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Hello and welcome to SilverCast where we provide AA speak meetings and workshops and podcast format. We are an ad free podcast and if you enjoy listening please help us be self-supporting by visiting silvercast.com, look for the donate link and drop a dollar to into our virtual basket. We hope you enjoyed the podcast. Have a great day. My name is Indika, which I'm an ad student at Alpha Hallet. Indika is an ad student. I'm an ad student at Alpha Hallet. Indika stands for Nappolda in Christina and I tell you that because it's a nice reminder for myself of why I'm here. Ever since I remember, I've always wanted to be so indifferent and I've gone through many identity crises which results in the three different names. Indika encompasses the whole of my Amsterdam. Let's be. So I'm an ad student at Alpha Hallet. It doesn't matter what I'm using. It's the obsession of the mind and the allergy of the body and it transfers from one thing to another. And while Alpha Hallet is a big part of my story, it was not when I came into the rooms and so it took me a little while to figure out why I was here. I came into the rooms in 2017, January 1st and I've been in and out of recovery and as I said before, I have 12 stays now and I think what's changed is I am now here for myself. Before I tried quitting because my father always warned me that Alpha Hallet runs in our family. I quit because society was telling me that I should be so where I quit because I woke up feeling children. I quit for many different reasons but I finally grew being in the rooms and being here understood and understand why I want to quit and that I do have a problem. When I first came into the rooms, I didn't realize that this was a spiritual program. I just knew that where I was, it was going to get worse and so I wanted to stop it before I could. Any big physical bottoms. When I came in, I still had my job, I still had a home, I still had my car, no DUI, no trouble with the law. That my emotional sobriety was definitely very far down the drain and so I'm very grateful that I found these rooms when I did and then I've stayed. When I first came into the rooms, the steps mentioned God and I was raised Christian and I believed until I had reason not to believe and the reason I didn't believe or had reason not to believe was because I had a lot of questions and nobody could answer them to my contentment. I just didn't understand or we could ask the answer and when I asked more questions, it made people upset. I just learned not to ask questions to keep them off-shut. When I first came into the rooms, I didn't really believe in God. I knew that there was something bigger out there and when people told me to find something that was bigger than myself that I understood, I struggled with that. I really struggled and I wanted to believe that something bigger was out there and I think I did know something bigger was out there. I just didn't believe that it was going to help me and I think it took me a long time to understand that it could help me but they used to say God is love and I didn't really know what love meant. What it looked like and how it could help me. The phrase, we'll love you until you live yourself, really stood out to me and took a while but I'm starting to get there. For me, it was just the willingness to be open to finding something that would help me. Many people say the group of drunks, the group of drunks, the group of spirits, at one point I had said it was the termination, the group of determination. Now I believe it's the gift of defeat because it wasn't until I was able to surrender and fully commit to this program that I was able to really move forward with the changes that come with sobriety. A couple months ago I had discovered that water was my higher power because the world is made up of lots of water. Our bodies are made of lots of water. I was like, okay, everything needs water. Okay, so maybe that can be my higher power. Again, a couple last week actually, I had come across this book, Spiritual Awakening, Stirney of the Spirit, it's a literature. I think it's just a combination of the great vines on spirituality. I can't find it right now but I remember one of the first things I opened up the book in red was if God is small enough to be understood by me, if God is small enough for me to understand Him, then He's not big enough to deal with my problems. So having lots of problems, that was something that I came to terms with and I think now I'm able to just give it up and be open to what He has to offer. So just being open and I think also the fellowship, just people being there, being able to reach out and people supporting me has been really helpful and I've also heard in the rooms that you can't receive the message if you don't show up. And I've been fortunate enough to wear, I just keep coming back no matter how many times that I go out and even though I'm not always doing everything perfectly, it's for progress, not perfection. And I've definitely seen progress in my life, definitely understanding this disease more and I don't think I could have gotten this far without these worries. So thank you all for being here and thank you for listening to my show. My name is Mick, I'm alcoholist. Glad to be here, I'm glad to be right here. I'm really glad to be right here. If it's one thing that I love is alcoholics and honors. You know, I've been here for a little while and the people that have met over the years have been the greatest gifts that I could have. You know, I have a great family, you know, I put the friends in AA, I have really been the people who've held me together for the time they've been here. There's this pamphlet called a members-I view of alcoholics and honors and I got it as a thing a while ago where I read something at the beginning and then I read something at the end. And because I love this pamphlet, it was written by a guy in 1970 who was a teacher at UCLA and he was teaching professionals about alcoholics and honors and he wrote this pamphlet called a members-I view about alcoholics and honors. And on page 20 it says, the House today helps a man build for himself, it's different for each occupant. Because each occupant is his own architect. For media AA's this kind of going home, a return like the prodigal son to the House of his faith and the faith of his fathers. Two others is a never-ending journey into lands which they did not dream existed. It does not matter which group one falls. What is really important is that AA has more than demonstrated that the House's bills can accommodate the rebel as well as their conformist, the radicals as well as the conservative, the agnostic as well as the believer. The absence of formalized dog mother, lack of rules, commandments, non-specific nature of its definition and the flexibility of its framework, all these sayings have thus far considered contribute to the incredible and happy end. And that's what AA has been for me. I guess I could go back. I come from a fairly large family. He was 11 total but there was four older step brothers who never lived with us. But it was seven children. There's three older ones and then there's a four-year gap and then there's me and then there's a three and a half year gap and there's three more. So the older ones didn't want to play with me and I didn't want to play with the young ones. So I spent a lot of time by myself. When I looked back on it, my childhood wasn't that bad considering I was raised out in East Oakland on 65th and not too far from East 14th. So it could be bad. It wasn't as bad as Eddie Joe who lived down the street. And I was thinking the other day, I acted out since I was a kid. I struggled. My school was eight blocks from the house. Eight blocks. I couldn't make it home every day without putting my hand in somebody's wet cement, breaking a window, stealing somebody's pigeons, stealing some low cuts off somebody's tree. And back then, Miss Jenkins would bust you and she'd give you a weapon and she'd call your mother. So you were going to get another weapon when you got home. But I did this almost every day. You know, I just acted out in. My parents were alcoholics. Father worked the same job for 37 years. Went to work pretty much every day and then drank every night and my mother drank every night and they'd have these knock down fallout fights. We always had a roof. There was always a car. There was always food. You got something on your birthday. You got something for Christmas. And to me, you know, life was pretty good. I took my first drink when I was 15. Me and a couple of my buddies got somebody to buy some fit the vodka out near Alan Temple. And it's an elementary school back there. So we get back there and we drink the whole thing and I got sick. I vomited. And I drink like that until the day I stopped. You know, if I was at the party, eventually there was going to be vomit somewhere. You know, if I was in your car, eventually I was going to vomit in your car or on you. You know, it was just my MO. You know, I drink in excess and I never cared. I just didn't care. I had a lot of fun. You know, in the beginning everything was fine and you had a lot of drugs involved and then things just started going soft. You know, I ended up getting married and that lasted for a very short time and I had this great job. I got this job as a fireman and I worked three days on four days off and my captain would say you got four days to get here in your late. You know, and I'd say, hey, traffic was real bad. And I was drinking and using and you know, on a job where you really don't have to do much. Especially since I worked in Pebble Beach, there was no fires. We had what was called pickup and putbacks. The rich people down there would fall off their toilet and we'd have to go down and pick them up and put them back on the toilet. That was pretty much the extended job. But I was loaded all the time. You know, and so things kept going on and through a series of bad breaks and misunderstandings we ended up partying ways after several years and came to an agreement that I really wasn't suited for that work. And it's difficult to lose a civil service job. You know, it's really difficult. The one thing that I know in retrospect, everybody's a genius in hindsight. But the one thing I know is that if you don't go to work, they will fire. And so, you know, that's kind of what happened. But I had fun while I was doing it. And after that, things just kept getting a little worse and a little worse. You know, I had a bunch of other little jobs here and there and I'm living with my mother here. And at this point, my mother had changed something had happened. And I would take her to this place on 47th and east 14th and drop her off. And then an hour and a half later, I'd pick her up. And I didn't know where she was going. You know, she was just different. And what happened is she had got sober. And she never said a word about me or any other family members that are drinking, they're using. And she didn't care for herself. And she was great. You know, she went to school and getting her degree. You know, it was amazing. You know, and I didn't see any of that until I got here. So what happens is that I'm living there and things are pretty bad at this point. So she leaves the house to go visit my sister in Sacramento and I ran out of money. So I figured I'd sell a couple of pieces of furniture. So I took some stuff out. I put it on the lawn. You know, of course, it was $20. Everything was $20. And I sold the living room stuff. And then the dining room stuff. And then the bedroom stuff. And pretty much I also was close to empty over a weekend. And so I left because I didn't want to be there when she got back. And she was in the program and she wrote me a note. It's all she ever said about the whole thing. And the notes said, I don't know what your problem is. But whatever it is is starting to affect other people's lives. That's all she ever said about the whole thing. I couldn't stay there anymore. You know, that object was off the table at that point. But so now, you know, I'm bouncing around. I'm couch surfing. I'm pretty much homeless. But I'm doing what I got to do. Everyone I get up. I mean, somebody, you know, go get a little bit. And you know, as things started to get worse, I got no place to stay now. So now I'm just walking the streets. I'm homeless. I'm sleeping in the San Francisco bus station at times. You know, here they are. You know, I recall walking down to some stupid stories. I recall walking down East 14th, New 38th. And I look in the window, and there's this guy in there with this woman's coat on. And it's like powder blue. It's got fur on the collar. And I'm like, I'm not that bad. And I kept staring at him. And I realized it was a reflection of me in the window. You know, that's, and a light bulb came on. Now I didn't stay on, but it came on. You know? And, you know, so things continue to go. And, you know, I got nothing. I got nothing. I'm walking around with a pair of bikers pants, a disco shirt with a flyway collar, and a pair of rock ports with a bow curl on. You know, this is my life. And you know, what I did is I went to a meeting with my sister. But you guys were bad. You know, I wasn't nearly as bad as you guys, you know. And my mother used to tell this story about a alcoholic who had cirrhosis of the liver, and he died. And she asked the woman, well, why didn't he go to AA? And she said, oh, he wasn't that bad. So, you know, I, so I kept, you know, piddling around and I'm in the San Francisco bus station one night. And, you know, I, and of course, I'm better than the people over there. And I said, you know, it's bad enough after sleeping with two people, but now you're hogging the bench. And the guy said, you're one of us people. And another light bulb came on. You know, didn't stay on, but it came on. You know, and so I started going to meetings. And I was doing the best I could. And, you know, the funny thing about AA is that if you stick around, you get to know people. There's a couple of people in this room who probably know me better than I know me, you know. And I tell my stuff, and they kind of look at me. And they're, okay, sure, Mick, you know. But they know the real Mick. And so I get here and, and I'm going to the meetings down at Laney College and, and Daryl F was a secretary. And I raised my hand one time and he said, you don't need to raise your hand. We know you're a newcomer. I was so embarrassed because I was sitting in front, you know, everybody would clap when you were a newcomer. It was cool, you know. But I was so embarrassed. How could he do that to me? And of course, another bulb came on. It went off quickly. So by this time, I'm this close to being a matchboy and a gay crack house. And it was, it was pretty bad. And so I'm, I am, I leave this house to go get some more. And, and I get across the street and I look at this house. And something comes to my body and says, you don't have to do this anyway. And I don't know what it was. I never put a label on it. But it wasn't me. And I walked him in Dana House. I raised my hand for 30 days and I haven't had to raise a sense. And that was April 10th, 1989. And that's when the fun started, you know. When I got there, the reason what got me there was that first meeting really kind of set a tone for me is when I got there was a guy speaking and he had a drug problem. And he had ran out of matches. So he had lit his grandmother's bathroom rug on her stove to light his pipe. And I was like, damn, I like this guy, you know. And I wanted to come back and hear some more stories, you know. And there were people there, you know, it was like Brent Jay and Mike B, you know, and Jerome and, and, and, and Rafiki, you know. And these people were, were there. And to me, and I know Brent said it, but to me it appeared like they didn't want to have anything to do with me. And Brent flat out told me, he said, you're pathetic. He said, you're not serious. This is life and death. And you will die out there. He said, and when you get serious, then you know what I'm talking about. I kept coming back every day. You know, I'd go to meetings, basically I was unemployed or unemployed. So it wasn't like I had, you know, something to do. And so I'm going to these meetings and, and I meet a guy named Freeman, G and asked him to sponsor me. And Freeman was one of the last people in the United States. I have a Jerry curl. And, and, and he had this, this goal used to wear like this Mr. T starter kit. You know, all this cheap gold. But I asked him to sponsor me because he had this medallion that said screw guilt. And he, and I walk around, I was so ashamed myself at this point, I'd walk around with my head down and I, you know, I just, and he said fake it. If you don't feel good, act like you feel good, hold your head up. You know, and, and he said screw guilt. And so, you know, for about a month or two or whatever, you know, I hung out and, then I was at the rapid noon and I, I heard this guy speak. And he said there's nothing wrong with you. You're perfect just the way you are. And I could resonate with that. And, you know, my story included things like, you know, I lived in a house where I had sheets over the curtains. I had a two by four up against the back door, you know, the knob. I had broken the key off in the front door so nobody could get in. Although I was the only one who had a key. And I'd clam out the window. My life had been reduced to that. It was bad, you know, I, I remember leaving a party in San Francisco after somebody and the guys deck. And so I snuck out the back and it was in the Marina. And I remember the car was real hot. And I was like, why is it so hot in here? I was on Park Boulevard in 580. I had blacked out all the way from the Marina to Oakland. And I was driving in third gear at 65 miles an hour. That's why the car was so hot. But, so these are the kind of things that I would do. I'd just keep doing the same thing over and over again like it was going to change. When she was reading that stuff about change to this, change to that. Try this, try that. I did all that. It always turned out the same. Nothing ever changed. And I get here and this gentleman said that because I repeat myself up so much. And he said that we beat ourselves up enough while we were out there. We don't need to do that while we're in here. And so I asked him, could I talk to him? He said, sure, my office is around the corner. He's an attorney in Oakland. And I went around there and I said, you know, would you sponsor me? He said, yeah. And I said, what do you want me to do? He said, what do you mean? I said, what do you want me to do? So I said, I don't care what you do. He said, here's what you don't do. Don't call me after 8 p.m. unless you got to drink in your hand. And I said, well, I don't understand. He said, well, I go to sleep early. I get up early. And, you know, if you got to drink in your hand, give me a call. And I said, what if I don't feel good? He said, then you just don't feel good. He said, if you call me after 8 p.m., I'm not going to feel good. He said, you'll be all right. Just sit with it. And so the guy is named David S. And he's still my sponsor. It's been 29 years. Next month, it'll be 29 years. And David's sponsor was a guy named David S. He was a guy named Earl McQueen, who's a Stories in the Big Book physician Hill, they said. And so Earl was retired. David was self-employed and I was unemployed. So all we had to do was hang out. So that's what we did. I'd hang out with them and Nancy, oh, you know, And all these people who had been around a long time. And I'm still going to the meetings and open. And Brent one day says to me, hey, man, why don't we hang out? He says, but I need to go buy you some clothes because I can't be seen with you the way you dress. Brent had everything that I used to have. He had a new car. He had his own place. He had a girlfriend. These are things that I had lost. And didn't look like I was going to get them back because when I got here, I thought that you guys are going to get me all my stuff back. I wanted a job. I wanted a place to stay. I wanted a car and I wanted a girl. And Freeman told me, we can't give you any of that. What I can promise you is that if you don't drink, you won't get drunk. And I was like, well, yeah, just don't drink. And there was another lady who said to me, I asked her, how do you do this? And she said, just don't drink right now and it's always right now. And that made sense. And that's what I did. Now, ever since that day that I walked out that house, I've never had an urge to drink or use anything. The way I feel about that is a whole different ballgame. But with the people that I've been around, you know, I was able to become my own person, to think for myself. You know, Dave and I, we'd hang out and we started doing the steps. And I remember when I did my fourth step, I had this list of books. I went with the columns and everything. And I was 100 people who had screwed over me. And he said, well, why don't you revisit that? And, you know, just keep working on it. And so a few months passed and those names shifted from, they screwed over to me to actually screwed over there. And so I remember when I sat down with him to do my fifth step, I started really off these atrocities that I had done. And he said, well, there's a bunch of good things about you. You know, don't beat up on yourself. He says, if you want to beat up on yourself, it's a two by four out of the garage. You welcome to it. And what it bothered me the most, I had done a lot of skanky stuff my whole life. And I broke down in tears when I got to the park where I had chucked and jived my whole life and lied and manipulated. And just got away with stuff. I just kept getting away with it. And that's why I kept doing what I was doing. Because I kept getting away with it. And I had never been aware of that until I wrote this stuff down. You know, so we did that and we're hanging out and, you know, Errol, you know, he's giving me his little spills. He hung out with Bill a lot. So he'd always tell me these stories about you and Bill. And the way you feel. And then Errol's philosophy, which, which, you know, I've come to, to accept over the years, is that I can't change the way I feel. Physically, I can do things. But the way I feel, flutches weights all the time. I'll get up in the morning and I'm leaving the house and everything's cool. Ten minutes later, I want to drive off the bridge. I don't know what happened. I'm about five minutes later, everything's cool. I've come to grips with, I can't change the way I feel. And so what I do is I just go through the day and I put one foot in front of the other. And Errol would tell me that emotionally you're screwed. And that physically you can do things. If you want to go to Hawaii, you might want to buy a plane ticket. You know, but how you feel about going to Hawaii is a whole different ballgame. And I say, once you realize that you're screwed, then you're okay. So every day I go through all these emotions about how I feel about people, about things, about me. And I understand that they just come and go. But the one thing that I've done over all this period of time is I've never taken a drink. You know, because when I look back on it, my mother didn't give me drunk. You know, Captain Marlowe never got me drunk. Eddie Jodan even gave me drunk. I got me drunk. Alcohol got me drunk. That's what happened. And I was talking this morning in the meeting, is that... Is that Brent would tell me to keep my recovery right in front of my face, make it the most important thing in my life, put everything behind it. Because once you lose that, you're going to lose all that other stuff. And I was talking about, I'm not the guy who's going to come in and say, Hey, three weeks from now, I'm going to be drunk. Two weeks from now, I'm going out. Tomorrow's the day. I'm going to do it. Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to come in. They're going to ask for newcomers. I'm going to raise my hand. Everybody's going to go, What happened? I'm an alcoholic. And you put a drink in front of me. I'm subject to drink it. So I keep my recovery right in front of my face. And that's the kind of message that I've been getting over all the years. Dave... He's never once told me what to do. He's never. He'll say things like... Because he was talking this morning. And he said that you probably should tell a couple of stories. It's happened since you've been in recovery. And I was like, yeah, he said, yeah. When you were about 12 years sober and you were carrying a gun around in your car, you had a clock under the seat. And so I'm driving around. It's for protection. But who's after me? So I'm driving around and I'm sober. I think I am. And I'm up here by the Cajara Hospital. And I cut a guy off. And I apologize. I'm sorry I'm sorry I was there. Well the guy won't let it go. So I pull away and he pulls up next to me. And then I figured I got a turn. So I turn, get out of his way, he follows me. So we get to the next light. I'm right in front of Cajara Hospital. He's going crazy. I reach on the seat, bow, slap the gun on the dashboard. The guy in the car next to us looked and went through the red light. And this guy looks at me and it dawned on me. What are you doing? What are you doing? He says, boy that's even a stretch for you, Mick. Because I've done some things since I've been here that just don't make any sense. But one thing that I haven't done is take a drink. And as a result of that, I'm able to look at me on a daily basis. Earl would tell me to get with the program. Because you say you're a little off base, you might want to get with the program. That's not how this thing works, Mick. So you can't have multiple girlfriends in the program unless they know about it. So these are the kind of things that I would do. So as time passes, my younger brother is just a sad thing. My younger brother has ten more days of it. Really pisses me off. I talk to him, I ask him a question. He'll say, look, newcomer. You know, you need to get it done. But you talk about being able to think for yourself. So he had this psychosponsor, this guy named David A in Sacramento. And David would talk crazy to him. You need to shut up and mind your own business. What has that got to do with you? You know, sit your newcomer self down and take care of yourself. So he'd just talk crazy to him. And Blake would be like, okay, okay, okay. So up there they give out cakes. So Blake is giving out the cakes. And he says to David, hey, I don't think that guy is as sober as he says he is. I gave him a cake of all of them. And David says, what has that got to do with you? You need to mind your own business. Maybe he just likes cake. You know, and that's what it is. I'm learning in this program that is a mean way to do it. And it doesn't bother me how people do their program. I'm only concerned with people staying in sober. You know, I just want us to become this community of people. I think I've gotten better over the years as far as people in this room. I haven't seen much improvement. But I'm just concerned with the people in the rooms. And that we're kind to one another. You know, that we support one another. You know, that somebody's there when people come in the rooms. Mayceo did this meeting in West Oakland. Mayceo is a different character. You got to know him to appreciate him. And nobody ever came to his meeting. Six months. Nobody. So I popped in there. And I said, what are you doing, man? Nobody comes. And he says, I want to be here in case somebody comes. Because somebody was here when I came. And that's what it is. It's that I want to be here when somebody comes. Because I can't imagine what would happen that day when I walked from that place to man down a house. And nobody would have been there. I can't imagine what would happen. You know, and over this period of time, you know, I've, I've, you know, I've come to know a guy who loves me no matter what. In 1990, Dave bought a Lexus when they first came out. And brand new. And he asked me to go pick it up. And he drove that Lexus for the longest he had. 470,000 miles on this. And he loved that car. And, and so, you know, I got a house in and all this stuff. And, and so I'm out these playing golf and Arizona somewhere. And I'm all sitting in and, you know, I'm doing stuff. And, and I totaled the car. And, you know, to this day, you never asked me if I was hurt. And, he did tell me that no matter what you do, no matter what happens, I will always love you. Just the way you are. And it's just stuff. And, um, he was trying to get to have read miles. And, and as a result of what I did, that didn't happen. But, um, that's the kind of people that I've been around in this program. People who love me in spite of me. People who give of themselves, you know, people who have no problem getting up in the middle of the night to go help somebody. These are the kind of people that I've come to know, you know. And, and there's people who talk about what they do for people. They really don't like talking much about what I do for people. I like hearing about what people do for people. You know, I, um, I'm gonna, um, David's, David's getting older. And, you know, I've been thinking if, um, and I don't know what I'm an atheist. So, you know, I, I doubt I'm going, I'm going someplace. I don't know where it is. I got friends in both places. So, I, uh, you know, I think about it. So, nobody gets out of this alive. Um, you know, I think about if something happens today, you know, you know, and if I'm ever asked, you know, when, when I go, you know, what would you have done? Or what would you have liked to do? And I know that I would like to spend five more minutes with David if I had an option, you know, that's what I'd like. Because I've never met anybody who cared as much about me. Um, just because I'm an alcoholic, you know, I just, I've never experienced anything like this, you know, and I, um, so, so I'm going to read this and shut up. Just time for your shut up. Oh, well, 10 more minutes. I can start lying. No, I, um, you know, the, the program and the people, you know, you, you look at Michael, you look at Holly, you know, you look at Norman, you look at Connie, you know, it's, you know, you get Aaron. It's, it's people who keep me alive every day. When, when I leave the house, every day, I take a little bit of A with me everywhere I go, you know, because I run into these situations where I've always had resentment against people, you know, they do this better than me, you know, why can't I do this? Why wasn't I this? And like I said, everybody's a genius in hindsight, you know, but, but I look back on my life and since I've been here, I've had a pretty charm to life, a pretty charm life. I ended up marrying this woman a couple of years in the program and she had a couple of small children and I raised those children up till they went to college. Now, we're divorced and the kids don't speak anymore. That's a whole different story. Um, but that was one of the greatest experiences, you know, that I've had and that was only as a result of being an op-alcs anonymous. This thing has given me something that I couldn't imagine. I walked through my day knowing that I can get through anything, anything without taking a drink, without taking a hit, without slapping a gun on the dashboard, you know, without cussing people out, I can get through the day. If I look back on what I learned here, you know, I, I'd like to say that I've done everything right. Um, and I probably haven't, but what I have done, I'm proud of, you know, what I have done, I'm proud of. And, you know, I go to meetings out at the hut in Lafayette and if you're ever going to chance to come out to the hut, it's probably one of the greatest places you could go. It doesn't matter who you are, what you do, what you believe in. Just want you to come to that, you know, that's it, you know, and I, you know, over the period of time that I've been here, I've been through some, you know, some changes. You know, I was in this, that marriage for 17 years and that thing dissolved and, you know, my family supported me through the whole thing, you know, my friends in AA supported me through the whole thing, you know, my, my life as a result of being here, as opposed to being out there. Because I still look at people out there, there was a guy who, when I was new, it was a guy who, because when you knew you want to tell everybody how to get sober. So, there's a guy at the liquor store and, and I go by the everyday and ask me for change and so I'm going to get him sober. So, I said, hey man, you don't have to live like this. Let me tell you my story. Look at it, be like, what? No, I said, you know, you don't have to drink like this. He said, I'm not an alcoholic, I'm a hair on addict and don't be a question of my lifestyle. You know, what happens is that AA, you know, made me think that I could change people's lives and there's nothing I can say to you that will keep you sober and there's nothing I can say to you that will get you drunk. You know, nothing. You know, what worked for me is that for the first time in my life, I was able to come and listen to somebody other than me. And at times, I still struggle with that. And it's okay. It's okay. You know, I think that if you get an opportunity to experience this thing, you know, it's as full as extended. If you get an opportunity to travel and see how we do this other places because I'll go to meetings in other places ago. Oh my god, they're doing it wrong. You know, and they're not. They're doing what they do and maybe they just like cake. You know, that's what it really boils down to, you know. So at the end of this pamphlet, the guy writes, this coming Sunday in the churches of many us, there will be read that portion of the Gospel of Matthew which recounts the time when John the Baptist was languishing in the prison of hair. And hearing the works of his cousin Jesus, he sent two of his disciples to him to say, Art thou he used to come or shall we look for another? And Christ did as he so often did. He did not answer them directly, but one a John did decide for himself. And so he said to the disciples, go and report to John what you have heard and what you have seen. The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise, the poor have the Gospel preached to them. Back in my childhood, catechism days, I was taught that the poor in this instance did not only mean the poor in material sense, but also meant the poor in spirit, those who burn with an inner hunger and an inner thirst, and that the word Gospel meant quite literally the good news. More than 16 years ago, four men, my boss, my physician, my pastor, and the one friend I had left working singly and together maneuver me into AA. Tonight if they were to ask me, tell us what did you find? I will say to them what I say to you now. I can only tell you what you have heard, what I have heard and seen, it seems the blind do see, the lame do walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise, and over and over again, in the middle of the longest day of the darkest night, the poor in spirit have the good news told to them. Guy Granted may always be so. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed the podcast. The supercast is at free and we like your help in order to keep it that way. So if you'd like to help us be self-supporting by pledging a dollar to a month, visit sobercast.com and look for the donate links. Thank you very much.