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September 26, 2025 • 39 mins
Paul B. at The Twelve Step House, Ft. Lauderdale, FL. 9/23/2025.
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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 2 (00:00):
Ah, it's great to be here.

Speaker 1 (00:01):
My name is Paul. I'm an alcoholic.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
I may remember the East Naples Men's Group and my
sobriety date is April seventeenth, nineteen eighty five, and found
it necessary to take a drink since then, even when
I wanted to, and man, I wanted to, but my
last relapse taught me what I was. It was an
alcoholic that belonged in these rooms hanging out with folks

(00:27):
like you, Eh, Vinnie, Vinnie's on zoom.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Yeah, how's a wig? Look Vin?

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Now. I'm really grateful that Jimmy thought to ask me
to come speak and to fill in for Karen, who
has been a wonderful gift of Brow County.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
AA since she came here.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Lady knows the book and is how to tell a
story and can keep your attention. Come back next week
and you'll have a really good spinker. I had my
first drink when I was thirteen years old. I lived
in Miami Shores at the time. My brother was a

(01:17):
printer for People's Gas and I used to go to
work with him on Saturdays. They used to do their
own printing and stuff, and they had a dark room
and in the dark room was covered with Playboy foldouts,
so I used to go down and go hang out
in the dark room quite a bit. So one day

(01:41):
he's given a guy a ride home and the guy
says to my brother, he says, hey, you want to
get some beer? And my brother said, oh, yeah, yea.
My brother was a pretty good drinker. So we pulled
into seven or eleven or something and they buy a couple
of six packs of cold forty five malt liquor, and

(02:07):
they give me a couple of cans, and man, I
don't like the taste, but I really like the feeling.
And I chased that feeling until I had my last
drink when I was thirty three. I used to cut
grass on how to ass days like this to make

(02:30):
five bucks. I'm looking. I'm looking in the liquor ads
in the Miami Herald at thirteen years old to see
what the price of Baccardi is three dollars and ninth
cents a fifth. I'm cutting grass to make five bucks.
And if you look at these hands, highly oppose the
manual later, but I will cut grass for that that

(02:56):
bottom of baccardion. And I'm looking at those ads because
I don't believe me. I don't want to have to
cut two lawns, but I will, so i'd get the
five bucks.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
I'd go to drop the money off of my brother's.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
Job, and he'd buy my friends and I fit the
b accardy and we'd go over to his apartment. He
lived over by North Miami General, and we would drink
and then walk.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
Down the railroads tracks to a place called The World.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
It was a teenage nightclub where I got to see
the young rascals and a lot of performers used to
come there. Wayne Cochran was a hot highlighter there, and
so every Wednesday and Friday I would go get drunk
with my buddies and walk down the street. I certainly
don't think I have a problem, but I like the
what alcohol does for me. Takes me away the shyness

(03:49):
and the fears, and I can socialize better. And when
my alcohol all kind of takes off my consumption. We
moved to New Orleans in nineteen sixty seven. My father

(04:09):
used to manage convention center at Miami Beach, so he
takes a job in New Orleans, a new convention center,
and now I got to start all over, new friends,
new school, back to Catholic school and you know, full.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
Of fear.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
New friends, how you introduce yourself, that kind of stuff.
But because I played sports, I could get in real
quick with new friends.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
And of course we're drinking. You only had to be
eighteen years old to.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
Drink in New Orleans and it was just a draft car,
no its, no picture, its. So I started drinking pretty
good there when I cross over the line into let's
get the party started. Do I need something to kill
the pain that's inside of me. I got married when

(05:06):
I was twenty. Irish Catholic, girlfriend gets pregnant. We got married,
Irish Catholic, and I come home from work. I was
really trying to change my life around. I went back
to school. I was going to work at three in
the afternoon, working in the shipyard, highly opposed a manual labor.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
And I come home.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
On Saturday and my wife at the time says, hey,
I don't want to be married anymore, and she takes
the kid and she leaves. I took that very personal.
I really I really internalized, what the hell's wrong with me? Here?
I am?

Speaker 1 (05:50):
You know, I think I'm santly now.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
Because I'm going back to school and trying to change
my lifestyle. And that's when the booze really need that
to kill the pain. It's a very important turning point
in my life. And I don't realize it till I
come here and start reading about why every AA must

(06:12):
hit body? And you know when did I cross over
the line?

Speaker 1 (06:17):
That was? That was my moment.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
So I would get off work at midnight and I
started hanging out in the bars more uh and I'm
I'm in the bars every night in New Orleans. And
this friend of mine says, hey, Paul, he said, once
you come work with me. He says, you're here every night.
I wanted to kiss him on the lips.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
Man.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
He says, yeah, come working. He says, you got these
ridiculous boy tabs. And I said sure. His name is Marlin.
I love Marlin.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
He was a great guy.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
And so go to work my first night behind the
bar two o'clock in the morning. You know where, I'm
in a good class of people after hours club with
all the other places somewhat closing and coming there, all
the musicians, all the street performers.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
Yeh. Marlon gets at arguing with the boss.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
The next night he leaves and now I'm the guy
behind the bar, which is my self esteem was was horrible.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
And and now.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
I'm getting I'm making good money, getting tips with drugs,
A drink for free, that's that's a that's a highlight,
you know, and I start to really enjoy that lifestyle.
I started playing golf with the all the bartenders.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
Free and easy at.

Speaker 2 (07:59):
A new car at a grand Prix. The h payments
were ninety six dollars a month. Towards the end, I
couldn't make those payments because where I went from being
responsible to like not giving a crap, because that's what
drugs and alcohol did to me. Lady used to call

(08:20):
me it every month you're coming in to make a payment,
She's what's the excuse this time? I know you got
kidnapped by a band of gypsy. You couldn't get it
in very colorful. So I went from being somewhat responsible
to not giving a crap about anything. How I got

(08:45):
to my very first AA meeting was I was running
this nightclub and some friends of mine that I liked
a lot, Tony and Liz, they bought non confidence approved
material from me, and they would pay up front and
they would share. Now, how do you not like friends

(09:06):
like that, you know, buying product, paying and sharing.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
And I'm going to get.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
The first seed planning into me by this lady Liz.
I like these people, good tippers, classy individuals, drank like
I drank, used like I used.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
But I heard that Liz went into a home for
the nervous.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
She flipped out.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
It's a treatment center.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
She flipped out one night and broke everything into place,
and it took Liz away. I'm concerned about Liz, and
a couple of weeks after she's out of treatment, I
run into her at a barbecue. Now I got one
foot in the grave. I'm using every day. I'm running
that bar I would come too in the morning, full

(09:55):
of the guilt and the shame and the remorse of
living that lifestyle and not knowing what's wrong with me.
And I see Liz at as barbecue, and I'm concerned
about this. I go over to her and I say, Liz,
how you doing? She's Paul. I found this program teaches

(10:18):
me that I have to use drugs and alcohol anymore.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
I said, damn, what a dragged atmosphere.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
Huh.

Speaker 1 (10:24):
Because I didn't understand that.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
I didn't understand that I was a daily drinker as
she was. But there was a look in her eyes.
I'll never forget it. Don't worry, of course, it's gonna
get better. Go on, deep breath.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
It was looking her eyes. I'll never forget it. And
then when I read the Big Book, and you.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
Hear about how Ebbie goes to fire Bill Wilson. Ebbie's
one of Bill's buddies, and Abbie's not drinking. Bill's drinking,
and Abbie comes to seek out Bill Wilson, and Bill
says Ebbie, what's going on? He says, I got religion now.
That turns Bill off completely. But he gets a thought,

(11:19):
well he ain't drinking. I can drink at all now.
But he talks about the look that it was in
Abbie's eyes. And when I read that, I immediately thought
what Liz did for me.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
I saw it. She wasn't drinking.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
I believed it. I didn't know what she had, but
I'm going to find out. In a couple of weeks.
Was going to take one of my first meeting in
a place called the Camera Club in Gretna, Louisiana, which
I think is a very odd name for a clubroom.

(11:54):
I said Tony what's with the name of this place?
He says, Well, paul A camel is a animal that
wakes up on his knees, goes asleep on his knees,
and most important, he can go for twenty four hours
or a drink. And I thought, wow, that's some worthless
knowledge I'll never use. He says to me, You're not

(12:21):
going understand this. He kept saying that to me the
whole night. You're not going to understand this. I think
I'm a pretty smart guy. You know, He's right. I
didn't understand it, but I understand it.

Speaker 1 (12:30):
Today.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
Wake up on your knees, go to bed on your knees.
And that's our goal today. Don't drink for today, twenty
four hours without of drink. If we can count the one,
we're in pretty good shaped. And that's our goal. Just
another four hours, another three hours, will have another day,
no matter what's going on in your life, just get

(12:54):
through that. So I go into the meeting, looking all
the steps, working them all right there.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yes, I'm Catholic. I know what that means. Uh huh.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
Yeah, they're talking about God restitution. Nope, can't do that. Confession. Yeah,
I've been doing that since I'm a kid, not an
honest one. And thirty seconds I'm in the room, I've
got all twelve done picking and chew. When I first

(13:31):
go into the room, I'm I'm struck with contempt. Prior
to investigation. There's a bunch of people sitting around a
coffee bar, all people I have kicked out of that nightclub, bad.

Speaker 1 (13:45):
Drunks, lousy tippers.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
And that's all I can identify it, because my soul
is dead. All I know about people I hung around
with was fixing my outsides to drinking with me or
being good tippers. That's what my life had become, just
a dead soul. So I'd say to Tony once again,

(14:10):
what's what all these people here?

Speaker 1 (14:12):
He says, don't worry about who's here, Paul. He says,
what you're here for is.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
To learn how to stay away from one drink for
one day. I certainly didn't understand that. He says, that's
what you're here for tonight, and I don't stay. Make
a horrible mistake, go back to the bar. Tell everybody
I joined to Hey, that was a bad mistake. Make

(14:38):
everybody throw their drugs away. Because a week two weeks later, I.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
Got my head down on the bar.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
I'll never forget.

Speaker 1 (14:45):
It's about forty five years ago.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
I hey, this guy yell out, Hey, I see that
AA ship really works.

Speaker 1 (14:55):
So look, if you're gonna come here, you got to.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
Be in A before you start telling people you're in AA,
because we can run people out with that. You better know.
You better be convinced before you start telling people. And
I don't stay. I ended up on a plane out

(15:21):
in New Orleans that things were bad. This friend of mine,
os Walda, was coming to collect for some stuff I
didn't have, and I decided I would leave town. And
I end up on my sister's capture North Miami. But
I know I should go back to those meetings. I
run into this priest father Jim for tucchings and I

(15:45):
tell them my story and he says, Paul, you ought
to go back to those meetings. They work for guys
like you. So Liz gives me a little bit of
spiritual awakening. The first meeting awakens my spirit. Father Jim
awakens my spirit, and I make a phone call and
end up going to a Wednesday night meeting in North
Miami and the guy that's going to eventually be my

(16:08):
first sponsors there, he's putting out the chairs. He says, hey,
he is he want to be the chairman? Absolutely, he
come help me put the chairs out.

Speaker 1 (16:19):
So I did.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
It's an anniversary night. The guy that's speakings got six months.
He awakens my spirit because he says, and I hear it,
I start taking things from here and putting them in
my heart. Not real serious, but I'm open, he says.
And he says, I got six months. He says, I
couldn't stop drinking till I started coming to these meetings.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
The guy's story was nothing like mine.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
He's a intravenous drug user from New York.

Speaker 1 (16:57):
Actually his.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
Uncle is my grand sponsor. Come to find out. And
I pick up a white chip and it's an anniversary
meeting and there's a guy there is getting eight years.
Come back next week and you'll see the miracle of

(17:21):
what happens when we start picking up medallions, when we
start moving ourselves out of the way, and we let
the power, the one who has all power, come into
our lives. And there's a guy has eight years and
he comes over and he's another one's going to say,
you're not going to understand this, but he says to me,

(17:43):
you're the most important person here. Some of this guy's
obviously very intelligent. He says, you picked up a white chip.
I said, well, you just picked up an eight year chip.
He says yeah. But he says, look, you just keep
coming back here. So that Friday, I go on a cruise,
drink the whole cruise, come back to the meeting Wednesday,

(18:05):
and the guy that's going to be my sponsor, the
chairman guy, he says, hey, do you drink on the cruise.
Now I can't separate the truth from the faults. I said,
absolutely not. I was offended that he wouldn't even ask
me that. But that's going to deny me many benefits

(18:26):
of this program because I don't get clean for that.
I don't talk on that twenty two months, and I
know the relapse is eventually going to come. And my
oldest daughter lives in New Orleans. I was going back
there quite a bit. The business I was in.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
I started doing well in New Orleans in that business.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
Now I go back and see my friends and I'm
seeing them having a really good time.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
The peers are having a good time.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
They're drinking and partying, and I'm comparing my insides of
their outsides, and I'm dying on the inside. And eventually
this guy says, hey, you want to you want to
do a little drug here? I said, no, no, no,
it's appropriate. That's in January. So the relapse is coming,

(19:15):
but I don't want to be talked out of it.
Anybody here thinking about drinking tonight, anybody there, you go,
Thanks for raising your hand, brother, one out of four
hundred here tonight. Please talk about it before you leave here,
because I tell you, brother.

Speaker 1 (19:36):
It is so worth it to learn how to tell
the truth about the first step.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
The rest of it comes. You know, you don't become
a safety you get forty years. But thank you for
telling on the disease, because this is a disease that
wants to kill us, and it starts with the first
step admitting we're powerless and and that is honesty. And
my life was unbearable. That helped me really accept that step.

(20:07):
So I uh, I know the relapse is coming. I
do a line of coke by a half ounce thirty
seconds later. I got to be convinced, you know, but
I know, I know I've created made a grave emotional mistake.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
I know it.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
I know where I belong right there, That's where I
can see it to mine and most self that I
belong here.

Speaker 1 (20:36):
But I don't say to the guy, hey, can I
give this back to you.

Speaker 2 (20:41):
I spend the next two days trying to recapture that
thirty seconds. Horrible, miserable. I knew where I belonged, so
I know I got to go back to the meeting.
But you know, you get that ping pong match.

Speaker 1 (20:56):
You know if you need to change the sobriety date,
this change of sobriety did.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
All we want you is be free, free from the
bondage yourself. And telling the truth was the freedom from
the bondage yourself for me. So I missed a plane
two or three days, leaving hard to believe. But now
you see how God's working in my life. I get

(21:25):
off the plane in Fort Lauderdale Wednesday morning, and there's
a buddy of mine I go to meetings with, and
I know that if I see him, I can tell
him I've been on a relapse. Because I don't really
want to go pick up a chip. I know I
have to. I got the ping pong match going on.
You got to pick up a chip.

Speaker 1 (21:44):
You're not you know, you need to.

Speaker 2 (21:48):
So I'm standing in the line for cabs and I
end up in this guy's cab and the guy says, Hey,
where you've been? He said, I've been in New Orleans.
I've been partying all weekend. He says, Oh, I don't
drink anymore. Oh that awakens my spirit.

Speaker 1 (22:06):
I said, how do you do that? Go to AA meetings?
Now I know I'm in the right cab.

Speaker 2 (22:11):
Absolutely, God does for me what I can't do for myself.
If I don't end up in that guy's cab, you
might have a different speaker tonight. But I end up
in the guy's cab, and I said, feeling better. I said, man,

(22:32):
I've been on a relapse all weekend. He said, what
do you want to do about it? Said length, and
will pick up a chip. So he takes me from
the airport. We go to eleven o'clock meeting on Oakland
Park Boulevard. And I picked up my last white chip
April seventeenth, nineteen eighty five. So I would ask you tonight,

(22:54):
when you say your prayers, try to remember where you
were when you got your last white chip. Who made
it possible for you? It's God's the ultimate one. But
who are the people instrumental? And you getting here today
and stand here. I never ran into Tony and Liz again,

(23:15):
but I did have a conversation with Tony one time.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
Weird conversation.

Speaker 2 (23:21):
I'm working the helpline here in Browar and I get
a call from the guy.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
He says, hey, I'm in New Orleans. I'm looking for
a meeting.

Speaker 2 (23:30):
I said, well, you know you call the Broward helpline,
right He says, yeah, It's.

Speaker 1 (23:34):
The only number I had. So he says, I'm in Granton, Louisiana.
You know where that is.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
I said, yeah, I might have had a drink or
two there. I'm at the Holiday Inn.

Speaker 1 (23:45):
You know where that is.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
I said, yeah, I might have come too there once
or twice. So I send him to that camera club
and I said, look, when you get there, call me
see if there's a couple there. Tony lives and they
were there. Liz was in early stages Alzheimer's. But I
talked to Tony and after Katrina there was like a
massive relapse and he was back three years and we

(24:09):
talked for a little while. So I pick up that.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
Last white chip.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
I don't understand the freedom because I'm still full of
guilt and remorse and shame that I felt like I
let a lot of people down, people I sponsored, people
I worked with.

Speaker 1 (24:29):
And that's Wednesday Thursday. I don't remember what I.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
Did Friday, though. I go to a five thirty meeting
and they say, anybody should like drinking today, and the
first time ever raised my hands out, I feel like
drinking today. I had to level my pride and let
people know what was going on. I felt like drinking.
I wanted to run. I felt that I horrible the

(24:54):
way I felt. But the group comes around me and
they say, look, come hang out with us. I'm like, oh,
you don't have to drink today, come hang out with us,
which I did, and when I learned there also it
made it much easier every time I felt like drinking
to tell someone I feel like drinking today.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
So I got to let it out. I got to
tell on the.

Speaker 2 (25:14):
Disease, the sickness that Ciner's in our mind. But if
I let you in, I'm halfway through because now I
can lay it off on somebody else because I know
I look around his room. Deep down inside of every
one of us is a fundamental fact of God and
that's how God talks to me is through people like

(25:35):
you and meetings like this. I didn't get much of
this in my early religious years. You know, it was
a lot of thousand those and don'ts and do nots.
But here I hate people, and I see people coming
to believe in a power greater than themselves, and they're
not drinking a day at a time. I see that.
I want that because you know, my life was unbearable.

(26:00):
So the group comes around me. I don't drink that night,
and I started to make the group of drunks the
power greater than myself for that night, and I went
back to that meeting pretty regularly because they were doing
the deal. They weren't drinking, and they were happy. Then

(26:22):
I go to the business meeting. I see they're all
a bunch of fricking nuts. So I can't make this
group the power greater myself. But I picked up my
last white ship at April through God's grace. Joe and
Charlie are at Palm Eyre kind of teach me about
this book Mother's Day nineteen seventy nine, nineteen eighty five,

(26:48):
and to the I go to the Big Book Summer
and now I'm going to find out about the other power.
Got the power of the fellowship, the power of the meetings.
But here's truly the power. That's what this book is about.
This is a book written for people like us that's
going to introduce us to a power greater than ourselves.

(27:09):
I highly recommend you try to get to the Big Book.
Seminar Mother's Day. It's up in Palm Yor. Pat's heavily
involved and it's a great weekend and they show us
what this book is about, how to work butt know,
how to work these steps, how to live these steps.

(27:30):
And I needed it right at that time that it
gave me the program of recovery. So I stought living
the steps. I'm working the steps. I'm getting more involved
in alcoholics Anonymous. And I get on my knees and

(27:54):
I say this prayer that I really don't understand. God
offered myself today to build with me and to do
with me as I will relieve me of the bond yourself,
that I might better do.

Speaker 1 (28:05):
Thy will take away my difficulties that victor over the
may by witness for those that help of Thy power,
thy love and my way of life.

Speaker 2 (28:17):
I do that I will always Now. When I first
saw this prayer the first hundred times, I thought it
was more the way I was raised, too many guys
and those and that. So someone said, well, look, won't
you just make up your own prayer? So I did
show me the way and help me today, simple short prayers.
But I understand this prayer today, relieve me of the

(28:42):
bond yourself. I'm going to find out what that is
when I pick up the pen and start doing a
fourth step as it's laid out in the books, that
I might better do thy will the difficulties, it's all
right here for us. I'm gonna learn about my difficulties.

(29:03):
I'm gonna learn how powerlessness is, and I'm gonna find
out on page sixty three what the root of my
problem is. I am totally selfish and self centered, only
made decisions based on self, and that still can happen today.
So I'm encouraged to do a fourth step, which I do,

(29:26):
and I'm gonna go share it with a sponsor who's
gonna tell me what my defects of character are about
and how selfish and self centered I am. And it
takes a lot of courage and humility for people like
me and people like us to say, look, I'm sick
and tired of being sick and tired. I need somebody

(29:47):
else's help to get me through this. Once again, level
on the product humility. I'm not as great as I
think I am, as bad as I think I am.
I'm an alcoholic that belongs in me like this hanging
out with people like you because there's a power in
each and every one of us, and that power is God.

Speaker 1 (30:10):
So I start to get a little bit more involved.
Bill Wilson is having a terrible day and this Jesuit
priest is going to show up and he's going to
tell him about the steff that separates the men from
the Boys, father Ed Dowling.

Speaker 2 (30:30):
Bill's having a bad day, books not selling, He's got
an imaginary gastric attack, and father Ed shows up. He
doesn't know his father Ed. And there's a knock on
the door, and the guy that's taking care of the

(30:51):
room for Bill to say, Bill has an old drunk
down here wants to see it. Bill doesn't want to
see him. He says, I show him up once again.
Bill doesn't want to do it, but it doesn't anyway.
You ever get stuff like that in your life today.
You don't want to take that call, you don't want
to go to that extra meeting, you don't want to

(31:11):
do a little service.

Speaker 1 (31:13):
What's Bill doing? Do it anyway?

Speaker 2 (31:16):
And he lets father Ed up, and father Ed's there
to ask him where Bill got this stuff from. He
thinks he stole it from the teachers of saying Ignatius
and Bill, who the hell is that? He says, But
that's it, That's where a lot of the teachers came from.

Speaker 1 (31:32):
But Bill doesn't know it.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
He writes this stuff divinely inspired, arguing with the first
hundred of the first forty, the first ten. They don't
like the way he's writing this, and there's many changes made,
but Bill sees him anyway. So I'm challenging with that
a lot.

Speaker 1 (31:54):
Just do it anyway.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
And the way this ALKI brain works.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
I say no right away.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
Always come up much better that I can ever expect,
because the Lord puts situations and people in my life
that teach me how to stay sober, how to recover,
how to change my ideas, my actions, my emotions, and
my attitude.

Speaker 1 (32:25):
I'm forty years sober.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
Five o'clock this morning, I'm reading that prayer page five
point fifty two because I got to resentment and this
I'm up early.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
And I'm saying that prayer. I said it at our.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
Home book last night, and I got some relief from that.

Speaker 1 (32:45):
It's in the book.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
Relieve me, pray for the other people. You know when
us how he's get resentments, we don't want to pray
for them. I didn't want to pray for other people,
but I have to today if I want to be
relieved of the bonder yourself, and it comes, it comes.
You're driving South Florida pretty easy. So Father Ed talks

(33:13):
to Bill about the willingness to be free.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
The sixth step separate.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
The men from the boys, and then we go into
the humbly ask God to remove our shortcomings. Another short,
quick prayer, very powerful. We don't want to get I
don't want to give that stuff up some days, but
I must in order to recover.

Speaker 1 (33:40):
So I go on.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
I started doing the rest of the steps as they
come in order eight and nine.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
You know, when I first came, I just said, there's
no way I'll ever be able to do that. I
owe too much money.

Speaker 2 (33:51):
But because I had a home group and I had
great sponsorship, I was encouraged listen, when it comes time,
God will take care of that for you.

Speaker 1 (34:00):
He absolutely did.

Speaker 2 (34:01):
I had a surgery one time and this doctor hit
on my girlfriend went when we went to the follow
up visit and I said, man, I ain't never paying
that dick. Well, my sponsor brought it to my attention.
He said, well, hey, what did guy I do for you?
He saved your life. But I don't see that. I

(34:22):
take that for granted. So I start sending this guy
twenty five dollar checks forever. And I made a lot
of twenty five dollar payments to clear up the records
of my past. Now we try not to add anybody
to the list.

Speaker 1 (34:39):
Not my story.

Speaker 2 (34:41):
I've had to add to the list because I'm not
as well as I appear to be. Asked Thomas, He'll
tell you I do a ten step every day, four questions.
What I do I like to respecting myself for because
I got to see the what did I do for

(35:01):
somebody else? Because I got to see the good. I
got to look for opportunities to go help people even
when I don't want to. And what happened today had
nothing to do with me but made me feel good. Man,
I come in this room. This makes me feel good.
I don't have a lot to do with you guys recovery.
Some of them I do because I sponsor him, but

(35:24):
it certainly makes me feel good. Jimmy asked me a
couple of weeks ago, Hey, Karen's going to be out
of town with you. Share that made me feel good.
What did I do for somebody else? I got a
friend of mine lost her license. I was able to
drive her somewhere today to take care of some business.
I send out messages every morning. I read the part

(35:47):
of my Eleven Steps. I read Jesus Calling. I read
The Upper Room, a book that with Bob and Anne
Smith using their morning meditation before they had the Big Book.

Speaker 1 (36:01):
They use that and they use the Bible.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
I always read the Daily Reflections in the twenty four book.
But I send those readings out to quite a few
people just to maybe open their mind to a power
greater than themselves, because we have to seek to improve
our conscious contact. I don't do that for them. I

(36:25):
hope they get some out of it.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
I do that for me.

Speaker 2 (36:28):
That helps me, and every day I start out with
those kind of prayers because I need more. The sponsor
I have today. He brought me into that seeking where
the material comes from the Book of James Sermon on
the Mount, First Corinthians thirteen. You're having a bad day,

(36:50):
you resent somebody, you read that First Corinthians thirteen and
the Saint Francis Prayer. If you're going to sponsor people,
you should probably read Saying Frances Prayer a lot. I do, yeah,
And then what do we asked to do? Where asked
to do this? Come here? Tell you about how I've

(37:14):
been able to stay sober for a couple of years
in a row. I've had a spiritual awakening. I don't
act the same way. I don't hang out in the
same places. I go to any lengths I can to
carry this message. What's the message? I've had a spiritual
awakening as a result of these steps, wonderful sponsorship, people
like you, and meetings like this. I have a home group.

(37:36):
I participate in a home group. I do a lot
of service in AA. I had a sponsor's name was
Jim Ready. He died with sixty two years of soprise.
He died at five o'clock on a Tuesday.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
Ten o'clock the next morning.

Speaker 2 (37:55):
I had another sponsor because I know what we deal
with here, cunning, baffling, powerful patient. This is the disease,
tells us we don't have a disease. So I don't
put that kind of stuff off. But Jim told me
about service. He taught me about being kind to the newcomer.
So that's what if you come here Saturday night, I'm

(38:16):
one of the first guys you see at the door,
is me shaking your hand, welcoming him, because I learned
that from a great sponsor. He says, you got to
make the new people feel comfortable. We don't want to
run them out.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
This is a program retraction.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
We want to set an example that if we live
this way of life, beyond your phone's dreams will come true.
Think about the last six weeks before you get here,
how are you doing. I was suicidal, But I find
people like you. They're going to show me a new
way of life. We are the fortunate ones. We are

(38:57):
the fortunate ones. So if you didn't take a drink today,
you're a winner. I hope you can get to the
rest of it today without taking a drink. Come back
tomorrow it'll be another speaker.

Speaker 1 (39:09):
Thank you very much for
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