Bill from Paddington got sober in Sydney in 1955 and was a member of the Paddington A.A. group, hence his A.A. nickname. This audio recording of Bill is a typical example of storytelling shares heard at Sydney A.A. meetings. Bill died sober in 2020 and had been sober for over 64 years. Transcript 00:01: Goodnight, everybody. Bill's my name. I'm an alcoholic, from the Paddington group. Very pleased to be here tonight. It's wonderful, so many faces that I know are here tonight, and I was thinking of Clary when he mentioned, we are shy people. I certainly am. And I'm a person that suffered terribly, crushingly, with stage fright. And as a patient in Hydebrae, if somebody had have told me I could do this, I'd have said, "Well, that's a miracle." Because I knew exactly the sort of person I was. And I thought, "Well, they'd have to cut off my head and another head be there, another type of thinking." And again, what Clary said, what we talk about in pubs, I remember telling a joke once, in a pub one night, and I was pretty full, and everybody laughed. And the next day at work, I worked for a small company, and there were some clients there and I was sober. And one of the fellows were talking to the clients, and they said, "Bill, come and tell that joke you told us last night, in the pub." 01:38: And I started to tell it, and I began to disintegrate. It was an ordinary joke. And I knew that they knew, they could see me, this going to pieces. And my chin start to twitch, me eye went, and I lost the joke, I lost the line, the punch line of the joke. [chuckle] And I stopped halfway through it. And the fellow that called me over had to finish the joke. And I secretly said to myself, "I will never tell a joke again, sober." And I never did. [laughter] And I didn't tell 'em too well, when I was full, either. But that's just sort of enlarging on what Clary said, and a fear most alcoholics suffered with it, and I certainly did. 02:35: And I finished in the Haymarket, drinking in the Haymarket. I drank in toilets because I had the shakes and I thought I was unique. I didn't know anybody that suffered with the shakes. And one morning down there, I found that I couldn't breast the bar, no longer could I lift the glass. And I knew nobody that I could talk to. And so I did what so many alcoholics do, I needed a drink to get a drink. And so I drank in a toilet from a bottle, whiskey, simply to breast the bar. And then I used to play this extraordinary game of being a connoisseur of what I was drinking. And I would look at the color of it, and lift it and exhibit the calmness of hand. And I would drink in better bars uptown. And one of my little games was to attempt to balance a coin on its edge, and being convinced that everybody in the bar was on to me, and they're ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX0drcPf-3U

That’s What Friends Are For, by Kenneth Sean Campbell is a novel set in San Francisco during the AIDS crisis of the 1980’s. It’s a book that will inspire you, and cause you think and it will also make you cry. Kenneth based the book on actual events from his life as a recovering alcoholic and a gay man during this painful time in our history. Alcoholics Anonymous plays a central role in the novel and Kenneth does a superb job capturing the essence of the Fellowship. When the AIDS epidemic started it seemed to come out of nowhere and people were dying quickly. A person would be diagnosed one week and gone the next. The gay community in Alcoholics Anonymous was hit hard and San Francisco was ground zero. This book brilliantly illustrates the strong bonds that were formed during that time. In this podcast, Kenneth shares his story and relates it to the characters in the book. It’s a fascinating conversation that will hopefully serve as an archive, a record of this important time in the history of AA. To learn more about Kenneth Sean Campbell and his books, please visit his website or his author page on Amazon. Thank you again for taking the time to listen to our podcast. If you would like to support us, please consider becoming our patron with a small donation of even a $1 per month at https://www.patreon.com/aabeyondbelief ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URDsclLs4rE

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This week's livestream is all about Freedom, and inspired by the November 5th reading from "Beyond Belief: Agnostic Musings for 12 Step Life." "Freedom means having my choices back, about people, places and behavior. Do I see that my recovery gives me more choices or does it impose more limits?" (Joe C. Agnostic Musings for 12-Step Life) ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_fzpBUN8Dw