Scott S. AA Male

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Last night, it was kind of chaotic, but anyway, I'm looking forward to hearing them. I'm very excited, and with that, I'll give you Scott.

Scott (0:20)

See if we can't, there we go. My name is Scott, I'm an alcoholic. Very grateful to be alive, sober, and recovered. I'd like to thank the committee. This conference, for the kind invitation to be here. Alcoholics Anonymous has taught me to live a life of invitation. So I know I belong here because I'm here. You know, I don't have to wonder, should this have happened in my life or should that have happened? I know it should have happened, and the evidence I have for it is that it happened. I was taught that God does not need my help to get me to live my life. It sure helps.

It helps those around me more if I reach for God's help. I want to thank Peggy and Susie for their talks last night. Susie, I didn't get a chance to thank you afterwards. My back was wrecked. I was forward and backwards, and by the time your talk was over, I was shot out. But I want to thank you. I appreciate anybody that does service in Alcoholics Anonymous. I've built a life of service, not just in Alcoholics Anonymous. A book says a more important demonstration of our principles lies ahead in our home's occupations and affairs. So I believe in living a life of service. I'd like to say hello to my friend Ryan. Gosh, I've been working with Ryan, sponsoring Ryan. Gosh, 16 years? Something like that.

I see Kate here, and thank you for the invitation. Just everybody, anybody involved in putting this thing together. You know, we talked about sponsorship last night, and I think about the importance of sponsorship. I think even more important than that is that I take a look at myself as a student of the big book and not a teacher.

I haven't met any enlightened alcoholics. And I have, there's men and women and alcoholics and anonymous that I look up to. I want what they have desperately. But I've gotten to know them, and I can take people down off that pedestal and still respect and admire how they live their lives. The Design for Living that they've developed and implemented into their life, I want that. So I propose to be a student of the big book rather than a teacher, the teacher part kind of takes care of itself. You know, we're just sharing what it is we're actually doing around here. I remember when I met my sponsor, my sponsor is a man named Mickey M. He lives in Denver, Colorado. And the truth is, my sponsor, he has dementia.

And he's had it for over a year now. And man, I start to get a little emotional because this man walked me out of the cave. He walked me out of the darkness of untreated alcoholism, and I was sober between three and four years when I met this man. I'm currently working with his sponsor, Mike Lorenz from Louisville. I hope to be able to see Mike today, if he can make it up.

But these are the guys that put together something that we're all in right now called Fellowship of the Spirit, these conferences that popped up in the Colorado area back in the 90s, and they're all over the place now. And it's how I ended up here. Like, there's no coincidence. That's where Kate and I met, you know. Ryan, we go there in the summertime. If you guys ever want to go to a big book conference and just find your tribe, come on out and see us. My home group is in Stewart, Florida. We meet on Sunday afternoons at 530 It's called the Turn the Page Group. It's a big book study. It's not like a lot of meetings. We encourage crosstalk, repeat sharing, and lively back-and-forth banter.

A loving God separated me from alcohol on April 2nd of 2004 Interrupted my death, actually, so that I could be here with you today. I know that to be true, because I'm here, like I said. But when I met my sponsor, he asked me a question.

And it was heavy, man. He said, Tell me where it hurts.

Tell me where it hurts.

How do you answer that?

It's like if I fell off this stage and broke my arm, I could tell you where it hurts, man. That's easy.

But when you're shattered, like so many of us are when we show up to Alcoholics Anonymous, man, how do you answer that question? It's like everywhere it hurts. It hurts in my marriage. It hurts on my job. It hurts in AA because I can't stand listening to you jibber jabber anymore. It hurts when I wake up in the morning and that vulture is on the bedpost, telling me what my day is going to be like. Before I even get out the door, it's already got me. It's gloom and doom. I don't wake up, oh man, this is going to be a wonderful day. I can't wait to get to work and go out there and be of service and blah. No, that's not what the vulture tells me in the mornings. And I have to respond to that vulture today sometimes too. You know, I'm not enlightened either. Progress, not perfection. We hear these words, yet we beat up on ourselves when we're not seeing perfection in our lives, how we approach and deal with other people. We forget about all that stuff. Maybe we had, I had the notion, if you listen to words like, we have entered the world of the spirit. We were just talking about this out there. What, think about that for a minute. What's that sound like? What kind of feelings does that bring up in you? We have entered the world of the spirit. Sounds kind of good. Sounds kind of pleasurable. Like, oh man, I'm going to enter the world of the spirit. God's going to kick the doors of opportunity open for me, and I'm just going to walk through them, man. I'm going to have a great, what I'm really asking for is a good relationship, money in my pocket, a good job, not a whole lot of problems, money in the bank, great retirement, sunshine, be it the whole night, you know. And what I end up, I find myself walking into the wilderness, and I find myself walking through the desert, man, stepping on sharp stones, and I'm like, this can't, this ain't it. I want to go back to the lush fields from which I came, the places that don't work anymore, the ways of doing business that don't work anymore. I mean, character defect is how I do business, and you're telling me that I'm going to pick up a book and do a couple of things and do some prayer meditation and put some words down on paper and share them with you, and my life's going to change because I'm thinking my life needs to change because the out there needs to change. And it doesn't need to change for me to be okay, or for me to be of service in my community, or in my home, or at my job. I need it to change. So when my sponsor asked me, tell me where it hurts, it's like, man, who is this guy?