By Dale White
I’m a believer in Jesus Christ who’s in recovery for alcoholism, I have struggled and do struggle with other things which you will hear about tonight. My name is Dale, I’m 57 years old and I’ve experienced quite a bit in those years. So do to time constraints I’m going to give you a summarized version of those years. I want to save time for the good stuff, the recovery st
uff!
I grew up in South Florida in Delray Beach. My early years were actually the best anyone could ask for. My family farmed tomatoes until the 1970’s. Both sets of my grandparents, Mom and Dad were very loving, caring people. My brother, sister and I attended church and Sunday school on Sundays. My family had large get-togethers on weekends and holidays . There were no alcohol or drug problems nor fighting and abuse.
When I was thirteen everything changed for me when my parents divorced and I started to change too. I remember how hard it was on my Mom and remember hearing her crying in her bedroom, from how bad she was hurting. I wanted to ease her pain, but didn’t know how. I remember vividly, laying curled up in my bed listening to a record of the Lord’s prayer over and over, thinking, praying that God would make it all better. When things got worse, I began to question whether God existed or if he did, why wasn’t he doing anything to help me?
My parents re-married other people and I didn’t like my step-parents. I was living with my Mom and Step-Father at age fourteen when I started smoking cigarettes and experimenting with alcohol. Actually, there wasn’t any experimenting to it. The first time I drank I had a blackout and couldn’t remember what I had done. The best part was that it took away the hurt and pain I had inside.
By the time I was 18 years old I had been to military school to straighten me out. I had been arrested for possession of pot with intent to distribute, I had totaled two cars, one of which I rolled over. I walked away from both accidents without a scratch and no charges were against me in the accidents. I also got one DUI when I was seventeen and another when I was eighteen. I was no longer allowed to live at home. I was living out of my van and parking in the parking lot at a restaurant where I worked. I had one friend that was brain dead from a bad acid trip and another had taken his own life.
I remember very clearly one morning during that time when I was still living at home, waking up and not remembering what I had done the night before. I couldn’t find my wallet or car keys and my car wasn’t in the driveway. There was only one thing in my pockets, a poem written on a worn piece of paper titled “Footprints.” To this day, I don’t know how it got there.
After you hear the rest of my story you will realize how many times there was only one set of footprints in the sand and how many times he’s carried me.
I took my first geographical cure and moved to Va.Beach, Virginia for a restaurant job I got through some connections my Dad had. It was run by an Italian family and they became my family for five years. I married a waitress I met there. Before we got married, she had gotten pregnant and we weren’t ready for kids, so she had an abortion. After we were married she got pregnant again and got another abortion. She didn’t want kids and I didn’t know what I wanted. I wasn’t even sure why I had gotten married. Throughout my marriage there were numerous infidelities . The husband and wife that I worked for had three kids all in their twenties, the same age I was at that time. Alcohol and drug use was already accepted and happened on a daily basis, meaning all day long. Most mornings were started with a drink to get over the night before. Maria, the owner’s daughter who I dated at one time was heavily into drugs and was murdered in a drug deal gone bad.
Gambling also had become a regular part of life as my boss ran a bookmaking operation. At this time I was gambling heavily and drinking around the clock, despite being a very accomplished chef, which was either a gift or a curse. Also at this time I took another geographical cure and went to France to culinary school for six months, while my wife stayed in the United States. But once again my days consisted of cooking and drinking, because we had to pair food and wine. I would drink all day at school and continued to do so when I went home at night.
When I returned to France, I landed a job in Washington D.C. at Maison Blanche, a restaurant across the street from the White House. I moved there without my wife, but she was to follow me after I got settled. I again found another perfect job. Drinking was not only allowed at work, they provided the drinks.
I was again drinking around the clock, but this didn’t affect my job, which I always excelled at. My wife eventually joined me, but my unfaithfulness continued. We moved back to Va. Beach when the owner of a restaurant I had worked for before I went to France offered me a partnership in the business. He put up the money, I put up the talent and we opened the Gourmet Room. By this time I had been written up in many magazines and newspapers for my culinary skills. I was also on the advisory board for the Culinary Arts program at a community college. My partner was a silent partner and I was doing well in the restaurant, so I began skimming money out of the cash I was taking in, to support my alcohol and drug use as well as my gambling addiction. I also continued cheating on my wife.
My wine distributor knew I wanted to get rid of my partner, but my partner wouldn’t sell, so the wine distributor loaned me a quarter of a million dollars and Dale’s at Chick’s Beach on the Chesapeake Bay opened in 1983. The place I built is now owned by “Hell’s Kitchen.” But it was Hell’s Kitchen for me!
I opened to a packed house every day for lunch and dinner with a full liquor license and was open until 2 A.M.I was also doing a little TV segment on the local station and working 80-100 hours a week and still drinking and doing drugs around the clock. I also had a mistress where I would go to exercise my cocaine habit. It was on one of those occasions that my wife started banging on her door, yelling, screaming and telling me to come and open the restaurant. This was one of my lowest moments and I decided to enter my 1st of 5 treatment programs.
When I left the program it wasn’t long before I relapsed and this relapse cost me everything. I had stopped paying on my restaurant loan and my restaurant was taken from me, but they kept my wife on to manage it. I had lost my restaurant, my marriage was over and I didn’t know it at the time but my career also. I walked away with just the clothes on my back.
I took another geographical cure and moved to a place in North Carolina where I had friends from my summer camp days as a kid and lived in a secluded cabin with no electricity or windows and just cold running water from a hose. It was just me and my dog. I had little money and there was a time when all I had enough money for was dog food and a whiskey. So my dog and I ate puppy chow and I chased it with whiskey. My dog was the only one who still lived me or so I thought.
I called home one day and my Mother agreed to help me, so I moved back to Florida to check into my 2nd treatment center. When I got out of treatment I got a job working for MetLife selling life insurance and eventually relapsed. I got another DUI which was fortunately reduced to reckless driving. After that incident , I had a head on collision in which I caused serious bodily injury to the other person. I walked away without a scratch and I got my 3rd DUI. I received five years probation and no jail time, because I had checked into a 3rd treatment center. When I finished 30 days I went to long term residential treatment for three months , started attending AA meetings every day and getting better.
I got a job as a roofer with some guys in recovery (who are still sober today and who I have contact with again). I found a sponsor and started working the steps. I made an attempt and actually did a fourth and fifth step with my sponsor. I now know that I had never resolved my issues I had with my belief in God. In my head I thought there must be a God, but I had a lot of doubt and didn’t have a relationship with Him. The extent of my belief expressed itself in the occasional “help me God” and that was about it.
I also didn’t follow direction about staying out of romantic involvement in my first year. In the BIG BOOK of Alcoholics Anonymous in “How It Works” in chapter five it says “Half measures avail us nothing!” That’s the way I was working my program. I was going to meetings every day, I was chairing meetings , I was not drinking or doing drugs, but I skipped from step five to step thirteen. I was continually acting out on my lust and none of these relationships was healthy, let alone Godly. These women I became involved with became my Higher Power. In my third year of sobriety I met Roberta and fell in love. She was sober a few more years than I was and we moved in together with her twelve year old son. That relationship was a tough one. We were on and off again, both struggling with issues. We separated but I thought I could fix everything. At 4 ½ years sober, I checked into a Co-dependency Treatment, thinking I would figure out how to fix it and get Roberta back. Needless to say, I was the problem, not the solution. I was in so much emotional pain that I couldn’t focus on anything, except how I was going to get her back. I had stopped calling my sponsor, I wasn’t praying or going to meetings. I was crazy and I knew how to kill the pain. I thought of suicide a number of times and I drank. Not a good choice! I’m going to repeat that. Not a good choice!!!
I got my fourth DUI with three days left on my five years of probation and to make matters worse I rear-ended a cop, causing them serious injury. I was sentenced to 6 ½ years in prison and my driver’s license was taken for life. I was a broken man. While I was in prison Roberta took her own life. I cried out to God to please help me. I was scared. More scared than I had ever been in my whole life. A peace came over me and I remember telling my Mom on the phone not to worry, that I was OK. While I was in prison I drew closer to God, attended AA meetings and Kairos Prison Ministry. I also enrolled in college correspondence courses to work towards a Ministry degree. My prison time was hard, but as I mentioned that poem “Footprints” earlier, it was God carrying me I know. At three years into my sentence I was sent to work-release and Publix hired me as a Deli Clerk. I was released when I had three and a half years of my six and a half year sentence served. After that I transferred from West Palm Beach to Tallahassee with Publix, so that I could be closer to my Mom and sister who live here and are here tonight. I love you both so much!
After I was released, I attended some AA meetings here, went to church a few times, but wasn’t working any kind of program. I had stopped talking to God and wasn’t reading my Bible or praying. I again thought I could just have a couple of beers and I would be fine. I couldn’t stop on my own. I had learned my lesson after all. I had put my life back together. I bought a house right down the street from here in Arbor Hills and I had a good job. I had become a productive member of society. I was capable of having a few beers and not get carried away. Surely, smoking pot wouldn’t hurt me I thought. But once again I was on a downward spiral. I lost my house because I could no longer afford the payments. I was drinking and smoking the money away. I decided to take another geographical cure and moved to Colorado to play cowboy. I had five years in with Publix so I gave my notice, took an early retirement and moved to Colorado where I found a job as a wrangler on a ranch. As a wrangler I drove a sleigh during the winter months. After two years of this I was completely broken again, so I called Publix and they hired me back over the phone. I packed up and came home. My rehire date was 7/7/07.
I continued to drink when I got back, but I tried to control it and I did although not very well for a little while. I began drinking on my lunch break and was soon confronted about it at work and through the employee assistance program I went to counseling to save my job, but then relapsed again. I went to my 4th treatment center in California and for the first time I was able to see the huge amount of unforgiveness and hurt I was carrying inside. I also was told about a twelve step Christian Recovery Program I had never heard of before called Celebrate Recovery. When I was released from treatment I came back to Tallahassee and came to CR for the first time. I came a few times and was going to AA meetings, but I was struggling. I drank again. It took me to the lowest point of my life. The BIG BOOK of AA talks about an incomprehensible demoralization. That’s where I was and what I was feeling. It also talks of those of us who are consistently incapable of being honest with ourselves. There are such unfortunates it says. I was almost sure I must be one of those.
I was a totally broken man. I didn’t want to live and I was afraid to die. I was suspended from work and ready to lose my job. I checked into Detox at TMH. I had to choose inpatient or outpatient treatment after detox. I chose outpatient because it was designed to help me build a support group, which I had never done before. During this time I came back to CR. I started looking for a sponsor and kept asking around but I kept getting told they weren’t taking any new people or couldn’t do it for whatever reason, so I started to get discouraged. I went to Jim K. and asked him if he could recommend anyone. He said, “Well, there is this one guy. He helps a lot of people. He and his wife came here. He’s really, really tall. His wife does the announcements up front sometimes.” He wasn’t there that night, but when I was at church that Sunday I saw Sharon standing at the coffee pot and this really tall man standing next to her. I said to myself, “That must me Lonny.” So I went up to him and said, “ Jim K. suggested I talk to you. I’m looking for a sponsor.” He looked at me and said, “Well, I’ve got one opening at 7 am on Sunday mornings.” Without hesitation I said, “I’ll take it!”
I will be a year next month that I’ve been meeting Lonny on Sunday mornings. I believe God put him in my life. I have no doubt about that. Sunday mornings are very special to me. I thank God for him and so does my dear Mother and sister. I love you Lonny! Thank you! The one thing I have always struggled with is my Faith. Lonny suggested I read a book called, “Extraordinary Living For Ordinary Men” by Sam Shoemaker.
For those of you who don’t know who he is, he was the Reverend Camon Sam Shoemaker, who’s teachings and writings influenced the Oxford Group and Bill Wilson, who co-founded AA. Bill Wilson actually asked him to write the 12 steps and he said no, that they needed to be written by an alcoholic. Anyway he talked about how to find faith in Chapter 2 of this book. He suggests a spiritual experiment in your own life and goes on to tell you how to go about it.
(Insert Sam Shoemaker----------Chapter----
I did the experiment and all my doubt was taken from me.
Step 2- Came to Believe. It was in doing this experiment that I had my spiritual experience, which is talked about in Step 12. James 4:8 says come hear to God and “He will come near to you.”
Another of my favorite verses is Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” That’s happening in my life as a result of Step 3, we made a decision to run our wills and our lives over to the care of God. The best way I can explain Step 3 to anyone is to put it in poker terms, “I’m all In”, Everything” all of me!
Step 3 is about letting God do whatever He wants to do with me. I’ve proved that my way didn’t work. I hope you can learn from my experience and not have to go through the things I went through
Steps 4&5, helped me remove more of the blocks and walls I had put up that kept God out of my life. They also helped me to release a lot of the unforgiveness, pain, and hurts I had been carrying around with me.
Steps 6-9, bring me even closer to God and help me to grow spiritually.
Step 10, is like cleaning my house daily and taking out the trash.
Step 11, is my special time every day with God. It’s the most important part of my day. It’s when I talk to God and when He talks to me. It’s what makes everything possible, because without Him I’m lost
Step 12, having lad a spiritual experience as the result of these steps
AS THE RESULT. LET ME SAY THAT AGAIN, AS THE RESULT OF THESE STEPS!
I promise you if you work these steps to the best of your ability you will have a spiritual experience. I’ve seen it over and over again and you will want to carry this message. The message of God’s undeserved Grace, love and forgiveness. It is so awesome there are wo words to describe it!
Philippians 1:6 says and I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day when Jesus Christ returns. What’s my life like today? Beyond my wildest dreams. All my family relationships have been restored. I love you Mom! I love you Shery! When I went into treatment they were ready to fire me at work. My last evaluation they gave me rolemodel! I was blessed to go to the Summit this year. I’ve been visiting prison every week with CR Inside for 10 months now and this past week I visited two different prisons carrying the message of recovery to those who are still lost.
I had a man in prison for his 6th time this past week who swore he would never do a fifth step, share his 5th step with me and cry like a baby as Jesus began the healing process in him. I see God at work right before my very eyes every time I go into a prison. My drivers license was taken for life back in 1996, but when I celebrate a year sober next month a door has been opened for me to get my drivers license back. I will also be nicotine free for a year in December after 40 years of smoking. I no longer gamble and I’ve stayed out of relationships and romantic involvements my first year so I could focus on my recovery. My current struggle is with “FOOD”. But now that I have all of you as accountability partners, I’m quite certain God will help me recover in that area too! I want leave you with a couple of things.
Trust God!
Clean house!
Help others!
God loves you and so do I.
I grew up in South Florida in Delray Beach. My early years were actually the best anyone could ask for. My family farmed tomatoes until the 1970’s. Both sets of my grandparents, Mom and Dad were very loving, caring people. My brother, sister and I attended church and Sunday school on Sundays. My family had large get-togethers on weekends and holidays . There were no alcohol or drug problems nor fighting and abuse.
When I was thirteen everything changed for me when my parents divorced and I started to change too. I remember how hard it was on my Mom and remember hearing her crying in her bedroom, from how bad she was hurting. I wanted to ease her pain, but didn’t know how. I remember vividly, laying curled up in my bed listening to a record of the Lord’s prayer over and over, thinking, praying that God would make it all better. When things got worse, I began to question whether God existed or if he did, why wasn’t he doing anything to help me?
My parents re-married other people and I didn’t like my step-parents. I was living with my Mom and Step-Father at age fourteen when I started smoking cigarettes and experimenting with alcohol. Actually, there wasn’t any experimenting to it. The first time I drank I had a blackout and couldn’t remember what I had done. The best part was that it took away the hurt and pain I had inside.
By the time I was 18 years old I had been to military school to straighten me out. I had been arrested for possession of pot with intent to distribute, I had totaled two cars, one of which I rolled over. I walked away from both accidents without a scratch and no charges were against me in the accidents. I also got one DUI when I was seventeen and another when I was eighteen. I was no longer allowed to live at home. I was living out of my van and parking in the parking lot at a restaurant where I worked. I had one friend that was brain dead from a bad acid trip and another had taken his own life.
I remember very clearly one morning during that time when I was still living at home, waking up and not remembering what I had done the night before. I couldn’t find my wallet or car keys and my car wasn’t in the driveway. There was only one thing in my pockets, a poem written on a worn piece of paper titled “Footprints.” To this day, I don’t know how it got there.
After you hear the rest of my story you will realize how many times there was only one set of footprints in the sand and how many times he’s carried me.
I took my first geographical cure and moved to Va.Beach, Virginia for a restaurant job I got through some connections my Dad had. It was run by an Italian family and they became my family for five years. I married a waitress I met there. Before we got married, she had gotten pregnant and we weren’t ready for kids, so she had an abortion. After we were married she got pregnant again and got another abortion. She didn’t want kids and I didn’t know what I wanted. I wasn’t even sure why I had gotten married. Throughout my marriage there were numerous infidelities . The husband and wife that I worked for had three kids all in their twenties, the same age I was at that time. Alcohol and drug use was already accepted and happened on a daily basis, meaning all day long. Most mornings were started with a drink to get over the night before. Maria, the owner’s daughter who I dated at one time was heavily into drugs and was murdered in a drug deal gone bad.
Gambling also had become a regular part of life as my boss ran a bookmaking operation. At this time I was gambling heavily and drinking around the clock, despite being a very accomplished chef, which was either a gift or a curse. Also at this time I took another geographical cure and went to France to culinary school for six months, while my wife stayed in the United States. But once again my days consisted of cooking and drinking, because we had to pair food and wine. I would drink all day at school and continued to do so when I went home at night.
When I returned to France, I landed a job in Washington D.C. at Maison Blanche, a restaurant across the street from the White House. I moved there without my wife, but she was to follow me after I got settled. I again found another perfect job. Drinking was not only allowed at work, they provided the drinks.
I was again drinking around the clock, but this didn’t affect my job, which I always excelled at. My wife eventually joined me, but my unfaithfulness continued. We moved back to Va. Beach when the owner of a restaurant I had worked for before I went to France offered me a partnership in the business. He put up the money, I put up the talent and we opened the Gourmet Room. By this time I had been written up in many magazines and newspapers for my culinary skills. I was also on the advisory board for the Culinary Arts program at a community college. My partner was a silent partner and I was doing well in the restaurant, so I began skimming money out of the cash I was taking in, to support my alcohol and drug use as well as my gambling addiction. I also continued cheating on my wife.
My wine distributor knew I wanted to get rid of my partner, but my partner wouldn’t sell, so the wine distributor loaned me a quarter of a million dollars and Dale’s at Chick’s Beach on the Chesapeake Bay opened in 1983. The place I built is now owned by “Hell’s Kitchen.” But it was Hell’s Kitchen for me!
I opened to a packed house every day for lunch and dinner with a full liquor license and was open until 2 A.M.I was also doing a little TV segment on the local station and working 80-100 hours a week and still drinking and doing drugs around the clock. I also had a mistress where I would go to exercise my cocaine habit. It was on one of those occasions that my wife started banging on her door, yelling, screaming and telling me to come and open the restaurant. This was one of my lowest moments and I decided to enter my 1st of 5 treatment programs.
When I left the program it wasn’t long before I relapsed and this relapse cost me everything. I had stopped paying on my restaurant loan and my restaurant was taken from me, but they kept my wife on to manage it. I had lost my restaurant, my marriage was over and I didn’t know it at the time but my career also. I walked away with just the clothes on my back.
I took another geographical cure and moved to a place in North Carolina where I had friends from my summer camp days as a kid and lived in a secluded cabin with no electricity or windows and just cold running water from a hose. It was just me and my dog. I had little money and there was a time when all I had enough money for was dog food and a whiskey. So my dog and I ate puppy chow and I chased it with whiskey. My dog was the only one who still lived me or so I thought.
I called home one day and my Mother agreed to help me, so I moved back to Florida to check into my 2nd treatment center. When I got out of treatment I got a job working for MetLife selling life insurance and eventually relapsed. I got another DUI which was fortunately reduced to reckless driving. After that incident , I had a head on collision in which I caused serious bodily injury to the other person. I walked away without a scratch and I got my 3rd DUI. I received five years probation and no jail time, because I had checked into a 3rd treatment center. When I finished 30 days I went to long term residential treatment for three months , started attending AA meetings every day and getting better.
I got a job as a roofer with some guys in recovery (who are still sober today and who I have contact with again). I found a sponsor and started working the steps. I made an attempt and actually did a fourth and fifth step with my sponsor. I now know that I had never resolved my issues I had with my belief in God. In my head I thought there must be a God, but I had a lot of doubt and didn’t have a relationship with Him. The extent of my belief expressed itself in the occasional “help me God” and that was about it.
I also didn’t follow direction about staying out of romantic involvement in my first year. In the BIG BOOK of Alcoholics Anonymous in “How It Works” in chapter five it says “Half measures avail us nothing!” That’s the way I was working my program. I was going to meetings every day, I was chairing meetings , I was not drinking or doing drugs, but I skipped from step five to step thirteen. I was continually acting out on my lust and none of these relationships was healthy, let alone Godly. These women I became involved with became my Higher Power. In my third year of sobriety I met Roberta and fell in love. She was sober a few more years than I was and we moved in together with her twelve year old son. That relationship was a tough one. We were on and off again, both struggling with issues. We separated but I thought I could fix everything. At 4 ½ years sober, I checked into a Co-dependency Treatment, thinking I would figure out how to fix it and get Roberta back. Needless to say, I was the problem, not the solution. I was in so much emotional pain that I couldn’t focus on anything, except how I was going to get her back. I had stopped calling my sponsor, I wasn’t praying or going to meetings. I was crazy and I knew how to kill the pain. I thought of suicide a number of times and I drank. Not a good choice! I’m going to repeat that. Not a good choice!!!
I got my fourth DUI with three days left on my five years of probation and to make matters worse I rear-ended a cop, causing them serious injury. I was sentenced to 6 ½ years in prison and my driver’s license was taken for life. I was a broken man. While I was in prison Roberta took her own life. I cried out to God to please help me. I was scared. More scared than I had ever been in my whole life. A peace came over me and I remember telling my Mom on the phone not to worry, that I was OK. While I was in prison I drew closer to God, attended AA meetings and Kairos Prison Ministry. I also enrolled in college correspondence courses to work towards a Ministry degree. My prison time was hard, but as I mentioned that poem “Footprints” earlier, it was God carrying me I know. At three years into my sentence I was sent to work-release and Publix hired me as a Deli Clerk. I was released when I had three and a half years of my six and a half year sentence served. After that I transferred from West Palm Beach to Tallahassee with Publix, so that I could be closer to my Mom and sister who live here and are here tonight. I love you both so much!
After I was released, I attended some AA meetings here, went to church a few times, but wasn’t working any kind of program. I had stopped talking to God and wasn’t reading my Bible or praying. I again thought I could just have a couple of beers and I would be fine. I couldn’t stop on my own. I had learned my lesson after all. I had put my life back together. I bought a house right down the street from here in Arbor Hills and I had a good job. I had become a productive member of society. I was capable of having a few beers and not get carried away. Surely, smoking pot wouldn’t hurt me I thought. But once again I was on a downward spiral. I lost my house because I could no longer afford the payments. I was drinking and smoking the money away. I decided to take another geographical cure and moved to Colorado to play cowboy. I had five years in with Publix so I gave my notice, took an early retirement and moved to Colorado where I found a job as a wrangler on a ranch. As a wrangler I drove a sleigh during the winter months. After two years of this I was completely broken again, so I called Publix and they hired me back over the phone. I packed up and came home. My rehire date was 7/7/07.
I continued to drink when I got back, but I tried to control it and I did although not very well for a little while. I began drinking on my lunch break and was soon confronted about it at work and through the employee assistance program I went to counseling to save my job, but then relapsed again. I went to my 4th treatment center in California and for the first time I was able to see the huge amount of unforgiveness and hurt I was carrying inside. I also was told about a twelve step Christian Recovery Program I had never heard of before called Celebrate Recovery. When I was released from treatment I came back to Tallahassee and came to CR for the first time. I came a few times and was going to AA meetings, but I was struggling. I drank again. It took me to the lowest point of my life. The BIG BOOK of AA talks about an incomprehensible demoralization. That’s where I was and what I was feeling. It also talks of those of us who are consistently incapable of being honest with ourselves. There are such unfortunates it says. I was almost sure I must be one of those.
I was a totally broken man. I didn’t want to live and I was afraid to die. I was suspended from work and ready to lose my job. I checked into Detox at TMH. I had to choose inpatient or outpatient treatment after detox. I chose outpatient because it was designed to help me build a support group, which I had never done before. During this time I came back to CR. I started looking for a sponsor and kept asking around but I kept getting told they weren’t taking any new people or couldn’t do it for whatever reason, so I started to get discouraged. I went to Jim K. and asked him if he could recommend anyone. He said, “Well, there is this one guy. He helps a lot of people. He and his wife came here. He’s really, really tall. His wife does the announcements up front sometimes.” He wasn’t there that night, but when I was at church that Sunday I saw Sharon standing at the coffee pot and this really tall man standing next to her. I said to myself, “That must me Lonny.” So I went up to him and said, “ Jim K. suggested I talk to you. I’m looking for a sponsor.” He looked at me and said, “Well, I’ve got one opening at 7 am on Sunday mornings.” Without hesitation I said, “I’ll take it!”
I will be a year next month that I’ve been meeting Lonny on Sunday mornings. I believe God put him in my life. I have no doubt about that. Sunday mornings are very special to me. I thank God for him and so does my dear Mother and sister. I love you Lonny! Thank you! The one thing I have always struggled with is my Faith. Lonny suggested I read a book called, “Extraordinary Living For Ordinary Men” by Sam Shoemaker.
For those of you who don’t know who he is, he was the Reverend Camon Sam Shoemaker, who’s teachings and writings influenced the Oxford Group and Bill Wilson, who co-founded AA. Bill Wilson actually asked him to write the 12 steps and he said no, that they needed to be written by an alcoholic. Anyway he talked about how to find faith in Chapter 2 of this book. He suggests a spiritual experiment in your own life and goes on to tell you how to go about it.
(Insert Sam Shoemaker----------Chapter----
I did the experiment and all my doubt was taken from me.
Step 2- Came to Believe. It was in doing this experiment that I had my spiritual experience, which is talked about in Step 12. James 4:8 says come hear to God and “He will come near to you.”
Another of my favorite verses is Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” That’s happening in my life as a result of Step 3, we made a decision to run our wills and our lives over to the care of God. The best way I can explain Step 3 to anyone is to put it in poker terms, “I’m all In”, Everything” all of me!
Step 3 is about letting God do whatever He wants to do with me. I’ve proved that my way didn’t work. I hope you can learn from my experience and not have to go through the things I went through
Steps 4&5, helped me remove more of the blocks and walls I had put up that kept God out of my life. They also helped me to release a lot of the unforgiveness, pain, and hurts I had been carrying around with me.
Steps 6-9, bring me even closer to God and help me to grow spiritually.
Step 10, is like cleaning my house daily and taking out the trash.
Step 11, is my special time every day with God. It’s the most important part of my day. It’s when I talk to God and when He talks to me. It’s what makes everything possible, because without Him I’m lost
Step 12, having lad a spiritual experience as the result of these steps
AS THE RESULT. LET ME SAY THAT AGAIN, AS THE RESULT OF THESE STEPS!
I promise you if you work these steps to the best of your ability you will have a spiritual experience. I’ve seen it over and over again and you will want to carry this message. The message of God’s undeserved Grace, love and forgiveness. It is so awesome there are wo words to describe it!
Philippians 1:6 says and I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day when Jesus Christ returns. What’s my life like today? Beyond my wildest dreams. All my family relationships have been restored. I love you Mom! I love you Shery! When I went into treatment they were ready to fire me at work. My last evaluation they gave me rolemodel! I was blessed to go to the Summit this year. I’ve been visiting prison every week with CR Inside for 10 months now and this past week I visited two different prisons carrying the message of recovery to those who are still lost.
I had a man in prison for his 6th time this past week who swore he would never do a fifth step, share his 5th step with me and cry like a baby as Jesus began the healing process in him. I see God at work right before my very eyes every time I go into a prison. My drivers license was taken for life back in 1996, but when I celebrate a year sober next month a door has been opened for me to get my drivers license back. I will also be nicotine free for a year in December after 40 years of smoking. I no longer gamble and I’ve stayed out of relationships and romantic involvements my first year so I could focus on my recovery. My current struggle is with “FOOD”. But now that I have all of you as accountability partners, I’m quite certain God will help me recover in that area too! I want leave you with a couple of things.
Trust God!
Clean house!
Help others!
God loves you and so do I.
