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Source: 1985 Montreal International Convention – Multi Speakers – PRINCIPLES AND PERSONALITIES Principles and Personalities – RS 06352.mp3 File: 1985-montreal-international-convention-multi-speakers-principles-and-personalities-principles-and-personalities-rs-06352.mp3 Duration: 01:02:38
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I'd like to ask for a moment of silence and gratitude for the AA recoveries of the past 50 years. Those of you who will, please join me in the serenity prayer. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen. My name is Mike, and I'm a DCM, District 1, West Virginia, and I'm also an alcoholic, and I'm a member of the Rose City Breakfast Group.
This is the anonymity tradition. There may be some of you 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 film. Thus, we respectfully ask that no AA speaker, or indeed any AA 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 keep other problem drinkers who may wish to share our recovery program with us. And our tradition of anonymity reminds us that AA principles come before personalities. There are no current announcements up here. Tapes of this meeting will be available at the Tate Sales booth in the Convention Center. And now, without any further ado, the subject of this particular Alcathon is principles and personalities.
And our first speaker is Bonnie M. from Nevada. Thank you, Mike. My name is Bonnie. I'm an alcoholic. I'm a member of the Floating Bigfoot Group in Fallon, Nevada. Where's Fallon, right? Or what's Fallon? Usually what everybody asks me. Oh, God. It's here. It's finally here. Usually, when I've had to give talks before, I've given several on a service level, you know, and I prepare and I do my homework and I write the talk all out.
And I don't know, somehow or other, with this one, I wasn't able to do that. I tried to. I did some research and reading, but when I went to start writing, I was blocked and it wouldn't come. So I think that maybe my higher power was trying to tell me, trying to pry my fingers loose again, you know, so I could let go of it. And I'll say today exactly what I'm supposed to say, I think. And God's never let me down before, okay? Kind of bear with me here.
Principles and personalities is a fairly big topic, you know. As I thought about it, I thought, well, God, you know, there's nothing in AA that doesn't have to do somehow or other with principles and personalities. So what's the difference anyway, what I talk about, right? It's got to fit in with the topic somewhere along the line. And my story, my story fits in just fine with the topic of principles and personalities.
And also it seems that I have a need to share with you today. You know, what I need is not necessarily always what I want. And what I want is not always what I need. But there have been some things and changes that have been going on in my life in the past year. And I think I really need to share about those today. And it seems funny because, that have to do with principles and personalities. And it seems funny because all of the things that I've read, you know, I got out my little AA way of life book and looked it up.
And there are principles before personalities, you know, we hear about in the 12th tradition. But principles and personalities was kind of a different way for me to look at it. But there is in the AA way of life book, there's a little thing, it's principles and personalities. And there's four pages there that talk about it. And on every one of the pages, you know, it just happened to say something about, that I really needed to hear.
[00:05:05]
That I really needed to hear. That I really needed to hear. It has to do directly with some of the problems and the pain that I've been going through in the past year. Okay, principles. When I was drinking, I had some principles for living. A couple of my favorite ones were contempt prior to investigation was one of them. But I think my all-time favorite was probably do unto others before they do unto you.
And that's how I think I ran my life. Of course, the character defects that go along with that kind of living, that kind of basis for living, hate, anger, fear, anxiety, frustration, depression, I had all of those. All of those, you know, good underlying defects that make for a real good practicing alcoholic. When I came to you, I was at my bottom. It wasn't as far as I needed to go because I didn't stay sober, you know, from my first meeting.
But I was in the throes of pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. I hit an emotional bottom, really, rather than a physical bottom. I didn't lose everything that I had materially, you know, and I still had some of my family around me. But I was at the emotional place where I didn't want to continue to live like that anymore. I didn't fear dying. In fact, probably if I had thought that if I kept on drinking for a while, if I would die anytime soon, I may not have even, you know, tried to come to AA.
But it was the thought of continuing to live. I couldn't do that anymore, not the way I was living. So I came to you. And when I came to you, I found some personality, you know, and some principles with which I was entirely unfamiliar. And being at the place I was, as I said before, I didn't stay sober from my first meeting, but I did stay around. Because somehow or other, you know, coming to you and going to the meetings, there was something there, and I didn't drink.
And I was scared. I was scared not to keep coming back and not to go to them. I went to a meeting every day, sometimes two or three meetings a day. For the first six months I was in the program. And I was scared not to, you know, because while I was in a meeting or while I was with these people, I didn't drink. And that was a small miracle in itself. So I did that for a while and cleared up my drunkenness.
I wasn't drinking, so I wasn't drunk. But I didn't do anything about me. You know, I didn't do anything about me. I just came to meetings, and I listened with the capabilities I had then for listening, which weren't much, you know. But the fog gradually lifted. I stayed around and came to meetings for 15 months. And then because I hadn't changed, it tells us in spiritual life, because I hadn't changed, it tells us in spiritual experience in the back of the big book that a change, a complete and total personality change is necessary for an alcoholic to stay sober.
But I didn't do that. You know, I was sober, I was dry, whatever you want to call it. But I didn't do anything to change me. You know, people said, look at the steps and so on. But I looked at the steps and I didn't see anything. You know, I said, what does that have to do with anything anyway? You know, the steps. I couldn't see what it had to do with drinking or staying sober or living or anything, because that's where I was at that time.
So I didn't do anything about me. And 15 months later, oh yeah, I brought a whole set of resentment into the program with me, you know, on personalities. And I kept those, I brought those in and I kept them. And here was a whole new flock of people, right? But at first I put on a pedestal, and then when they didn't live up to my expectations, right, they were human beings, but I didn't, I thought everybody in AA was supposed to be perfect, you know, especially if they'd been sober longer than six months.
And when you weren't, you know, then I got resentment towards that.
[00:10:02]
Well, this kind of living and this kind of thinking brought me to the point again, after 15 months, where I really didn't take back totally the first step. I never took the first step, the second half of the first step, you know, where the unmanageability of my life, I couldn't see that really. You know, that shows you where I was. But anyway, the resentment that built in me, I got to the point where I didn't give a damn anymore, you know, I got to that bottom again, where I knew I was an alcoholic and I really had a pretty good idea that what was out there wasn't going to be any different, you know, and I didn't care, I didn't care.
They told me, before you take a drink, call another alcoholic. So I called another sober alcoholic and I told him where I was and I told him I was going to go, that I was going to drink. And they, you know, told me all the things they were supposed to tell me. I said, thank you very much, and I hung up and I went to the bar, you know, and I got drunk. It's worse. If there's any of you here that haven't done that after you've had a few months around the program, it's worse.
It's worse. You think that your drinking can't be worse than it was when you were still out there, but it is. It's worse. For the next two years, I was in and out of the program. And that's a hell of a way to live, believe me. It's a hell of a way to live when you've got some things up here and it doesn't match at all with what's in your gut. In your gut. Finally, after my last drunk, my last drunk, thank God, please God, my last drunk, I had to travel, we lived in Nevada, I had to travel 3,000 miles to Shreveport, Louisiana to get drunk.
I broke a period of probably four or five months that I'd been back going to meetings and hadn't drank. But anyway, I had to go clear to Shreveport, Louisiana because I didn't want anybody to find out, right? Anybody in Las Vegas. I had to go there on some business to the hotel that I was working for at the time. But I drank there, I didn't want anybody to know from my home group, so I got smashed, and it's a three-hour time difference, and I called up Las Vegas, where I knew they were having a meeting in a home, where a lot of the people that I had resentments and so on were there, and I called up and told them to go to hell, you know.
I told them I was drunk and I was going to stay drunk, and I was never coming back again, and you tell all the rest of the hypocrites the same thing. Well, I came, I didn't stay drunk. I did for a while, I did for a week. I came back to Las Vegas, and I really meant it. I really wasn't going to go back to the program anymore, you know. It didn't work, right? It didn't work for me anyway, because I was different.
But somehow or other, I went to my office on Monday morning, and it was the culmination of a week-long drunk. I think maybe what really brought me to my, what started to bring me to the bottom I needed to get to at that time is that the day before that, I'd been drinking, like, on a 24-hour basis. And I added to my story, you know, during that week's drunk. And I had some new patterns that I'd never had before.
But that particular day, I started drinking. When I came to in the morning, I started drinking, and I'd been drinking, and I'd put away a lot of booze. I'd been drinking, like, 13, 14 hours. At the end of the 13 or 14 hours, I was sober. And that was panic time, because the booze wasn't taking me out of it anymore, you know? The booze wasn't taking me out of it anymore. So I got, so anyway, I got back home, and I wasn't really at a bottom then.
I went into my office that morning, and I had no sooner walked in, sat down at my desk, than the phone rang. And it was one of you. And she had heard, you know, about my phone call, and I said, yeah, okay, so, you know. And she said, I just wanted you to know that we care, that we love you, and we need you, and we want you back. And, God, that was incredible. So somehow or other, anyway, through that phone call, and whatever, whatever, God, you know, God had, it seemed to me, God, you know, God had, it seemed to me, as I look back on it, that God was, I kept going back out, you know, and God would look down, pick me up, dust me out, off, and throw me back in again, you know, get back in there till you get it, till you get it right.
[00:15:15]
That was my last, that was my last drunk, and that's been almost 11 years ago, and thank God. And when I came back that time, it seemed that I came back on a different basis. I was teachable, you know, and I had a little different attitude, and I was able to look around, and the same people that I didn't want what they had, they had something that I didn't have, and I was, I could at least recognize that, whether they did things the way I wanted them to or not, you know.
They'd been sober a long time, and they seemed to be happy about it. So I found a person, the first meeting that I went to that night, I found a person that I asked to be my sponsor. It was a man. I still had to do that the way that it was not recommended, right? But that was my last stand. But it worked out all right. I asked him to be my sponsor, and he was a big help to me, and he shared his concept of the principles in the first three steps of the program with me in a way that I could understand them that I never could before, you know, and I was able to get a hold of that.
Well, we got emotionally involved, which is the reason men aren't supposed to sponsor women, right? And I married him. I must have wanted what he had because I married him. And we're still married today. Of course, I had to get another sponsor after we got emotionally involved, and this time I chose a woman. Who was very special to me. After I'd been around the program for a little while, I've got to hurry up here. I'm almost done with my time. Anyway, we moved away. I got sober in Las Vegas, and there was a lot of good, solid sobriety there. You see, a real good, solid sobriety and a lot of giving people there.
Well, we moved away from there. I asked a woman, her name was Diana, to be my sponsor before we left, but I still hadn't gotten to my fourth and fifth steps yet. So, we moved up to Fallon, Nevada, which is a very small town, you know, a really small town, but they did have some meetings there. But somehow, I had about a year and a half of sobriety then, and somehow or other, the people that were in the program there either had like 20 years, there were two or three people that had 20 years' sobriety, and then the rest of the people that were there had less than six months' sobriety, you know, which would indicate that somehow people weren't staying around. They were going back out.
That is what it would indicate to me. And there wasn't much of a service structure, you know. So, where I had been in a position of taking up until that point, you know, with very little giving, I was put in a position in Fallon where to give, you know, and that's where I really needed to be then. And there was no service structure, you know. They didn't belong to AA as a whole, and they didn't really want to talk about the steps. They didn't want the big book talked about what's inside of it. You know, they had it sitting up here, but they never read it. They didn't open it too much.
And we started, you know, we started talking about the steps, and we started a big book group after we'd been in Fallon a short time, which the group is still in existence, and this is like, it'll be 10 years next month that we've had the group. And we, even though they didn't, you know, they just about were ready to throw us out of all the meetings because we kept talking about those damn steps, and they didn't want to talk about it. They didn't want to hear about that.
But some of the newer people in the program that had come in new did want to hear about it. You know, they did because it's a thing where going to meetings is good, you know, and sharing your problems and everything is good. But for the hope of a way of life to be able to stay sober, we need the steps. You know, there's no other way. So anyway, the thing that I've referred to, what I've been going through in the past year, we developed this thing, you know, and everything that I've read in preparing for this talk was all about leading deacons and leadership and leadership by example rather than ruling by mandate, you know.
[00:20:02]
And somehow or other, I guess the way things have developed, I needed to hear that, right? You hear about people that don't want to let go and the people that you don't want to let go of revolt and resist you heavily, and I've kind of been going through that a little bit, you know, and I can see it now, and I wasn't able to see it before. You know, you look at these people and you say, well, you're so ungrateful. Look at what I've done for you. You know, I've kept you sober. I've brought the program to you, and I'm the reason you're staying sober. How can you be so ungrateful, you know, to not do things the way I want you to do them?
Because I know the right way to do them, you know, and you may know something about the right way to do it, but my way would be a lot better, and it would turn out a lot better, and it's practically word for word what it talks about in A Comes of Age, in Tradition 9. Bleeding deacons and elder statesmen. I never really wanted to be either one, you know. I wanted absolutely nothing to do with bleeding deaconism. And elder statesmen, no way, you know. Younger statesmen, maybe.
But I've had to look at that, and I've sponsored a lot of people since I've been in Sal, because I was the woman, when I went there, with a year and a half, I was the woman that had more sobriety than any other women, you know, that were there in the program at the time. And I've been privileged to sponsor a lot of people, and most of them are still sober, you know, because they did the steps. And I sponsored them also into service, and they learned about service, you know, and they're doing things the right way, and God knows that's really what I want for them, you know, because of what it's meant in my life.
And these are some of the principles, and some of the things I've been going through, a lot of pain, and it's because I've been in my own way, you know. But somehow or other, God, through preparing to talk here today, you know, I've had a lot of insight into myself, and I've been able to look at myself again, honestly and objectively, or tried to, and realize what I've done. And I am grateful, and I am thankful for the people that I've sponsored, and the people that are doing the things that need to be done now, you know, and I can let go, because I certainly, I don't want them to be dependent on me, because I may not always be around.
And also, through reading Bill W.'s book, Pass It On, the incredible lengths that he went to, you know, and how much a lot of the people in the program hated him, because he was trying to do the things that would ensure that this program would still be here today, and next week, and next year, and 20 years from now. I don't know. I feel that I have been on a sabbatical away from working on myself, and working the maintenance steps of the program during the past year.
And there have been some things that have happened. We had a person that was very close to me that went back out drinking, you know, after seven years. And he had done this step, and he had probably, maybe what I felt anyway, was the most, the soundest spiritual program of just about anybody I knew. And it hit me real hard, you know, that he went back out drinking again. I knew that he hadn't been doing the right things in his life for about the last couple of years, and I caught myself saying to somebody, well, I knew that he hadn't been doing the right thing, but I thought he had enough solid sobriety, you know, that he would be able to get through it, or he'd be able to catch himself, or whatever.
What I was really saying, you know, because it says in the, what I was really saying is I thought I had enough solid sobriety, you know, that even if I'm not doing the right thing, you know, if I get complacent and I'm not doing the right thing on a daily basis, I'll still be all right. And him going out drinking, I know that I won't still be all right, you know, if I don't. Pay attention where it talks about a daily reprieve in the big book. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition, which means working with others, you know, which means working with others and sharing and loving.
And I found out about love through you people, you know. I found out that I needed your love in the beginning, and it was there, and you gave it to me, and I need it today. But what I need really worse than that is to give my love to you, you know. That's even better.
[00:25:10]
50 years, this program, I guess it's really a drop in the bucket, you know, but when I see all of the people that are here, all of the sobriety that's here, and it's incredible. And I've grown a lot just in, you know, within the last couple of days. I went to, yesterday when I was trying to write this out, Greg even, he left, you know, and he went to Montreal. We're staying at the KOA campground, 35 miles out, so that I could work on my talk, you know. So I worked on my talk, and I worked on it, and I worked on it, and nothing came.
And they had a meeting. Coincidence, right? Two o'clock in the afternoon, they had a meeting of some of the AA people that were there, and they put it up on the bulletin board. So I thought, well, I'm not going to go there, because I was completely blocked, and I was in a depression and anxiety and the whole thing. So I went, but anyway, I did. The meeting had been going on about a half an hour before I went over there. But I'll tell you what, I went there, and I heard exactly what I needed to hear, you know, and I went back again after the meeting was over. They shared with me, and I shared there, too. I shared what I'd been going through that day, and they just, you know, a couple of them just kind of smiled, and they said, just let it happen, Bonnie.
Whatever you plan or whatever you write out, what you're supposed to say when you get up there is what you're going to say. And I said, yeah, that's right. You know, that's pretty simple, but I couldn't think of it until I got there, until I got to that meeting, and it was beautiful. And then after the meeting was over, a couple of the people came and shared with me, and it was a beautiful experience.
Anyway, it's time for me to shut up. Thank you for letting me share. Thank you all for being here. I love each and every one of you. God bless. Applause Thank you, Bonnie. Excellent talk. Our next speaker is Tom M. from the province of Quebec. Tom? Applause Hi. My name's Tommy, and I'm an alcoholic. Thank you, Bonnie, for sharing. I know it's, when you're the first speaker, it's hard to get up here. And I don't know what I'm going to say later.
I'm a, belong to, by the way, did I say my name's Tommy and I'm an alcoholic? Oh, I said that, huh? Laughter I belong to the Boucherville group, which is just down the road here, about five miles. I'm a father of five children, and I'm a grandfather of six. And when I walked through the doors of Alcoholics Phenomenous, I was 25 years old. I'm going to be 59 now, and with God's help of Alcoholics Phenomenous, I haven't had a drink since.
If you are new here, that is a long time, and it is. Laughter They told me when I walked through these doors that I have to stay sober one day at a time, and this is what I'm trying to do. By the way, I had five children when I was drinking. I got none now. Laughter I'm still with the same woman. I will be 39 years married at the end of this year. I look around and some people only stay 39 days. I have been very fortunate when I walked through these doors that I never took another drink. It's not because that I am better than anybody. It's just that the people that were here before me helped me a lot.
I was one of the youngest members of Alcoholics Phenomenous when I walked through these doors in the city of Montreal, and they took me under their wing. How fortunate that I am that I found this program at that age. I never drank for too many years, but the drinking that I did was a disaster. The drinking that I did was a disaster.
[00:30:00]
I remember when I joined the Army, I was around 15 years old, and I started to drink a couple of years before that. I always thought that I was in the Army, and I was going to be a man and all that stuff, and I did all the things that I wasn't supposed to do in the Army, and I went overseas. When I was 16, I fell in love with a girl that was 42, and the love affair didn't last long. She thought I was too young, and I came back from overseas and started to get into civil life, but the drinking was increasing rapidly when I came out of the Army, but in one of my sober moments, I met a girl after I came out of the Army.
I thought that marriage would straighten me out, but I have to admit that the marriage and the responsibilities of being married, I couldn't accept. I was put in treatment centers and hospitals and all these things, roaming around the country and coming back and doing all the crazy things that I did. Then I was incarcerated in 1952, and three weeks after I was incarcerated, my wife presented me with a baby girl, our fifth child.
I have to admit that if I wasn't incarcerated, I don't think that I would have found this program, but I did. It was a very fortunate thing for me because I thought I was insane. I thought that alcohol wasn't my problem, etc., etc. It was because I married a fireman girl and all these things. I blamed everybody. But when I was released from being incarcerated, they gave me a letter of introduction to alcoholic phenomena, and I went down there, and I was scared to go into interviews because I didn't think that these people in alcoholic phenomena would accept me.
But when I walked in there, it was a lady by the name of Barbara who welcomed me in there, and I have been welcomed into alcoholic phenomena ever since. They tell me, they told me in those days, totally self-righteousness, the possibility that you can stay sober if you do the same thing. The AA philosophy doesn't change. Maybe the basis changes, but the AA doesn't change. And you know, for the first year, my wife wouldn't let me sleep with her. I had to sleep in the basement.
But after I was sober a year, I was allowed to sleep with my wife. So everything started to change. And I could remember coming home, and many of the times when my wife would be up to wait for me, and I would tell her all about these meetings that I went to. And I was enthusiastic with alcoholic phenomena. I brought my wife around with me. She's not an alcoholic. She never… I think she's put three drinks in her life.
But these people that came before me and carried the message, I'm ever so grateful. You know, I was talking to the founder of alcoholic phenomena, his wife, our founder in Quebec, just passed away about a year ago. And I was talking to her on the phone yesterday, and she said, Boy, I'm so glad Dave was here. He was looking forward to this. I had the privilege of meeting Bill Wilson on a number of occasions. Tremendous time.
And I look around here, and we see all these people like God from every part of the country, from every part of the world. How fortunate that we are as members of alcoholic phenomena, coming in here and meeting people like this from everywhere. I'm very grateful to alcoholic phenomena. I'll never be able to repay them. Never. You know, I lived… I belonged to a little group in Busherville. They called me the Godfather.
And I remember walking in there into an AA meeting, and they called me the young fella. Now I'm the old fella. You know, I have two sisters that are members of alcoholic phenomena, and I have a brother. But one most important thing in my AA life is that I carried the message to my father. He was in St. Andeville, Bellevue Military Hospital for chronic alcoholism. And I never laid eyes on him for over 16 years. And you know, in alcoholic phenomena, they tell you to make amends.
[00:35:04]
And one of the amends that I had to make was to my father, and I remember going up to see him in the hospital. And I… I was sober for about five years at this particular time. And I walked in there, and the only thing I could say to my father, I said, look it, I'm a member of alcoholic phenomena. And I said, I haven't had a drink for a period of time. And I could remember my father telling me, he says, Tommy, I'm very happy for you, but I don't need that.
You see, my father and mother were separated. She walked out of the house, she had enough. And he was released from that hospital, and he went to live with one of my sisters. And one Tuesday night, I was going out to a meeting, and I got a call from my father. And he said, Tommy, I would like to go to a meeting with you. And I said, Dad, you're welcome. And you know, I took him to the old Maison F group.
I walked in there, and we were brothers in alcoholic phenomena. And you know, we never took another drink. And he stayed sober for 17 years in alcoholic phenomena. And you asked me if alcoholic phenomena works. You know, one other thing. I was responsible in getting my father and mother back together again. And you asked me if it works. You asked me if it works. I'm going to tell you a little bit more story about that.
My mother's away in her 80s now. And she keeps repeating to me, Tommy, I had the most beautiful of 17 years with your father. And it was all through you carrying the message to her. You know, I've got five children, and I'm very happy that they don't remember me ever taking a drink. My oldest boy is 38 years old, and he's married to a beautiful French-Canadian girl. And he is a beautiful person, and he's got a beautiful wife.
And I've got a daughter, Sharon, who is fluent in eight languages, and she teaches languages. And all these children were born when I was under the influence of liquor. And my boy Timothy, he's six foot seven now. And he's got three little girls, Jessica, Samantha, and Shannon. And my boy Brian is married to a beautiful Italian girl. We've got the League of Nations at home, you know. And, you know, my daughter who was born while I was incarcerated, she's 33 now.
And my wife and I are going way up in northern British Columbia, and she's getting married. And, you know, I look back into my life and alcoholic phenomena, and this is what it's done for me. And you ask me if it makes any sense. I look back into my life and alcoholic phenomena, and this is what it's done for me. And you ask me if it works, and it works if you have the language of the heart. And we can get it right here in alcoholic phenomena.
And at this conference, all these people from different languages and everything, we're all tied together. With one primary purpose is to don't take a drink and go to meetings. And that's what they told me when I walked through these doors. But there's always that possibility that I can take a drink whether no matter how long I've been sober or whatever. But our founder one time told me, he says, Tommy, you won't take a drink so long as you walk with your hand in the hand of God.
Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Tom. Very, very excellent. Our next speaker is Richard R. from Rhode Island. Richard. Thank you very much, Tom. Thank you. Thank you, Tom. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Tom. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Tom. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, everybody. I'm an alcoholic, and my name is Richard. I belong to the Back to Basics group, which is a little discussion meeting in Providence, Rhode Island.
We meet on Fridays at 7 o'clock in the Central Baptist Church. So if you're ever in Providence, we sure hope you'll come on by and visit us. And currently, it is my privilege to serve as the Rhode Island area delegate. I guess my experience in preparation for this afternoon is similar to the previous two speakers,
[00:40:02]
with one possible variation. When I first got the letter, and it said principles and personalities, my first reaction was, why did they ask me to talk about that? As I listened to the previous two speakers, to Bonnie and to Tommy, it was clear that there are probably many reasons why I was asked to speak about that. And of course, that is the way it is in Alcoholics Anonymous, as we all know, that things happen for reasons that we don't understand.
And after, at least in my case, lots of struggle, resistance to understanding, eventually I have learned at least a few things. I certainly drank enough to qualify for membership in this fellowship. I drank for 17 years, the last several of them alcoholically. I drank on a daily basis for at least three years, and the last part of those three years I was also using substitutes. And by the time I finally put down my last drunk, a drink on my last drunk, on the 23rd of August 1975, I had been hospitalized six times for alcoholism, and had been exposed to this fellowship through those institutional or detox experiences.
And finally, when I came off my last drunk, and like Bonnie, I pray to God on a daily basis that it was indeed my last drunk, somehow things were different for me. Somehow, when the man who was to become my first sponsor said to me, Richard, you don't have to go back. You don't have to go back to being the drunk that you've been. There's another way to live. There's another way to put your life together.
A little bit of me believed John, and a lot of me was afraid not to. And from that moment on, I began to put together the sober life that you taught me how to live. And I began to put that life together despite the very sick self-will that I brought here, and despite the fact that every fiber of my being, every bone in my body, every thought in my mind resisted every single word that you said to me.
Because I had lived as a drunk for so long, I knew no other way to live. And when you tried to teach me about sobriety, all of my instincts were pulling me in the other direction. I needed you badly. I needed you badly. I arrived here, and I suspect that at least one other person in the room must have had this thought about the topic for today's meeting. I came here without a personality and without a principle.
And whatever personality, that's essentially what booze does to us, without any shadow of a doubt in my mind. And what happened to me as the sober days began to come together is you began to give me the tools that allowed me to develop personality again and to develop the principles by which at least I can try to live. The personality that's coming together, and it's a process that continues almost ten years later, is certainly full of those character defects that our fellowship teaches us about, and the principles are certainly not flawless, and they're not principles that I'm able to practice, at least down until today, with the consistency that I might like.
But when I was new here, and my first, I guess, thought about today's topic and about what it suggests to me is that when I came here, you didn't expect me to have either principles or personality. The expectations that you had of me are really those that are found in the Twelfth Tradition, and it was my reading of the topic that we were invited to, if we chose, comment about Tradition 12. And that tradition which tells us that anonymity is the spiritual foundation of this fellowship tells the newcomer that you don't have to be anything when you walk through our doors except a drunk.
It doesn't matter what else you are, who else you are, where you've been, what you've done where you've been, or what condition you arrive here. And I arrived here after many years of trotting out all manner of excuses using everything I knew about myself, about you, and about the world. And right at that point in time, I realized that I didn't have to be anything.
[00:45:00]
I didn't have to be anything. I didn't have to be anything. Sober Life, If I Didn't Want to Go Back, And That Continues Today, To Be My Particular Little Watchword, I Don't Want to Go Back to Being the Drunk that I Was, If I Didn't Want to Go Back, If I Wanted to Learn How to Live a Sober Life, You Would Tell Me How to Do That, You Didn't Care How I Earned My Living, You Didn't Care Who I Did or Didn't Sleep With, You Didn't Care Whether I Did or Didn't Have Any Money, You Didn't Care What Color My Skin Is, You Didn't Care That I Was Filthy Dirty and Had Been Living for a Long Time in a Vermin Infested House, You Cared That I Was a Drunk Who At Least One Little Teeny Morsel Of Had a Desire to Stop Drinking, And You Were Willing to Accept Me on Simply Those Terms and to Nurture That Little Morsel and to Help It Grow and to Give It the Tools That Would Allow It to Grow, Until I Choose to Believe That the Overwhelming Part of Me Today Has What Continues to Be a Growing Desire to Continue to Stay Stopped, which is indeed the most important desire or urge in my life today.
I was too ashamed to tell you how I earned my living. I was too ashamed to tell you who I slept with. I was too ashamed to tell you anything about myself. My self-esteem was at zero. I didn't want to be me. I didn't want to be any part of me. And you said, Come on, Richard, let's go to a meeting. Let's join a group. Let's get a sponsor. Let's work through the day, and tomorrow will surely be better.
So you accepted me as an alcoholic long before I accepted myself as an alcoholic, and you accepted whatever else happened to come out about me long before I accepted those things. It's my experience in Alcoholics Anonymous that virtually all of us come here with rock-bottom self-esteem. That happens to be one of my definitions of what a bottom is, is when our self-esteem has sunk to the depths of hell.
And that certainly describes this alcoholic. In whatever esteem I've come to develop about myself, you had first. You offered me respect when I had none. You offered me love when I had none. You offered me all of those things when I had none. And when I tried to refuse those gifts, you wouldn't let me do that. From that date in August of 75, I've not found it necessary to pick up a drink or a substitute, and that's all you cared about.
That's all you cared about, that the sober days were little by little coming together back to back. Because blindly, through following a God I didn't then believe in, and let me tell you clearly that I came to AA a black-hearted pagan. I wanted nothing to do with anything called higher power. I resented anyone who did. Indeed, my big defense against AA was that I thought that people here were just a bunch of Bible-thumpers who came together to pray and talk about God, and I want nothing to do with that.
And you didn't care about that part of me either. All you cared about, again, was the fact that I seem willing to follow the example you set. And the truth of the matter is, as I look back, I was scared not to. Fear was in some ways my most powerful ally at that particular stage in my life. I was afraid not to do what you asked me to do because there was nothing left for me. I had burned out the drying-out places, I'd burned out all my friends, I'd burned out the people who tried to 12-step me.
I kept drinking. And I'd worn everyone out, and so here I was. I'm a Rhode Islander. I sobered up in Connecticut. I'd burned Rhode Island out. And so, surrounded by a new group of AA people who weren't used to the BS that I'd pulled on everybody else, there finally what I would today call my particular spiritual awakening occurred. When I believed John, when he said, I didn't have to go back. And people started telling me to do things.
Oh my God, we all know how much we love to be told what to do. Go to meetings, make the coffee, pick up the chairs, join a group, get a sponsor. And every time you told me something to do, I didn't want to do it. I did not want to do it. I resented you. And people were very nice to me, very nice to me.
[00:50:01]
But firm, thank God, and clear. Richard, you need to go to a meeting. I don't want to go to a meeting. ask you what you wanted to do. I had to be told, Richard, sober alcoholics don't develop their social lives in a bar. I thought, if you wanted friends, you met them in a bar. Where else do you go to meet friends? Wouldn't have occurred to me that there was any place else to meet friends because I hadn't met anybody outside of a bar in so many years.
And these were the things that I had to learn. When I was close to a year sober, I was finally able, I ended up working as a cook in the detox where I dried out, and when I was close to a year sober, I was finally able to begin to tell a couple of people how I had really earned my living up until then. That was an important step in my progress. And thank God, nobody ever tried to make me talk about that.
I didn't have to be anybody. I met a woman in that period who told the story of, in her first six months, she wouldn't even tell anybody her correct first name. She told everybody her name was Donna, when in fact her name is Lorraine, because that's where her image of herself was. And so to me, when I think of principles and personalities, the principle is AA, the principle is sobriety and who I am and what I am and whether I'm rich or not.
And what I do in life and whether I do or don't have any money in my pocket is of no consequence. What's of consequence is Alcoholics Anonymous, because that's what keeps me whole. That's what has given me, as I said earlier, whatever principles, whatever personality I happen to have to work with today. And believe me, there are not many days, if any, when I will tell you that I operate with what I would call a full basket.
But whatever is here is here because of sobriety, is here because of what you've given me. And again, the principle to me is Alcoholics Anonymous itself or AA as a whole. I mentioned that I happen to be the delegate, and I was saying to a friend of mine before the meeting started that we all have some or another job in AA. My experience is that those of us who were volunteered for any number of jobs and who do those jobs to the best of our ability are also, as a result of that, working the program to the best of our ability.
I was told by my sponsor that how I feel, what I think, is far less important to my ongoing sobriety than what I do in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I happen to have come to believe that. The other part of principles and personalities for me has to do really with my understanding of our first tradition, our tradition of unity, and what service in AA, whether we make coffee and sweep the floor for the group or whether we have other jobs in general service or in local or central service, is that if we're putting AA first, as I was told as a newcomer in Connecticut, we're putting AA first, we'll surely stay sober.
And if we stay sober, the rest will fall into place. Now, putting anything ahead of Richard is probably the most difficult thing I attempt to do in life. Putting anything before me, even putting AA first, because that assures my sobriety, is something that's, I think, always easier said than done. But I do believe that that's so, and I do believe that because at least it's my goal to do that, that that's one of the most important tools those Connecticut AA folks gave me when I started out.
And so when I belonged to a group, the Providence Gay Group, and a delegate came and told that group that it didn't have a GSR, and that if it wanted to involve itself in the whole of AA, somebody ought to be the GSR for that group. And when they went around the table, I was the last one. Nobody else volunteered. And so I became the GSR. And I went to my first district meeting sure that when everybody found out who I was and where I came from, that the earth would open and swallow me.
That's not what happened. And indeed, I was told by the same woman, Dottie G., who's now my service sponsor in AA in Rhode Island, that any place I went in AA, if I was there to do AA's work, if I was there to serve a useful AA purpose, then I belonged in that place. And if anyone was there to take my inventory or to comment on who I was or where I came from, then they indeed were the person who was in trouble because they were putting the principle first.
[00:55:00]
And that all I had to worry about was why I was there and to work on being there to serve AA and to do what AA asked me to do. She told me the same thing that the people in my first group in New London, Connecticut, told me. If I put AA first, I would surely stay sober. And if I stayed sober, all the rest of it would come into place. Again, I won't tell you that I'm able to do that on a daily basis with any consistency.
But it, again, continues to be my goal because what really happened in that first district meeting and indeed in my whole experience in general service in Rhode Island is that the Rhode Island AA's who I found in all of the service meetings that I attended helped me learn who and what I am and how not only to live with that, but how to accept that and love it in the way that every human being needs to learn to accept themselves.
AA has taken me into its heart and given me back myself. And in the process, allowed me to learn a little bit about how to love and to serve. To learn a little bit about how to get outside of myself. A little bit about how to put AA first. And so for me, the principles and the personalities really has to do with what we call AA as a whole. That phenomenon, that spiritual phenomenon that allows us all to be together here in this beautiful city.
That allows us to be together on a Friday night and at a little discussion meeting with 15 people talking AA talk in Providence, Rhode Island. Or in any other town or community in the United States. I don't know some days how successful all of this really is for me. That is, putting my personality in the second place. I still have a self-will that can run riot. I still certainly have plenty of ego.
I still certainly have those character defects that drive me crazy as well as the people who are close to me. But because you've taught me so much, not only about how to learn to live with myself, but also how to live with my fellows, I can only trust and believe that if I do what I've been told to do consistently all along, I don't ever have to go back to being the drunk that I was. I continue, I can continue to try to love and to serve in Alcoholics Anonymous in the way or the ways that you teach me to do.
It was my blessing, I don't think this every day, but most days, it was my blessing almost two years ago that the Rhode Island area asked me to serve as its delegate. And that has been an overwhelming experience, much of which has been very beautiful. Because it has added, for me at least, in a very substantial way to my belief in the importance of our essential unity. To my belief that if we all work together for the common good, that we as individuals can only benefit.
And I'm reminded of the first example of that I experienced as a group member when there was a discussion about electing officers. And when my own, you know, Richard the Drunk, you look for either, you know, who's the most attractive, who's got the most money, who can you manipulate, you find some sort of very earthy reason why you're going to vote for somebody. Or who's going to help me? Who's going to help me?
If I elect so-and-so as the group secretary or vote for that person, will they ask me to sweep the floor? You know, let's get it down to what's really important. And I heard somebody say, well, it doesn't matter about the person, what matters is what's good for the group. And that was new thinking to me. I didn't know how to think like that, what's good for the group. What do you mean, what's good for the group?
How do you know what's good for the group? Because I always would have identified what was good for Richard must be good for everybody else, right? I mean, that's… If you remember the 50s, you know, Charlie Wilson said that what's good for General Motors is good for the country. Well, I could put Richard in place of General Motors and apply that to a… goal in AA is to keep the group whole and healthy, whether it's our home group, whether
[01:00:03]
it's a service group, whether it's an intergroup office, and that if we serve the purpose of that group, all of us as individuals will benefit. And I was taught that we don't vote for someone because it will help me or because it will help them. We try to think about what will help us. And again, yet another way of you trying to teach me how to put myself in the second place and how to put Alcoholics Anonymous first. I'm sure that in the experience that this room with all of you people, the experience that we represent, that there are many other examples of how AA talks to us and how our experience teaches us about principles and personality. What I've tried to talk about are the striking thoughts that I've had in reflecting and jotting down a couple of notes in anticipation of this afternoon's meeting.
I know that Alcoholics Anonymous has given me life, has given me not only life, but a life worth living. And in the throes of my drinking, I'm one of those drunks who could have cared less, so I said very dramatically, whether I lived or died. And today I say with great joy, I want to live as long as the God of my understanding, the God that you taught me how to find, as long as the God of my understanding has in store for me. I have a zest for life today that is exciting even to think about. I'm delighted to be here. I thank you for allowing me to share with you. It sure is delightful to know that at least for today, I don't ever have to go back to being the drunk that I was. Thank you very much for listening.
I would like to thank Bonnie, Tom, and Richard for sharing with us today. And now I would ask all of you here to join me, those of you willing, in the Lord's Prayer.