Thunderbolt Love: Jay's Journey Through Sobriety, Loss, and the 12 Traditions

Hey, y'all, my name is Jay Westbrook.

I'm an alcoholic in Tupelo, Mississippi.

It's over today by God's mercy

and the practice of the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And this is Nancy Westbrook.

Let's see a picture of her.

That's so you, I mean, you're gonna be hearing about Nancy.

So now you have an image to go with that.

And we are so pleased to be here.

We, I'm old as though you couldn't tell.

And we met Friday night, June 7th, 1968

at a party in Pacific Palace AIDS.

And up in the hills and we took that footbridge

about one in the morning, the footbridge over PCH

who came down in front of Gladstone's,

walked the beach for five hours.

The sun came up and it was a mori prima noce,

love at first night.

And we were truly inseparable from that first morning.

And it was a match made in heaven

'cause we were both alcoholics and drug addicts.

And we did it till the wheels fell off.

Mine fell off first and I came into the rooms.

And on December 2nd, 1988, and have stayed

and Nancy had no interest in getting sober,

but she got lonely and she started going to meetings.

And on my 90th day, Nancy stood up and said,

"I'm Nancy Morgan Westbrook.

"I'm a cocaine addict and alcoholic."

And stayed sober from then on and never relapsed.

And that's absolutely amazing.

And I will tell you, it was like Michael in "The Godfather"

when he fled to Sicily and saw Apollonia

and it just thunderbolt love.

And that first morning was like that.

And I will tell you that 11 weeks to the day

after our 42nd wedding anniversary,

Nancy died in my arms in our home on hospice

with pancreatic cancer and the world went out from under me.

The ground went out from under me

and I didn't know if I could stay sober, you know,

but I got real clear that I wasn't willing

to disrespect the program that gave Jay so much,

that gave Nancy so much, that gave Jancy so much.

Jancy, we were that AA couple

in West Hollywood, California, and then in Lake Balboa.

And so I reframed my pain, a small price to pay

for a lifelong love affair, small price to pay.

I took my wedding ring off.

I took my ring and Nancy's to JR.

He's a custom jeweler in Beverly Hills.

And I said, "Melt the two rings together

"and make one that's thicker and wider."

And that's what I wear today.

And so you kind of have Jancy speaking to you tonight.

And I would love to tell you, I will tell you,

that that passion, that intense Thunderbolt love,

never dimmed, never lessened, never abated.

From that first morning right through

to Nancy's terminal exhalation, that passion was there.

And I would love to tell you

that it was matched by behavior, but that would be a lie

'cause we were alcoholics, you know,

and we were self-centered and self-righteous

and self-pitying and arrogant and immature

and grandiose and scorekeeping and manipulative

and fear-based and reactive.

And I could go on and on and on, but I won't.

And we were baffled 'cause we loved each other so much

and we just couldn't make it work behaviorally, you know.

And then very early on in sobriety,

we stumbled upon the idea that the 12 traditions

are the instruction manual for relationships,

romantic friendships in the rooms at work, on the freeway,

with self and with God.

And we got sponsors and we worked steps,

but we lived and loved those traditions.

And we developed a workshop that we did.

And then now that Nancy has died,

I've been doing it all over the world on Zoom.

I'm doing it next Saturday, a two-hour version of it.

And it's just amazing stuff, you know.

And that first step that says I am powerless

over alcohol and drugs, no matter what I do or think

or pledge or promise or swear, I'm not gonna dot, dot, dot.

And I do.

And I swear to God, I don't intend to, and I just can't not.

And my life is unmanageable by me alone.

And that's real clarity on the problem,

but not the solution.

The solution is right there in the first tradition.

That I put the common welfare first, not Nancy's welfare,

not Jay's welfare, but the common welfare.

And that our recovery as alcoholics depends upon our unity,

but the recovery of my marriage depends upon Jancy's unity.

And it was early sobriety and in my arrogance,

maybe it was my hair, it was even bigger then.

And I thought I knew, I just knew.

And I knew the IRS was after me

and they hadn't written a letter, which is what they did do.

They hadn't called,

but I knew they were gonna seize my bank account.

And I rushed to the bank and I pulled all the money out,

$9,800, not a lot of money today, but in 1989,

it was a chunk and we were saving for a house.

And I put that money, all that cash in my back pocket.

And the next day I got on my little Honda shadow motorcycle

and you know what happened.

I don't know how it happened,

but I ended up in front of Glendale Harley Davidson

and in the window was a used red soft tail

with a price tag of $9,800.

And I knew that meant the God in whom I didn't believe

wanted me to have a Harley, but Jancy wanted a house,

but Jay who wanted a Harley, but Jancy wanted a house.

And for the first time I made a conscious decision

to put the common welfare first.

And I left the Harley in the window

and the money in my pocket

and got back on my little Honda shadow

and put it home.

And then I put the money back in the bank

and we added to it over the next couple of years

and got a house at Amisto and Strathern in Lake Balboa.

And that's where we lived.

It's where Nancy died.

Her ashes are under the ornamental pear tree.

And then 34 months ago, I moved,

sold that house and moved to Tupelo, Mississippi.

And you know, then I jumped over to step two

and step two, I got, I don't know how y'all got here,

but I got here insane, absolutely insane.

And you know, a short version, my mom went out the door

when I was five months old and never came back.

And when I was two, dad remarried.

When I was three, dad and stepmom wanted to focus

on their career, so they gave me away.

And I hope they gave me to what they thought

was a good family, but they weren't.

And I was three years old and terrified of the dark

and they locked me in a pitch black closet for three years.

And I slept, toileted, ate, lived, existed in that closet,

pulled out once a day to be washed, ritualistically

tortured and raped by three adults.

And I lost everything, my sanity, safety, security,

innocence, trust, any sense that I could say no

and have it be heard and respected.

And finally I got pulled out of there

and reunited with my parents and periodically re-victimized

'cause predators spot prey, and then we moved to LA

when I was 15 years old and about 16, something like that.

And a year later I found drugs and alcohol

and they saved my life, kept me from suiciding,

let me stay on the planet, but made me stupid over time.

And that stupidity led to bad decision-making

as the country song says, I got real good

at making bad decisions.

And one of those decisions put me in front of a power

greater than myself, his name was Judge William Ritze.

And on my first ever encounter

with the criminal justice system,

he sentenced me to double five to life's in the penitentiary.

And man, I didn't wanna go 'cause I had this beautiful wife

and, but I didn't have a choice.

I had no fear 'cause it was my first,

I didn't know there was a difference

between jail and prison.

I knew nothing and it took five hours to learn the difference

and that first night coming up from the chow hall,

I was grabbed by five guys, beaten almost to death.

And gang raped.

And once that happens in the pen, that's who you are.

And that's who I was until I got out.

And when I got out, I was filled with bitterness and rage

and blame and cowardice and irresponsibility and shame

and massive PTSD, you know?

And I went right back to the lifestyle and I went to school

and got a lot of letters after my name.

And that PTSD made me kind of crazy, you know,

hyper vigilant and jumpy and absolutely having to control

everything to feel safe and control everyone.

And I'm so arrogant and I know what's best for me

and for you and for Nancy and my boss and my wife

and my neighbor and my landlord and the guy in front of me

on the freeway.

And, you know, kind of like George Carlin when he said,

"Isn't it interesting when I drive down the freeway,

how anyone driving slower than me is a goddamn idiot

and anybody driving faster is a fucking maniac."

You know, I'm the only one who knows the right speed

to drive on any given day on any given road situation,

you know, 'cause I am the ultimate authority, you know?

And so step two gave me hope that I could be restored

to sanity, but it didn't give me a single tool.

And then I step into tradition two and there's the tool.

Jake, there's one ultimate authority and it's not you.

It's a loving God.

And maybe if you moved over and made a little bit of room

for that God, that God could come in.

And with that God would come a little sanity

and that's exactly what happened to me.

And then I moved over a little more

and a little more God came in.

You know, and the tradition goes on to say,

there's one ultimate authority, it's not Jay,

it's a loving God as he may express himself

in our group conscience.

And so Nancy and I started having group consciences

based on the idea that you see what you look for.

You see what you look for and I would look for a loving God

in Nancy and when I looked for it, I saw it.

And when I saw it, it changed how I spoke to her

and how I spoke about her and how I engaged her.

And now comes the hard part 'cause it's early sobriety

and I hate Jay, but we see what we look for.

And when I looked for a loving God in me, I saw it.

And when I saw it, it changed how I spoke to myself

and how I spoke about myself

and most importantly, how I offered myself.

You know, 'cause if I'm saying you stupid ass,

you piece of shit, you loser,

then what do I have to offer Nancy?

And what do I have to offer God?

And what am I saying about God's handiwork, me,

when I'm speaking about myself, let alone somebody else

in that kind of a, in that manner?

You know, and then I step over there

and step three is a lot of words.

We make a decision to turn our will and our life,

our thinking and our behavior over to the care of God

as we understand God, oh my God.

So I just shorten it for me and I just say,

I'm gonna do God's work, not God's job.

I'm gonna do God's work, not God's job.

And I was a hospice nurse for 35 years in LA

and I've been a grief and loss counselor for 33 years

and I moved here to Mississippi

and I'm not seeing the dying anymore,

but I'm working with the grieving

and I'm clinical director of Grief Recovery of Tupelo.

And the third tradition,

I don't know if y'all know the history of AA,

but in the early days, they only wanted,

the meetings only wanted pure alcoholics

'cause they were worried that impure alcoholics

might give AA a bad name.

Like the alcoholics couldn't do that well enough.

So they didn't want queers or crackpots

or fallen women or beggars, tramps, thieves,

asylum inmates or prisoners.

The list is on page 140 in the 12 and 12.

And honey, my home group is log cabin

in West Hollywood, California.

And if we got rid of the queers, the crackpots

and the fallen women, the room would be empty.

And then AA kind of wised up and said,

"Oh, well, in the fifties, they made these 12 traditions

"and they got inclusive instead of exclusive,

"they stopped being conditional."

And that third tradition

is about surrendering being conditional.

And that's what I wanna do as a husband.

I wanna be honoring and honorable,

passionate and compassionate,

courageous, consistent, curious, playful,

spontaneous, respectful, forgiving.

And a host of other qualities,

regardless of how Nancy's behaving on any given day.

It's not like I'll be nice as long as you do

what I want when I want in the bedroom.

I'll be kind as long as we see the movie I wanna see

or eat at the restaurant I want.

No, the idea is I do that.

I love, I practice loving kindness with Nancy,

regardless of how she's feeling or acting on any given day.

I'm not conditional.

It means I also give up scorekeeping,

remembering every good thing I've ever done

and every bad thing Nancy ever did.

And I allow what she gives to be enough,

sexually, emotionally, financially, spiritually.

I allow what she gives to be enough

and it makes it safe for her to risk giving more.

And then I jump over there

and I walked in the room saying,

I'm the victim here and if you had the childhood I had,

you would drink and use the way I do.

And it's not my fault and victim, victim, victim.

And there's no point in doing a fourth step

'cause I don't have a part in any of this.

It's that.

But I finally got willing to do the fourth step

to take a courageous action of looking at,

doing a searching and fearless moral inventory

as fact finding.

Searching is fact finding.

Fearless, fact facing.

Inventory of myself and I got in touch with,

became aware of, learned that my behavior affects others.

And that prepared me to step into the fourth tradition.

The couple's version says that each partner,

each spouse should be autonomous, self-governing,

except in matters affecting the other partner

or the couple as a whole.

So we used to live by Plummer Park in WeHo

and we went to the Monday night meeting at La Cienega Park.

And when I drove our big white, wide Chevy Blazer,

I drove the right way, south on Martel and west on 6th.

Then Nancy would complain the whole way.

Why are we going down these little side streets?

We're gonna get side scraped.

And when Nancy drove, she drove the wrong way.

West on Santa Monica, south on La Cienega

and all this traffic.

And I would complain the whole way.

And we'd get to the meeting and we were not in a good state

'cause we'd been arguing the whole way.

And then we said fourth tradition.

How about driver decides, passenger doesn't advise,

complain, pout, sulk, eye roll or anything else.

And the truth is whether we go the right way,

south and west or the wrong way, west and south,

we're gonna get to the meeting

so it doesn't affect the other person

or the couple as a whole.

And we started getting to that meeting so happy.

And that was applying the fourth tradition

to a driving situation.

And in the fifth tradition,

we're told that we have a primary purpose

and it's to carry the message.

Well, what is the message?

Message is love and tolerance.

And to whom do we carry it?

The alcoholic who suffers.

That's what it says.

It doesn't say the homeless drunk alcoholic

living in the bushes outside log cabin.

It just says the alcoholic who suffers.

So Nancy was an interior plantscaper.

She did plants in offices and wealthy people's homes

and shopping centers.

And it's nice work.

She's working with living plants, but it's hard physically.

And she's on the freeway going from account to account.

And she gets home at the end of the day

and her back is sore and she's bought traffic

and her arms are full and she can't close the door.

So she kicks it shut and I'm like,

"Hey, what are you bringing that anger into my house for?"

But it's not mine, it's ours.

And it's not a house, it's a home.

And what if it's not anger?

What if I can look at it as a manifestation of Nancy's suffering?

Then instantly this tradition tells me

I need to bring love and tolerance,

not judgment and criticism.

That I replace the judgment with mercy.

And now comes the hard part

'cause it's still early sobriety and I hate Jay.

And I have a usually dormant incest-related PTSD,

but once in a while it gets awakened.

And when it does, it can come out in some wonky behavior.

And without excusing myself from accountability

or responsibility, I have to realize that I'm suffering

and bring that same mercy to me.

Replace the judgment with mercy, it's perfect opposite.

'Cause judgment comes from my head

and mercy from the heart.

And judgment wounds and mercy heals

and judgment separates and mercy unites.

Judgment is touching pain with fear

and mercy is touching that same pain with love.

And then I jumped down to tradition six

that talks about not allowing money, property and prestige

to get in the way of our sobriety,

of our recovery, of our service.

And I'm not about money or property.

I'm a hospice nurse and a grief and loss counselor.

But boy, I gotta watch out for that prestige thing,

the prestige of being the one in the know when I gossip.

Oh my God, did you hear Billy and Sally broke up

and nobody knows, but I know.

I'm special and I'm gonna tell you, ew.

You know, the prestige of being the martyr

when I work harder on a sponsees recovery than they do.

The prestige of being the biggest victim

'cause I had the worst childhood.

I didn't, I had a horrendous childhood

and so did lots of people in these rooms.

But when it came, yeah, I got PTSD from that childhood

but I also got PTG, post-traumatic growth.

And that's an amazing thing to have happen.

And I suffered profoundly and that suffering

became my vehicle for awakening compassion

in me and for me and for others.

And it's what's allowed me to be such a good hospice nurse

that I can be with suffering to simply bear witness

with a compassionate presence and not impose my tools

unless and until they're requested.

I know how to be with suffering.

So I wouldn't wish that incest on anyone

but man, it gave me some qualities

that have been so helpful to me and others.

You know, and then there's the seventh tradition

and it saved my life.

We always think of it as being about the money

and it's not that it's not about the money

but it's about so much more.

This is the one that says that we're self-supporting

and I don't know how y'all got here

but I got here shooting myself in the foot

again and again and again, bucking up my money

and my marriage and my happiness and my joy

and my spirit and my health.

And so we created this filter for the seventh tradition.

And it's so simple is what I'm about to say

or what I'm about to do gonna,

is it self-sabotaging or self-supporting?

And if it's self-sabotaging, I don't do it

or I don't say only if it's self-supporting.

And I think I forgot to give you the first tradition filter

which was simply is what I'm about to say

or what I'm about to do gonna create greater separation

or greater unity.

And I can practice that with God, with Nancy,

on the freeway, at work, in the rooms.

You know, and then the eighth step,

we do that little three column inventory.

Who did I harm?

How did I harm them?

What were the defects of character at play?

And I become sensitized to the fact that I harm others.

And then we step into the eighth tradition

with that knowledge, that sensitization to my harming others

and the eighth tradition's my second favorite.

And it says alcoholics anonymous

should remain forever non-professional, dot, dot, dot.

So what does non-professional have to do

with a marriage, everything.

So we're at that Monday night La Cienega Park meeting

and the meeting ends and Nancy's talking

with this really nice couple.

And she's just chatting with them

and I'm not even part of it.

I'm just helping break the meeting down

and I overhear Nancy say,

"Oh my God, our favorite Italian restaurant's Benvenuto's

"at La Cienega in Santa Monica."

No, it isn't.

It's on the south side of Santa Monica,

just west of La Cienega.

Oh my God.

You know, if they'd been,

if we were gonna meet them there in 10 minutes,

that could have been valuable information.

Shitty delivery, but good information.

But we weren't, we weren't meeting them.

Nancy was just chatting and I saw the hurt in her eyes

that I had spoken to her so harshly

and done it in front of other people

and been so desperate to be right

that I was willing to make her wrong.

And I don't know if you understand this,

but right is the loneliest place I know.

Right is the loneliest place I know.

And what was going on was I was acting like the professional

'cause what is a professional?

A know-it-all, an expert who's absolutely certain,

who's rigid and intolerant and impatient and competitive

and focused on the goal or the win.

And that's not who I wanna be as a husband.

I wanna be the amateur who does it for fun and for free.

Who's cooperative, not competitive.

Who's flexible, not rigid.

Who's patient and tolerant and curious.

Honey, tell me more, help me understand dot, dot, dot,

as opposed to certain, man, what a difference it made

when I let go of being the professional.

And nine is very similar.

It talks about, hey, I ought never be organized.

And to me, this is the one that caused me to stop

being manipulative 'cause that's what manipulation is,

is organization.

I'm trying to organize your thoughts, your words,

your behavior to further my agenda or endorse my position.

I'm trying to organize your thoughts, your words,

your behavior to further my agenda or endorse my position.

And here's the problem with that.

Anything I get through manipulation,

whether it's in the bedroom or the boardroom,

is gonna be less satisfying than had I earned it

or had it been gifted to me.

When I get it by being sneaky and slimy and ew,

and there's absolutely no room for humility or curiosity

or trust or faith when I'm being manipulative.

And that's not how I want my marriage to be lived, you know?

I want there to be trust and faith

and humility and curiosity.

So I stopped being manipulative.

And then I do step 10 is doing the daily inventory,

nightly inventory, you know?

And Dennis F talks about the fact

that we either gonna write inventory

or we're gonna create it.

And that either I'm gonna take my inventory

and if I don't, I'm gonna end up taking yours.

And so when I do that daily inventory,

it prepares me to step into tradition 10.

And tradition 10 is the one that says

we have no opinion on outside issues.

Well, it's a little bit funny when you apply it

to a marriage, to a couple, to a relationship,

because it isn't that I don't have.

It's not that I have no opinion,

but I get real clear that I've got three inside issues.

You may have a different number of inside issues.

I've got three, my relationship with Nancy,

my relationship with recovery, my relationship with God.

And those are my only three inside issues.

Everything else is an outside issue

and I may have an opinion on it,

but it's not a hill I'm gonna die on, you know?

And so Nancy and I can disagree on this issue or that issue

and it might be financial, it might be political,

it might be intellectual, it might be a movie,

it might be a restaurant,

but it's not a hill I'm gonna die on, you know?

And so the question I ask here is,

am I being the peacemaker or am I being the antagonist?

And we just came out of this election season

and, you know, we've got the 24-hour news cycle

and these talking heads that, you know,

and there's this married couple

that are political commentators

and they usually appear on television together.

It's Mary Matlin and James Carville

and one is a staunch liberal

and the other is a staunch conservative

and they disagree on every candidate and every issue.

But here's the deal, never once have I seen the two of them

be disrespectful to or disagreeable with one another.

They focus on the issue or the candidate

and that's what this tradition is about.

I'm learning how to disagree without being disagreeable.

I don't have to throw down or go fuck you

or go out and grab my gun or, you know,

it's like, do I wanna be the antagonist or the peacemaker?

And then I step into step 11

and I do the prayer and meditation

and I do it on a consistent basis

and that prepares me to step into tradition 11,

which is my favorite.

And it's the one that says our public relations policy

is based on attraction rather than promotion

and you're going, wait a minute,

that has absolutely nothing to do with a marriage

but oh my God, yes, it does.

And it's very interesting, I was raised atheist.

My parents drilled into my head, there is no God,

there is no God, don't ever believe in God.

God is the opiate of the masses.

It's only used to control people, don't believe in God.

And so I never believed in God, you know,

and I've ran around and I said, there is no God,

there is no God, there is no God.

And what's interesting is in spite of saying that

I blamed God, the God I did not believe in

for everything bad that ever happened to me.

The incest, the gang rapes in prison, the beatings,

the, it was all God's fault but I don't believe in God.

And I prayed to that God and the prayers with punctuation

sounded like this, please, comma, God, comma,

don't let that liquor store close before I get there.

Please, comma, God, comma, let the dealer be there

and the dope be good.

Please, comma, God, comma, don't let those police

be pulling me over but I don't believe in God

but I'm blaming God and I'm praying to God.

And if you ask me, why don't you believe in God, Jay?

And I'd say, I'm a scientist

because I wanted to be a veterinarian.

So I got a bachelor's degree in biochemistry and biology.

Holy crap, I've had a lot of science.

I've had eight semesters of chemistry

and all the math that you take to go with that

and four semesters of physics.

And I've had anatomy and physiology and embryology

and histology and immunology and microbiology,

all of the ologies, I've had a lot of science classes

but I'm not a scientist, a scientist is curious,

open-minded, explorative, inquisitive

and I was none of those things.

I was just rigid, closed-minded

and parroting what my parents told me.

And here's what happened, Nancy and I never had children

'cause we didn't like them, so we didn't have them.

You know, there are people who don't like them

and they go ahead and have them, I don't understand.

We didn't like them, we didn't have them.

And when I got sober, right as I was getting sober,

you know what I was doing?

I was associate director of medical research

at a children's hospital in Los Angeles.

That's alcoholism, I don't like children

and I'm working at a children's hospital and I'm armed.

I've got two guns on cock and lock, I'm thinking like,

you turn you back on a five-year-old with leukemia,

you don't know what that kid might do, I need a gun.

I mean, I was out of my mind, I don't know

how they didn't know, fire me, have me arrested.

And I hated my job and I disliked the population

I was serving, but I kept the job because I had

a business card that said associate director

of medical research at this children's hospital.

And I thought that would impress you, you know.

So December 2nd, 1988, I got sober

and it was at a CA meeting, Cocaine Anonymous.

And at the end of that meeting, they said,

"Honey, you are really sick."

And I said, "Thank you."

They said, "No, it wasn't a compliment.

"It was an observation, you're really sick.

"You'd probably benefit from morning meetings.

"Go to log cabin, it's Melrose and Robertson, it's AA,

"but you can talk about drugs,

"7.30 a.m., Monday through Friday."

And on my third day sober, December 5th, 1988,

I walked into log cabin for the first time

and I never left, it's still my home group.

I do log cabin Zoom every morning, Monday through Friday.

7.30 a.m., they're about 105 of us,

110 of us every morning.

And here's what happened, you know, we can spot a newcomer.

And I came to that meeting and there was a gay boy

in a pink shirt standing at the top of the steps

and he took one look at me and he said,

"Hi, honey, welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous.

"You know, if you leave your fantasies at the door,

"all of your dreams can come true in AA

"if you're willing to work for them."

I about fell over 'cause I didn't know

there was a difference between fantasies and dreams

and I was living the fantasy that this business card

might impress you and I was wrong.

And I was ignoring my dream,

which was that I wanted to work with the dying.

And when that meeting ended at 8.30 a.m.

with three days sober, I drove into the hospital

and quit my job and drove downtown to County General

and got a job as an oncologic cancer nurse.

And I did that for a year and then I got recruited

to the pain management service at County Hospital

and did that for one year and then I made the leap

to hospice and here's what happened.

The place where life and death meet

is filled with God, period.

It wasn't a thought, a hypothesis, a question,

a theory, a possibility.

For me, it was an experiential certainty.

On death call after death call after death call,

there was God and I just had to figure out

how that God could work given my history,

my story and lots of iterations but where I got to

was that there's a loving God that designed it,

created it, put it in motion and gave us free will.

And that God co-journeys with me,

always never leaves my side and co-suffers with me

but does not intervene my God as a non-intervening God.

He watched me being raped at three and four

and five and six years old and wept at my suffering

and then looked at my rapists and wept at their suffering

that they'd moved so far from his grace

but didn't intervene 'cause he made them

with everything they needed for redemption

and me with everything I needed for resilience.

And I don't know if they reached for it

but I know that I did.

First through drugs and alcohol and when that didn't work,

then through the powerful fellowship

and the transformative 12 steps and 12 traditions

of my beloved AA repair shop.

And it gave me resilience, you know.

Today I'm whole, W-H-O-L-E, nothing missing,

nothing broken, sexually, emotionally, spiritually,

physically I am whole and my AA repair shop,

I used to think that was a cute thing to say, you know,

but AA obviously alcoholics and honest

but repair, RE means again and pair,

E-A-I-R means to bond or connect

and AA reconnected me to a loving God,

to a purpose for living,

to live fully, love deeply, serve others

and with a set of tools and principles

by which I can live that purpose.

And today my prayer is exactly the same,

the punctuation changed where it used to be,

please come, I see the time's just almost up,

please, comma, God, comma,

don't let that liquor store close,

today my prayer is please God.

And that's the 11th tradition filter.

As my loving God stands at my side,

would that God find what I'm about to say

or what I'm about to do to be attractive?

If I don't believe a loving God would find my behavior

or my words attractive,

then I don't say them or I don't do them.

And I'm out of time,

so I'm not gonna do the 12th tradition,

but I'm gonna put a flyer in the chat for you,

oh, I can't, it doesn't let me access

my computer from the chat,

but I'll put my phone number in there,

if anybody's interested, text me,

I'm doing a two hour workshop next Saturday,

10 a.m. Los Angeles time

on applying the traditions to relationships.

And I'd love for you to come,

it's free, it's open, it's on Zoom,

you can bring non-alcoholic partners.

And thank you so much for having me,

it's so nice to be in LA tonight,

and I'm Jay Westbrook, I'm an alcoholic, thanks.

Okay, the alcoholic life is a lonely life,

the life of a deaf person is one of isolation,

deaf alcoholics have a real, real hard time.

Log cabin Zoom meeting Monday through Friday,

7.30 a.m. now has an ASL interpreter

for all five of those meetings.

So if you know any deaf people,

send them to log cabin 7.30 a.m. Zoom,

Monday through Friday,

and they'll be able to be a part of the deaf community

that attends that meeting, thanks.