August 17, 2025 • 45 mins
"At M2 The Rock, we fully respect the anonymity of all 12-step fellowships. In alignment with their traditions, we do not represent or speak on behalf of any of these groups. Our mission is to share hope, not affiliation."
About M2 THE ROCK - MICHAEL MOLTHAN:
I’m Michael Molthan, host of The M2 The Rock Show—one of the fastest-growing podcasts and shows on self-improvement, mental health, addiction recovery, and spiritual transformation. I’m so grateful you’re here.I started M2 The Rock in 2017 to bring you conversations designed to make you happier, healthier, and more healed. Through raw and unfiltered discussions with experts, celebrities, thought leaders, and athletes, we uncover new perspectives on personal growth, recovery, and overcoming life’s toughest challenges.
My Story:
What sets my journey apart is that there wasn’t just one rock bottom—there were many. From being a successful luxury homebuilder to falling into addiction, homelessness, crime, and eventually 27 mugshots and prison, my life was in absolute chaos.Addiction was my temporary escape from childhood trauma, but it only led to destruction.
It wasn’t until I hit the lowest point imaginable that I finally found true freedom, redemption, and purpose. After an unexpected early release from prison in 2017, I walked 300 miles back to Dallas to turn myself in—only to be miraculously pardoned and told to “pay it forward.”And that’s exactly what I’ve been doing ever since.My MissionI believe that rock bottom is not the end—it’s a stepping stone to something greater.
My goal is to redefine what "rock bottom" means by helping others rebuild their Spirit, Mind, and Body. On M2 The Rock, I speak openly about trauma, addiction, recovery, and the power of transformation. I don’t shy away from topics like:
✅ Trauma & Addiction – Understanding the root causes
✅ Self-Sabotage & Mental Health – Breaking negative cycles
✅ Codependency & Enabling – How relationships impact recovery
✅ 12-Step Programs & Spiritual Healing – Finding true freedom
✅ Religious Trauma & Personal Growth – Healing from past wounds
"Everyone Is An Addict."
Whether it’s substances, work, validation, or negative thinking, we all have something we struggle with.
But recovery is possible, and transformation is real.
📺 Watch my story on I AM SECOND (9-Minute Film): Watch Here
📩 To book me for speaking engagements or collaborations: Email m2@m2therock.com
🔔 Join the Movement. Subscribe to M2 The Rock and start your journey of self-improvement, healing, and purpose.
🔔 Don’t forget to LIKE & SUBSCRIBE for more powerful faith-based content!
🌎 Website: https://m2therock.com/
▶️ YouTube: @MICHAELMOLTHANM2
📸 Instagram: @m2therockshow
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-m2-the-rock-show-michael-molthan--3443849/support.
About M2 THE ROCK - MICHAEL MOLTHAN:
I’m Michael Molthan, host of The M2 The Rock Show—one of the fastest-growing podcasts and shows on self-improvement, mental health, addiction recovery, and spiritual transformation. I’m so grateful you’re here.I started M2 The Rock in 2017 to bring you conversations designed to make you happier, healthier, and more healed. Through raw and unfiltered discussions with experts, celebrities, thought leaders, and athletes, we uncover new perspectives on personal growth, recovery, and overcoming life’s toughest challenges.
My Story:
What sets my journey apart is that there wasn’t just one rock bottom—there were many. From being a successful luxury homebuilder to falling into addiction, homelessness, crime, and eventually 27 mugshots and prison, my life was in absolute chaos.Addiction was my temporary escape from childhood trauma, but it only led to destruction.
It wasn’t until I hit the lowest point imaginable that I finally found true freedom, redemption, and purpose. After an unexpected early release from prison in 2017, I walked 300 miles back to Dallas to turn myself in—only to be miraculously pardoned and told to “pay it forward.”And that’s exactly what I’ve been doing ever since.My MissionI believe that rock bottom is not the end—it’s a stepping stone to something greater.
My goal is to redefine what "rock bottom" means by helping others rebuild their Spirit, Mind, and Body. On M2 The Rock, I speak openly about trauma, addiction, recovery, and the power of transformation. I don’t shy away from topics like:
✅ Trauma & Addiction – Understanding the root causes
✅ Self-Sabotage & Mental Health – Breaking negative cycles
✅ Codependency & Enabling – How relationships impact recovery
✅ 12-Step Programs & Spiritual Healing – Finding true freedom
✅ Religious Trauma & Personal Growth – Healing from past wounds
"Everyone Is An Addict."
Whether it’s substances, work, validation, or negative thinking, we all have something we struggle with.
But recovery is possible, and transformation is real.
📺 Watch my story on I AM SECOND (9-Minute Film): Watch Here
📩 To book me for speaking engagements or collaborations: Email m2@m2therock.com
🔔 Join the Movement. Subscribe to M2 The Rock and start your journey of self-improvement, healing, and purpose.
🔔 Don’t forget to LIKE & SUBSCRIBE for more powerful faith-based content!
🌎 Website: https://m2therock.com/
▶️ YouTube: @MICHAELMOLTHANM2
📸 Instagram: @m2therockshow
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-m2-the-rock-show-michael-molthan--3443849/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now we're gonna carry this one over a little. There
are those amongst us who've had trouble with this program
and have combat In my own experience, I've known quite
(00:26):
a number.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Of people in my years.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Who have asked for a while, decided that our meetings
weren't necessary, that they had learned their lessons, and that
they no longer needed.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
To get into these meetings.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
And that they would practice the principals in their own
way and not attend meetings. And for those whom I
have known who have been there in a period of
ninety days, the light goes out of their eyes. Something
happened to the light goes out of their eyes. And
(01:14):
after a period of years. For instance, when I first
came in, there was a chap who was most active.
He was an attorney. He was disbarred, he went completely
the hell in a handbasket, and he got into.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
AA and.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Things happened, and he got back reinstated, and he did
a great work in a A but it became very successful,
and it became the president of a billion loan, and
he pretty gradually got out of and has been pretty
(02:01):
much out out here for quite a number of years.
About two years ago, he showed up.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
With Wayne Harper.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
At the Laguna Beach meeting and I drove a look
at the guy and I thought, my god, old Mos
has been drunk. He looked just exactly like a guy
who had been drunk for a month or two and
was just coming back. I felt very bad for it,
(02:35):
but I was going back. And after meeting I asked
Wade how he says, know he's been drunk, but he
looked just like a civilian dead pass. Now what about
(02:56):
these so called slips?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
What are we to do about them? We're alcohol it.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
I'm an alcoholic, and again, I can't live and drink,
and I can't keep from drinking. Now there's the way
that a lot of people are keeping.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
From drinking.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
A lot of people, and it's spelled out for us,
and it's important enough to me that I do it
because I don't want to get drunk anymore. I would
do this if I hated every one of you guys
(03:49):
and hated this program, I would still be in here
trying to work it because I can't drink and I
can't keep from it.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Well, Fortunately for me, I love the program and I
love its people, and it's no chore for me.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
But if something got important enough and if I got
to hurt them bad mass, I get dumped again.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
I'm no different than I ever was, not be different.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
I'm the same meed that I always was, And if
I hurt, I would drink. Now I said a so
called slip.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
I rather doubt if there's any such family as a slip.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
After a guy has once found the program.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
I don't think there are any slips.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
I think we failed the program and get drunk. We
don't do the things we're supposed.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
To have done.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Now I am excluded for the moment those who get
drunk before they have found themselves in the programs. I
think we have won such with us tonight. Who's been
around a while but hasn't really maybe even yet, or
(05:27):
maybe today he might have.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Really decided he wants what we have and become willing
to go in and link to get it.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
But I don't think before today he's ever really been
convinced that there's nothing ahead of him but insanity, your dad,
or a way through alcohol.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
And so I don't count this.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Because he hasn't yet found this way of life. But
after we found it, we have to then turn our
backs on it before we can slip it. There's an unwritten.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Law, I am sure of it, in this fellowship of
ours that.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Says, inasmuch as I am alive because a drunk had
time to share his experience, strength and hopeful, my only
right to keep this thing is that I also have time.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
To share my experienced, strength and hope of anybody wants.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Anytime, any place, anywhere. Now, supposing that I have another
lesson to learn that includes this, what then am I
going to do about it? I've had to seventeen.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Months of this way.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Of life, and no man can take this away from me,
Even a drunk can't take this seventeen year period away
from me.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
So I still have it.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
But I can't come back and start where I left off.
This is the thing that's so difficult, and this is
the reason that our percentage is so low of those
who have been sober for five years or more to
ever come back and stay with our program. Now, under
(07:40):
five years, the percentage is relatively high, but over five
years it's very low. Because our people want to come
back and start where they left off. They want to
come back and pick up the pieces. You can't come
(08:01):
back and pick up the pieces, you come back and
pick up the program right wherever you picked it up
from the beginning, starting with step one, just exactly like
the first approach to AA. We must come back at
(08:21):
back to it with the same approach, starting at step
one and going right down.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
The line, just like we did in the first piece.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
I don't know how many in this room or remember
the chap, the text that came in the same time
I did. He was sober five years and his wife
was now called.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
And she too us sober.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
We used to talk as a team back in the
early days, and he was a great guy, and so
was she. And they decided after five years that they
knew enough to handle this thing on their own. They
(09:20):
knew enough about the disease of alcoholism, and about the
program of Alcoholics anonyms, and about themselves that they could
run their own lives now, including controlled drinking.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
And they deliberately took themselves out of the program.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
And by George, they had as scared to death really
as it, because they almost made it.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Really.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
One year, two years, three years, four years went by,
and Kurt had a parking lot there in Beverly Hills,
and we'd go by and see Kirt and how you doing, Kurt,
Fie fie everything wonder. Four years he and Pat control
(10:19):
they're drinking. And the fifth year they went to hell
in a bread basket.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
They went cleared the hell.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Fast.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
That was ten years and this is seven years later,
and to the best of my knowledge and belief, Kurt
has never made it. He came back, and I'll never
forget the first time that he came back.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
To Beverly Hills, Tag.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
And he says, Chuck, if you think it was tough
coming the first time, try it again. He says, this
is just like coming back to the to a mansion
you once n owned.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
And sneaking up to the back door and asking for
a handout. He says, this is a tough.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
And the last I knew Kurt had never gotten back yet.
And his poor wife Pat. Many of you remember Manuel Reis.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Manuel was a great, great guy. He had cancer.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
And right up till the very time he died, he
knew he was dying, and he was still out care
of the message till.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
He died, and he wasn't afraid.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
And I was to talk at Manuel's funeral, and it
was on Saturday, and he everybody loved it. With death
so there were several hundred people there, and just before
I went in, a guy came out and slipped me
a little clipping out of the paper.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
And it says, woman who was.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Failure of life was success at suicide.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
And this was Pat kirchway she taken her own life.
So you see we are we are in a.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Pretty serious business. We can't run our own lives. We
can't keep from drinking. We could have done this thing, gentlemen,
We would have done it before we got here.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
We tried every way underhand.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
And to beat this rap, and all the man made
remedies that there are.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
We tried, and we could not beat it.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
And we came here, and by the love and sharing
of a bunch of drugs and by the grace of
God that makes this possible, we found a way to
live without drinking. And it's a serious business. And we
(13:33):
didn't do it.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Something did it. And so.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
I think that it's up to us recognizing this, to
thank God for the privilege that we have of carrying
a message and carrying it as long as we have
breadth within us.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
And if then, by some reason.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
We do have a detour, then we have the grace
to read the lesson and come back and start at
the very first step, right at the beginning, and pick
up the program and do the same things over it
(14:28):
that we didn't first play and come back and stay.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
That's a long discourse on that one little question that
I wanted.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
To talk a little about it.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Now. If there are any comments, I'm gonna like to
hear it. I do not care to do all the talk.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
To me, I felt the same way due to the
terby people doing I don't.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Mind out one year is somebody on a few weeks
or well, you're gonna.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
Get back on and he'll be fine.
Speaker 5 (15:05):
But after a year, it's been my observation it's rough
as the cop farm to come back and.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
The other make your stand no.
Speaker 6 (15:16):
I function myself about that lay a bit.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
MM.
Speaker 6 (15:21):
Seems to me that this person moves comes in and
out each time he drifts away, no matter.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
What how long he's been in and out short.
Speaker 6 (15:30):
There's time he chips away or lout the badgers and
they the uh reduces his own confidence in it.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
I think it it this habitual coming in and going
out and nicely the program.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
And loses that into that individual in most gates.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
I mean, that's way.
Speaker 6 (15:48):
I think that explanation is coming back and picking up
the program.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
This is the second time I've heard that one before.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Later, other than.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Trying to pick up pieces, I think that's the whole language.
Speaker 6 (16:03):
Than I that the rights back together or did you
go back together just to start trying. That's sort of
certain on the work on when you're working with people
who are coming back.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Any ideas of any young men, Well, I am one
of those guys. I had to thirteen.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Well, you know, be sticking back there. I dream of
this little face like that, or real less story, any truck.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
I have to start writing from or right from the first. Now,
let's look at this thing again, just from this one
little premise. I was talking up in the valley outside
(16:54):
of Baker's Field, m.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Little town up.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
There was two names and I can't think of her name,
lost something of it.
Speaker 7 (17:05):
Out child, And they told me that there was an
Indian girl up there that was just coming up for
her birthday.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
And she had been so excited about my coming, but
she ch she'd take him drunk and she was incycled.
And they wan't know if i'd stay over and go
see the lady, and uh I did, and I went
(17:50):
out the next morning in and they let me in
a little cubicle, nothing.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
But a cart and a commold and no knob on
the inside of the door.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
And she was lying there on that cock, crying and
just crying.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Her out house.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
And she was ashamed to look at me. She laid
with her face to the wall, and she was so shamed,
and she would sob out that she'd let the program down,
she'd let her sponsor down, she let God down, And
she was so shamed. And I tried to tell her
(18:41):
the difference between humiliation and humility. These words sound like
they were cousins anyway, but they shouldn't even be in
the same dictionary humiliation and humility. Humiliation is a hurt ego,
(19:11):
a wounded pride and shame.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
This is humiliation.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Humility, on the other hand, has nothing to do.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
With ego.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
It has nothing to do with pride or shame.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
It has.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
A dignity and a value that is indescribably wonderful. A
dignity and a any valu you that comes from the
knowledge that it isn't die, but the Father in me,
he do it the works, and it is indescribably wonderful.
(20:19):
Has nothing to do with a personal accomplishment of any
kind of talk. It's the seeing that it isn't die,
but the father in the he do it the worst.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
It's terrific.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Now if we then have the.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Humiliation, the shame.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
That we have let a sponsor down, or the program
down or dot down, you see, this is still something
that we THI we thought we were doing. We thought
we were doing a pretty good job. We believed our
press notices.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
And so there's the shame, the humiliation.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
But to say this thing as it is so as
the necessity to learn another lesson MM and to learn
that lesson.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
And start over, there is no need for humiliation or
shame or a wounded pride or her legal.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
It's normal for anocoholic to be drunk.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
It's not normal for an alcoholic to be sober.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
And we are sober not by our own efforts, but
by the grace of God.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
To the miracle of a head.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
And we can pick up the program and we can
go just like we did in the beginning, or maybe
better for having had this experience, if we learned the lesson.
There's nothing in me that wants to judge a man
(22:24):
or a woman that don't grab this program and run.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
With it, or they have trouble with it.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Because I know that until I had found this way
of life by fulfilling certain conditions, that there was nothing
in the world that could have taken me out of
that shame and that moved and pride and that hurt
ego and that humiliation and that damnable necessityy to win
(22:58):
this thing on my own. You know, this is a
point that we sh should see very very platon particularly
now that we have our big conferences and so many
(23:24):
groups try to build on name speakers.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
This is one of the worst things that can.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Happen to us, either as a society or as individuals.
This is heavy wine. There are few people that can
stand the circuit. Really, there are few that can stand
the circuit because it's just sort of normal for us
(23:56):
to get to believe in our press notices, hm, you know,
and it's the most dangerous thing in the world. And
so many of.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Our big speakers. Well, I think our beloved Paul.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Probably the best figure that ever came out of this
country fifteen years. I think he was the first man
in California apart from our founder Bell, whoever got a
standing ovation in California in AA Paul at fifteen straight years,
(24:38):
and he got to the point where he was going out.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
To do it for the drugs.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Two years ago Christmas, he had a drink and it
didn't last two two months and he was dead.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
After fifteen years.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Oh, this is one of the great great hazards.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
I thought for a little while I was gonna destroy
my beloved Jack sitting that over there, I really did.
I I was consumed.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
And when I saw Jack at his since birthday, he
was as different a man as he was the last
time I'd seen him, as as if i'd never seen
him before.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Did you know that, Jack, No, it was wonderful when
I saw you for his tenth birthday, loveling.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
All, huh, leveling all, maybe remembering that from whence this
thing came?
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Uh. Jack's been a wheeler, indeeder all his life. He's
been president in the Junior Chamber and the Advertising Club
and everything else.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
And he was this pretty popular boy in our side.
He still is, isn't gonna be more popular? But he
had me worried a little bit.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Now, let's just look at this thing one more minute,
and we'll go for another question.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Where As there's somebody here from Omaha. I went through
Omahall a.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
While back, a couple of years ago, street maybe, and.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
I never talked to Omahall, and do my knowledge, i'd
never met any of the bunch.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
And it wasn't an hour after.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
I had gotten into town until they were half a
dozen or maybe.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Ten couples sitting with.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Me jacking, and every one of them were telling me
about me.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
This one's if I heard you.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Oklahoma City, and he said so and so, and it
was my key this once.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Has I heard you Amarilla? This one says I heard you,
and say Louis and so on. And they were just going.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
And pretty soon one of these old boys says, Chuck,
how do you live with this kind of thing?
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Here?
Speaker 1 (27:30):
There's a bunch of people that, as far as you know,
you've never seen, and they're all just eating you up.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
How do you live with it? And I says, don't
pay any attention to it.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
And I tried to duck it, and he he says
that's not satisfactory. He says, tell me, how do you
live with And I says, don't pay.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
An attention to it. If it's good, I laugh.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
And if it's bad, and he says, that's my satisfactor.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
I tell that's how you live with this thing. And
I said, well, I'll tell you. If it was good,
I didn't do it, and if it's bad, I don't
want to hear about it. And this is the only
thing they remember no more. This is the only thing
(28:28):
they know. They were going around there for two days saying, if.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
It's good, I didn't do it, and if it's bad,
I don't hear about it.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
And this is the only way that I can figure
this thing at all.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
If it's good, I didn't do it. You see, I
know what I did.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
In my life.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
I know exactly what I didn't and I take the
credit for the first forty three years.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
You can get me all the credit for that.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
And I not only went in the hole, I pulled
a hole in Africa.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Not in this seventeen years. I can take no credit.
I'm alive because of drunk had time.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
And whatever the change is in my life is not
of my doing. It is out this great thing.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
And it's not I. But the father said he did
the work. You know. This is one of the reasons
I can laugh all the time and do after I
was sober for four, five, six years trying to.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Read the lessons out of this deal. It finally occurreage
to me that they'd sit to the carpenter good master,
good master, and he said to him, why call us
Thummy good? There's nothing good but one, and that's fun.
Speaker 8 (30:08):
And if this didn't take all the incentive out, I've
tried to.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Be good for something. You know, why call us Thomy good.
This was the greatest guy that ever wore a shoe living.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
And he says, why call us Thami good? There's nothing
good but one that's fun.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
And he said to him, how do you.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Do these things?
Speaker 2 (30:33):
And he says, boys, go pad your papers. I don't
of myself. I can do nothing. It's the father with.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
It, you do it the works, show a mind.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
To think I can do so of myself.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
I'm a tongue che in, babbling idiot, drunk writhing in
the floor to me without this thing and with this
thing completion, and so all I can do is thank
God and pass the ammunition. Next question, do you assume
(31:17):
that the person who answered your initial A call is
your sponsor? Or should you wait and select a sponsor
of your own choice?
Speaker 4 (31:36):
Somebody want to answer that's sort uh one of the
first lesson the thing. There's a question already, or you
wouldn't have asked the question.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
So the answer to.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
That would be select your own preluld ask.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Have two or three.
Speaker 4 (31:55):
I could tell you a little story.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
That happened to me.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
I uh made an original cause or something. Took me
quite a few meetings, and he.
Speaker 6 (32:04):
Just sat and wait for me to come and forget
anything the meetings, right, I will.
Speaker 4 (32:09):
Terms that anyone I don't know.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
I was there.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
He had three auto bills and drive away and.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Called up for instructions to where else?
Speaker 4 (32:16):
Want of take you back time? Anyway? I did take it.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
So uh.
Speaker 4 (32:23):
He doped off for the meetings though, but mm anyway,
he got drunk. He called me one night while he
was drunk.
Speaker 6 (32:31):
To me he didn't think too much. Tell me, hm,
next time I saw him bottom play back in the meeting.
He wasn't just happy that he had just seen all
the way off the side. You said them on one
ten or something. I want to t you this before
anybody else sell me, I said, right box, tell me
He didn't said.
Speaker 4 (32:49):
You know, he said, I got to think about it.
You He said, uh, I don't think you were a
very good sponsor for me. He said.
Speaker 9 (32:58):
One idea that you said I called was office and
I got me a new one. You know, so I
kept the grat place.
Speaker 4 (33:12):
Well could so I got out of there.
Speaker 10 (33:16):
This just what he should have done, Just what he
should have done. But Jack, I like to relate what
happened to me. He uh, Frank, as you know, it
was my ston.
Speaker 11 (33:28):
And he was the one that made the the sure call.
And after we had gone to three meetings and Frank's
home he had me, well, of course it's batime.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
I was anys home. But after this he'd have me,
uh from now it's.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
Home about a mile about an hour before the meeting,
and sat there and let me empty everything.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
It was all my chaster and everything. And happened that
day and we'd all go back to his home after
the meet He didna have another mean he had to
and uh, I remember a.
Speaker 10 (34:06):
Frank a third night coming from the Signal Hill.
Speaker 12 (34:11):
And I don't know they guy in his house. He said, Uh, Jack,
I wanna tell you something. Now I made the initial
call on you, but I have something I would like
to Sugge's.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Message that you look around, you look around to take
your time and pick.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
Out someone, did you that you would like to have
this spunch?
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Uh? Did?
Speaker 4 (34:34):
Did? Did you would like to responge to.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Be your sponge? Now?
Speaker 4 (34:43):
Uh, this was terriffic, I thought, and and the.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Reaction was terrific.
Speaker 12 (34:48):
Well, of course, what it did in this case here,
it made me much both of too frank.
Speaker 4 (34:57):
Then, when I got to the point where.
Speaker 6 (34:59):
I was gonna be in trouble that work, I was
afraid to let these babies talk to him around for ford, they.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
Would get him off the track.
Speaker 10 (35:09):
And Uh, after I've been around and grew up a
little bit, I knew this was absolutely wrong.
Speaker 4 (35:13):
So I started using the very same thing, even though.
Speaker 12 (35:17):
I made an initial calm, Uh, look around and.
Speaker 6 (35:23):
Pick out some of they and many of 'em did,
and they're sober, and they're on the program today.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
And I think this is this is the pro tour.
I mean, I think this is warming. Don't you think
we all are each other's sponsors?
Speaker 12 (35:38):
I get as much out of every person in every room.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
I think it's my my original.
Speaker 6 (35:44):
Sponsors drunk now anyway, But uh, and I can't help.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
I mean, I've.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Tried, not that I ever did, but I try to
carry the.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
Message back to him, and and I can't get across.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
He lives down your way, by the way, you know him, Dave.
Speaker 5 (36:00):
Nah, But uh the the sponsor, I yeah, I think
to me just kind of swoops up and moves into
the whole organization and where each other sponsors.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Uh uh I get more out of herald, which.
Speaker 12 (36:14):
Is uh uh ten years younger than my sponsor.
Speaker 4 (36:18):
He got twenty years or eighteen years. A lot of
death matter anyway.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (36:23):
And then I ever got out.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Of my sponsor, and he is a third gage of
my sponsor would have been.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
Or So I think we sponsor each other.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Well, I think I think we're that.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
I've got a lot of sponsors, made a book for addresses.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
That I have never everyone I've ever called him.
Speaker 4 (36:45):
When I can't get all the one you all over another?
How long do you even know consider yourself as a
personal sponsor?
Speaker 2 (36:57):
I don't know when'd you try to?
Speaker 4 (37:03):
Most so?
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Yeah, I have never had a.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
Baby, and I fall it snuns.
Speaker 4 (37:18):
You've been as sponsorble.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
I don't mind anybody else using the term.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
They don't bother me in the least, but I have
never used it in my own.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Thinking or party. It's in the seventeen years i've been here.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
Because I'm afraid I'll get to thinking that I've had something.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
To do with your sobriety.
Speaker 4 (37:49):
I s I slipped on that a moment ago, and
I didn't meet it that way.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
I corrected you. Remember that. Yes, I'm not I'm not
criticizing it.
Speaker 4 (37:56):
Yeah, no, but I it was uh uh.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Any bowlder can get up and say this is my baby,
that's my baby, that's my baby, and these two down
here are their babies, and they're my grandsons and you,
and it's all right for him.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
It's all right for him, But.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
I cannot do it.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
I've never used the term in my life now. I
am never.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
Anybody's sponsor unless they ask me to be.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
I have many people who ask me if they can.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Have me as a sponsor, and I tell them yes,
and that I will do anything that they want me
to do, and I try to do the best I can.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
But I cannot feel any ownership at all. And I
got to tell a little story about this, But you say,
how long if anybody asks me to be a sponsor before,
(39:22):
I want them to release me.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
If they've asked me, I want to give them the
entire story of Alcog's numbers. I want to take them
first through the getting sober, they're getting away from the
first drink, and how.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Important it is that we just decide.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
To die if we have to, rather than to take
that next drink, Because if we would rather be dead
than to take it, we neither have to die or
take it.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Something happens, and we go through the initial.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
Stages, and then through the group stage, and then through
the Inner Group stage, and then the entire history of
our society and the general service stage, the Inner.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Group Office on the international level.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
I think sponsorship carries with it the necessity to go
clear through the whole story, explaining everything in it, including money.
We're so goddamn spiritual, we're afraid to talk about money,
you know. You see, money has a very definite place
(40:49):
in our society, and we should tell our people what
the money is sent for and how it goes and
what does and of putting in the door in the basket,
and of supporting our Inner Group officers and our international
Inner Group Office.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
This is all a part of sponsorship. And I would never.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
Release anybody, just as that I would never take anybody.
I don't even assume when I make the initial call,
and lots.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
Of times it's cold Turkey. I am not opposed to
Cold Turkey's calls.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
I don't believe that we have to wait till somebody asks.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
I knock on the door many and many of them.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
I knock on the door, and it's surprising what happens.
But the point I'm trying to get over is to
make the job thorough.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
And to have no.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Ownership in it whatsoever. Feel no credit is do you
for sponsorship? If we take the credit for a man's sobriety,
(42:16):
we've got to take the failure as our own. And
this is no good now. And I just letated the destroy.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
I mean Monroe, Louisiana. I guess it's three weeks ago
for the seventeenth anniversary.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
And there's no boy who is.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
Texas from the top the bottom comes over from a dessert.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
He lives as a dessert. And he slow, easy kind
of guy.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
And after the eating on Saturday night, we went out
to somebody's house.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
When he came time to go back to the motel,
we got in the car and it's his car he
was driving, and he says, Chuck.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
He says, remember that old red faced boy that I
brought over to the meeting the last time you were down here.
He said, I paid that son of a bitch's hospital
bill to get him out to come and hear you talk.
Speaker 8 (43:41):
And he says I had been wet nursing that son
of a bitch for two years.
Speaker 13 (43:47):
He said I had got him out of more screeps
and spent more money on and said that son of
a bitch had puked on everything I owned.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
And he said I had man who pursues and it
choked him and run. And he says, you know something.
Speaker 8 (44:11):
That son of a bitch has been sober ever. He said,
she hurt you.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
He said he just had his first birthday and he
wanted to get He wanted me to give him a
lighter with his ernity prayer on it.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
And I said, if you want a light of you
going to Laguna beat and he just you know what
this has taught me.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
He said, I ain't never going to try to tope
the message anymore. He says, I'm going to find out
where the message is and tope the alcohol. All the
(45:01):
time you gotten to say, you told I was hurting
every part of it.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
And that's putting it least died. I never laughed her
my life. He wasn't gonna talk to the message.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
You're gonna find out his message was.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Don't aholic, confessed
Speaker 1 (45:26):
Oh me
Now we're gonna carry this one over a little. There
are those amongst us who've had trouble with this program
and have combat In my own experience, I've known quite
(00:26):
a number.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Of people in my years.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Who have asked for a while, decided that our meetings
weren't necessary, that they had learned their lessons, and that
they no longer needed.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
To get into these meetings.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
And that they would practice the principals in their own
way and not attend meetings. And for those whom I
have known who have been there in a period of
ninety days, the light goes out of their eyes. Something
happened to the light goes out of their eyes. And
(01:14):
after a period of years. For instance, when I first
came in, there was a chap who was most active.
He was an attorney. He was disbarred, he went completely
the hell in a handbasket, and he got into.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
AA and.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Things happened, and he got back reinstated, and he did
a great work in a A but it became very successful,
and it became the president of a billion loan, and
he pretty gradually got out of and has been pretty
(02:01):
much out out here for quite a number of years.
About two years ago, he showed up.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
With Wayne Harper.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
At the Laguna Beach meeting and I drove a look
at the guy and I thought, my god, old Mos
has been drunk. He looked just exactly like a guy
who had been drunk for a month or two and
was just coming back. I felt very bad for it,
(02:35):
but I was going back. And after meeting I asked
Wade how he says, know he's been drunk, but he
looked just like a civilian dead pass. Now what about
(02:56):
these so called slips?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
What are we to do about them? We're alcohol it.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
I'm an alcoholic, and again, I can't live and drink,
and I can't keep from drinking. Now there's the way
that a lot of people are keeping.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
From drinking.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
A lot of people, and it's spelled out for us,
and it's important enough to me that I do it
because I don't want to get drunk anymore. I would
do this if I hated every one of you guys
(03:49):
and hated this program, I would still be in here
trying to work it because I can't drink and I
can't keep from it.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Well, Fortunately for me, I love the program and I
love its people, and it's no chore for me.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
But if something got important enough and if I got
to hurt them bad mass, I get dumped again.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
I'm no different than I ever was, not be different.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
I'm the same meed that I always was, And if
I hurt, I would drink. Now I said a so
called slip.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
I rather doubt if there's any such family as a slip.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
After a guy has once found the program.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
I don't think there are any slips.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
I think we failed the program and get drunk. We
don't do the things we're supposed.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
To have done.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Now I am excluded for the moment those who get
drunk before they have found themselves in the programs. I
think we have won such with us tonight. Who's been
around a while but hasn't really maybe even yet, or
(05:27):
maybe today he might have.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Really decided he wants what we have and become willing
to go in and link to get it.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
But I don't think before today he's ever really been
convinced that there's nothing ahead of him but insanity, your dad,
or a way through alcohol.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
And so I don't count this.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Because he hasn't yet found this way of life. But
after we found it, we have to then turn our
backs on it before we can slip it. There's an unwritten.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Law, I am sure of it, in this fellowship of
ours that.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Says, inasmuch as I am alive because a drunk had
time to share his experience, strength and hopeful, my only
right to keep this thing is that I also have time.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
To share my experienced, strength and hope of anybody wants.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Anytime, any place, anywhere. Now, supposing that I have another
lesson to learn that includes this, what then am I
going to do about it? I've had to seventeen.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Months of this way.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Of life, and no man can take this away from me,
Even a drunk can't take this seventeen year period away
from me.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
So I still have it.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
But I can't come back and start where I left off.
This is the thing that's so difficult, and this is
the reason that our percentage is so low of those
who have been sober for five years or more to
ever come back and stay with our program. Now, under
(07:40):
five years, the percentage is relatively high, but over five
years it's very low. Because our people want to come
back and start where they left off. They want to
come back and pick up the pieces. You can't come
(08:01):
back and pick up the pieces, you come back and
pick up the program right wherever you picked it up
from the beginning, starting with step one, just exactly like
the first approach to AA. We must come back at
(08:21):
back to it with the same approach, starting at step
one and going right down.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
The line, just like we did in the first piece.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
I don't know how many in this room or remember
the chap, the text that came in the same time
I did. He was sober five years and his wife
was now called.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
And she too us sober.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
We used to talk as a team back in the
early days, and he was a great guy, and so
was she. And they decided after five years that they
knew enough to handle this thing on their own. They
(09:20):
knew enough about the disease of alcoholism, and about the
program of Alcoholics anonyms, and about themselves that they could
run their own lives now, including controlled drinking.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
And they deliberately took themselves out of the program.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
And by George, they had as scared to death really
as it, because they almost made it.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Really.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
One year, two years, three years, four years went by,
and Kurt had a parking lot there in Beverly Hills,
and we'd go by and see Kirt and how you doing, Kurt,
Fie fie everything wonder. Four years he and Pat control
(10:19):
they're drinking. And the fifth year they went to hell
in a bread basket.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
They went cleared the hell.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Fast.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
That was ten years and this is seven years later,
and to the best of my knowledge and belief, Kurt
has never made it. He came back, and I'll never
forget the first time that he came back.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
To Beverly Hills, Tag.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
And he says, Chuck, if you think it was tough
coming the first time, try it again. He says, this
is just like coming back to the to a mansion
you once n owned.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
And sneaking up to the back door and asking for
a handout. He says, this is a tough.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
And the last I knew Kurt had never gotten back yet.
And his poor wife Pat. Many of you remember Manuel Reis.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Manuel was a great, great guy. He had cancer.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
And right up till the very time he died, he
knew he was dying, and he was still out care
of the message till.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
He died, and he wasn't afraid.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
And I was to talk at Manuel's funeral, and it
was on Saturday, and he everybody loved it. With death
so there were several hundred people there, and just before
I went in, a guy came out and slipped me
a little clipping out of the paper.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
And it says, woman who was.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Failure of life was success at suicide.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
And this was Pat kirchway she taken her own life.
So you see we are we are in a.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Pretty serious business. We can't run our own lives. We
can't keep from drinking. We could have done this thing, gentlemen,
We would have done it before we got here.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
We tried every way underhand.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
And to beat this rap, and all the man made
remedies that there are.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
We tried, and we could not beat it.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
And we came here, and by the love and sharing
of a bunch of drugs and by the grace of
God that makes this possible, we found a way to
live without drinking. And it's a serious business. And we
(13:33):
didn't do it.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Something did it. And so.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
I think that it's up to us recognizing this, to
thank God for the privilege that we have of carrying
a message and carrying it as long as we have
breadth within us.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
And if then, by some reason.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
We do have a detour, then we have the grace
to read the lesson and come back and start at
the very first step, right at the beginning, and pick
up the program and do the same things over it
(14:28):
that we didn't first play and come back and stay.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
That's a long discourse on that one little question that
I wanted.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
To talk a little about it.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Now. If there are any comments, I'm gonna like to
hear it. I do not care to do all the talk.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
To me, I felt the same way due to the
terby people doing I don't.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Mind out one year is somebody on a few weeks
or well, you're gonna.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
Get back on and he'll be fine.
Speaker 5 (15:05):
But after a year, it's been my observation it's rough
as the cop farm to come back and.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
The other make your stand no.
Speaker 6 (15:16):
I function myself about that lay a bit.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
MM.
Speaker 6 (15:21):
Seems to me that this person moves comes in and
out each time he drifts away, no matter.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
What how long he's been in and out short.
Speaker 6 (15:30):
There's time he chips away or lout the badgers and
they the uh reduces his own confidence in it.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
I think it it this habitual coming in and going
out and nicely the program.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
And loses that into that individual in most gates.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
I mean, that's way.
Speaker 6 (15:48):
I think that explanation is coming back and picking up
the program.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
This is the second time I've heard that one before.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Later, other than.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Trying to pick up pieces, I think that's the whole language.
Speaker 6 (16:03):
Than I that the rights back together or did you
go back together just to start trying. That's sort of
certain on the work on when you're working with people
who are coming back.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Any ideas of any young men, Well, I am one
of those guys. I had to thirteen.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Well, you know, be sticking back there. I dream of
this little face like that, or real less story, any truck.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
I have to start writing from or right from the first. Now,
let's look at this thing again, just from this one
little premise. I was talking up in the valley outside
(16:54):
of Baker's Field, m.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Little town up.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
There was two names and I can't think of her name,
lost something of it.
Speaker 7 (17:05):
Out child, And they told me that there was an
Indian girl up there that was just coming up for
her birthday.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
And she had been so excited about my coming, but
she ch she'd take him drunk and she was incycled.
And they wan't know if i'd stay over and go
see the lady, and uh I did, and I went
(17:50):
out the next morning in and they let me in
a little cubicle, nothing.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
But a cart and a commold and no knob on
the inside of the door.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
And she was lying there on that cock, crying and
just crying.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Her out house.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
And she was ashamed to look at me. She laid
with her face to the wall, and she was so shamed,
and she would sob out that she'd let the program down,
she'd let her sponsor down, she let God down, And
she was so shamed. And I tried to tell her
(18:41):
the difference between humiliation and humility. These words sound like
they were cousins anyway, but they shouldn't even be in
the same dictionary humiliation and humility. Humiliation is a hurt ego,
(19:11):
a wounded pride and shame.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
This is humiliation.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Humility, on the other hand, has nothing to do.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
With ego.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
It has nothing to do with pride or shame.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
It has.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
A dignity and a value that is indescribably wonderful. A
dignity and a any valu you that comes from the
knowledge that it isn't die, but the Father in me,
he do it the works, and it is indescribably wonderful.
(20:19):
Has nothing to do with a personal accomplishment of any
kind of talk. It's the seeing that it isn't die,
but the father in the he do it the worst.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
It's terrific.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Now if we then have the.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Humiliation, the shame.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
That we have let a sponsor down, or the program
down or dot down, you see, this is still something
that we THI we thought we were doing. We thought
we were doing a pretty good job. We believed our
press notices.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
And so there's the shame, the humiliation.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
But to say this thing as it is so as
the necessity to learn another lesson MM and to learn
that lesson.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
And start over, there is no need for humiliation or
shame or a wounded pride or her legal.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
It's normal for anocoholic to be drunk.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
It's not normal for an alcoholic to be sober.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
And we are sober not by our own efforts, but
by the grace of God.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
To the miracle of a head.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
And we can pick up the program and we can
go just like we did in the beginning, or maybe
better for having had this experience, if we learned the lesson.
There's nothing in me that wants to judge a man
(22:24):
or a woman that don't grab this program and run.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
With it, or they have trouble with it.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Because I know that until I had found this way
of life by fulfilling certain conditions, that there was nothing
in the world that could have taken me out of
that shame and that moved and pride and that hurt
ego and that humiliation and that damnable necessityy to win
(22:58):
this thing on my own. You know, this is a
point that we sh should see very very platon particularly
now that we have our big conferences and so many
(23:24):
groups try to build on name speakers.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
This is one of the worst things that can.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Happen to us, either as a society or as individuals.
This is heavy wine. There are few people that can
stand the circuit. Really, there are few that can stand
the circuit because it's just sort of normal for us
(23:56):
to get to believe in our press notices, hm, you know,
and it's the most dangerous thing in the world. And
so many of.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Our big speakers. Well, I think our beloved Paul.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Probably the best figure that ever came out of this
country fifteen years. I think he was the first man
in California apart from our founder Bell, whoever got a
standing ovation in California in AA Paul at fifteen straight years,
(24:38):
and he got to the point where he was going out.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
To do it for the drugs.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Two years ago Christmas, he had a drink and it
didn't last two two months and he was dead.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
After fifteen years.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Oh, this is one of the great great hazards.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
I thought for a little while I was gonna destroy
my beloved Jack sitting that over there, I really did.
I I was consumed.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
And when I saw Jack at his since birthday, he
was as different a man as he was the last
time I'd seen him, as as if i'd never seen
him before.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Did you know that, Jack, No, it was wonderful when
I saw you for his tenth birthday, loveling.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
All, huh, leveling all, maybe remembering that from whence this
thing came?
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Uh. Jack's been a wheeler, indeeder all his life. He's
been president in the Junior Chamber and the Advertising Club
and everything else.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
And he was this pretty popular boy in our side.
He still is, isn't gonna be more popular? But he
had me worried a little bit.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Now, let's just look at this thing one more minute,
and we'll go for another question.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Where As there's somebody here from Omaha. I went through
Omahall a.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
While back, a couple of years ago, street maybe, and.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
I never talked to Omahall, and do my knowledge, i'd
never met any of the bunch.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
And it wasn't an hour after.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
I had gotten into town until they were half a
dozen or maybe.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Ten couples sitting with.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Me jacking, and every one of them were telling me
about me.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
This one's if I heard you.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Oklahoma City, and he said so and so, and it
was my key this once.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Has I heard you Amarilla? This one says I heard you,
and say Louis and so on. And they were just going.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
And pretty soon one of these old boys says, Chuck,
how do you live with this kind of thing?
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Here?
Speaker 1 (27:30):
There's a bunch of people that, as far as you know,
you've never seen, and they're all just eating you up.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
How do you live with it? And I says, don't
pay any attention to it.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
And I tried to duck it, and he he says
that's not satisfactory. He says, tell me, how do you
live with And I says, don't pay.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
An attention to it. If it's good, I laugh.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
And if it's bad, and he says, that's my satisfactor.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
I tell that's how you live with this thing. And
I said, well, I'll tell you. If it was good,
I didn't do it, and if it's bad, I don't
want to hear about it. And this is the only
thing they remember no more. This is the only thing
(28:28):
they know. They were going around there for two days saying, if.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
It's good, I didn't do it, and if it's bad,
I don't hear about it.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
And this is the only way that I can figure
this thing at all.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
If it's good, I didn't do it. You see, I
know what I did.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
In my life.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
I know exactly what I didn't and I take the
credit for the first forty three years.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
You can get me all the credit for that.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
And I not only went in the hole, I pulled
a hole in Africa.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Not in this seventeen years. I can take no credit.
I'm alive because of drunk had time.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
And whatever the change is in my life is not
of my doing. It is out this great thing.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
And it's not I. But the father said he did
the work. You know. This is one of the reasons
I can laugh all the time and do after I
was sober for four, five, six years trying to.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Read the lessons out of this deal. It finally occurreage
to me that they'd sit to the carpenter good master,
good master, and he said to him, why call us
Thummy good? There's nothing good but one, and that's fun.
Speaker 8 (30:08):
And if this didn't take all the incentive out, I've
tried to.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Be good for something. You know, why call us Thomy good.
This was the greatest guy that ever wore a shoe living.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
And he says, why call us Thami good? There's nothing
good but one that's fun.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
And he said to him, how do you.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Do these things?
Speaker 2 (30:33):
And he says, boys, go pad your papers. I don't
of myself. I can do nothing. It's the father with.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
It, you do it the works, show a mind.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
To think I can do so of myself.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
I'm a tongue che in, babbling idiot, drunk writhing in
the floor to me without this thing and with this
thing completion, and so all I can do is thank
God and pass the ammunition. Next question, do you assume
(31:17):
that the person who answered your initial A call is
your sponsor? Or should you wait and select a sponsor
of your own choice?
Speaker 4 (31:36):
Somebody want to answer that's sort uh one of the
first lesson the thing. There's a question already, or you
wouldn't have asked the question.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
So the answer to.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
That would be select your own preluld ask.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Have two or three.
Speaker 4 (31:55):
I could tell you a little story.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
That happened to me.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
I uh made an original cause or something. Took me
quite a few meetings, and he.
Speaker 6 (32:04):
Just sat and wait for me to come and forget
anything the meetings, right, I will.
Speaker 4 (32:09):
Terms that anyone I don't know.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
I was there.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
He had three auto bills and drive away and.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Called up for instructions to where else?
Speaker 4 (32:16):
Want of take you back time? Anyway? I did take it.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
So uh.
Speaker 4 (32:23):
He doped off for the meetings though, but mm anyway,
he got drunk. He called me one night while he
was drunk.
Speaker 6 (32:31):
To me he didn't think too much. Tell me, hm,
next time I saw him bottom play back in the meeting.
He wasn't just happy that he had just seen all
the way off the side. You said them on one
ten or something. I want to t you this before
anybody else sell me, I said, right box, tell me
He didn't said.
Speaker 4 (32:49):
You know, he said, I got to think about it.
You He said, uh, I don't think you were a
very good sponsor for me. He said.
Speaker 9 (32:58):
One idea that you said I called was office and
I got me a new one. You know, so I
kept the grat place.
Speaker 4 (33:12):
Well could so I got out of there.
Speaker 10 (33:16):
This just what he should have done, Just what he
should have done. But Jack, I like to relate what
happened to me. He uh, Frank, as you know, it
was my ston.
Speaker 11 (33:28):
And he was the one that made the the sure call.
And after we had gone to three meetings and Frank's
home he had me, well, of course it's batime.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
I was anys home. But after this he'd have me,
uh from now it's.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
Home about a mile about an hour before the meeting,
and sat there and let me empty everything.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
It was all my chaster and everything. And happened that
day and we'd all go back to his home after
the meet He didna have another mean he had to
and uh, I remember a.
Speaker 10 (34:06):
Frank a third night coming from the Signal Hill.
Speaker 12 (34:11):
And I don't know they guy in his house. He said, Uh, Jack,
I wanna tell you something. Now I made the initial
call on you, but I have something I would like
to Sugge's.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Message that you look around, you look around to take
your time and pick.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
Out someone, did you that you would like to have
this spunch?
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Uh? Did?
Speaker 4 (34:34):
Did? Did you would like to responge to.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Be your sponge? Now?
Speaker 4 (34:43):
Uh, this was terriffic, I thought, and and the.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Reaction was terrific.
Speaker 12 (34:48):
Well, of course, what it did in this case here,
it made me much both of too frank.
Speaker 4 (34:57):
Then, when I got to the point where.
Speaker 6 (34:59):
I was gonna be in trouble that work, I was
afraid to let these babies talk to him around for ford, they.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
Would get him off the track.
Speaker 10 (35:09):
And Uh, after I've been around and grew up a
little bit, I knew this was absolutely wrong.
Speaker 4 (35:13):
So I started using the very same thing, even though.
Speaker 12 (35:17):
I made an initial calm, Uh, look around and.
Speaker 6 (35:23):
Pick out some of they and many of 'em did,
and they're sober, and they're on the program today.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
And I think this is this is the pro tour.
I mean, I think this is warming. Don't you think
we all are each other's sponsors?
Speaker 12 (35:38):
I get as much out of every person in every room.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
I think it's my my original.
Speaker 6 (35:44):
Sponsors drunk now anyway, But uh, and I can't help.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
I mean, I've.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Tried, not that I ever did, but I try to
carry the.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
Message back to him, and and I can't get across.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
He lives down your way, by the way, you know him, Dave.
Speaker 5 (36:00):
Nah, But uh the the sponsor, I yeah, I think
to me just kind of swoops up and moves into
the whole organization and where each other sponsors.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Uh uh I get more out of herald, which.
Speaker 12 (36:14):
Is uh uh ten years younger than my sponsor.
Speaker 4 (36:18):
He got twenty years or eighteen years. A lot of
death matter anyway.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (36:23):
And then I ever got out.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Of my sponsor, and he is a third gage of
my sponsor would have been.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
Or So I think we sponsor each other.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Well, I think I think we're that.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
I've got a lot of sponsors, made a book for addresses.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
That I have never everyone I've ever called him.
Speaker 4 (36:45):
When I can't get all the one you all over another?
How long do you even know consider yourself as a
personal sponsor?
Speaker 2 (36:57):
I don't know when'd you try to?
Speaker 4 (37:03):
Most so?
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Yeah, I have never had a.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
Baby, and I fall it snuns.
Speaker 4 (37:18):
You've been as sponsorble.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
I don't mind anybody else using the term.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
They don't bother me in the least, but I have
never used it in my own.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Thinking or party. It's in the seventeen years i've been here.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
Because I'm afraid I'll get to thinking that I've had something.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
To do with your sobriety.
Speaker 4 (37:49):
I s I slipped on that a moment ago, and
I didn't meet it that way.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
I corrected you. Remember that. Yes, I'm not I'm not
criticizing it.
Speaker 4 (37:56):
Yeah, no, but I it was uh uh.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Any bowlder can get up and say this is my baby,
that's my baby, that's my baby, and these two down
here are their babies, and they're my grandsons and you,
and it's all right for him.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
It's all right for him, But.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
I cannot do it.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
I've never used the term in my life now. I
am never.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
Anybody's sponsor unless they ask me to be.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
I have many people who ask me if they can.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Have me as a sponsor, and I tell them yes,
and that I will do anything that they want me
to do, and I try to do the best I can.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
But I cannot feel any ownership at all. And I
got to tell a little story about this, But you say,
how long if anybody asks me to be a sponsor before,
(39:22):
I want them to release me.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
If they've asked me, I want to give them the
entire story of Alcog's numbers. I want to take them
first through the getting sober, they're getting away from the
first drink, and how.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Important it is that we just decide.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
To die if we have to, rather than to take
that next drink, Because if we would rather be dead
than to take it, we neither have to die or
take it.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Something happens, and we go through the initial.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
Stages, and then through the group stage, and then through
the Inner Group stage, and then the entire history of
our society and the general service stage, the Inner.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Group Office on the international level.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
I think sponsorship carries with it the necessity to go
clear through the whole story, explaining everything in it, including money.
We're so goddamn spiritual, we're afraid to talk about money,
you know. You see, money has a very definite place
(40:49):
in our society, and we should tell our people what
the money is sent for and how it goes and
what does and of putting in the door in the basket,
and of supporting our Inner Group officers and our international
Inner Group Office.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
This is all a part of sponsorship. And I would never.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
Release anybody, just as that I would never take anybody.
I don't even assume when I make the initial call,
and lots.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
Of times it's cold Turkey. I am not opposed to
Cold Turkey's calls.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
I don't believe that we have to wait till somebody asks.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
I knock on the door many and many of them.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
I knock on the door, and it's surprising what happens.
But the point I'm trying to get over is to
make the job thorough.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
And to have no.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Ownership in it whatsoever. Feel no credit is do you
for sponsorship? If we take the credit for a man's sobriety,
(42:16):
we've got to take the failure as our own. And
this is no good now. And I just letated the destroy.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
I mean Monroe, Louisiana. I guess it's three weeks ago
for the seventeenth anniversary.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
And there's no boy who is.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
Texas from the top the bottom comes over from a dessert.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
He lives as a dessert. And he slow, easy kind
of guy.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
And after the eating on Saturday night, we went out
to somebody's house.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
When he came time to go back to the motel,
we got in the car and it's his car he
was driving, and he says, Chuck.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
He says, remember that old red faced boy that I
brought over to the meeting the last time you were down here.
He said, I paid that son of a bitch's hospital
bill to get him out to come and hear you talk.
Speaker 8 (43:41):
And he says I had been wet nursing that son
of a bitch for two years.
Speaker 13 (43:47):
He said I had got him out of more screeps
and spent more money on and said that son of
a bitch had puked on everything I owned.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
And he said I had man who pursues and it
choked him and run. And he says, you know something.
Speaker 8 (44:11):
That son of a bitch has been sober ever. He said,
she hurt you.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
He said he just had his first birthday and he
wanted to get He wanted me to give him a
lighter with his ernity prayer on it.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
And I said, if you want a light of you
going to Laguna beat and he just you know what
this has taught me.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
He said, I ain't never going to try to tope
the message anymore. He says, I'm going to find out
where the message is and tope the alcohol. All the
(45:01):
time you gotten to say, you told I was hurting
every part of it.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
And that's putting it least died. I never laughed her
my life. He wasn't gonna talk to the message.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
You're gonna find out his message was.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Don't aholic, confessed
Speaker 1 (45:26):
Oh me
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