today, to a lesser degree, of course. But the acknowledgment here today, in front of you, this is my first speaking engagement, by the way, may help me to become more open with my disease and thereby enhance the success of the recovery process, which in turn reinforces the remissive state.
And God knows I need that reinforcement. But honesty and openness, which might allow personal growth, is still stifled by my foolish pride, pride which presupposes public contempt born of ignorance and kindled by media conduct and information for the spineless addict. Public denunciation of addiction is possibly the second greatest inhibitor to early recognition and recovery. The first, denial, is simply built on the foundation of compulsiveness and stigma.
Claudia Black confronts these issues in her book, It Can Happen to Me. I identify with Claudia in that she was the offspring of an alcoholic. She feared public contempt, repugnance, if you will. She construed her addiction as an attribute of other personal problems. Her feminine pulchritude resists further comparison. But she did say something profound in her address at the Southeast Conference of Drug and Alcohol Abuse in Atlanta in 1984, to which I was attracted.
In her opening remarks, she said, I feel comfortable enough with my recovery to tell you I'm an alcoholic. For me, the key to that statement was comfortable. From that moment, I have been in pursuit of comfort. I pray for the day where I become impervious to media slurs, warranted no doubt by the events in society brought on by overindulgence, for example, white feeding, neglect of children, drunken driving.
Yet I pray to be relieved of the narrowness that compels me to focus on negativism which stigmatizes our disease in public opinion. A healthier posture, I believe, to embrace honesty, openness, acceptance, and most important, gratitude. Grateful to be relieved, for today anyway, from the onerous yoke of practicing alcoholism. Through God and Alcoholics Anonymous, personal research, and sharing with others such as yourself, I can and will overcome my ill-founded fears.
For it is said that the important thing in life is not the triumph, but the struggle. Our struggle is relentless, for a cure is unachievable. But hopefully, the events of that struggle will lead me to a serenity, and those that would allow me to stand before people like yourself and those who may not be aware that they have the disease, and without shame, without pride, without fear, say that I'm comfortable enough with my recovery to tell you I'm Ron, and I'm not alcoholic.
Applause Thank you, Ron. I had the privilege a few years ago of serving as a Colorado delegate. While I was back in New York, I had the opportunity to go to the 3rd Oval Back in New York, I had the opportunity to go to the third oldest group in the world.
[00:15:02]
And while I was there, I was struck by the fact that there were more people in the room that night than were in all of AA. The night Bill and Dr. Bob took the head count, found there were 40 sober drunks, and that was such a momentous occasion, they decided to write a book. This morning I was re-impressed with the fact there are more countries represented at this convention than were people in all of AA when they took that same head count and decided we need a book.
Last I heard, we have representatives from over 57 countries here. And I get to be part of that, isn't that so? This lady's got to be something, because as I came in, everybody moving down the aisles was hugging on her. Kathleen. Good morning. My name is Kathleen and I'm an alcoholic. And that's the most wonderful statement I ever made in my life. It took me a long time to get here and it took me a long time to make that statement.
I was not one of these people that walked in the room and saw everybody smiling and that's who I wanted to be. I walked in and saw everybody and thought, what am I doing here? I did not come to this program honestly, but then I had never done anything honestly in my life. And I think my higher power knew that, so he knew he needed the devious way to get me here. My drinking was fast and furious. I couldn't wait for life.
I was one of these people that couldn't start. Like Ron, I came from a very poor Irish family, immigrant, and I was very ashamed from who I was from the day I got here. I believe that I opened my eyes in this world and said, my God, I don't want to be here. I never liked who I was. I never liked where I was. I was constantly changing it. As a little girl, I was very fearful and very withdrawn and always with the imagination.
A very good speaker once said that early on I formed a plan for life. And this plan came out of movies, books, people, teachers, parents, all the things that I thought were bad and good. I decided at a very early age that this is what it was and I developed a plan that I was going to beat the system. Needless to say, by the fact that I'm standing up here, I didn't beat the system. I wanted to be a grand lady.
I wanted to walk through a room and everybody noticed me. I wanted to be beautiful. I wanted to be this. I wanted to be that. I was brunette. I wanted to be blonde. As you can see, I am a chief. I wanted beautiful chiefs. I wanted everything that I thought made a person. I never looked inside. I didn't want to. I was afraid who was inside. The person inside of me was desperate, afraid, and totally panicked with the world in front of them from a very early age.
So needless to say, I started out on this quest by running away from home when I was 13. I happened to get some of the things that I wanted. I was nice looking. I think I was intelligent, although I didn't think so. I quit school in the 8th grade. This was a great thing for me to say. This was part of my 4th and 5th step. I didn't want anybody to know this. Now I'm telling the whole world convention.
It shows you how this program works. I ran away from home. At 15, I had my first son. By the time I was 22, I had four sons. I was a full-blown alcoholic. I had my first drink at 15 years old. With my first drink, I was an alcoholic. My first drink was at a dance in New Jersey. I worked in a war plant. I had already forged my birth certificate. I lied about my age. I was doing all these things at 15.
Getting away with it. I was really good at it. I found I really had a talent of being dishonest. And making up stories. I went to this dance. Before the dance, we were to meet at this girl's house. They were serving Cuba Libras. I'll never forget it. Rum and Coca-Cola with lime. I don't know how many I drank. It was wonderful. From the first one that went down, I don't know if it gave me the wonderful feeling of freedom, but it was sure warm and nice.
The smell was good. Everything was there that I think I ever wanted in life. That was it. Booze was the greatest thing I think I ever discovered in life. It just sort of changed me into what I wanted to be.
[00:20:01]
But I could never seem to stay at that level. I changed another time and went into a blackout. Who I became then, I don't even know. And I don't think I want to know. One time my sponsor said, Why do you keep remembering Kathleen? You're better off not knowing. But anyway, that's what happened. I went into my first blackout. The next day I woke up at my foreman's house. I never made it home. I understand I made a perfect ass of myself at the dance.
I was the life of the party, which usually I always was. And I had a mouth that never quit. I look in the mirror today and wonder why my face stayed in one piece. Because I had a mouth that was unbelievable. Now I have a personality, a person that's really me. It's very kind, very understanding, very sympathetic. Maybe overly so. So I had to learn at an early age to close these doors. Because I got hurt so badly.
It seemed like everybody was always doing something to me. It was always their fault that I was unhappy. I was always turning my life over to someone. I wanted someone to take care of me and fix me. Although I was fiercely independent. So I was a paradox. I wouldn't let anyone do this, really. And yet I wanted everyone to do this. Men were the thing that I imagined in my plan for life that were going to fix me and take care of me.
Because this is the way I think the roles went in the movies and in the books. Prince Charming was going to come and save you. I got married at a very early age and got divorced at a very early age. The war came along and I decided early in my drinking that I could not work at jobs that you had to get up early in the morning. Because I drank too late at night. So I devised the idea that I needed a job that fit in with my drinking.
So at the age of 16 or 17, I had already decided to turn my life over to alcohol. And alcohol was going to be the basic premise of my life and I was going to revolve my life around it. Which I did. I got a job at a nightclub. And this was great because you could drink. You didn't have to show up until 9 o'clock at night and the lights were low so you always looked good. You were always on stage. Because you were something to everybody.
So at this early age I started manufacturing personalities. I went to see the movie Three Phases of Eve I think 20 times because I think I discovered what was wrong with me. This was in Florida and I was drinking. I thought, I must have all these multiple personalities. Well in a sense I did. But I made them up. They were not really inside of me. Whoever I was with, whoever I wanted to impress, I made up another story.
So consequently through my life and by the time I got to AA I had no identity whatsoever. I was a person without a background. I was a fictitious person who arrived here and didn't have the foggiest idea of who she was. And this is very frightening. It's like landing on another planet and all of a sudden you're cold sober and there you are and people are saying, you know, well who are you? And I say, I don't know who I am.
But I can't afford to let you people know I don't know who I am. So when I came into the program I carried the same baggage with me that I was going to make up whoever you wanted me to be. And through the years I was a geographical drunk. I married an entertainer and we traveled a lot and he drank like I did. Now going back to what Don said, Claudia Bach is new in my life. I would say in the last six or seven months I became aware of children of alcoholics.
I was a child of an alcoholic. My father was a drunk. He died drunk. At an early age I took care of my father. I went out to the bars and hunted for him. My mother was Irish and she wouldn't go in the bars. She said the devil was in there. In later years she would tell me that I was possessed. And I said, well it's your fault Ma. You sent me in those bars. And I really believed that one. And I always married alcoholics.
I have never married a sober person or a person in AA. I just was a child of alcoholics. Now alcoholism is normal to me. This is who I am. When I stand up in front of you today and say I'm Kathleen and I'm an alcoholic I don't mean I used to be. I don't mean I was. I don't mean I could be again. I mean at this given moment in time I am. I will never be anything different. Now when I came on this program I thought there was going to be a magic place that I was going to get and I would know these things and I would practice the steps and the principles and I would be okay.
But that place never came. At first it was disappointment. It was a terrible frustration. I couldn't seem to figure out where I was. But again I had another plan. I had a plan for me in AA.
[00:25:01]
I wasn't turning it over to God. This was difficult for me. This took a lot of years. For some people it's easier. I see them come in and in a few years they seem to be doing this. But I'm a hard learner. I do not learn easy. I have to suffer to learn. But once I learn, I have it. Pretty much. So when I came in here I was a lost soul. I had been married many times. When I arrived here I had married…
My last year of graphical I was in Portland. I came from Florida to Portland with four kids. Half the time my kids weren't in school. I wasn't capable of taking care of them. I was in my last stages of alcoholism at this point. I met this man in Portland. I'll tell you the kind of drunk and the kind of people with this one incident that I am. I met this man in Portland and he was a very good looking man and he drank a lot.
I used to wonder why I ended up with alcohol. I finally figured that one out. Nobody else was sitting in the bars at 4.30 in the morning or 4 o'clock in the morning and wanted to go to an after hour joint after and drink with a woman like me except another alcoholic. I thought I was terrific. My one claim to fame was I could drink. I could drink 2, 3 fifths a day. I thought that was great. I thought that was really the accomplishment of a lifetime at this point in my life that I could out drink men.
I met him and we went out that day and I was in shorts and we had something like 13 or 14 martinis. I remember him telling me later after he married me, I thought I would never get you drunk and I said you didn't. It was a bad date. Once I got drunk I was mean. That was even worse. Anyway, he said let's go out. You're late for work anyway. We'll have dinner. I said great but I have to go home and get dressed.
I went home to get dressed and I looked at the clock and it was about 7.30 and I didn't have to be to work until 9.30 so I lied. I figured this joker just wants to get my pants. He thinks he's going to feed me all this booze and that's going to be it. I got a real strong resentment right away against him. I got dressed, I went down in my car and I importantly have these big mounds and you park in the back and I come tearing out of that driveway in reverse smashed headlong into his car threw it in first and took off.
Now you would think this guy would go call the police or something I mean this would be the normal thing to do but it wasn't. He didn't do that. At 3.30 or 4 o'clock that night he was back there and asked me for another date and took me out and thought I was terrific. And I was later to marry him. But that was good. God already had in the works the plan for me. I believe God gives you quick choices in life and even in drinking.
Momentous choices that flash and go and I think if all of us look back in our drinking careers we say at many points when we were sick we had choices when we were praying to God. I know I prayed to God whenever I got in a tight spot. I really didn't believe in God but when I really got tight I said something to him. So this was one of the times where the quick choices came and I chose to marry this man which I thought was a great mistake but it wasn't when I look back over it now.
Everything that happened to me in my lifetime was necessary for me to stand in front of you today. Everything I had to learn. Some of them were very difficult for me. Some of them I didn't learn. Some of them I learned later. But anyway it was all necessary. To come into AA I married him and came to San Francisco and we were very very sick. At this point I lost my children. I lost everything. I had nothing left.
There was no more for me. I had resigned myself to alcohol and to drinking and this is the way I was going to die. Now which it was going to be by my own hand or by booze I don't know because suicide walked with me constantly. I walked with death hand in hand and he was an old friend because that was my big escape. Things really got bad. So that comforted me to know that I could always get out of it.
I never obviously did it but I came to San Francisco and there was a man in the program where my husband went to work was in AA maybe so for nine months wanted to save the world wanted to carry this program to everybody and he met Bill who was a full blown alcoholic and we were very readable at this point. We were maybe a year from Skid Row so you know you could look at us and say these people really got problems.
So we saw Bill in these early bars at 5.30 and then when he came home and met me I was living in the Mission Boat Motel we couldn't seem to get enough money to get out of this motel because every time we got a check we got drunk and no matter how much money was we drank it up and then after we sobered up we said oh we should have found an apartment but it was too late then. And so this guy started to work on us and get us to meetings.
And this was the truth. Now this is the way I thought.
[00:30:25]
And I would not let him in our room. You know, anybody that came around talking about some crazy organization wanting to quit drinking had to be crazy. And after we moved, I even threw him out of the house with his book right behind him. I wouldn't read it. And later, Bill had a seizure, and, uh, told me to call John, which I called. I left the house. And then told me he was going to go to AA. He had been going to several meetings, and that I could stay home and go, or I could stay home, but there was no more drinking to be done in the house.
Well, this was a great shock, you know. And I thought, well, as soon as he gets better, this will be over. I'll go to those meetings with him, and, you know, it'll blow over, and we'll be back to normal in no time, which I did. And for some reason, from that day to this, which is only God's strength for me, I have never found it necessary to take another drink. And that's 27 years ago. It will be 27. It's November. It's 26 years. But I did not come in with an honest desire to stop drinking. And they took that word out of the book, and I was very glad about that, because it used to bother me.
I used to think maybe I'm different even here. But after about 30, 35 days in AA and going to meetings, a young lady got up who was not a professional speaker. She was a very bad speaker and told my story. And it opened the door, and that was my first spiritual awakening. I did not want anybody to know I bought the book. Again, I was afraid for anybody to know that I was like you. I don't know why this was with me. I can't figure it out. Maybe it was because I had to surrender to something, and I was not used to surrendering.
Anyway, it turned out that I stayed in this program, and my life got better. I divorced that man, but he was necessary for me to come into this program. When I married him, he thought I was German. He thought I came from Jackson, Mississippi. He thought I had four brothers. I'm an only child. I had a whole… I mean, the girl he married, he didn't even know. This was one of these fictitious people that I was. And so after I read the big book and I read the fifth chapter, and it said some of us are constitutionally incapable of being honest with ourselves, I was frantic. So I called him at work and told him to come home that I had something to tell him.
Now, you know, this poor guy was only sober 35 days like me, and I recommend that anybody who's in this room, don't do this. Anyway, I dumped everything on him. Needless to say, our marriage was never the same. And we both struggled with it, but eventually it dissolved. But it was good for both of us, and we were both good for each other, and the reason we got here. The next stage of my life was to be single, and I wondered who I would choose sober. What kind of a person would I choose sober? Needless to say, I chose another practicing alcoholic. I didn't even recognize it. Now, this is an interesting concept, because this goes to show that I have no idea in life, other than learning in these rooms, what is normal for life.
I always pick the bizarre, even sober. My first thoughts as a person, when I get in a jackpot or in a tight spot, it's always one of dishonesty. An instant lie, a whole book of lies can vanish right instantly like a computer in my mind. And then I say to myself, but you don't have to lie anymore, Kathleen. You know, you belong to Alcoholics Anonymous, and the truth will set you free. And then I choose to tell the truth.
I also choose to be who I am. I also choose now to be Irish, and I also choose now to be Catholic. All these things I took back that I hated most about myself, I found out were my greatest assets in this program. The things I fought against the most were the things that make me the most whole person. I was not a pilot to begin with. A pilot is a gift of this program. Somewhere in time of my sobriety, I said to myself, because an occasion arose, that I fled from something in fear. And it came to me that God had given me sobriety, and God had a plan of life for me.
And if I was always to be afraid of it, every time something come up, and I said, oh no, not me, I can't do that, and run, I would never meet life at all. I would live and be sober, and never find out the foggiest idea of what it was to live. I believe AA brings you in these rooms, gives you a program of recovery, gives you a higher power of your choice, gives you a way of life for you to live to the fullest extent that you can possibly live. Not halfway, not just getting by, but really getting in there and living.
[00:35:06]
Up until this point, I had done half measures with this. But I decided at this point that whatever God put in front of me from now on, I'd at least try. That when I went to that great meeting in the sky, and he asked me, what did you do, Kathleen? I was going to say, I gave it my best shot, and I really tried. Up until this point, I hadn't, because I was afraid. But I wasn't capable then. I was still learning. I think in this program, you evolve as you need to. There are no set dates. Everybody is different. Everybody is on a road of their life. Some of us may run from this in horror, but most of us, I think, will face it. At least I chose to face it.
And this is what I did. So my then-husband decided he would like to go be a pilot. So he went out to the airport, and he paid all his money for this, and he went up and had about five lessons. He had to go for his physical, and he flunked. He had porphyria, and he could never get a pilot's license. Now, he was drinking at this time, but he was the kind of alcoholic that, you know, made a lot of money, drank. I didn't even think he was an alcoholic, because I was the kind of alcoholic that, when I drank, everything went to pot. Everything. And so I didn't recognize it in him. I thought it was only heavy drinking. But anyway, nevertheless, he couldn't get the license, and he came home, and he was just really despondent, and finally he went out to get his money, and I think they'd already spent it. Fixed-base offers happen notoriously if you bring broke, you know.
And so they talked him into, well, if somebody could fly in the left seat, you could buy a plane and fly. Well, that somebody was me. Now, I hadn't the slightest idea anything about aviation or a plane. And he came home and said this to me, and I said, you've got to be kidding. You won't even ride in the car with me. Which was true. He wouldn't. I had a little Porsche. You'd never get in. But this is something he really wanted. It was an act of love on my part, in a way, because I wanted to give him something, because he had given me something in life. So it was an act of love, not of selfishness, of thinking of the other person. Plus, I had said, whatever God put in front of me, I'd take a chance on, and I'd try. So I said to him, okay, I'll try, but if I'm scared, I won't do it. Is that okay? And he said, okay.
So I went out and took my first lesson, and it was okay. I wasn't scared. I didn't know anything. I looked at that instrument panel, and I thought, oh my God, I'll never get through this. And I thought, well, one day at a time, you can do anything, Kathleen. So, okay, I did that, and I decided I would go ahead and try this. Well, it was very difficult for me. I want to explain to you that flying to me is coinciding with my sobriety. It has taught me how to live. I did not know anything about flying when I went there. I didn't even know the terminology. It was like when I walked in these rooms. I had no idea of how to live. I had no idea who I was. I had no idea about anything.
I walked in here, and I was like sitting in that plane. I didn't know what I was doing or what I was going to do next. But you told me that 24 hours at a time or a day at a time, I could do anything. So I believed you, and I did. So flying was much the same. I started taking lessons and reading the book, and most of the guys out there were men, and most of them had some connection with flying. One guy made these model airplanes and flew, and another one had a friend. Everybody was involved in flying to some degree except me. So when they gave me the book and I came home and I started ground school, I just sat down and cried because I didn't even know the terminology. I didn't know what I was doing. And then I thought to myself, well, with every experience, you don't know what you're doing. You've got to start at the beginning and be there.
And then someone said to me in my panic of not knowing everything instantly, Kathleen, what are you doing? Are you out there learning how to fly? Are you out there learning to impress somebody or in a competition with someone? Well, that brought me back to reality. The same as that. I cannot judge myself by your program. I cannot judge myself by what you're doing or what you have. I can only judge myself by who I am and what I'm doing with my higher power because that's who I am.
None of us are the same. We're all different. We're all in little ships of our own. We're all pilots. There's someone in us other than what you're seeing. There's a spirit in me and there's a spirit in you. I don't know if we know who it is, but it's someone in there in the core of our being, and we try to reach out and project and have somebody love us and we love someone else, but it's very difficult to get out of there.
And I associated a very dear friend of mine who saved me in a very bad spot in my life. I believe God sends people and things into your life, books, people, always when you need them. If you look around when you're in a tight spot and your world is just falling apart, you will find someone or a book or something, someone will give you something that will give you the roadmap to go ahead because change is part of life.
[00:40:02]
And I as an alcoholic hate change. I always fight it. I would rather stay in my own comfortable little place. And so life is evolving and life is changing and we have to change. And so this was a big change in my life, and I ran to this person in total panic and fear. My life had just fallen apart in one moment, and he gave me this little plate for my birthday. He also gave me a book that was very important in my life, and he's been very important in my life since.
This is one of the reasons I'm even here. Getting back to flying, we're getting off the subject. Anyway, I believe we're all pilots in our own little ships, and when we get here, we all have a flight plan. Well, when you get in that plane, you can do any damn thing you want to do. You can abide by the rules or you don't have to. When I started flying, which was some 17 years ago, they didn't even know what an altitude you were. If you were an instrument pilot, I mean, the center had to believe that you were at this altitude if that's what you told them. You didn't have to be there. You could be anywhere you wanted to be. A lot of pilots did this. I even got killed. I even got by with it, too, just like us.
So when I got into flying, it was like I was learning about life, only I believed what I was doing when I was piloting. I associated my higher power with that little black box in the plane. I mean, there's a man who's talking to you if you're in a storm and you're in an IFR flight across the United States. You can't even see where you are, and he's telling you everything you have to do or where you are. He knows at all times where you're at.
I mean, it's just amazing. And as a pilot, I had to learn to get rid of all my ideas because you're totally different in the air. You cannot believe if you're going up or down. You cannot depend on your senses. You cannot depend on your own resources. You have to learn to depend and believe in your instruments. You have to depend and learn to believe on center. One of the things I learned when I was an early pilot was an old pilot told me that if you never exceed the capabilities of yourself or your aircraft, you will never get in trouble. Well, that was a revelation. That was a revelation to me in life. I had always exceeded my own capabilities and that of my body. All my life I had done this. I thought that was right. Even in sobriety, I pushed it.
This was a revelation. I had to learn to compensate for my inadequacies and the parts of me that were not as good as they should be. Now, one of them was navigation. I do not know north from south, which turned out to be a godsend when I became an instrument pilot because there were a lot of men who knew they knew which way was north, and it wasn't. But I didn't have any problem with this because I didn't know anyway, so I believed my instruments.
The whole experience of flying was spiritual from the beginning. This was to be a gift that God gave me that I could have run from in terror and said, oh, no, I can never do that, or that I could have accepted and tried. By the time I saw it, this was something I really wanted. This was something that I would have picked if I had my choice to pick. In my wildest dreams, I would have never picked it. So I became aware right then and there that I did not know what was good for me, that I did not know how to pick things for me in life, that God's plan was always better, and that he would always and inevitably, if I was on the right frequency, tell me where I was going and when I would be there, and I would be going to the right place.
Flying was so spiritual to me that I became so engrossed in it that I think I could have gone on forever if there was forever to learn. But there is forever to learn. It's like AA. Every time you go on another flight, it's different. Every experience in life when we get up every day is different. When I got up today, I had no idea what I was going to say or what I was going to do when I got here. I said to God, please let me be an instrument of thy information. I have no idea why I'm even here, but he does.
I may never be given to know that if I said anything that helped anyone in this room, because people will leave and I'll be gone. Because people will leave and I will never see them again. But part of me will always be with you, and part of you will always be with me.
[00:45:00]
I will never be the same again after this experience. It's even, I mean, that is something, because I was never trustworthy. I could have told you anything and I would never have been there. I never showed up for life when I was drinking. I was never who I was and I never showed up. Now each day I show up. I made this decision, too, that each day I'm going to show up for life. And whatever happens to me in that day is exactly what was supposed to happen, whether it was bad or good.
Now I may think it was bad and it may be a terrible day for me. But that's because things didn't go my way. And that's because people didn't do what I wanted them to do. Or I didn't get fast enough to where I was supposed to be and nobody got out of my way. But if I show up and I say I report for living, whatever happens to me in that day is okay. If somebody steps on my toe, that's okay. I needed a new pair of shoes.
Maybe I was supposed to be in that store to say something to somebody. I don't know where I'm supposed to be at any given time. And that makes it okay, because that takes the burden of life off of me and puts it back on my higher power. And that's where I am when I fly. I can only do the best I can in that cockpit. I can either do my own thing or I can do the thing I'm supposed to be doing. There is a set pattern in flying that you have to do, as you know.
You have to be on the right frequency. I remember one time I switched. I was on an IFR flight out of L.A. and something happened and I switched frequencies to do something. And I came back and they said, 4-0-0 Papa, where the hell were you? I said, oh my God, I'm sorry. He said, sorry is not the word for it. Don't switch this frequency again. Well, that's like God talking to you, you know. He said, where the hell were you, Kathleen?
When I needed you, you weren't there. And so these things in flying have taught me how to be in life. So when I get up in the morning, I have a frequency to tune in. That's Kathleen and my higher power. I can put that on or I can put the bullshit station on and talk to somebody else or I can turn the radio on and do something else, you know. But eventually, when I go back to that frequency, somebody is going to say, where the hell were you?
So I choose now in my life, to the best I can, to tune in on the right frequency in the morning, to be who I am, to know exactly who I am, to know my capabilities, to know my deficiencies, to compensate for those deficiencies. That's what this other pilot told me too. If you have an area that you're not good in, then compensate for it, Kathleen, because you will never be good in it. And I thought, now that's a revelation.
So my big thing was that I would get to my destination, but I had trouble locating the airports. So I had to make sure I always had a lot of gas. I could never be one of these pilots, you know, that put in four and a half hours worth of gas. And there I was. Now this is in VFR flying, and IFR flying is a little bit different. But all of us are on a flight plan, and all of us have a different altitude, a different frequency, a different transponder number for you than our pilots.
This is a frequency on the radio that you identify yourself with, and you appear on a scope of a controller in some little remote area of a man you will never see, and he will never see you. But he is to become, on this flight, the most important person in your life. You will depend on what he says and what he tells you. You will do what you're supposed to be doing on this flight because you choose to do it, because you're the pilot in command.
All of us are pilot in command. We can choose to do what we're supposed to be doing, or we can choose to take off and do what we're not supposed to be doing, and let self-will run riot. Every time this happens, though, that we take off on this other, we have the chance of dying. And that means getting drunk. Or we have the chance of getting ourselves in such a situation that we don't know how to get out.
But in any event, if we make it, if we make this decision, this wrong decision, and I should say, and I make it, I don't know why I'm saying we, because I'm including you with me, I guess, but if I make it, then I take the responsibility that I could get killed, or worse than that, I could kill someone else. Because I have not shown due responsibility for myself or my fellow man. I have chose to go off and do whatever I felt like doing.
I think we all see accidents sometimes, and people figure the skies are not safe. But I remember someone telling me early in piloting that 95% of the accidents are pilot error. And I thought, isn't that amazing? 95% of the disasters in life are people who could not follow a simple program
[00:50:03]
and apply these principles in their everyday life. They took off and designed their own program, and off we went into the wild blue yonder. Some of us made it back, some of us didn't. I was in Alcaton last night, and the speaker said, Of all the people in this room, within one year, some of us will be dead of alcoholism. Now, that was a frightening statement. Afterwards, there was a little girl who was very young, I think she was about 23 or 24, and we were standing outside, and she said, That really scared me, to think that some of us are going to be dead.
Well, I think she was thinking, maybe it's going to be me. Well, maybe that's a healthy thought, maybe it would be. But I know, from my experience, up until this point in time, that any time I was practicing a program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I was putting all these steps into my life, and I was not into self, that I was into service and love of other people, that I was into whatever my power meant for me for that 24 hours.
I was not stuck in yesterday, sorry, for what I had done, or mullowing what I should have done. I was not stuck in tomorrow, what I should be, and where I should be, and what I should become. But I was stuck in the 24 hours, in the now, maybe even in the moment. At this moment, I can't be anyplace else but here, with you. It's impossible. If I am, I have destroyed the moment. I'm nowhere, I'm nothing.
There is no moment. I'm in a never-never land, a land that's not real. And I lived in that land that's not real so long, and it was so horrible, that I never want to see it again. I think that the greatest joy and the greatest gift, and the one that maybe I have the most difficulty with, is the moment, is the now, that God did not give me to have to worry about what's going to happen to me. I don't even know.
I think 90% of the things I worry about never happen, never have happened to me. In my life now, there is a great change. And I have had people come up to me and say, at your age, you're going to make this change. And I said, why not? What does age have to do with it? Only living has something to do with it. And we've all been given the gift of living. And that's all we have. We have life this moment.
The joy of living this moment. Free. Happy. Joyous. By our own choice. By our own choice. God gives fleeting choices. They're so fast when they come through your life. He says, here's this. And in a moment, you're going to have to make a choice. Now, it can be my choice, or it can be a choice for living. My choice is to run. My choice is to hide. My choice is to play it safe. My choice is, I can't do that.
They'll eat me. But God says, go. He says, go for it. I made this world for you. I gave you this life. And it's the most gorgeous thing that's on this earth. Because you're special. You're it. Because you're special. You're it. I didn't make another one like you. You're a Picasso. I mean, you're even more than a Picasso. Each one of us is so damn important in this scheme of life. And it's so damn important that we show up.
And it's so damn important that we know we're special. That we know that in our life there are certain things that only we can do. There are only certain people in this life that you can touch. And only you can touch them. There will be nobody else. And if you don't show up that day for life, or you're in the self, or I'm into some other thing in my life, whoever comes in contact with me will not receive from me what they need that day.
Because God is me. When I say, Our Father, and it says, Thy kingdom come, I'm it. I'm Thy kingdom come for this day. There is something in this day for me to do. Now, they may be little things. They may be smiles. They may be words of encouragement. They may be opening doors. They may not seem like anything. They may seem that this is boring. But you don't know when you've done that to another person, or you have touched another person in some way, what you have done for them.
I've been given to know that. But I do know that if I don't show up for that day, for life, there are many people I will never touch. Because each day of my life, there are strangers that pass by me and through me and in me
[00:55:01]
that I may never see again, or that may become very, very dear friends. The very dear friends that we've all made were strangers that just walked up in a moment. I had a very dear friend with love that I had never even seen. It was like a little black mouse, and that was Brad. He called me over the phone. It was like God calling. I just couldn't believe it. So God worked through him to me. So all of us are interwoven, whether we like it or not.
Even though we're isolated as individuals, we're all interwoven. We're all touching one another. Everyone you're sitting next to today, you're going to touch, and you're going to leave something with them. Either an unpleasant moment. They'll say, well, Alice, you're a jerk. Or, wasn't that great? That was a wonderful person. Gee, I'd like to be like that. And the people I have met in my life that have come over to me or hugged me or held me or done something with me have inspired me to be better.
I wanted something they had. I wanted to be able to get up and do that. I was not able to get up and hug anyone. I was not able to kiss anyone when I came in this program. I was sober 15 years, and I wasn't able to do it. Sometimes I was able to do it in these rooms with people I knew, and I discovered this in church. I was a Catholic, and I went to church, and everybody was saying, peace be with you.
And I went every place in the church so I didn't have to take anybody's hand and say this. I don't have the foggiest idea of why I did that. And I don't give a damn why I did it. All I know is I said to myself, something's wrong with you, Kathleen. You better learn how to do this. And so I put myself out there, and I did it whether I liked it or not. And pretty soon I liked taking everybody's hand.
Now I see some people that don't like to do this, and I feel sorry for them. I say a prayer. Maybe someday they'll find out how to do it. But what I'm saying is that God puts everything in your life, on this life plan, and you can either ignore it in that moment. You can accept it. You can enjoy it. You can expand with it. You can just keep going with it. And each day is different. Each day is more precious because each day you're better than you were the day before.
And I'm better than I was the day before because I've learned something, and I've been somewhere, and I have touched certain people that have made me better. I cannot explain to you how I feel now about life and about AA and about just being. Just being. For me, just to be who I am is the greatest treasure of Earth. And I'm not sure really who I am yet because each day I evolve to be something else, and I discover within me a gift or a prize that I never knew was there before.
It's like, well, maybe it's like watching, sometimes when you watch the nature things and the flower in time photography just keeps opening and getting more and more beautiful. Or the butterfly does. The butterfly is a very important part of my life, and it's a very gorgeous, colorful, beautiful thing that God put us on the Earth, and everybody treasures it and wants it. And we're the same. We're a very gorgeous piece of art that he has made, and more so than a butterfly, we are made in the image and likeness of him.
Meaning we have great love within us, unboundless energies to be given out. And I think when I am not in self, my energies are high, my love is pouring, I am receiving. I have a great deal of forgiving, but I have a great trouble receiving sometimes. So receiving is a very big thing for me. I must learn when I go in these rooms or I go out in life that I'm able to accept back from people what they're willing to give.
Because I think one of the greatest things that I feel is rejection. When someone walks up to me and I give out and they don't return, I feel very rejected, so I don't give out. But that's not it. What I'm giving out is important, but what I'm receiving is important too because I have to be able to look at you and say, I receive you just the way you are without any hope of change. Whether you're rude or you're not or whatever you're doing, I accept you.
If you have hurt me in some way, then all I can do is say a prayer for you. And that releases me from having to run your life or take your inventory or have to tell you what you should be or tell you where you should go or tell you what you should do or give you a smart remark that ruins my day. Now, I may spoil yours, but it totally ruins mine because I hang on to this resentment all day long, whether it's little or big.
And it totally destroys me. So this program has taught me that how to just give and how to receive, whether it's good or bad. Give, and how to receive, whether it's good or bad, back, not to feel this horrible rejection that I slam a door and say, well, I'll never do that again, because I got hurt, alright, this is my way of doing things, now all these things that I'm telling you that I do in my life have made my life 100% better, and I expect will make it even more, but they're not easy, and there are things and decisions that I have to make, moment to moment decisions of life, of whether I'm going to be happy or sad,
[01:00:18]
I have this choice, God has given it to me, I can accept his life, and his way, and his people, whoever he puts in my life, bad or good, and be joyous with them, or I can let them do something that I perceive as something bad to me, and destroy my day, or my life, or my moment, and I have decided not to do this anymore, I have decided that I will accept all his children, and all my brothers and sisters, bad or good, in my life, and not that they are directly going to do something to me, I am going to get rid of self, self is my worst enemy, self literally destroys me, and this I learned in flying too, as I told you before, I can go on my own way, and do everything wrong, which is usually my way, or I can do what I have learned, and have a beautiful, safe, wonderful, joyous flight into life, with every day being a new, and wondrous adventure, that I want now, before I didn't, I just sort of superficial, went through it, and gave the impression that I did, but now I don't worry of how you feel about me, or what I'm doing, or as long as I'm loving to you, I can never do anything bad, I cannot hurt you, if you perceive that I do, it's because you were in a bad spot, that's the same with me, if I perceive something back from you, that I am hurt by, I just didn't perceive it right, I was in a bad spot, so in all, what I'm trying to say, is the program of Alkanal, it's anonymous, there's many people, and many things, and everybody is giving you something, there is a book, there are 12 steps to work, we don't always do it well, if we did, we wouldn't have to be in these meetings, if I lived well, I wouldn't have to be here, I have to go at least 3 or 4 times a week, in order to know how to live, and knowing how to live, is knowing how to touch one another, to be with one another, to intertwine with one another, without my being hurt, or you being hurt, and that's what I have to do in this program, and getting out of self is the main thing that I do, God works through me, and God works through you, so I cannot have God, unless I touch you, or let you touch me, and I believe it works back, I believe God works through me, and you do not see God, unless I touch you, and you touch me back, and that's what this whole program is about, that's what this 50 years is about, that's what it was about on June the 10th, 50 years ago, one man chose, in a split second, this is what I mean about choices, and who would have known this would have happened, how would this man have in his foggiest dreams ever think this, all he wanted to do was be comfortable, all he wanted to do was not get drunk, all he wanted to do was get through that moment, he was hurting, and so in the lobby, he had a decision, a bar or a telephone, a church no less, to go call a stranger on a telephone, through a church, I mean that had to be a difficult decision, just to call a stranger alone, let alone a church, God gave him an instant decision of a seemingly nothing choice, who was he, he was nobody, he had never been anybody, he had always screwed up, he really was lousy, he knew that, his deal had just flown through, life was, I mean it was really bad, so he chose to go to another human being, and for that simple choice, and that simple bar, to be out of self for that moment, all of this came, I'm here, you're here, we wouldn't even be here, I know I would have been dead, I don't know where you would have been, but I know it wouldn't have been good, there would have been no alcoholics, there would have been anything, so I think what I'm trying to say at this point, and the most that I have learned out of this program, is that the moment to moment choices of life, the simple little things that come into our life that are not big, are the most important, they have changed my life the most, whether they've been good or they've been bad choices, and these are the things I have to pay attention to, I cannot focus on the big things, or where I'm going to be, or what I'm going to do, I have to be in the now, in the moment, so that when I touch you, or you touch me, or wherever I'm at at that given moment, like Bill, and I make a decision, I do not know what will come of it, but this is God's choice, and He works through me, and I have to be there, I have to show up, and I have to be there in that moment, and AA gives me this, AA lets me be in the moment,
[01:05:07]
AA tells me how to be there, AA tells me how to open up, AA tells me how to reach out, AA tells me how to receive, and in these rooms is what I learn, I learn love, and God is love, my higher power, who I choose to call God, I keep saying that word, but whatever yours is, is love, and that's the whole thing in essence, AA is love, it's the moments of love that we share with one another right now, the little decisions we make to be kind or to be retaliated, and these are the choices I have, I have chosen most of the time in my life not to be retaliated, because it's too painful for me, I have chosen love, I have chosen service, I have chosen you, and I have chosen this program as my way of life, and because of that, I know my life is going to be the most wondrous adventure that has ever been on this earth, and that's because I'm experiencing it, and I am in it, and it's because God gave it to me, and he gave me this program so that I could enjoy it in most wondrous ways that I had never perceived in my wildest imagination, and for this I thank him for you, and for me, and for the whole universe that he made for us to function in, in all 57 countries, in all oceans, in seamens, in anywhere you want to go, we are, and we are sharing with one another, just over miles, over languages, over everything, we are sharing, and that's because we love one another, we are children of love, and what more can A.A. give you, or God give you than that, there's no greater gift, God bless you all, and thank you.
I'll take just a second for those that are leaving. I would now like to give you Grant. Hi, my name's Grant, and I'm a very grateful alcoholic. I have never said anything in my life original, and I'm sure as hell not gonna start now. Bill Cosby once said that he found in his life that everything that he said he started to reduce to cliches, because cliches were the things that took all the verbiage and left the simplest truth.
I entered my first A.A. meeting July 4th, 1974. I got here, I got here like the rest of you, because I drank too much. I was tired of living, I was afraid of dying, I think somebody said I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I coined a phrase that day that I swear to you I had never heard before. I was spiritually bankrupt. When I came in people said to me, just don't drink and go to meetings.
And it made me angry, I mean, there has to be more to this than that. Isn't there? I said, well, you don't understand, you know, I have all these things to do before I can quit. And they said, well, you have to understand that things don't change, we do. And I sat in the meetings and I listened to other people and I kept saying, but, you know, I didn't do that, I didn't do that. I didn't do that, I didn't drive a Mercedes, I didn't drink in bars, I didn't do this.
And they said to me, look for the similarities, not the differences. Well, after my first day sober I went on a 12-step call. I was bound and determined to carry the message. Then I started this yes but and, you know, as I get, well, I have to do this because that will lead to this and that will make me do this. And that interferes with this which will cause that. And you gave me a kiss. Keep it simple, stupid.
Then, as I started to sober up and the clouds cleared from my mind, I was filled with terror and that led to anger and resentment. And all of a sudden I wanted revenge on those who had wronged me. Somebody pointed to a sign on the wall that said, live and let live.
[01:10:01]
And I remember saying to a fellow, how long do I have to keep coming to these meetings? Henry smiled and he said, only until you want to. As the spirit of the Lord came into my heart, I was filled with anger and resentment. He said, only until you want to. As the speaker talked, I would sit restlessly in my seat and think of all these things to say and wish everybody would hurry up and quit so I could lay something really important on everybody because I had marvelous things to share.
And you said to me, learn to listen. Listen to learn. Well, like most people in here, my body made an exceptional recovery. And I was well almost immediately. Someone told me, remember that you've got a disease that whispers in your ear you don't have a disease. Well, not long after that had happened, I was out on a vacation with the family. Came back, dropped them off, and I stopped by the old bar to see some old friends.
I'd forgotten that you told me if you're not a lion tamer, don't go into the lion's den. And that night, alcohol won a defeat. Its final defeat over me. And there was no question of the victory. But what happened at that point was AA. I had an attitude adjustment. Who, me? Yeah. Who, W-H-O. That night, I got a little, the next morning, I got a little bit of willingness, probably a little less honesty, and a little bit of openness.
And that's all it took. And that's all it took. That was the crack in the egg that allowed me through the shell. But boy, once I got through the shell, it was hell-bent for leather, and I wanted better now. And Henry said, whoever told you that God's speed meant fast? My friend Helen said, you're as sick as you are silent. And I started to talk to people. I came out of that shell. I quit hiding in the last row, sitting next to the door.
I began to clear away the wreckage of the past. But when that happened, all of a sudden, I realized that I wasn't alone. All kinds of memories came back, and I got scared again and depressed. And you told me it's okay to look back. Just don't stare. That depression brought on the poor me's. You know that one? Poor me, poor me, poor me, another. And somebody said, you've got to develop an attitude of gratitude.
They also told me that I wasn't a bad person trying to get good. I was a sick person trying to get well. And that really helped. It made me feel that all of a sudden, there was hope. That I was like my father. That I was like the rest of the people in this room. I guess what they were trying to say is that I'm here because I wasn't all there. And I started to realize, you know, if I had done to myself, or if someone had done to me what I had done to myself, I would have killed that person.
The body was there, and the mind was starting to follow. There's an old saying in Zen, when the mind is ready, the teacher will appear. My mind became ready, the teachers were here. Somebody mentioned earlier, I looked around and I saw everybody else and everybody was doing so much better than I. And I was at a conference down in Memphis and a man standing on the podium said, don't ever, ever, ever judge your insides by somebody else's outsides.
[01:15:07]
And that was the thing that I had to hear at that time. He also told me, utilize, don't analyze. Because I had one of these minds that realized that there was a lot more to this program than just don't drink and go to meetings. And a guy one day told me, he said, you know, I've never seen anybody too dumb to get this program. I've seen a lot of people too smart. The hardest concept for me to develop about this program was one day at a time. And somebody told me a story about the old Zen master who was being chased by a tiger through the forest and it opened into a meadow and he's running across the meadow and he can hear the pads of the tiger beating on the ground close behind him and he can feel the heat of its breath. And the meadow ends in a cliff. And rather than being devoured by the tiger, he chooses suicide and goes over the cliff. And as he's going down the cliff, there's a tree hanging there. And he grabs the tree limb. And he catches his breath as he's kind of swinging back and forth and the tree limb starts to pull out of the side of the cliff. And he looks up and there's no way to get up and he looks down and hundreds of feet below are rocks. And then he looks straight ahead and there's a green bush with a juicy red strawberry. And he plucked the strawberry and ate it. And it was so juicy.
That's how I have to break down one day at a time. The hell with a day, the hell with an hour. It's got to be now. That old thing, if I live one moment in the future, I get anxious and one moment in the past, I become remorseful. The past is history and the future is a mystery. Somebody else in these rooms told me that. They also told me that nobody ever went looking for something until they lost it. And I was looking for all the answers.
When I drank, I thought I had them all. Let me get this straight. I didn't cause it, can't cure it, can't change it, can't control it. I didn't cause it, can't cure it, can't change it. Sheesh. I give up. Somebody said that's it. I can't. He can. Let him. When I first came into the program, everybody in these rooms had the ability to get away from me except me. And I was in bad company. Somebody said, it's not that bad. Just remember, God doesn't make junk. The other thing I found out was that I never had to be alone again.
And it's true. I travel all over the world and just last week I was in an AA meeting in Charleston and the week before in Great Falls, Montana. You're everywhere and I love you for it. You saved my life. I also found that AA wouldn't open up the doors of heaven and let me in. But they sure opened up the gates of hell and let me out. I came into this program an atheist and somebody mentioned you come to, you come, you come to, and you come to believe. And that's exactly what happened to me. I also believe that today that coincidences are simply God's minor miracles in which he chooses to remain anonymous. My first trip as captain on the airline, the flight attendant came up and said, it's a strange looking bunch of kids back here. They're going up to Chicago to some kind of a drug seminar. So we taxied out from Oklahoma City and there were some thunderstorms in the area and I said, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to leave the seatbelt sign on a little while and we have some weather
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to go around out here and as soon as we get beyond that weather, we're going to have a nice smooth ride. And we have a special group with us today. They're going to Chicago and I want to remind you folks in the Windy City, easy does it. Gal stuck her head in the door and she said, I don't know what you said, but you just got a standing ovation. It was only a coincidence. When I don't ever want to hear another drunk a log, you told me I have to remember to remember. And how about all those yet to be remembered yets? Y-E-T, you're eligible too. Please let me have done it for you.
They also said if you don't remember your last drink, may not have been. Then you told me those people who are proud of their sobriety may drink again. But those people who are grateful for their sobriety probably won't. Saw a book once, said the title of it was that if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him. That is really a strange, strange title for a book. Today's got another one. Today's sponsor, tomorrow's pigeon.
The further you are from your last drink, you said, may be the closer to your next. Someone told me that every decision, every decision that I made, took me either closer to or further from another drink. Every decision. I know today that I don't have to ever sober up again. I take a lot of solace in that fact. Start my days off with a quiet time. I try to build my days and weeks around meetings. I try to go to one more meeting a week than I think I have to go to. And I could have said all of this in what somebody told me right off the bat, in the most simplistic terms, don't drink and go to meetings.
The name's mine, folks. It's Grant. Everything I've said, I've learned from you. Everything. I owe my life to you. I've never been more honored in my life than to be able to speak to you. And I love every one of you for being here. Thank you very much.