vol 281. How Big is AA with Mark D.

SPEAKER_00 0:01 We believe that alcoholism is a disease, and that Alcoholics Anonymous is one solution to that disease. I'm here to bring you the voices of its members, and everyone that comes on the show, including myself, is an active member and has found recovery in the rooms of AA. As you listen, please take what works for you and leave the rest. SPEAKER_01 0:25 I'm powerless over alcohol.

My name is Mark Dreyer. My sobriety date is June 4th, 1986. I got sober when I was 17. I came in during the mad rush of adolescent treatment centers.

To be honest, I um I didn't come into Alcoholics Anonymous with the gift of desperation. When I came into AA, I was still digging the hole. I was 17 years old and thought I was invincible. I also got bailed out of just about everything because of because of my very loving parents who cared very deeply about me.

But the thing that did happen is my parents, who definitely had the gift of desperation, graciously came down into the hole that I was digging and removed the shovel from my hand, which they were allowed to do because I was 17 years old. I was a minor. They could do that. I had left home several times.

I had been gone when that shovel was removed from my hand for about three weeks. They didn't know where I was, nor did I care to let them know where I was. So that when I did come home on June 4th, 1986, my father, who rarely did any of the talking in my family, was mostly my mother disciplining the children. He did all the speaking, which I found odd.

But he gave me three ultimatums. He said that I could leave and never come back. He said that I could stay right where I was, and he was going to call the police and have me arrested, or I could get help. Now I knew that I had a problem with drinking.

I was not done with that, like I just got done saying earlier, but I knew that something didn't jive with my life and the way I drank. So I opted for choice number three, and I went off to treatment. I went to St. Luke's Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio.

It's since been torn down, very sad moment, but um I went there to an adolescent unit. It was a locked unit, so when the doors closed behind you, there was a 10,000-pound magnet that kept the door closed. So, you know, it got real fast. I started to listen to what the people were saying in the treatment center, but I was still very resistant to fully disclose what I was doing.

I was still hanging on to my my addiction and my love of alcohol very much. So I would just give enough to get them off my back and to keep them off my back. One thing that I did do, however, which was very unusual for me because I really didn't like to read very much at as a teenager, was that they gave me a big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I read it.

In my off time, I found myself reading that book often. I found that right away that the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous tells me two things. Other than that, I don't have a problem with alcohol. And I found myself as I read that book, I found myself on page 24 where it says there will come a time when every man's drinking, and the most powerful desire to stop will be absolutely no avail.

In October of 85, I think it was Halloween actually, I found myself face down on my parents' kitchen floor after being violently sick in the sink. I was just laying on the floor with the cold cord tile touching my cheek, desperately trying to get up to make it to my room. I always saying to myself, if I could make it to my room, everything will be fine. And suddenly the lights came on, and I was faced with myself, my mother, and a whole room full of shame.

Uh and I didn't know what to do. So I did whatever good alcoholic did I lied. I said, Mom, this is the first time I ever did it. I'm not gonna do it again, and I'm I'm gonna clean up my ass.

I should have just told my mother that I was gonna flap my arms and fly around the kitchen because I didn't have the power to make good on that deal. And uh I knew that, and the big book told me that, and I understood what that was saying. I also found myself roughly on page 36 or so. I I'm I'm I don't have my book in front of me, so I I'm not gonna do that, but where it talks about the alcoholics being amazing or amazingly resourceful, and then at any moment they can pull scaffolding down over their heads.

And I was a very good runner and and still am, but as as a freshman, I beat the uh defending state champion in the hurdles in the in an intersquad meet, and I had arrived. My name had suddenly become known. The coaches all applauded me, all the track team all gave me accolades, patted me on the shoulder, everybody in school knew who I was. I had arrived, so to speak.

Over the years, the the scholarship started coming in, the scholarship offers started coming in. I got offers to all the big schools throughout the country, and by my junior year, I was ineligible for track because I I chose to drink rather than go to school and do my homework, and all of that disappeared. And that for a 16, 17-year-old kid, that was pretty devastating. And I didn't correlate it quite yet with my drinking, but I was devastated and crushed, and and I I actually drank more during that time.

So I had my family intervention a week after my assessment or detox session, and I'm thinking here that oh, I'm gonna have my my mom and my dad and my sister there, I'll be able to handle this. I could manipulate my mom, you know, the way I wanted her to think, and that was that was pretty easy for me. And when I got into that room, both my track coaches were there, three students, three friends of mine were there, two teachers, as well as my parents and my sister. And I was floored.

I didn't see that coming. And they all spoke. They all had letters written and they all said very elegant things. And and every time one of them spoke, my my assessment counselor would just look over at me with glaring eyes.

I could feel it shooting into my skull. You never said that, you never told me that, you never said that. I could just feel I just knew that's what he was thinking. And um at the end, my mom spoke last.

She said basically one sentence. She said, Mark, the FBI knocked at the door yesterday. To pay for my habit, I was stealing checks from people and forging their name and signing their name and cashing it at a bank. And as soon as you push that piece of paper across that desk, it becomes a federal offense.

They wanted to investigate that. They wanted to find out what was going on. And the jig was off at that point. Fortunately, the people that I was doing it to were friends of my family and friends of my mother.

The charges weren't pressed. The FBI looked at me as a 17-year-old kid who's in treatment and they kind of just let it slide. I was very blessed at that moment. But to my treatment counselor, he just he just looked at me and said, You never said anything about that.

I said, Yeah, well, I mean, what what I what was I gonna tell you of how bad I was? And I I I kind of smirked and laughed at like that, and and that's just the attitude that I had. I was like I said, a 17-year-old kid, and I thought I was invincible. And nothing was going to bother me.

But that started to bother me. And I started to get into what I was looking at and facing in my life while I was in treatment. I started to listen to the text a whole lot better. I I started to work with the spiritual advisor in treatment.

I didn't do very much very well, but I did enough. I did enough to complete that treatment, and then they decided to send me off to Omaha, Nebraska at a halfway house and went off and and I got a job, and and I and I started working, and and I uh worked in the house with the with a whole bunch of other sober guys, and we all hung around. We we gained camaraderie and and we laughed and we had fun and we did sober things, and that was a great experience. And and I again kept reading the book and I kept working the steps now.

I'm I was working in with a counselor, I was working in with a pseudo sponsor out in Omaha, and you know, I I I trudged through the steps as best as I could as a teenager. I came home from from Omaha, and uh somehow the school very graciously found a way to allow me to graduate with my class in high school. To this day, the numbers don't add up. I don't know how they did that.

But uh I was meeting my counselor, I went into school to meet my counselor, and the Jeff Langstaff, who was the adolescent trillion officer in Kent, uh, was there as well. And he said, Hey Mark, how are you doing? And uh the funny thing about Jeff is that Jeff is legally blind, but yet he knew everything that was going on with all the adolescents in town. It was quite amazing.

But he asked me how I was doing, and and uh I said, I'm I'm doing okay. And he went, he cut right to the chase. He said, Mark, have you gotten a sponsor yet? And I said, No, I said, Jeff, I just got off the plane.

My parents dropped me off here and they're picking me up in an hour. And uh he said, Well, I just ask Dick uh McNet. And I said, You mean the man that lives across the street from my house that goes to my church? So, yeah, that guy.

And I remember it was a rainy night that night, and I remember walking across the street and I knocked on the door. Dick answered the door and he said, Hey Mark, how you doing? And he I cut right to the chase again, and I said, Dick, would you be my sponsor? And he opened the door a little bit more and he let me into his house.

And and Betsy was sitting in her chairs and she was knitting, and this is the 80s, so she had those Sally Jesse Raphael big red glasses on. And uh she looked over the top of those glasses and she said, Mark, are you staying out of trouble? And I said, Well, I am now. And Dick, in his very loving manner that he had, he said, Now, Betsy, let's just let the boy in the house.

And we went back into the kitchen and Dick and I started talking, and he started laying out a lot of historical data about AA and about his drinking and about what what it was like in the early times, and and he gave me a history lesson, and I appreciated that. It gave me an idea of of what he was trying to accomplish and what he was trying to do. And by the end of that conversation, he said, I will work with you, Mark, but I but I need you to find someone more your age that can relate to you better. I mean, at the time I told him, okay.

Well, that following Friday, when I made my home group, Camp Friday night, which was his home group, I saw him get his 30-year coin. And uh I wanted to know how to get that coin. It didn't matter to me that Dick and I didn't drink the same. What mattered is that he just got a 30-year coin and I wanted to learn how to get that coin.

And so I never found another person sponsoring me. So Dick was my sponsor until he passed away. And um, he taught me a lot. He taught me the history of Alcoholics Anonymous, he taught me, he taught me the the disciplines of Alcoholics Anonymous, he taught me things like respect to podium, he, you know, he taught me things like wear a suit when you lead.

It just those little simple things like that. They just give us discipline and they give us function and purpose. And uh, and we also worked the steps and we also read the big book, and we did it in a kind of a roundabout way because remember, let's jump back. I was 17 and invincible at the time and 18 now.

And uh, and I said, Well, Dick, I've already read the big book. And he he kind of chuckled. He said, Okay. And he said, I've already worked the steps a couple of times, and he chuckled again, okay.

And so, let's do something different. I said, I said, what? He said, get AA comes of age, pass it on, and talk about in the good old timers and read those books. And we read those books, and I learned the history of Alcoholics Anonymous, not just from Dick, but in the written material as well, in our literature.

And I got a deeper understanding so that when it was time for Dick to sit down with me and read the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, I found a deeper understanding of what the book was about. I found richness in the book and I understood why things were written the way they were written and why things were put in there and just how valuable that that information was to keep AA going. We set out and started working as 12-steps all college anonymous, and I gave them my best attempt at that time. You know, I was I was still 18 years old now.

I'm growing up in AA and I'm doing the best that I can with what I got, and it's just not very much. But uh 10 years goes by, and I I go to Dick and I say, Dick, I'm so selfish and self-centered, and I don't know what to do. And he looked at me, he used to give me all these uh little one-shot bullets. I call them the silver bullets.

He I come into his house with a problem, he'd give me a one-sentence bullet, and I'd be off and running again. All right, shot it, boom, gone, you know. And uh I was looking for that silver bullet that he always so graciously provided. But this time he looked over his glasses and said, maybe it's time to work the steps again.

And the the the king baby that was in my head was standing over in the corner of his kitchen with his patent leather shoes, stomping his feet, saying, I don't want to work the steps. But my heart said, Okay. We started to work the steps again, and we started to read the book and work the steps as they're written in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And suddenly I started reading things that just I'd never read before that never touched me.

I had found things in the book that just weren't there before. And I said, Dick, this stuff was never there. And he said, Yes, it was. It's always been there.

You just didn't read it, you just skimmed over it. This time it's hitting you because you're in a different place. I said, Oh. And we started to work steps again, you know, and and he and he he basically told me the only one that I can't really help you with is the first step.

The first step is an inside job. And I think you've already got a handle of that because you you you haven't drank in in a decade, and you're full of selfishness and self-centeredness, and you want to learn how to get rid of that, and you want to learn the next phase of that. And he directed me right into to page 61 in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, that middle paragraph where it talks about the third-step inventory. There are a number of questions in that paragraph that deserve an answer, he said.

I'm gonna paraphrase them a little bit, but he had me read them in first person, so he I had to use my name. Things like Mark, when did you unjustifiably arouse jealousy or suspicion in other people? Mark, when were you manipulative and trying to control the show? And I said, All the time.

And he pushed a piece of paper in front of me in a pencil and he said, Write it down. But he said, Mark, when did you make people angry? I think I made you angry earlier today, I said. I jokingly said, and he said, Well, write it down, put it on paper.

And we started writing, and I started, I started talking to him about it as I was writing, and we were going through this stuff, and I we got to the last question, and it says, and I'm gonna say this exactly out of the big book, is he even in his best moments the producer of confusion rather than harmony? And he looked at me and he said, Mark, one of you wanted to be right rather than happy. And I write them in there, I broke down into tears, and I said, Dick, that's what I've wanted to do my whole life. My whole life.

The whole reason I drank was because I wanted to prove to you how right I was. And that's why I drank. I found that drinking quieted that ideology of me wanting to be right. And I would drank, and I would drink more, and I would get rid of that the pain of not being successful at proving people how right I was.

And I would relax the anxiety that would cause when I'm trying to show you just how right I was, instead of looking for happiness. And we we wrote all that down and we talked about it so that when we went into the next step, into that a new and deeper fourth step, suddenly I realized that I was the one standing at the top of the mountain, pushing the boulder down the hill. And I got that promise that it says in the big book on page 63 or 64, I think it's called, I think it is, where it says, So we think our problems are of our own making. I was the one that set the ball rolling.

These problems that were in my life were not anybody else's fault of my own. And I realized that right then and there. And I started to look at the fourth step in a whole new light. Suddenly the resentments that I thought I had were gone.

How can I be mad and resentful of somebody when I was the one that caused the problem in the first place? And it really allowed me to really dive into the the other two parts of that step. I started to deal with my fear on a much bigger level. And I really dove into my conduct and how I acted and how I was acting.

And I found out that I was still a lycon, a thief, and a cheat. I was taking advantage of everything that I could. And I I mean, heck, I was even still stealing at that point. You know, I was in college and I needed a drailer for my bike.

I was not only running, but I was also semi-pro. And um I needed a new drailer, couldn't afford it. I wanted the best one, I could only get the second best one. So I switched the boxes, you know, and and I had to make amends for that.

And I did that. And I went out to the place where I got it, and I sat down and I explained to them what happened, and the guy laughed at me. I was pretty shocked. I'm like, dude, here I am laying out my heart about how dishonest I was, and you're you're laughing at me.

And you and he said, he said, Do you realize that if I took that money, I would have to find the records of the date of purchase, make the audit, make the change, add the money back into the till, then have to write a big explanation as to why this number got changed. And he said, he looked at me and he said, I thank you for your courage and your honesty. You can go home and enjoy the rest of your day. Now I had always heard in AA, AA means that when someone wouldn't accept money, that you're supposed to graciously donate it somewhere else.

You know, I've I'd always heard that for a number of years. And I went back to Dick and I told him what happened, and he chuckled and he said, Well, it's water under the bridge, Mark, and let's let's move on. Uh it it isn't this supposed to be given to a charitable cause. And and he and he looked at me and he said, Mark, what's your purpose in this amends process?

And I scratched my head. I I it never really touched me what my purpose was. I didn't know, I was just making amends. I was trying to correct the problems that I had.

He said, Your purpose is right here on this page. And he opened up the book and he said, Your real purpose now is to fit yourself into God's will and the people around you. And he said, God's will is that you got to keep that money, whatever. He said, now you need to fit yourself in the into the people around you.

If you took that money and gave it to a charitable cause or donated in some way like that, what would you be doing to the person that still elegantly told you all the processes that you would have to go through to make sure that that amend was fulfilled? I said, I would be dismissing him, wouldn't I? He said, You would you would be dismissing everything that he said and you'd make it about you. And so your purpose, Mark, is to be comfortable with that amend.

It's water under the bridge, move on. Changed my whole way of thinking about fitting myself into God's will and the people around me. Suddenly, I wasn't looking at things for what you could do for me, I was looking at what can I do for you. And that was freedom.

Sorry, little choked up. Anyway, um Dick passed away in 2005, and he had a number of years, so I don't remember how long he'd been sober. But I was doing the the eulogy for him, and um I said at the podium in front of 300 people that Dave King Knett was the only person I ever loved for who he was. And um let me qualify that statement for a second.

I said that in front of my mother, my father, my sister, my then wife, and my daughter, and and 300 other people. That I basically I was saying to them that I loved them for who I wanted them to be, but would think I loved him for who he was. And I suddenly realized what I had. Said.

And my head hit the hit the lectern, and I was in full of tears, and I picked it back up and I looked at the audience and I said, I just want you to know that I love you all for who you are. And pride fell for me like do on grass. And I suddenly jumped back to about nine months sober for me, where I was sitting on the porch of Dick's house. We were sitting with his sponsor T Red Bates.

They were talking about Dr. Bob and they were talking about a book called The Greatest Thing in the World, spoken and written by Henry Drummond. They told me that I should read that back then, and I never did. But I remembered as I was standing there behind that lecture, and I remembered that book.

And when the funeral was over and we had parted ways, I I went and bought that book, and I finally read it. 19 years later, I read that book. It's a breakdown of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, the 13th verse, the one about love. You hear it at weddings a lot.

Above all things is love. You can have faith in the mounds, but if you haven't love, you're nothing. Henry Drummond breaks it down and gives us a real simple synopsis of love. He breaks it down into nine elements.

Love is sincere, it has sincerity, guilelessness, and thinketh no evil. It has a good temper, it's humble, it has kindness. And I started to read this, and as I read this book over and over, and I did read it multiple times throughout my sobriety. I read it all the time now, but it suddenly dawned on me that this is my character.

This talk and these things that are being said are dealing with the sixth and seventh step. And I'm like, this is my character. And I suddenly stopped putting in all of my energy and my defects of character and started because it amounts to nothing. I realized that.

And I started to look at my character and acting accordingly and basing it on those elements that Henry Drummond talked about in that letter. I started to read the big book again in a whole new line. I started to read the big book as it pertains to step six and seven. There's only two paragraphs written dedicated to step six and seven.

But as I read the big book today, I have found that the entire first 164 pages are dedicated to step six and seven. It tells us in the first eight chapters how self-reliance has failed us and how self-reliance doesn't work, and it tells you how to get out of self-reliance. And then the last chapters, eight, nine, ten, and eleven, it tells you exactly what relying on God will get for you, will do for you. It's absolutely magnificent in the next level stuff.

And this and I have found this conscious contact with God throughout the years, and I have this union, union with God in consciousness. And it's something that I have learned over the years. And it didn't happen overnight. It came because I continued to work the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And I refused to one-dimensionalize God. I started to understand God and whole deeper meaning. And I truly understand today that my best relationship with God today could be my greatest liability tomorrow. So I need to always keep an open mind.

And the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous has repeatedly helped me keep my mind open. And it's because of great sponsorship from Dick and from my current sponsor, Dave Flora, and his grand sponsor, Orville Dean. These people are influential in my life. They teach me things and they show me new avenues to pursue and new avenues to take, and I graciously take them.

And I do these things and I search and I and I seek God's will and I look for God's will and I look for greater awakenings and all of this stuff because I want to, not because I need to. I do this proactively rather than reactively, in other words. And it's it's a beautiful thing. Um I I am so very grateful that I got all the history lessons that I got in my early sobriety.

Can't stress that enough. But Dick took the time with me to sit down with me and show me what AA was. He didn't necessarily show it through the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous per se at first, but he walked me around to all the different meetings in Ackerman. He introduced me to all the old timers that were all these first generation guys like Dick.

I'm talking about Whitey and Brownie and Katie and KT Stewart and Jim Crawford and Jim Clare and Julie Mate and Red Bates and Spook Miller and Bob Phillips. These guys talked and gave me their history lessons over a cup of coffee. And I can't, I can I could never replace that. You know, I clearly understand that I eat fruit from a tree I didn't plant and I drink water from a well I didn't dig.

And I'm not grateful enough for that knowledge. I've had plenty of opportunities to learn how to fit myself into God's world. I I have one repeatedly over and over now recently, and it makes me very humble and very grateful. I I live right by one of the elementary schools here in Kent.

I have two boys that are crossing guards, and they're always the last two to walk home from school. And I have a big two-ton rock in my front yard, marks my driveway. And they always come by and they always jump up and down on that rock and they play on it. And they do like they make these skateboard moves, and always when I was the skateboarder, so I understand what they are doing.

And one day I was driving home, and there the boys were sitting on top of my rock, and I pulled into the driveway, and the two boys had a look of terror on their face because they thought they were gonna hear, get off my wall. But instead, I rolled down the window and I said, Hey guys, that what you're doing there looks like fun. Do you mind if I join you? And and they said, Really?

I said, Yeah. And I got out of my car, I even left my car running, it didn't matter. I got out of my car and and we started doing death drops and neutral drops and and uh ollies and things like that off that rock. And I survived.

I didn't hurt my knees. And they were forever grateful. And and then they had to go home and they started walking home, and I got in my car, and I put my car in the garage, and I came in the house, and I was completely and utterly at peace. Because I had let them into my world and they had let me into theirs, and we shared a moment of joy.

October this past year, Halloween, I had Dark Maul and Obi-Wan Kenobi on top of my rock, battling with their with their crossing guard sticks. And I didn't go outside, I just sat on the porch to listen to what they were doing. They didn't see me. And I heard Dark Maul say, I win, I have the upper ground.

And then they proceeded to battle some more with their with their lifesavers. Like I said, I I allowed them into my life, and they allowed me into theirs, and now my rock is now a meeting point for all of us. And it suddenly dawned on me, isn't that what AA is all about? We allow each other into our lives, and then people in return allow me into theirs.

And then we work together for a little while, and maybe we learn some things, maybe we laugh, maybe we cry, maybe we shake each other's hand and give each other a hug, and then we go on about our way. That's exactly what AA is all about. What happened in my front yard is exactly what AA is all about, and I and I can't I can't be grateful enough for that acknowledging. How big is AA?

I don't know if there's anybody on the planet that can truly answer that statement, but I can give you a story. March of 2023, my daughter who went to Ohio State and graduated from Ohio State, was getting ready to graduate, and I really wanted her to go off to graduate school and get her master's degree. She wanted to take a gap year, whatever that is. But I really wanted her to go to graduate school without getting taking the gap year.

We met for breakfast. It was March. It was my my mother's birthday, St. Patrick's Day, actually.

Uh my mom really hates that. She hates Kareem. Anyway, we're having breakfast. And uh I had my my parents there with us, and so my dad was a college professor at Kent State, retired for 40 years, and my mom was a 40-year teacher at Aurora City Schools and she taught elementary school.

And I thought, I've got all the weapons I need to convince my daughter to start her master's now rather than taking a jack here. And and I started talking to her, and I started saying all this great stuff about how I regret not getting my master's and going right from undergraduating to graduate because it took it was more difficult to do, yada yada yada. And as I'm saying all this stuff, I'm I'm saying in the back of my head, come on, mom, come on, dad, say something. Reinforce what I'm saying.

Come on, back it up. Do what you do, dad. Do what you do, mom. And my dad finally talked.

And he said, Um, oh Mark, I'm just happy to get home on my birthday. It's my it's a sobriety date. It was also my father's birthday. And so June 4th, 1986, I was so selfish and self-centered that I couldn't take time out to wish my father a happy birthday.

But now we have a special bond. Fast forward a couple hours, I'm driving Madeline home to to uh Columbus and we're driving to uh an art store. She had an art project, she made a finish week buying some supplies, and and uh she said, Boy, dad, what Papa said was pretty profound. I said, Yeah, it was definitely unexpected, that's for sure.

I laughed about that, but um she said, Dad, I've uh I've heard you work with guys in the living room, and I've heard you talk about how you used to be, and I've heard you make comments at AA meetings and about how you used to be, and I've even listened to your lead and how you talk about what you used to do. And and she looked at me and she said, I don't know that person dad. All I know is my father. I probably probably shouldn't have been driving at that point.

I really couldn't see out of my eyes, but um how big is AA? I have an opportunity to have a real conversation with a daughter that I love here. And none of that happens if I'm still drinking. None of that happens if I'm still drinking.

In closing, I'm almost done here. If your mission or my mission in my life is to find a personal and satisfactory relationship with the God that created me and this entire business of living. That's the living answer to my living problem. Who knew I had a living problem?

And who knew that the answer was with God? That's a deep, profound understanding for me. So anyway, everything that I've said here today, everything, every sentence, every phrase, every word, um, everything that I think I know. Could be wrong.

And partless overall call me is Mark Dreyer. Thank you. SPEAKER_00 33:29 Thank you, Mark. Just catching my just catching my breath.

It made me tear up a few times. It was so heartfelt. I don't know. It was literally from the heart.

It was really beautiful. Thank you. unknown 33:44 Thank you. SPEAKER_00 33:46 All right, I'm gonna ask you a few questions.

You had a sponsor, Dick, that's from doing my math, he got sober when AA was about 20 years old. SPEAKER_01 34:01 Correct. Yeah, he got sober in 52, I believe. He just missed Dr.

Bob. Dr. Bob had just passed away. And Red Bass, the guy that I was talking, you know, the guy I mentioned about on the porch, he was sponsoring Dick, and and Red Bass at one point was sponsored by Dr.

Bob. SPEAKER_00 34:22 Wow. That's amazing. And I'd love to hear if you can come up with some of the pieces of history or perspective that Dick provided for you that we may be interested in hearing.

Either history or the way things are done. You mentioned one wearing a suit when you give a lead. You talked about something about the respect of the podium. Um I would love to just hear anything that we might not know or realize.

SPEAKER_01 34:59 Oh, I mean, about Dr. Bob or about the history of AA. SPEAKER_00 35:03 Oh, any of it. SPEAKER_01 35:05 Oh you get to choose.

Good, good Lord. I mean, to be to be honest, I I've I have a talk on Dr. Bob in the history, a different spin on things. If you'd like to do that sometime, we could do that.

I think the most important thing for me, and then and I mentioned it in my lead, is is Dick Dick taught me because he was taught by Red, and Red was taught by Bob, to respect the podium, dress up, show some respect, show some dignity for yourself. That was another big thing that Dick always said to me. Have some dignity for yourself. Don't just show up and and go through the motions, be committed.

You know, and I and I'm sure that that came from Dr. Bob. I I and I know it came from Red Bates, so and I'm sure it came in some indirect way, it came from Dr. Bob.

I I maybe I'm wrong, I don't know. The thing about uh that I I have to remember is that I was 17, 18 years old, and when they were talking on the porch, we were drinking sweet tea, and all I could think about was that I really wanted to have some more sweet tea. I really wish I would have had a recorder to listen to everything that they had. It does come back to me in bits and pieces, and and some of the things that I've written as as I've gone on have come back to me a little bit, but I I just I was 18 and just I I was I my attention span was you know was of a tinker toy.

I mean, that's that's what it was. But you know, one of the things about Dr. Bob that Dick Dick always stressed was that he was not a one-dimensional Christian, straight up guy. He went beyond his knowing.

He knew, he knew that there was more out there than just the straight, whatever, whatever you want to call God. There's more to it, and then to always, always, always, always look for new avenues to find a better relationship with God. So I know that. SPEAKER_00 37:04 That pretty much sums up.

If you want to be happy, joyous, and free, you have to always, always, always, always seek a better relationship with God. Correct. And be observant. SPEAKER_01 37:15 And before and and there's Bob's message, love and service.

He was he's he's the guy that he's the love and service guy. There you go. SPEAKER_00 37:27 So I may take you up on the Dr. Bob talk, and we could do like an extra special.

Um the you talked about when you were in this locked detox. Maybe it was after you got out of there. You you mentioned a spiritual advisor in treatment. Do you remember much about that that you can tell us what that looked like and what that meant with relationships?

SPEAKER_01 37:52 Oh, yeah. Uh absolutely. Brad Brad Price, I I mean, he knows it. He doesn't mind me saying his name.

Uh, he actually worked in the drug courts in uh Town Hall 2, now here downtown in Kent. He was about two years sober when I and he first started doing this at St. Luke's when I was there, and and he guided me and gave me a reminder of what God is. I grew up in a as a as an Episcopalian.

I was the head acolyte of our church. I had a key to the wine closet, which probably got me into this fellowship a whole lot faster. And uh, you know, I understood God. I knew that I've never been separated from God.

God is with me no matter where I do or where I go. I knew that. Brad Price, he reminded me of that. And he he he he helped me get a deeper understanding right off the riff of God and reminded me where I came from and where I needed to go.

I'm still friends with him today. We run into each other at meetings every once in a while. He's you know, he's got uh 42 years now, and he always gives me a hard time because he has more social privacy than I do. But yeah, and we have we have great, great conversations, and and I I love that man to death, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 39:10 So when you were 17 and he was acting as a spiritual advisor, what did that look like? SPEAKER_01 39:16 Um, he would give me little booklets to fill out and then we would discuss them. It was a treatment center, so they had all the treatment material that they had to use, they were required to use. Knowing what I know about Brad, had he not been in a treatment environment, we would have just done it with discussions.

But I would fill out some papers and he would talk about and we would discuss them. Uh and and I usually came out of there pretty peaceful often. SPEAKER_00 39:42 So you left there and you went to you called it a halfway house. Is that synonymous?

Is that the same as uh sober living environment? SPEAKER_01 39:52 Yes, that's exactly what it was. There was 20 guys living in a it was a converted mortuary, actually. SPEAKER_03 39:59 Oh god.

SPEAKER_01 40:02 We had our our group sessions in in the rooms where they would have viewings for the big giant cross window and everything. I mean, it was it was you hear music every time you walked in there. Oh and we folded clothes on an embalming table. SPEAKER_00 40:18 So oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 40:23 And yeah, and there was 20 of us, and we were required to get a job, and we were required to attend our group sessions, and we were tired, required to make our bed every morning, feed on the floor at 6 a.m. And then you're doing your your daily chores and you're having breakfast as a group and you do your morning meditation, all the very, very structured, very disciplined. And it goes back to we alcoholics are very undisciplined people. And and I I'll go so far as to say we are screaming, we're begging for that kind of discipline, in my opinion.

We alcoholics are very undisciplined people, so we let God discipline us, right? So, and then in reality, in my experience, I didn't know just how much I craved discipline. SPEAKER_00 41:07 Gosh, that's so true. That's so true, Mark.

I went on a camping trip with my fifth grader, like a five-day, four-night away camp. And I have said more than once, it was the best vacation I've ever been on, because you're disciplined the entire time. You go do this, they have your whole schedule for you, they feed you three times a day. You're you don't have to think you just go to the next thing on the list, the itinerary, and this is explaining a lot.

I just want discipline. I can't even do vacation. SPEAKER_03 41:43 That's right. SPEAKER_00 41:45 All right.

What does your program look like today? How do you, after, oh my goodness, I mean, so many years 25, 35, uh like you're coming up on 40. SPEAKER_01 42:00 Oh, yeah. I just had 39 years of units.

SPEAKER_00 42:02 Okay. Tell me, tell me what your program looks like, and how do you continue to keep the relationship growing with your higher powers? SPEAKER_01 42:12 Um lately I've been really delving into uh the books that Dr. Bob had in his life, the spiritual books that he had in his life.

And I've been reading them quite a bit. And then, of course, I mean, all right, here I'll I'll do the old AA edge. I sponsor people. I I am sponsored.

I read the big book, I tell people to read the big book. I can say all that, but but from my own personal growth, you know, I'm looking at the books that influence the writing of the big book, such as The Greatest Thing in the World by Henry Drummond, As a Man Thinketh, The Holy Bible, um, this is the Oxford group for sinners only, The Man Nobody Knows, which is a book about Jesus, and The Selfie Have to Live With. These are all books that went in, they were either referenced, and of course, Bright is the religious experience, but uh, these were books that were either referenced or read prior to the writing of the big book. So I'm diving into those books quite a bit.

And uh also the in the 1940s, Dr. Bob had a required reading list for people. There's some overlap between the the influences of the big book and and and those books as well. But you know, think about it, you walk into an AA meeting in the 1940s and you're handed a stack of books, right?

Today, people hit the door running. Back then, they graciously accepted those books. Why is that? Because they didn't have TVs and they didn't have cell phones.

They read, that's how they gathered their information. They they talked to each other and they read books. So I'm looking at those books now, and and I'm and I'm finding, just like I said in my talk, was is that these books are all about being humble, letting go of self reliance, learning how to be kind and helpful and all the things that I talked about in steps six and seven, and how heavily. influenced those books that influence the writing of the big book.

So that's that's the growth that I'm getting today. And it's it's it's pretty fun. It's pretty exciting actually. SPEAKER_00 44:11 After so many decades, do you have lows in your program where you get disconnected and off track?

SPEAKER_01 44:21 Oh I'm human. Who doesn't? SPEAKER_00 44:25 I don't know. SPEAKER_01 44:25 I thought maybe you were a unicorn yeah the horn just didn't look good on my forehead.

You know I I have no I oh gosh I have I I still question things and and I still wonder in awe about how is this going to work out and how is that going to work out or I mean and and I'm pretty blunt these days too and I'm I'm not afraid to tell somebody what I think and uh sometimes that is a little uncomfortable I and I know that but I know that with God being connected to God and having a working relationship with God you know I know that everything's going to be all right no matter what and I and I that's always my stop gap right there. Anytime that I go off the track I always fall back to I know God is going to provide no matter what as long as I keep walking forward so your faith has not wavered heavily no mess because you're doing all the work yeah but if you if you if you put in the work you get the dis you get the the rewards right and I don't know what those rewards are and and I think that's the beauty of it is that I'm comfortable not knowing the rewards I just keep doing the work. I love what I do I love the work that I do and and and and I get the reward. Whether I think it's a reward or not I I get something I get a benefit.

For me it's about shifting the way I think so that I can see everything as a reward rather than seeing things for what I want. In my prayer life I've stopped asking for things you know I don't ask for patience I don't ask to remove my fear I I exalt God for who he is. I say prayers like God you are fearless or you're showing me what fearlessness looks like because when I'm asking for something I've learned over the years that when I'm asking for something that means that I have a preconceived notion of what it is that I want. And when I do that and when God provides something for me I can run it through that filter that I've created.

And then if it doesn't check all the boxes I can ignore it if I choose to whereas if I exalt God for who he is that you are fearless God you are all power you are showing me fearlessness you are showing me all willingness you are showing me gratitude and all those things I have no else it either is or it isn't. SPEAKER_00 46:57 You know so I've changed my perspective and always look for the good well said well said is there anything that you left out or anything that you're thinking of now or that came to mind that you didn't share that you would like to discuss or mention now I would say to people whoever might listen to this is just remember that when we have an awakening we'll start speaking again and once we start speaking we lose that awareness until we gain a new awareness. SPEAKER_01 47:30 You can't have awareness without speaking and you can't speak without being aware and that's the beautiful thing I always remember that when I in my own life because I've spent the last 20 years of my sobriety constantly seeking only God's will and when I gain a new awareness or a new awakening there's a great reward and what happens I start over and I start seeking a new way of life a new way of to understand God I I and I relish in that and I mean that and I and I can't stress that enough I I really enjoy looking for God in everything and seeking God's will in my life so that was a very good afterthought okay final question for the listener that is suffering and has made it this far what message would you like to leave them with become one of those kids that stands on my rock every afternoon at three o'clock allow someone else into your life and you get welcomed into theirs and start growing and learning to maybe you'll find something something good out of it. I would also say to the new person is that don't seek someone to suit your needs as it's like as like a sponsor.

Seek someone that you really want what they have and you're willing to go to any length to get it. SPEAKER_00 49:01 For more information read the first 164 pages of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous or visit keepcomingback.net