Finding Comfort in Discomfort: A Newcomer's Guide to AA

look around you come on there's nothing to get here folks you know the only thing you're gonna

get here if you're new is be prepared to be divinely in convenience for the rest of your

damn life you know because this is the longest thing i've ever done against my will my entire

life right which is why it works so well nothing to do with convenience everything to do with uh

doing the uncomfortable to get comfortable really you know and i've never been comfortable i've

never had peace of mind now i know how to feel good because all that takes is a little something

out there and put it in here but i've never had that peace of mind that peace of mind that you

get if you're new that no matter what's going on around you within you next to you down the street

you're okay right here you're all right all right here and you know why that is because the most

important thing in your life is Alcoholics Anonymous you make that the most important

thing in your life your primary purpose and everything else will fall into place but the

moment you start pecking around your personal life and trying to move that around to make you feel

good before you know it AA is down five or six down on the ladder and you just become too busy

to give thanks to the thing that saved your life you know so if you're new i i hope you find a

sponsor i know i know if you're new you've got something about you that makes you feel different

i know there's something going on with you that you have used to separate yourself from everybody

that you're around and if you're new in Alcoholics Anonymous that's perfectly normal to have something

to make you feel different which is dangerous is when you don't tell anybody about it and then it

starts growing like a chia pet if you're like me you know what i mean find somebody in this room

come back here again find a couple folks you can talk to and let them in on the secret because i

guarantee you one thing you don't have anything in that head that's going to shock us there is

nothing that you've done that's going to shock the people in this room believe me if it hasn't

been done by the folks in the first four rows it just haven't been thought of yet you know what i

mean you are not going to shock the people in AA you know we're here to help you and our magic word

here is identification identification that's what makes this room completely different than any room

i've ever sat in and if you're like me and a couple the other folks in here we spent a lifetime

sitting in rooms you know and all of them trying to talk us into something all of us they all these

rooms from the time i was 13 to the time i was 30 i sat in rooms from the state and the county and

the government and churches and hospitals and everybody had diplomas and stuff like that and

everybody had just volumes of data about what's wrong with me they had pictures of my fat feet

and my chunky liver and you know and every one of these rooms were trying to talk me into being an

alcoholic and they all meant well and thank god they couldn't do that you can't talk people into

being an alcoholic and suffering from alcoholism you can't and you know what i am so glad because

they would have robbed you and me of our most divining moment of our lives as we concede to our

innermost self that we were alcoholics that is the most divining moment that an alcoholic can have

because for the first time in his life he does the hardest thing that he's ever had to do admit

defeat it's okay to tell people yeah yeah yeah stuff but when you have to admit to your innermost

self man i just can't do it no more and yet i'm gonna when you're physically beating your body

saying no more larry and your head's saying get in the car how do you make that go away

how do you make it go away when every time you get sober you know of the harmful things you just did

you know of the things that have just been done to you every time you're sober you've got the

nightmares and the memories of all the things that have happened to you you've got the experience and

your body is falling apart every time you're sober your fat liver and your chunky bread that's

hallucinating and pounding at your head and stuff your fat feet and stuff like that and blood coming

everywhere you have all the stuff happening to you when you're not drinking you have people in

your mind and in your life that are begging you not to stop this you know don't continue don't

drink larry people are begging you yet me and you are the only people when we stop drinking

that the only thing that not drinking ever squeezes out of our head is that thought that

this time it's going to be different or in my case the three most deadliest words in my vocabulary

to this day what's the use what's the use man i've not drank and it's just no use what who am i

kidding i can't do this and it seems like sobriety drives me to drink and that was the thing that was

confusing to me and some of the folks in this room growing up is all our lives we've been surrounded

by well-meaning people well-educated people trying to convince us of the lie and what's that lie the

lie is simply this if you stop drinking everything will be all right and me and you stop drinking and

we're not all right and the longer we stay sober the worse we get and running down to the old

alano club and ain't where are we at incino lake bow there's not a goddamn lake around here there's

there's a runoff from the shell station you know what i mean that's the only lake they got around

here you know what i mean lake balboa like it's some exotic place you know shit just say you're

in the hood just say it man you know this is the only club around here where you got to come

through the alley to get to it man you know they don't tell you that yeah come on down to the old

lake balboa club you know you know lake balboa you know plenty of golfing you know yeah shit

you know plenty of nice restaurants right eight taco trucks on the street up here

underly underly you know oh yeah if you just stop drinking everything will be all right and we stop

drinking and we're not all right and we come to these little clubs and we hear these guys with

these ties on saying stuff like 30 days ago i was on the streets of los angeles now i'm the president

of the bank of america thank you and i'm going oh my god i came in with that guy right and i just

don't fit i just don't fit because one more time i'm surrounded by people who are doing what i just

can't seem to do and that is get their life together god if i could just get my life together

right well you can but that ain't going to keep you sober most people you'll meet in here are

having a material experience that ain't going to keep you sober money and property prestige won't

keep a man's and you'll get them here there's nothing wrong with that but man when you rest

all your bacon into that now the material life won't keep a guy like me sober something has to

happen to us as a result of these steps something has to happen to us that can't be done in any

other way but through these steps or we'd be sitting in that room tonight something has to

happen to us because we lack the power for it not to and i didn't know what that meant i had no idea

i couldn't blame my mother and father i had great folks you know i was born in detroit we have real

lakes come on now you can't even see across the other end of them man you know what i mean and

you know had great mother and father i just lost my mom not too long ago too and

god she was a sweet lady man sweet lady little scandinavian lady right and uh and speaking of

scandinavian here's how smart i am new people i spent the first seven minutes of this meeting

trying to figure out what no sniveling means i thought it was some kind of german sign or

something like that i said oh shit it says no sniveling yeah i i'm a lost case man you know

and my little mom was uh she's a little scandinavian lady and she loved diet pills

right she loved that speed and so she loved to eat that speed and run around sorting nuts and

bolts in the garage all night or right raking the neighbor's yard or the park across the street you

know just a busy lady and always eating that speed and making afghans right you know we had a house

about the size of this room and she had a little room over there where she could you know do her

knitting and you could just hear all night just like that like the garment district man eating

those decks and making shit right just making stuff all kinds of stuff man you know making

houses out of ice cream sticks and just you know just always a little project you know or out in

the back light with a flashlight at night doing you know picking weeds and stuff like that i

didn't know i met my first tweaker you know my reference point to when i got older man and as

some of you new guys know and some of the old guys that when you eat enough speed you have a lot of

hobbies am i right right you ain't got a real tooth in your head young man do you and uh and

when you have a lot of hobbies hey me neither you know what but when you make the amends your teeth

grow back they do every one of them man there's a miracle here right and so my mom loved to eat

that speed and one of her favorite hobbies uh was uh to make these huge jigsaw puzzles right

not the 10 000 pieces or the 30 000 pieces right the 1 million pieces right of the mojave desert

right no shit this is an exciting oh it's going to be a beige night tonight honey you know and

she'd go get her prescription filled and get her little stinky proxide she'd put on her hair and

come home and smoke these raleigh cigarettes you know and uh she'd squeeze in behind that

little breakfast nook you know and start putting this puzzle together all night and she got a piece

that didn't fit well she had a big pair of toenail clippers and she snipped that son of a bitch down

wedge it right in there you know i love my mom dearly to the day she died but i had no idea

how much damage i did to that lady till i sat with you and another man in this room i had no idea how

selfish i was oh a little stingy maybe but i had no idea what selfishness meant i had no idea i

hope i never forget taking that fourth step with you guys now my real date mister is 1882 no

is may 2nd 1982 that's my sobriety date i'm going to be 38 years old and i'm 68 years old right now

you bet you baby and uh and man i i remember writing out that four step magic man writing down

that thing and i would start seeing things about larry that he grabbed as a five-year-old kid

and still dragging into his adult life and one of those things is what i would do that people who

who would give me love and attention and affection right and it started with my mom and it worked its

way out and what i would do with that sweet little lady is i would play her like a fiddle that there

would never be a time too inconvenient or an age too old for me not to put the tap on that young

lady and i never want to forget that i never want to forget and hell the older i got the more i did

it i didn't do it for one you know lost weekend or something like that you know i never want to

forget that i never want to forget what it was like to be 17 years old and be put away for a

small period of time and and when you come out you're supposed to go to the courthouse and stuff

and the bus lets you out and you're supposed to go in there and i run off into the neighborhood

and i don't come out till i'm thursday it dropped off on monday and i come back out of thursday and

i don't show up at home or anything like that no i show up at my mom's place of business she's

working at a dry cleaners during the week and she's cleaning people's houses on the weekend

and i make fun of her and i'm ashamed of her but i'm not too ashamed to show up unannounced at

eight o'clock in the morning with my filth and my mud and my disgust and as wino joe used to call

the have limits of despair and i'm standing in this parking lot and i'm about i don't know 30

yards away man and it's coming down rain and the rain's coming down and i'm hiding behind a parked

car waiting for the last customer to come out of her place and that last customer comes out and i

start walking through that water and i can see my bare feet and the blood on them and stuff like that

and i'm walking through that little water and i open up that door of the dry cleaners and that

brass bell hits that glass door and my mom turns around and makes that oh so familiar sound oh my

god larry what's happened to you and she goes over to her desk and she grabs her wallet and pulls out

one or two or three dollars and i grab that money and i run off to wilmington where i'm going to die

now the thing that brings it home to me tonight out here in lake balboa pocino lake cochino right

is you take the same man you take the same man new and alcoholics anonymous with my so-called

desperation and willing to go to any length and i need to ask you new guys something how come when

my life depends on it if you were to put the secretary of that meeting that same distance is

me and my mom in that parking lot how come when my life depends on it i can't walk that same distance

and that's the secretary for a job in a meeting that's going to save my life but i can walk that

distance and use folks like my mom time and time and time again and i'm here to share with you that

it's been my experience and that's all i have that if my alcoholism doesn't kill me my selfishness and

my self-centeredness will make no mistake about that which is why it's necessary for a man with

close to 38 years to have a home group a routine of meetings and a job in every one of them and

it's not so i can run off to lake cochino and tell you about it but it's for one reason and one

reason only i will never get so sober that i can't get drunk again but i can get so drunk that i

can't make it back and i never want to forget what i used to be like i never want to forget what

happened to me and what i'm like today i never want to forget what it's like to know that the

answer's in here and i'm out there i never want to forget what it was like from 75 to 82 to be going

to all these meetings in the los angeles area peering through these little doors like that

looking at these meetings wishing that i could be in the middle of this thing because i knew you had

something here i knew you had something here and i knew i was too different to be in here because

you guys were talking about just putting the plug in the jug and everything is wonderful and i put

the plug in the jug and then the gun in my throat is today today i'm gonna jump in front of the bus

be sitting there on that bus stop on pacific coast highway in west rock and waiting for the 176 to

come by stone cold sober is today the day see that's what it's like when i'm not drinking and

the longer i drink the worse it gets and the trouble with my life and most of the people in

here is that i kept coming to i kept having to wake up and do that stuff again and again and again

knowing that it's always going to be the same yet i don't have the power not to oh i have i have sworn

off forever many a day i can't do it today i can't do it today it's my grandfather's funeral i can't

do it today i got a court day i can't do it today and you pound on that little floor that motel or

in that alley and by 11 o'clock in the afternoon you're at eddie's liquor store looking for that

half pint of 10 high how do you make that go away i lack the power now my daddy was a happy drunk my

dad was a happy singing the blues nat king cole bobbie darren drunk my old man used to get drunk

and snooped and sneak into his own house he was a window climbing alky which i believe is a lost

art in alcoholics anonymous that old fart standing on that gas meter pounding on that window all

night getting ready to make the magic dive you know over the toilet or the sink you know hoping

that it's his own home right but he was a refinery worker and he was always coming home at different

hours and he was a happy drunk man i knew he found something when he was drinking because he was a

son of a gun when he was sober every he was tossing everybody around you know what i mean

the only time he would talk to me was when he's kicking the shit out of me you know you son of a

you know he just and uh i just couldn't trust the people i was man my old man got drunk and

he snuck into my bedroom window one night and that big old boot comes down on my chest i grabbed that

boot and i said dad i said you know why don't you have mom make you a set of keys i mean shit she's

up anyway you know i mean i can't i can hear the hoover going now man just ask her you know she'll

do it she'll make it with her teeth who knows man you know get out of my window man you know

coming in through there scaring me half to death and i'm you know i'm i can't sleep anyway you

know ever since i was five years old i can't sleep my dad come into my bedroom one night through the

door this time you know he said guess what son you're gonna have a baby brother yeah yeah he

says your mom's gonna have a baby here in nine months you're gonna have a baby brother man i go

this is great i start saving up my baseball cards oiling up my gloves thinking about me and that kid

brother going to the drag races and the beaches and you know beating up my sisters and shit you

know and it was gonna be great i start planning right nine months later my dad comes into that

same bedroom he says your baby brother died your mom had it at the hospital she's okay but your

baby brother died and i did what i always did when i couldn't understand anything i got mad at it

i ran after the old man with all 80 pounds yelling and screaming and swinging you promised me and

blame my father for something he was totally powerless over now let me tell you about the

magic of these amends i hated that man for something he had nothing to do with and i

introduced my mom and dad to a level of living they never knew existed and here they would work

in two jobs to provide a life so that their sons and daughters wouldn't have to live like he had to

live in the depression in world war ii in the streets of detroit and here i sit in that house

with my sense of entitlement that because i'm somebody's son i deserve all the riches and i

don't need to lift a finger this would be a defective character that follows me into the

rooms of alcoholics anonymous that just because i'm sitting in a meeting i don't have to do these

things that you're getting the peace of mind for i can pretend for an hour and a half there's work

to be done here for people like me thank god for that and i would be making these amends when i'm

about 35 years old to my father and i sat him down and i told him about that situation and some other

ones and my dad was a world war ii vet his ship went down in world war ii was sunken midway his

father hung himself when or choked on his tongue when he was 13 his mother hung herself in a detroit

jail and his only dream was to marry my mom and bring her out to california he loved my mom

sweetly and i started telling him about this and he says i understand son he says but give me a

couple minutes he says i want to tell you about my life he says i've seen a lot of things and i've

seen a lot of blood and i've been in a lot of tragedies and he says i want to tell you about

the hardest day of my life larry the hardest day of my life bar none was the day we lost your baby

brother he said because for nine months i watched you live a dream i watched you save your little

baseball cards and i thought you line up all your motel trucks and stuff like that and he says the

hardest thing for me to do was to know that i was going to have to walk down that hallway and tell

you that your dream was a nightmare he says i would have hated me too but i cried too and he

says on that day i believe my god cried too son he says i want you to know about a power greater

than yourself he says where i come from god don't take people he receives them he's a receiver

how about that the old man told me that you know but i'm 11 years old i'm running away from home

i don't fit in i'm supposed to be loving these folks and i don't trust them and more important

than that is what that little death did to my head about this thing called god what type of

god would create a baby and kill it i don't want nothing to do with religion spiritualities jesus

johova i don't care what their nicknames are i want nothing to do with it it's up to me to figure

this stuff out i can't take my problems to my mom and dad they're busy doing their craziness

i can't trust them but i love them but i'm ashamed of them i can't trust this god i know it's up to

me to figure this stuff out and i started running my own life and making decisions based on self

as a little kid 11 years old there's four of us and i know i'm a nobody i'm a loser you hear it

enough you begin to believe it and 11 years old there was four of us across the street and we

started passing around a bottle of four rows whiskey and for the first time in my life this

little nobody became a somebody it turned howdy doody into james dean and three drinks it was

magic man i tell you i would much rather be a part-time somebody than an all-time loser nobody

and man i never you know after i threw up and stuff like that never laughed so hard my entire

life took a shot of that four rows whiskey and we drank the rest of it i never threw up so much

as i did that day and i remember that evening i kissed my first latin woman there she is right

there and it was my aunt my auntie della she was 46 years old man i said how'd you like an 11 year

old hunk you know what i mean oh god boy that made my uncle a little edgy right and i didn't

head out to skid row the next day and lose my paper out and run to the elano club you know

but i did like a lot of us did i marked that spot i knew i found something special and i didn't have

to lift a finger i didn't have to study i didn't have to have a plan of what i'm going to do when

i go to college it was the answer to this loser all i had to do is take a shot of four rows whiskey

man and i'm living a dream and i have lived in a dream my entire life the book calls it delusion

one kid out here when i got here he says how you doing he says i'm living a dream i said well

that's your problem come over here and live in reality kid it ain't that bad you know what i

mean and uh and that you know like i said i didn't head off the skid row the next day or anything

like that but the older i got the more i leaned on it and the old man had it all over the garage

and everything like that and i become preoccupied with that stuff and at an early age and by the

time i get into high school my freshman in high school and some of the kids are grabbing their

locker rooms and they're going to their locker rooms and getting their books and pencils and

going to their science classes and stuff and i'm going to my locker to get some thunderbird wine

and maybe some barbiturates right i started dating this little mexican girl and she had some brothers

and they like cars and i love cars to this day and you know we didn't have these dodge trucks

like you guys have out here with these tires this big to drive over each other's houses with and

shit you know but i did have a 64 chevy dropped right down to the ground i had my hair slicked

back my white t-shirts and my black khaki pants that came up to here my frisco pants right and

we'd drive around and drink that thunderbird wine and eat those reds and listen to the four tops and

the temptations and the ojs and the impressions and junior walker and god i loved it man i was

in my plumbing truck not too long ago when the four tops came on shit i just started sinking in

my damn truck man i had a little mexican girlfriend named loopy and her sisters would curl her hair

with soup cans and the noodles were stuck in there you know and and we'd drive around and you know

drinking that thunderbird wine and with our frowns on bouncing around all night you know and

her sisters would tell her that you know men who are well endowed had big feet so i went out and

got me a pair of 15-inch shoes right had my big hair my big feet man driving around like that you

know shit i loved it man and uh and ricky tripped over my foot tonight and i felt proud you know to

watch out man that's a 1918 foot yeah yeah and i loved it and i became somebody

i would no longer was that little loser down the street or betty and bob's little goofy kid in my

own head i became lawrence of torrance you know and nobody else knew that but i knew that and

that's all that counts that i became somebody man and i had a little group of somebodies and

we did those little things that we do and rob houses and just i had a ball and i knew me and

pooch and loopy were gonna bounce off into the sunset man and uh you know as time goes on you

know people are going different places during the war and 69 and stuff like that and i grabbed my

buddy and i said well i'm gonna head out to detroit and find my roots right so we drove from gardena

to detroit and i wound up in phoenix i never made it to detroit man over there phoenix at north

central and roosevelt at the apache hotel right five floors high everybody's got a bathroom it's

down the hall everybody has a tv it's in the lobby 35 bucks a week i'm running out of dough to make

my rent i'm afraid to leave my little motel room during the day i'm afraid to be by myself at night

i find a friendly place across the street called the wagon wheel bar it has no windows just a dirty

curtain blown through the and you know i started hanging out at the wagon wheel and the wagon wheel

had a guy in there named ernie and every bar has an ernie ernie is the answer man man you know and

he had an answer to my problem and he had a couple answers you know and one of them was that you know

he said uh there's a horse track not too far from here we're gonna get you down to 95 pounds you're

gonna be a jockey i thought great now i can start working out and you know getting healthy again

right you said well i don't know about that he says but i need you to take this stuff and in

two months we're gonna go weigh you in and he says i have a feeling we can get you down to 95 pounds

he says i need you to take this stuff and i don't know what this stuff is you know i guess it was

some kind of speed or something and i don't do speed i just drink cheap wine and do heroin and

mind my own business you know certainly not going to be no afghan maker that's for damn sure you

know he says well i don't know about that son but all i need you to do is take the stuff and i'll

come back in two months and weigh you in and he took off and he lived left me in that little room

with that stuff you know and he took off well he comes back two weeks later right opens up the door

and i'm opens up the door and i'm standing right there and he says what's wrong with you well you

know i've been taking that stuff and all i can do is i've been chasing around a fly in my room for

two weeks and looking out the windows every 10 seconds going what's that what's that what's that

what's that what's that you know or i'm hiding underneath the bed because i'm i'm scared to death

of these black and white flashes that keep happening and it was the sun going up and down

you know oh my god it's got a face on it you know and just he says well my god you know and he opens

up he says you couldn't have possibly taken all well i did ernie you can put a saddle on me and

ride me around here you know went back to the wagon wheel and i start working for another

plumber right i started working for this plumber for about two hours and i find out that the guy

is younger than me well i got my pride i'm not working for no kid so i did what any honorable

man would do i faked a knee injury and they took me to the county hospital and the doctor writes

me a prescription for percodan and then he leaves there and uh he he left a uh a cardboard box full

of blank prescription pads he wanted me to have but shit i grabbed that box man i'm running down

north central you know ducking to the old wagon wheel ernie sees these things i'm like this is

great this is great he makes a phone call to some guy in yuma arizona and hell we start writing

prescriptions and selling them we start writing prescriptions for second all and two and all and

nembutal and obitrol you name it all we wrote it all man you know and and damn near took it all too

you know and after about nine months they caught up with me and there's none of this shit like on

channel five there he goes down the 405 look at him you know none of that was happening i was

going nine miles an hour and the cop was on foot he was just hey hey open up that window and i'm

looking at this guy and go my god could this man run you know he threw me out of there they threw

me in jail for about a year and i come got out of there and they sent me back to california and in 1973

i register at the city hall and my probation officer puts me on an abuse and for the first

time in my life since i'm 13 i don't have a thing in my system just this an abuse after about two

months uh i went crazy they find me in a little league dugout waiting for a job interview crying

like a baby and laughing like a clown crying like a baby laughing like a clown and this is going on

for hours and then that paranoia and hallucinations that used to float by is now stuck and okay and

they said that it becomes somewhat catatonic and somebody sees me milling around there and they

send the old ambulance after me and they take me to the harbor general hospital and in uh 1974 they

got me down on a on a gurney with an arm and a legs trapped down and the doctor came over to me

one more time said son by the way you've been living for the past three or four years we need

to put you in a state hospital for about 30 days 60 days and observe you and they took me in a bus

and drove me over the hill to this little place out by oxnard where they were going to observe

me for 30 or 60 days and a year later they let me out and they gave me medications to take but

there's something you can't medicate away in the mind of an alcoholic and that is this thought this

time it's going to be different you got this larry you got this i ran out of thorazine after two

months they find me in alvaro street i'm over there across the street at the chevron gas station

on a pile of tires and i'm not over there vaping you know what i mean you know doing my lotto rub

off you know what i mean no homies homies tucked into the old tire man you know trying to get some

rest because that's what we do there is no line we don't cross for a drink there's nothing we

don't do and we just keep waking up and having to do it and they come and arrest me and they arrest

me on a public nuisance out of state forgeries they send me up the wayside for a couple months

for three and a half year in a state penitentiary and after three months they send me down to the

south bay courthouse in torrance california i'm in a holding tank about twice this size and with

these guys that i was on the chain with and one by one they're all being called out and at four

o'clock in the afternoon i'm the only one left i'm on a concrete floor with a von's bag and no hope

wondering where they're going to send me now and at four o'clock in the afternoon a scottish man

with a patch opened up a jail door eyelad got a patch on eyelad are you laddie thomas i said yes

there i am he says that's great he says my name is alex we're going to aa and i thought aa i've

heard of or and po but what's aa you know and who's this scottish pirate all of a sudden you

know i've been hallucinating so much i didn't know if he was real or not you know you know however

looking well back over 40 some years i know exactly what he is because this room is sprinkled

with him some of my dearest friends is what my book calls a trusted servant and what made that

man a trusted servant was simply this he had no business being there he had no business being

there i drove a long way i'm getting three more minutes kid lake balboa i'll be done in a minute

i i've got them right on the edge of their seats hang on he had no business being there and he

wasn't a counselor and he wasn't a probation officer he was a refinery worker who just got

the worst news of his life and that news was that his wife was dying immediately of a terminal

illness and he knew she was in good hands but he knew he wasn't somewhere in his meetings in

lake cochino somewhere in his meetings in bellflower california somewhere in his meetings

in pocoima somewhere in his meetings in long beach he would sit with you folks in that book

and grasp and develop a manner of living that ingrained in him this that practical experience

tells us that nothing will ensure immunity from drinking but intensive work with other alcoholics

he didn't think of milk and whiskey it had been removed just like bill wilson in the town's

hospital it happened to him suddenly ebi came over to his bedside and bill had this profound

experience one that i was mad that i couldn't have and yet at five years sober i would sit

with you folks and discover that two paragraphs down bill said to him still still laying in that

peace-telling bed the thought came to him that maybe he could work with other alcoholics there

wasn't even an aa yet the thought came to him that maybe he could work with others i believe for me

and you our singleness of purpose was hatched that afternoon my primary purpose if you will

was hatched that afternoon and maybe just maybe what happened to bill suddenly he's hoping will

happen to me and you gradually but the end game is the same we're carrying this message that's our

primary purpose that's what's in that channel lord make me a channel what do you think's in that

channel your experience strength and hope and for people like me and you who have been haunted by

our past our saving grace here is our past is our greatest asset you don't have to hang yourself

over those nightmares there's somebody you're going to sponsor who will need to hear your

experience and how you stayed sober there's a miracle here that chapter working with others

you can rename it who's helping who you see this picture you remember bill in the mayflower you

remember bill and bob at the cyberling guesthouse you remember that first man you sponsor who was

helping who you guys are bringing me something every time i lay eyes on you i ain't talking down

to nobody i'm doing that thing that they want us to do work with i'm with you man i'm with you all

the way and like i said on this 12-step call a couple months ago when i left this young man in

the bed i came back to him i told him i am no better than you i am no better than you and i

and I hope if you're new, you stay.

Thank you so much.