Willingness to Work the Steps – How It Works Workshop – Part 1 of 2 – Karl M.

Okay, if I can get everybody's attention. All right, if we could quiet down please. For those of you all who were here at the beginning, you heard my self-support statement. And real briefly, I do want to say that we feel here at The Fifth Tradition Group that self-upport is important. It's what allows us to have things like workshops. And we think it's important for alcoholics to be responsible. We won't go through the whole spiel, but if you did not have a chance to donate, now's your opportunity. If you haven't got any money, hang out with us, Have a few donuts and bagels, and maybe you will soon. And I'll turn it back over to Carl. My name's Carl. I'm an alcoholic. Can you hear me over the fans? It's okay? All right. All right, our story is disclosed in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. Also, I want to thank you guys for coming back from the break. That would have felt very awkward if all of a sudden there was four of us left. So how many people want to be effective when they are sharing in a meeting, effective for new people? Go on panels. Go talk to the mentally ill. Go tell your story again and again to the mentally ill and try to tell your story in whatever way you can, they don't care what you say. And if you can get one of them, you know, that is sitting there like, if you get one OFM to go, hang on to that piece of your story. He just identified. And if he can get the mentally ill to identify, we will too, right? We absolutely will. But that's really, I mean, if you want to be effective at it, go on lots of panels. Lots of panels, lots of channels. You'll be amazed at how your life will be enhanced by going on all those panels. If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you're ready to take certain steps. How many times have you either asked yourself or you're working with somebody or you just had a meeting and somebody asked you the million-dollar question, When am I supposed to take the steps? How many people have heard that type of a question? When am i supposed to work the steps and you don't quite know what to say you go oh well you know some people do it right some people but it's it says right in every meeting if you've been to 500 meetings you've heard it 500 times. If if you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it then you're ready to take certain steps That's the time frame. Whenever you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it. Notice, though, that it does not say when your mother has decided you won't what we have. It does not stay when your husband or boyfriend or wife or girlfriend has decided you want. It does now say when the judge has decided you want notice it does not even say when your sponsor has decided you want what we have. Oh, now I'm not knocking anybody because I do it. I pressure guys. Come on, come on, but the real change at the level of the soul that's going to be necessary is not going to actually take place until you come from a place of whatever I got to do. If I if you can give me some sort of peace of mind without a drink in my hand, whatever I got to do, I'll do it. When you come from that place, you're going to find this. You're going to find it. But when somebody else is saying, do this, do that, you might stay sober, but you're not going to find the real deep change at the level of your soul. And for long-term sobriety comfortably, we got to find that. At least I did and I imagine you. as some of these we balked we thought we could find an easier softer way but we could not with all the earnestness at our command we beg you to be fearless we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start remember i told you that every once in a while i'm sitting in a meeting and somebody says is reading this and it just sort of hits me in a different way i do not know what it was about this time that i was sitting here and a fellow was it could have been the timber of his voice you know how sometimes people just have these beautiful eloquent i call them radio voices right that just sort of like they just sound and feel good and or other times you guys ever heard the old testament version of of chapter five when something rarely have we seen a person you know then there's the southern baptist version hallelujah right but somebody was just reading it very earnestly one time and that sentence that i just read with all the earnestness at our command we beg you to be fearless and thorough from the very start it hit me like my bones rattled as if to say the first hundred people were talking to me from the grave and what i felt them saying is you young man up there in 1999 you will not be seeing what we are seeing because there's so many facilities and medical places and antiseptic places where alcoholics wind up these days before they ever come to you in our day they were dying in our cars, they were lying in our living rooms they were puking all over us they were dieing in our meetings you aren't seeing that in the 50 years from now so we beg of you that you don't need to see that because you're not anyway. But we beg of you, alcoholism is deadly. We beg of You to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Many of us saw the seizures right there in the meeting, right there in the living room. Have you guys seen grandma's seizures? Every time it happens, it only happens in my AA club probably about once a year. But most newcomers walk out of there, oh, and they call their sponsors, I think I'm ready to work step one. Right? It's a scary, scary thing. It's very abnormal these days because most of us get the medical attention we need. Back in those days, it was happening probably every other week, just bam. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely. I had always thought, this was another one where it hit me like a ton of bricks after years of hearing it. I'd always assumed and thought that they were talking, that it had actually said, I know it didn't say it, but I thought it was saying some of us have tried to hold on to our old bad ideas. It just says old ideas. They're telling us we need to even let go of our good ideas. That we're not going to be able to get this thing until we let go absolutely of it all even the good ideas my father was a lutheran minister i was the local drug dealer not a good match right people in his church often left and accused him your son is doing more damage in our community than you are doing i broke his heart right but sometimes when i say that in passing that my father's luther minister people go oh you were raised no really like oh yeah you had to get rid of that idea of god especially my father swedish Lutheran. If you really look at the old Scandinavian Lutheran ideas, indeed, I mean, the old joke is Scandinavian Lutherans never, ever, ever want to be caught making love standing up in fear they might think you're dancing, right? Because they're so like... But my father was not that, even though by heritage and by education and from the seminary he was at he would have been taught that but he had a major spiritual awakening when he was in his when he was about 37 years old he took us all to the island of borneo he was went to be a missionary and yes he did a lot of good there he started a church which is now 10 churches a hospital and a seminary on the island borneo in southeast asia i went back in 98 and saw it off so real great but that's not what he left there feeling he left their with a completely different view of the world because he was interacting with Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists. And he came back with a completely different view of the world going, oh, this is just one pathway to God, right? It completely transformed how... So I was given a very open-minded view of God as a young child and a teenager, and really all they taught me was, Carl, to be successful, all you gotta do is... Everybody's given certain gifts. If you spend your time figuring out what your gifts are, cultivate them to use to help other people, you will not have emotional trouble in your life. You will feel like a whole human being. However, at 11 I took a drink and I just went off this way. So I didn't have, I had a lot of actually decent ideas about God. But I even had to let them go because apparently it wasn't sufficient for me to stay sober. And you will find that all over Alcoholics Anonymous. I was in a 1,000-year-old church in Rome, Italy, the Via Napoli group. And I was there for about 10 days in 1988. I was barely two years sober. There was a Catholic priest there who also had about two or three years sober, his name was Michael. He was working directly for the Pope. And he was sharing in the meeting, I did not find God until I got to Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, he had a very long career getting to being first right there with the Pope, right? He didn't just get there overnight after being ordained. He had spent a whole life, right, in this service. He said, I did not get a relationship with God until I got into Alcoholics Anonymous, right. It just doesn't seem to be necessary. And Jung said it to Roland Hazard when he said, well, I'm a nominal churchman. He goes, well, that does not spell the necessary spiritual awakening. And there are components of Alcoholics Anonymous that have to come in place before we even bring God into it. We've got to know what's wrong with us, right? We've Got to have a certain plan of action. Then we find our solution. If religion was sufficient, and I think religion is a wonderful thing to do in between meetings. It's just one of the best things to do if you choose to. I'm not knocking it, but if religion was sufficient to conquer alcoholism, Alcoholics Anonymous would have been unnecessary. It never would have taken place because we would have been getting sober in religion. And there's nothing, I think it's a fantastic thing to participate in in between meetings. So my father, I still remember, he'd given me good ideas about God. I remember he might have even saved my life in early sobriety. I don't know, but I remember I was wandering around meetings and everybody was talking about their God, my God. You can borrow my God, somebody said. And God gave me a parking spot, and I'm thinking, holy smoke. And then somebody else was saying, and God put somebody in my life, they're just so special. I learned early on that God's not a pimp, doesn't really do that kind of stuff. Right? But I was very confused because there's so many different views of God. And that's the beautiful thing about Alcoholics Anonymous that makes us not a religion because it can kind of seem like it to a new person that this is just another religion, right? All of the symptoms are here, right, everybody sitting there all nicely while we're usually in chairs, not fused, sometimes we're in fused. there's somebody up front that is sitting there spouting off ha ha ha. At least the church only has 10 commandments, we seem to have 12, right? Maybe even 24 if you see across the board, right, some guy, he might even be holding that book and if you drink again you'll be going to hell it can look that way can't it? And then somebody like Robert gets up oh there it is, the offering plate mm-hmm Good luck has all the symptoms of it, but what's the difference? We don't define God. Whatever your background is, whatever you've got, no background, great! Oh, you're a Jewish fantastic Christian, we love it! Muslim, wonderful! Nothing? Just a general idea that you're willing to believe? Great! Even better, you don't have that much to unlearn. right we just think it's all wonderful but i remember being very confused about that and actually thinking everybody has a different god it seemed like and i thought oh my goodness this is very confusing i thought i'd call my dad and i i was about uh five months sober i go dad you've been a minister and a theologian your whole life you spent your whole life talking about studying about preaching about god you gotta tell me what's god and He said, Carl, how long has it been since you've had a drink? And I said, It's been about five months, Dad. He goes, Well then, God is whatever got you to those people in AA. For Christ's sake, do what they say. And he hung up. Right? And what he was really doing is strip away all of those other ideas and just go with God is what ever got you to those People in AA because I've never seen you since you'd been 11 years old be sober for five months. He had never seen it. I'd never said it. So he just said, whatever you got going, do it, right? Remember that we deal with alcohol, cunning, baffling, powerful. My late sponsor, Eddie Cochran, his widow is still alive, and she still does this. If you're ever at a coffee table, she often likes to chime in. It's one of her little brain teasers she likes to say to other girls or whoever's at the coffee table. And she brings up, remember what we deal without alcohol, cutting, bafling, power. She goes, what's the most important word in that sentence, right, And everybody chimes in, oh, it's baffling. No, cunning, powerful. She goes, no, no. Remember. Oh, remember that we deal with alcohol. Cunning, baffled, and powerful. Without help, it is too much for us, but there is one who has all power. That one is God. May you find him now. Once again, we don't define God, but we say that one is god. The thing is, we allow anybody to perceive god in any way they want. here are the steps we took that are suggested as a program of recovery now I'm just going to rifle through it but I'm going to come back in the last section because I think I'm going to be able to finish this by the end of this session and we're going to go over as many of the steps as we can possibly get we might only get to like part of step 4 in the last session, I don't know here are some of the things that we did here are all the steps we took which are suggested as a program of recovery 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol that our lives had become unmanageable 2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore is a sanity three made a decision to turn our will on our lives over the care of god as we understood him four made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves five admitted to god to ourselves into another human being the exact nature of our wrongs six were entirely ready to have god remove all these defects of character seven humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings eight made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all nine made direct amends such people wherever possible except when to do so would injure them or others ten continue to take personal inventory and when we're wrong promptly admitted Eleven, sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. Twelve, having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs. Many of us exclaimed, what an order, I can't go through with it. Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. Huge sentence right there, do not be encouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. No one among us. That means not even Robert. Not me. Any of you? Any ofyou able to maintain anything? No one amongst us, not even those people that travel all over the world speaking and just just sound like they so got it? Not even them. In fact, the reason they are asked so much to do it is to keep their life in balance because some of them are really goofy. I know some of whom. I'm really just teasing. I'm not really teasing. But no one, no one among us, nobody in Alcoholics Anonymous has been able to maintain anything like, you know what that means? Not even freaking close. Really. Not even close. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. So quit judging each other. Quit judging each another when people fail to adhere perfectly to these principals. When people make mistakes in your home group, it is so harmful when you guys start talking about each other in a vicious way in your home group. I've done it. Have you? Yes, you have. I know a couple. No, not me. No. Yes,youhave. Number one, back on the amends thing. Do you know that if you say something vicious and ugly about someone else, actually anywhere, but especially in your home group and it's not true do you know in order to actually make full and direct amends many of us are under the perception that we just go up to that person and say you know i said some things that were really untrue about you and i'm really sorry wrong answer no no no you have to go find everybody you told then that's not even enough then you haveと find out who did they tell our home group says you got to go three deep you will be spending 90 days searching out everybody and then you got to say if you want to make amends if you pass that along you need to go three deep also that's how you amend it make it right not just going saying sorry to the sorry I completely destroyed your reputation and, you know, oops, wrong answer. You've got to go to who you told and who they told. You will be very, very busy. Now on top of that, we don't get to change home groups like we got to change bars and crack houses. You need to treat this like sacred ground. I'm guilty of it. me and another guy I work with a lot of guys and I'm very very visible in my home group another guy was also very very visible and we just we were we both were really fighting and people took sides this is back in the 90's people took side I mean it just a whole nother AA club was started this fellow just yanked about 75 people they went started another AA club they called it the other club right and there was fighting and there was bickering and there were arguing it was really brutal and I didn't you know I just thought he was completely wrong he thought I was completely wrong finally a friend of both of ours said it's unbelievable what I'm watching here in our home group and he made an analogy and it was a very light when I like to I extrapolated the analogy of what he said but what he painted the picture of, the home group fighting, was sort of like when we went out and conquered the West and we were killing all of the Native American Indians and taking the land, right? Just a fact of history. We did it. But the Native Americans also fought amongst each other. And you can imagine when there was this giant, giant cavalry, a giant army of tens of thousands in cavalry up on one of those mesas, right, in Arizona somewhere and the scout and another and a general are standing there and they're looking down on the plains and there's the Navajos and the Apaches fighting and killing each other. And the scout would turn to the general and say with this giant army behind him, why are they fighting each other when we're here? Right? And alcohol looks down on The Home Group and says, Why are they fighting each other when I'm here? We really, really need to protect our home group. So quit judging the old-timers that might get a divorce. Quit judging the Old-Timers that might have a business failure and three guys that were working for the company, all of us aren't working there anymore. And they're rah, rah, rawr, raw, raw. He went out here and there. And yak, yak, jak. And quit, quit, quick, quit this stuff. And I'm only talking from personal experience. I'm not saying that, believe me, I've felt the pain. You've got to be comfortable in your home group. You've gotta be comfortable here. We are not saints. The point is that we're willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection. Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas. So they're saying that by this time, we will have got three. We've done three things, they're assuming. Number one, we've read the description of the alcoholic. You guys know where that's at? If a new person came and said, where's the description of the alcoholics? What they're really saying is, where is step one in the big book? Where's the prescription of the alchoholic in the big book, would you guys know what to answer? Everything before we agnostic. Everything before are we agnostic? So it's everything right up to page 40, 43. And if you know that, I'm just giving you a little thing so the new person will go, were you sponsored me? Because you just throw out a little piece of information like that, you gain their trust. They go, whoa! Now you might not know another thing about the big book, but you throw that out, they're going, ooh! So now you've got to run to your sponsor and say, help! This guy thinks I know something. And we don't know whether that person's going to say, you know what? You're going to have a valuable experience in your life. You're gonna have a very valuable experience in your life. So our description of the chapter to the agnostic, which is what? It's titled, We Agnostics. So they believe we have, they're saying if you've read those two things and our personal adventures before and after. Now back in the day when they wrote this, what they were referring to was what? the stories in the back of the book, that you've read enough of the stories in the bank of the books that you got an idea of the giant cross-section of society that are members of Alcoholics Anonymous. You have read enough of these stories that you have seen that this is not just one category of people that crosses all boundaries. They really, from the beginning, they have tried to make those stories and why they've taken some out added others to be representative of the cross- section of the world in Alcoholics Aononymous. And even though that then now you've got even more resources available you guys have how many speaker meetings a week do you have in the atlanta area just about every night of the week you could find a speaker meeting right so you could be hearing seven different speakers a week if you went every single night to a different speaker meeting you would hear seven different stories now yes if you do that all year you're going to hear a couple others twice but you know what you would get a big cross-section of Atlanta and the United States of all of these stories. So you have that at your disposal also. What they're hoping is that you've done those three things, you have read the description of the alcoholic, the chapter through the agnostic, and you have read enough stories and or listened to enough stories in speaker meetings these days, you can do that. Then they are saying we hope you have these three ideas, it's really just two ideas but they spread it out into three of a that we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives b that probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism and c that god could and would if he were sought that is steps one and two how do we know that that is a summary of steps one in two that we are alcoholic and cannot manage your own life be that probably no human part could have believed our alcohol ism and see that god couldn't what if you were thought because of the very next sentence that says, being convinced we were at step three. That's how we know that that's all about steps one and two. It's a process of deduction, right? All right. I'm going to now work my way up into what we just said, being convinced. We are at step three and I'm going to spend about 15 or 20 minutes on steps, step one. Hopefully get done with that by that break and then spend the rest of time on step two and three. Maybe even get into some four. Maybe I'll even get one and two now and then with three and even a portion of four. But usually I can, I think usually we'll get there. All right. We admitted we're powerless over alcohol that our lives are becoming manageable. What does it mean to be powerless over alcohol, that my life would become unmanageable. It says in chapter 3, we learned we had to fully concede to our innermost self that we were alcoholic. This is the first step in recovery. I believe that those two descriptions are and can be used synonymously. I know there's some people that say, no, no. They're completely different. That's the beautiful thing about alcoholics and non-monogamists. We can disagree. I I believe the first step is fully conceding to my innermost self that I'm alcoholic. And what is it that makes me alcoholic? I seem to have a strange physical, mental, and spiritual relationship to alcohol. All three sides of my being as a human being have a strained relationship with alcohol. Physically, you know, mind, body, and spirit brought together as all human beings. That is ancient, ancient spiritual principle. that we as human beings are mind, body, and spirit. Well, I have a strange bodily reaction to alcohol. I have an estranged mental relationship with alcohol. And I have estranged spiritual relationship with alcohol. In all three areas, I'm in trouble, big trouble. I would say a word that starts with F, but I'm being recorded, and I'm just, you know, I don't know. I'm screwed. Physically, I Have A Strange Relationship Because Once I drink alcohol, I seem to crave. I have this strange physical reaction. Best way, you know, I'll talk about that later tonight. But you guys all have it, right? Strange physical reaction. That once I take any alcohol,I seem to be drinking more alcohol. Right? Can't, I have no power when I'm drinking. I seemto get thirstier and thirstier the more I drink. And the more I drink, the thirstier I get. The thirstier i get, the more i drink, i keep going. Doesn't happen with anything else. This strange unquenchable thirst that happens when i drink doesn't happen with anything else. Only happens with booze. I've had these waters up here for quite some time. I've been very hot and i drank only about a third. But i promise you once i finish this glass bottle of water this afternoon, i am not going to go get a case of water and lock myself in a hotel room. I'm really not going to do it. Right? I also seem to have a strange mental relationship with alcohol. I have a very strange mental relationship with alcoholic. And that is when I'm not drinking it. When I'm NOT drinking it, up and by myself, I seem to just have this mind that is able to completely erase the pain and suffering that went with the last drunk, whether it was a day, a week or a month ago, doesn't matter. My mind seems to be able to erase that and somehow paints a picture that makes it okay to take another drink, right? So I have this strange, bizarre mental relationship with alcohol. My mine cannot seem to tell me the truth that this liquid got me to the hospital last time i when i was in the hospital i go yeah right even you know i remember coming out of a hospital i was 24 years old i was i came out of the hospital in san diego i sensed something was wrong when i stumbled right into the apache bar and it was 6 a.m they let me go early in the morning i was supposed to go back to my ship i went to the apachee bar i still had the iodine stain, that yellow-orange stain right here, where they had the IV in. Remember those ugly stains? And I remember looking at that, and it was just kind of sitting there, and the bartender even looked at it. And I go, oh, nothing, I was just in the hospital last night. And he just kindof, you know, my face is beet red because I was on Anabuse also. So that kind of, and I still remember, you know, I was getting a little hint that something's wrong. He slides the glass of whiskey in one of those tumbler glasses, and I can't pick it up. I'm 24 years old. I're looking down at this iodine stain, right? There's also the tape on the side things, right, the marks of the tape, and I can do it, and literally, instinctually, you probably did this to me. I didn't have to think about this, I instinctually just went. It wasn't like I had to calculate what should I do. And got enough out of the top of the glass so I could hold it with a little shake. Right? So there I am. I was actually physically detoxed. I had been separated from alcohol they had put enough of whatever they put in you know into that IV that you know I think I've been there about a day and a half in the hospital they had separated me from alcohol I was not craving anymore and yet my mind that quickly was able to look straight at the iodine stain right there on my arm I remember I was just kind of sitting there at the bar like this and I remember looking at it and I saw the bartender look at it and I was still able to go right for the drink. I have a strange mental relationship with alcohol, okay? So I can't drink successfully because of this craving that happens, and I cannot not drink successfully because of these things. This mental obsession. If I could do either one of those two things, either drink successfully or on my own not drink successfully, that's what I would be doing today. I would not be sitting in this hot basement in Atlanta, Georgia. I'd be at home drinking successfully. Or I'd me at home not drinking successfully right? I just wouldn't be thinking about it. But I can't do either one of those two things. So I'm powerless when I drink. I'm perilous when I'm not drinking. And I believe this next thing is the thing that has been driving my bus, drunk and sober, my whole life. I have a strange spiritual relationship with alcohol also. and this is really why I have to stay in Alcoholics Anonymous at 25 years sober because there's something about the thing that makes me, me the thing that makes you, you that thing that religions have written books about authors people, actors try to portray that thing that makes us, us that thing That thing that's in me that's trying to communicate with you right now. That thing that makes me me, that makes you you. It seems to have this really bizarre attachment to alcohol. And I could not have described this to you until I was 13 years sober. It was the year 2000 and my mother asked, called me up she still lives in Seattle, she called me up and said, hey, your brother and his wife are spending the summer in the south of France. Let's go visit them. Like, yeah. She goes, and let's go to Iceland first. Right? So there's a museum for your great aunt, and there's a family farm we should hunt out. And they're going, yeah, I would love to. So we went to Iceland first. That was a whole other story not really pertaining to this, but I do have, I'll have to tell you this part about the Iceland part. I've never been more proud to be Icelandic, because I am. I'm 50% Icelandic than this one morning. I've been to Iceland seven times since the year 2000, since that first visit. I've back seven times, because it's just lots of things have happened in my life. One of the times I was there, the people that brought me over there put me up in this little bed and breakfast in downtown Reykjavik. It was about 5.30 in the morning, and I was awake at just the time zone, and I were just wide awake. So I got dressed, and then I started to walk downtown, and I'm just going to walk around. Figured it would be – it was a Sunday morning. Thought it would just be very quiet. But I came over – came around this corner and down this little hill, and downtown Reykjavik is really not large. It's about 9 to 12 square blocks. Started walking. It's 5. 30 in the mornin', and all of a sudden up the street come these people, good-looking women with nice dresses on from the night before and nice makeup mixed with blood, right? And they're walking up the street. They're being carried up there and they're stumbling and shoes in their hands. And there's men that are in doorways. They're in suits from the day before. Their whole arm of their suit ripped off. There's hundreds of them, hundreds of the men in the town square. They got bottles in their hand and they smash. They tax their alcohol so heavily because of this. And they've got little paddy wagons driving around with little sirens. And they pick up the people out of the doorway, throw them in like a lump of meat and drive along. They've got other people sweeping up after the glass. And this is all just normal. And I'm looking at this chaos going hundreds of them, just noise and drunkenness. And everybody's down there. And I stood there and just felt like putting my hand over my head going, I'm so proud to be Icelandic, I can barely stand it. It was sort of like that feeling when the Clydesdales come by and like, hmm. You know that feeling when a Budweiser truck comes by and you're just like, oh. Anyway, after that, we go on down to the south of France where my brother's spending the summer with his kids and his wife. And one of the nights, he goes, hey, I'm taking everybody out for a big dinner. We'll have the nannies watch the kids. And so my mother, my brother, and his wife and I head out to this amazing sort of... This was a once-in-a-lifetime experience because what I'm about ready to describe to you, I had never done before and I've never done since. So at this point, once- in-a lifetime experience. Amazing French chateau, castle, thousands of years old, in the countryside, then turned into a hotel and a restaurant. And we're sitting in this courtyard, and they start a 13-course meal where they just bring a little bit of food at a time. And with each of these courses of the meal, they bring this tiny, little, embarrassingly small, little glass of wine. And the waiter would then bring a glass of glass of vine, and he would tell the story about the vineyard that this glass of wine came from. Maybe it's from a vineyard fairly close to the region. He'd say what region, a story about their family that owned the vine yard and the history of that family. It was always about a two-minute little history lesson about the Vineyard and the family, all very interesting. My brother and his wife, now I'm driving, so my brother and His wife were all having a good time, ha, ha. Oh, if they liked one, they'd go, can we have two of those? Alcoholic or not alcoholic, an appropriate place to drink a little extra. And they were, my brother and his sister, having a good time. But my mom, after two tiny little glasses of wine, says, no more for me. Now I was listening and stuff, but since I was already 13 years sober, I was trying all the Diet Cokes in the region. I was asking the waiters their story about where they came from. But my Mom, after 2, I mean embarrassingly small, A little glass of wine. She says to the waiter, no more for me. And I go, Mom, come on, I'm driving. We're having a good time here. Have a little more. And she goes, no, no. I don't like the way it makes me feel. Now, I should have left well enough alone. But she had never said that before. I had actually never actually seen her really drink. I'd seen her, I guess I had, but never in, you know, where it was free to, anyway. And I should have left well enough alone, and I said, Mom, how does it make you feel? I mean, really, Pete, how Does It Make You Feel? And she said, Well, Carl, like you made reference to that this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, I'm sitting here in this amazing courtyard looking at the incredible colors of the French countryside, listening to this string quartet that is just rattling my bones, Carl. and I'm talking with three of the people I love most on this earth and if I were to drink a little bit too much alcohol the colors get blurry and dull the music starts to sound shallow and off in the distance and then I have a hard time keeping a conversation going with you do you get that? what she's saying is up and by herself she sees the colors of life. She hears the music and she can connect with God's other kids. She adds a little alcohol and it all gets dull and sloppy. That is the exact opposite relationship to alcohol that I have. Because me, of and by myself I cannot see the colors in life. I cannot hear the music and you're goddamn boring. I get four or five drinks in me, and the colors come alive. The music, oh, God, I'll tell you where that cello was made, whether I know or not. I will make up the name of a German village on the spot. And you become very interesting, but not as interesting as me. i remember sitting there going this explains it that's why all the way through my teenage years and early 20s when you know if and whenever she was the one that came to get me out of some place whether i'm behind some sort of glass or behind some bars or you know sitting in a chair with a detective there, and she would have that look. Why do you drink this way? From the depths of my soul, I would have wanted to have said, why don't you drink this way, and now I know I wouldn't drink that way either if that's what it blurry and dull did. That is apparently what alcohol is supposed to do. Did you know that? It's supposed to be a depressant and actually just sort of make you feel a little bit more relaxed for a little while, but then you get sloppy. I mean, that's why I will fight to the death to still have the keys because I know I'm driving better. I know it sounds like I'm slurring. I know that I look like I're not coordinated. But by God, you're wrong. I've never been more in touch with who I am than right now. Other people actually know I'm too fucked up. They know it. Me, it's like, no, I'm there with you. And my whole life was... Another big problem was I was never able to be happy and comfortable and for you to be happy and uncomfortable at the same time. I was ever able to put those two things together. Because when I was happy and comfortable, I had about five to ten drinks in me. And you were like, oh no! No, no, no. You were very on edge. Right? I was happy and uncomfortable, but you were freaking out. But when you were hopeful and happy and comfortable when i wasn't drinking and you were like oh god i'm like i was never able to put those two things together where i'm happy and comfortable and you're okay with it right i was never able to put those two things together until I was sober a significant amount of time in Alcoholics Anonymous, right? So this thing that makes me me has a spiritual relationship with alcohol because that's what our spirit experiences. The colors of life, the music of life and connects with God's other kids. Those are the three things that, that thing that makes me, me, how I experience life. Right? And that was dead. That's why it says we need to have a vital spiritual awakening. That thing that makes me me had to be awakened without alcohol, awakened to the colors of life, the music of life and be able to connect with you. That, I believe, is the total and complete thing that Alcoholics Anonymous gives me. Why don't we take another break and we'll start again a little bit before 12. Thanks.