The AA Family – Workshop: Steps 1 – Part 11 of 11 – Local AA Speakers

My name's Scott. I'm an alcoholic. And thanks to the loving God you people have introduced me to, I haven't had a drink since April 22nd, 1985. And I just got to say it again, I just love being here. I love saying that, I don't get to say that during the year, the only time I get to say it is out here and I just, I love being at my Midwestern home group and I adore you guys. I didn't know what I was going to start out with tonight until I saw your videotape. I want to thank the people who put that together. It was just what a wonderful, wonderful thing. And I've been to a lot of conferences. I've seen a lot these tapes, and some of them aren't a lot fun. They usually pretty much just promote the person who made the tape, although I judge no man. But what a loving expression of this group. And, you know, I didn't know any of the people who have recently passed on in your group, but I knew what was happening when it came out in the tape because there was a hush in the crowd, And I started to cry I didn't know any of these people But I know what happens in AA You know And I looked at those people I never met one of them I love all of them And I miss them And I never meet them And that's just the way it works here And once again What I'm struck with Was how small my life had become And how huge it is now I mean, how big is that? You know And I'm a guy who When my dad died I barely even remember the funeral. You know, I was so cooked through the whole experience. And my friend Peg recently experienced a loss. She was talking about it at a meeting. We were both together. And the gentleman Jim who I was talking about this afternoon who experienced those terrible difficulties and was resolved, he passed away in a room surrounded by his AA brothers. We took the first three steps. We tookthe seventh, the eleventh. He looked at a guy by the side of the bed. He said, I'm okay. I'm sober. And he died and he rattled on and all of his brothers held onto him. And he, I mean, I couldn't show up sober the night my own father died. And the thing is, is because of the work I've done in AA, all I felt was joy that day. I mean I was terribly sad I wasn't going to get to, and it was so great because part of the thing I went through with Jim was we wouldn't talk about if he died. And my sponsor said, everyone's thinking about it. Have an open and honest discussion. So I'd say, what do you want me to do? What do you Want Me to Do If? And he gave me power attorney. And so I put it out to the group. We had a little group that would take a meeting to his house every Sunday. So the group made a decision about whether or not heroic measures. I mean, it was done by his AA family, the whole thing, you know. And I'd Say to him, well, what Do You Want Me To Do If And He'd Say, Well, This Is What I Want But I Don't Want To Die. I'm like, okay, okay Jim. You don't have to die. But it was this great thing of him saying, I want the whole thing. Whatever's left, I want to do the whole things. It was just great. It was totally honest. Totally right there. When I first came to Alcoholics Anonymous, if you're new, I want tell you that I was horrified. Horrified. I walked into a room full of Clems and Marthas. I just couldn't believe it, and everything was a miracle. Miracle, miracle, I'm a miracle! You're a miracle, miracle! The furniture and coffee are miracles too! And they get right up in your face, talk that endless AA crap to you. You know the guy, right? He's got one tooth with a cavity in it. He's got a belt buckle large enough to serve a whole fish. He's right in your face, right? Do I want what you've got? No. No, no, but thanks for spitting on me. I really appreciate it. I couldn't believe it. My skin crawls when I think about it today. It's a miracle. And I'm waiting for the Jew hunt to start. I know that's going to happen any minute, right? Come on, strap these antlers on, Jaime. We'll count to ten. Give your head star. Let's knock his beanie off, say it when he bends down to pick it up. We'll push him over. It'll be fun. I mean, it was over. Over. And I mean... When do we hook a rug? I know the arts and crafts are coming. You know? i come home i'm a sober a while my wife is in the service right off the bat she's got she hit the floor running i she left me in the dust her sponsor got into it right away she i come there's a a bolt of gingham and some ticking she's stuffing gingham swans i said we're done we're we're cooked now we'll be uh we'll be quilting pretty soon right she's making the allen on centerpieces for the san fernando convention and now you know allen on centrepieces they're like rose bowl floats i mean you know i mean these they get busy they get dizzy and they're committed they're you know they got little waterfalls they're mechanized you know and i just man i said oh god we're we're cooked you know and now when nancy and i when we want to know i ask her if an al-anon girl is getting it she nancy always says she's stuffing swans now you know which just tells me she's doing it you know she's flinging herself into it And I might as well tell the story. I can't not tell the storey after seeing the tape, so I'll tell the story. But it's apropos because I'm talking about the 10th step, just finishing off the 10 step, and it's really the 10 th step that saved my life. I was about a year sober. I was sponsoring a number of men. I was sort of becoming a spiritual Goliath at that particular time. and I had a ghost writing job for 20th Century Fox and I was being considered to direct the situation comedy. And I thought that if I got that job, that I really did feel very, very strongly that it would really benefit the men that I sponsor if I Got That Job because they would see me prosper and that it Would Be Oh So Very Hopeful To Them in Their Development in Their Relationship With God. and I did not get that job and I almost drank and I was humiliated I went to my sponsor and the way we did 10 steps and do 10 steps in my AA family is we write them exactly the way we wrote the fourth step we write resentments the defects of character the list of fears and the sexual inventory the seven points in the sexual inventory and that's the way we do it and he said to me and I was humiliated I told him what I had done he said well I guess you have the show business God I said what? he said well what keeps you sober I said God he said so God keeps you sober you didn't get a show business job and you almost drank so I guess you have the show business God and he has abandoned you utterly so I sat down and I wrote I'm resentful at Scott for almost drinking. It affects my self-esteem, pocketbook ambition, personal relations and sex. A five beggar for sure. What are the defects? I'm ashamed. I'm self-seeking and self-centered because I needed that job. I was self-promoting. I was blackmailing God. You know, give me the job or I'll drink. That really works. Oh, does that scare him? He shapes up quick when you lay that one on him. And I was ashamed and grandiose. And I, and I was resentful at the company for not giving me the job. And I read it to my sponsor and he said, you know what pal, when you do six and seven this time, you're going to have to, you're really going to be a great sponsor. You're really gonna have to get a God that anything can happen in his universe and you don't get to drink. We some years ago, we got whacked in the San Fernando Valley earthquake. really creamed about seven years ago. My wife claims that I left a footprint on her forehead getting out of bed. But she's been known to lie. And we just got whacked really badly. I got a chronic back injury that I still have from it, and the kids got scared. A guy died right near us. It was a wreck. and of course only good came out of it with AA I mean the AAs are swarming all over each other evacuating each other families are living with other families we go to show up get one of the guys I sponsor out of his place 20 drunks no one's bossing each other around everybody's getting it done his neighbor says who were they can I get them I said you're going to vomit a lot we'll come back And right after that, Nancy and I were at an AA function out of town. And this woman at the function said to me, because she used to live in L.A., she said, oh, I'm so glad God got us out of L.E. before the quake. So I said, so he likes you, but we're crap. But he likes it. He likes you. And she said to me, I guess he just felt you had some lessons to learn. I'm out of here. I'm at it here. If I got a guy up there saying, get him, get the Redmond boy, get them. No evacuation plan for you, Jew boy. Get him. I can't live in that world. I don't want to live in this world. I don' t want to go to that world, get em, getem, get'em. Won't live In that world! that God is keeping her sober that God wouldn't keep me sober for 10 minutes if I saw the deliberate hand of God in the suffering of other people I don't, I won't, I cannot live in that world. I would like to speak to her after her next lesson. I judge no man. So I had to get a God where anything could happen in his universe, show that his jobs could be got or not gotten, and I didn't get to drink. And I stood you know, we read it today. I stood at the turning point. I have stood at the turning point and asked for his protection and care with complete abandon many times. Not once has he not been there. Not, absolutely not once. And I might not have known it at the time, but not once, and I said, okay, Pop, when I did six and seven that day, I said please take this stuff. I'll do anything. Take show business. You got it. I want out of the show business, God. I will do anything for a living. Just don't let me drink. And three months later, I was working as a cook on a catering truck. And I looked up to God and I said, I didn't mean this. I didn'T mean it. We've had a grotesque misunderstanding. something got lost in the translation here but i did not mean this now in la when they make a tv show or a movie they hire a catering crew and you follow the people around you make food for them and it is a great job it's great dough it's teamster dough you're on a vehicle on a movie set it's big dough can't make more money than that as a cook unless you're like you know running a Hilton or something like that. I mean, it's great though. But I'm Scott Redman. And the first day of the shoot on this movie, the star and executive producer was a guy who I had worked with on a sitcom. So the first morning of the show, he sticks his head on the truck and he says, can I have a burrito? Scott? And I turned around, I said, what's happen to me? He said, is this your truck? I said, no, but it's my spatula. I got home and I called my sponsor and I said yeah we're getting the gift now. Yeah we are getting the gift. Now it's beautiful. This gift is beautiful. He said sounds like you've got of resentment. What do they take? They take workshops to learn this stuff. I'm resentful at Scott for working on the kitchen truck. It affects everything. What are the defects? I'm ashamed. I am grandiose. I got a job. I work and I am impatient. Things aren't moving along. I play God. Things are not going according to the Scott Redmond program, a fabulous and exciting program. I don't trust in God. If I did, I would just go and do it. I will die from this because i don't experience this as a dislike i hate this with a hatred that i wake up every morning and i water like a little flower and take care of like a Little Puppy are you okay hate? Are you hungry? Do you need a pillow to sleep on? I prize it. It is, it is everything to me because I'm an alcoholic and I have given up my life for it. And if I do not lay this aside and take a look at the things in me that if God would remove, I could be in this world and have this life one day at a time, I will surely perish. And I started writing those 10 steps. I was resentful of myself for working on that truck. I would say, what are the defects? I mean, I'm greedy. I don't have enough. I mean it was, and I kept writing them and I kept on taking positive action. I'd come back. I wound up serving people who had been my assistant directors, associate producers. I wind up one, this is a great one. I'm out doing gravy, and there come two actors that I've directed in a soap opera. So they're coming down the line, and I would go, I'm okay, I have God now. I am a man of God, I am here, I m fine, I' m fine. I have got. And I'm ready to be humble. You know, they re coming down, and they didn't recognize me. They re coming down and I went, and they're probably looking going, hey, what a weird guy. And I didn't get to have my humility moment, which really pissed me off. And I'm coming back to the home group every week with a new tale of humiliation. And the guys are just going, ah, they're just rolling in the air, tears streaming down their face. A lot of love, a lot of love. And, uh, I wrote those 10 steps and I got free and I learned how to be a good cook. And you know, my son Jesse, who was so scared of me, right before I got sober, I reached across my dinner table to get something and my arm came near my kids and they went like this. And they did it as a reaction. They didn't even think about it and my heart fell out of me. And my kid didn't care that I was a writer, that I was a TV director. What he cared about when I started cooking, he said to me, Dad, will you teach me how to cook? So we'd go to the store once a week and pick out what looked good and fresh, and we sat and I taught my kid how to cook. Never would have guessed in a million years. Certainly not part of my plan. And we still cook today. Every Sunday we have a big family meal, and me and him go into the kitchen and we prepare food together. We have a great time. And I learned how to be a good cook. I learned how to show up and give them a dime for their nickel. And you know, on a movie set, it's a funny thing. The director screams at the first assistant director, and the first assistant screams at the second assistant, and the second assistant screams to the third assistant director, and the third Assistant Director says, where's that goddamn caterer? And then comes and screams at me. So I got these kids screaming at me and I'm thinking someday perhaps you'll come and meet your new boss, and perhaps it will be me. And I will make every living, breathing, waking moment of your life an agony and a hell. And I And I had to sit and I had to write about it. I had to write those ten steps. Six years later, I'm back at Universal Studios directing TV shows. A guy walks in to meet his new boss, and I see him. He comes in, he looks up, he goes, not the caterer! Oh, no! No! Not the caterer. And I didn't have to rub it in, but I really enjoyed it. He just quaked a little bit, and this little shiver went through him, and I went, oh, yeah, yeah. It was really funny. I was on the Universal lot directing these TV shows, and there's grip guys who kind of make the whole shot possible. They do the rigging and all this stuff. They're important guys on a movie set. And he saw me and said, oh you're that sweet caterer. You're such a great guy. What are you doing on the lot? And I said, I'm directing the show on stage 46. He said, did you go right from the catering to the directing? You want to direct, cater. So I cooked for about three years on the truck and I had an overture made to me by a company named Ketchum Public Relations to possibly have this big old comedy writing job for them. and I thought at this point, because I had paid all these dues and I had done this cooking that the men I sponsor really would benefit this time because they had seen me suffer and now they would see me prosper thusly and it would be good for them so I did a videotape of these guys and my brain blew up before I even found out about the job I went mad, my brain exploded I did a Yosemite Sam, and I had to write about it and release it before I even heard about the job. And I wrote about it, released it, prayed about it worked on it with my sponsor, then I get a call from Ketchum saying I did not get the job, I was fine with that then I got a call asking me to cater some commercials in the mountains above LA up in Lake Arrowhead I said fine, I get in the truck, I grab the call sheet the call seat on a shoot gives you all the information about who you're working for and I see that the commercials are for Ketcham Public Relations i'm cooking for him now now i'm cooking for and i see a guy down at the end of the truck with a videotape camera and he's taping me i said what are you doing he said i'm taping the making of the commercial he's tapping my humiliation so he's going to go to new york with the tape and show them in new yorke they're going to go is that scott redmond with the meatloaf is that I got home, and I called my sponsor, and I said, yeah, we're getting the gift now. We're really, really getting the gift now, it's a miracle. Miracle, miracle, miracle. And he said to me, I guess God had enough writers, he needed a few cooks today. And then he said, you know, you told God you wanted to work for Ketchum, and you forgot to tell them what you wanted to do. So thanks for the videotape. And that was the gift for me at that time. Step 11. For me, the section on step 11 is a pretty remarkable section of the book. It's a couple of pages long. And if you go back once again to Emmett Fox's Sermon on the Mount In the section on Sermon on the Mount, there's an extraordinary section where he discusses the original sermon statement of resist not evil. And what Fox talks about is something that is astounding and you can really see how it was woven into the fabric of AA. He says stop making oaths, stop making declarations. In other words, stop saying you'll never drink again. Stay in today. And he talks about it magnificently in a ferocious and brave manner. He says religious disciplines that ask their clergy to make lifelong commitments, he says they're missing the point. It's today. What are we doing today? What is our relationship with God today? Stop trying to ward it off with these big sweeping statements. And that's exactly what Step 11 says. The occasional hunt for inspiration will become a working part of the mind. Stay in today. Take a breath. Ask for guidance. Stop. Do those checks. It's really quite gorgeous. And I personally love Bill's description of it. In his story, he says a price had to be paid. The price was the destruction of self-centeredness. And I just love the way he presents this. He says, in all things, I had to turn to the Father of Light who presides over all. I mean, I have to destroy self and make myself open and available to that light. It's just, I've always loved the way he expressed it. One thing that I did early on was I went through the section on the 11th step in the big book and I made a list of things that it seems to me they're telling me to ask for. And I put them into a prayer which I added to my prayer life every morning. I do 1, 2, 3 as I described this morning. I do the third step prayer. I dothe 7th step prayer and then I go through this list of thing which it seemsto me that section on 11 has guided me toask for and I say dear God please direct my thinking today Show me all through the day what my next step is to be. Give me whatever I might need to overcome such difficulties. Please keep my thoughts, especially divorced from selfish, dishonest and self-seeking motives. Please keep me from self-will and self pity. Hold me close to you. Reveal your work to me and give me the power to carry it out. And then I end my prayers for that day with the only request I make directly for myself. Hold me closed to you and keep me sober just for today so that I might better do thy will. Thy will be done, not mine. And it has so enriched my life. And one of the things that Emmett Fox talks about in Resist Not Evil, he says, please try not to let your prayers turn into an automatic mechanical parroted exercise. I can't tell you how many times that's happened to me in sobriety. No, no, no. Boom. Right? Blah, blah, blah. Hello. Step, step, step out of here. And now I really don't feel right if after I do that codified stuff but if I don't stop and say Pop help me to what's going on today? What's been the difficulty at work? What can I bring to the situation instead of what can I show up for? Help me to be strong but firm. I'm working with psychotics. I'm looking for people who are physically violent with each other and are nuts. When I first started working there, I answered some of their violence with violence. Not coming to blows, but pretty close. And it made me sick. And I did some work on it with my sponsor. And my sponsor, basically his attitude is, don't mistake my kindness for weakness. I don't have to grovel in front of anybody. So the next time the guy came to me violently, I said to him, you know what? This isn't going to work out the way you want it to work. He said, what? I said, I appreciate what you're saying, but I just want to tell you, I'm not going to do it and it's just not going to work out that way. What do you mean? It's just not going happen the way you want it. And the guy just wandered away after a while. It was like I wouldn't respond to the stuff. I just held firm, told him it wasn't going to happen that way, and that was that. It was great. It was just wonderful. And here we are at step 12. half of the 7th chapter of the big book of AA is about the family about half of the description of step 12 in the 12 and 12 is about the family in the chapter to the family afterward it talks again and again that if a person is going to get sobriety and they don't practice this somehow with the people that they love and who love them, they're really not likely to go far in the end result In the chapter to the family afterward, it also says that newly sober people tend to either become very spiritually lofty when they first get in or they become voraciously anxious to make up for the past as quickly as they can by overachieving in business or getting everything patched up as quickly as they can. Because the spirit of the book is always don't fight with them, don't fight with him. It just says if they stick around, things will change. Just try to be patient. And there are few things more odious than a self-righteous alcoholic who then start to teach people about spirituality right off the bat. It's pretty remarkable. I sponsored a guy for a short amount of time who did something. I'll just tell you what he did. He had a couple of beers, he got in his car, he ran over a nine-year-old boy and he killed him. Now he wasn't stupid drunk, he had a couple of years, it changed his perception enough so that he took the life of a child. I shudder to even start to count how many nights us collectively in this room either were sloppy drunk or just that much. How many times I was available to take a life? Thousands. He did it. Couldn't get sober. He couldn't get it. He couldn't forget that if he got this thing, he would be able to look into the eyes of somebody who's taken a life in a way that I can't do. Not that I can't help that person. I can help them. But I can look into their eyes and say, I love you. This thing is for you too. I did it and I am free now. There's a guy up in LA who took the life of a kid in a car and he said one of the things he shares, he says, I never saw that kid before the night that I killed him, but I've seen him every night since. Man. But you hear this guy talk and you know he's got it. You know that he's put his dark past in God's hands and you know that he has been relieved. And this guy, he had that gift to give and he couldn't do it. And his wife, the Al-Anon becomes just as sick as the alcoholic. His wife said, well, you know, because they had a judgment. You know, there's a civil judgment usually in this stuff. He's a working guy. They had a judgment for a million bucks. This guy ain't going to make a million bucks, but it's kind of rote, you know, in the legal process. And his wife said, well, why the hell even play the lottery? If we win, we'll just have to give it to them. That's how thick the ice had become around her heart. And shame on me if I look down on her for one second because that's exactly where I'm at. I was a guy who was having a baby and nobody could even come to the hospital because we had repelled everyone. And he didn't know that if he can get this thing, he would have been uniquely equipped to help some people that I really couldn't help the way he can help. I really thought that my wife was really the source of just about everything that was wrong in the universe. I think I shared this morning that I used to wake up and just look at her jugular vein pumping and just say, couldn't I just hold that down? Just keep my finger on it. And I genuinely, genuinely loved her. I only learned to love my wife in the process of being sober because I was so adored in Alcoholics Anonymous. I was so adored by my sponsor. I was so Adored by these guys who knew where I had come from and in that deep valley place that I told you about with Clem and Martha, that was my first home group and I was adored there. I started coming back to life. I started doing things with my sponsor and I made a decision that a lot of people in this room have made. And I didn't even know it was mine to make. I allowed somebody to sponsor me. You do not have to allow yourself to be sponsored. I have a great opportunity here tonight, and I want to exercise it because I'm the speaker and I can. I sponsor a guy long distance who I just adore. And we don't get to go to meetings together, but we just have a good time together. He just turned 10, and I haven't given him a cake, so I want you to help me sing happy birthday to him, and I want to give it to them right now, okay? Since I'm talking about sponsorship. Brent, come on up. Yay! Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, happy birthday to all of you. Happy birthday to you. He's coming back without a dream. Thank you, Brent, for saving my life. And I started following these guys around and allowing myself to be sponsored. And, you know, you can get any sponsor. You want to get a boutique sponsor. You can get a highbrow, sort of high, you know. I sponsor 25 guys. I don't work with many of them. I probably work with 10 of them, Brent's one of them I mean work in a way that makes me feel like I can actually not drink. The best time I've ever been fired was by a guy who I had no recollection of sponsoring. This guy came up to me in a meeting, and this is the kind of guy that when he shared, people took their own lives. He was such a windbag, and he's just this stentorian pedantic. We never ever bothered any of us with any information about the steps. I judge no man, but it was odious listening to this guy. And he walked out to me at a meeting and he said, you know, you really haven't been there for me. I'm going to have to let you go. I missed the whole thing. It was the greatest way I've ever been fired because I missed what would probably have been an awful experience. So it was great. All I got was the being fired part, which was a source of joy for me." A friend of mine did a little better than that. This is my favorite story about being fired. A guy walked up to him at a meeting and said to him, you look really familiar. And my friend said, that's because I'm your sponsor. This buddy of mine is a speaker in AA. And this guy had been, saw him talk with a recovery group and got so excited about his talk, ran up to them and asked them to sponsor him after the meeting and never called him again. It's a year later. And he goes up to my buddy and says, you look familiar. And he says, I'm your sponsor. So you can ask anybody you want to to sponsor you. I got to tell you, this is a great story. This buddy of mine who I'm telling you about was answering calls at Central Office one night. And this woman called and said, how long is the waiting list right now for AA? And he said, what are you talking about? And she said, well, a month ago I told my husband he had to get out of the house if he didn't join AA. He went back in the other room. He came back in and he said, honey, they're full right now. But they put me on the waiting list. We're going to get a call and I'll be getting right in there. So and I think my friend said to her, it's she said, how long is the wait going to be? And he went, for you, I think, very long. And I started letting these guys sponsor me. And I, my, I started going on panels with my sponsor. I was about a year and a half sober. God, this is just so funny. I really, I'll never forget this day. My sponsor and I went up to Hatchipee State Prison. And, and he talked in minimum security. and I talked to medium. It was just the two of us and we came back in the car and we met afterwards and I saw he was on fire. He had stamped that alcoholism. I mean, he was lit up like a torch, you know? I said, how was it for you? He said, it was incredible. I mean I shared, the guys shared, you know, it's prison, we got down, I even shared my homosexual experience with him. He said how was it for me? I said well this is uncanny because it was incredible for me because I also shared your homosexual experience He told me, he said, I'm so glad you're getting your sense of humor back. I was about a year or two sober this whole notion of the 12th step I didn't know how big it was I didn' t know what the deal was my mom came out to LA and I was sober for the first time so I had been a lousy son you know, for so long and she was out here and I said would you like to attend an AA meeting with me and to my surprise she said yes I'd like to go to the meeting but please don't leave me alone over there so I said okay and we sat down in our seats She's sitting on the aisle and I'm sitting next to her. And this kid walks over and leans across my mom and says, I don't know if you remember me, but two weeks ago you walked me over to the river and we threw away my dope and I just want to let you know that I haven't had a drink since that night. He started to cry and I started to crying. And he got up and walked away and my mother turned to me and said, go do whatever you want to do. She just got it. And she's gotten it ever since. As I told you, my wife Nancy was down to one friend who would call sometimes And the day of her 10th Al-Anon birthday, we had a couple hundred people in our backyard. And she looked out in this crowd and she saw her one friend standing in the middle of that crowd. And she saw what her life had become. We had a very difficult time after the first five years of sobriety, really not knowing how to come back together, how to be intimate. We had done what you guys told us to do. We really left each other the hell alone. We just had done it too much. we had to learn how to get re-involved in one another's life in a way that wasn't playing God but was in a loving, intimate way and we just didn't know how to do it we went into therapy together and it was just great we developed all these tools in therapy and then we'd go home and throw a Buick at each other I mean, we just we couldn't we could not we and we were it was very it was really frustrating and very anxiety producing because we'd be like let's go and do all this great work but one more time We couldn't get it out of that arena. We didn't know how to move it into our life. And we realized that we were at the turning point again. Because you know what? This is my primary relationship. How insane is it to hate that person? How insane ist it to live with an enemy? Move! How nuts is that? But that's where we had become. Everything she said was just white noise. She'd be opening her mouth and go, grrrr. And I knew cleaning wasn't going to work anymore. That was over. And she thought everything I said was just, and you know, saying, so how are you? And let's have sex. Good morning. Let's have six. Did you get the car fixed? Let's have sex. I mean, and she might've been right. But the fact is, is we had no vocabulary, absolutely no vocabulary. So we did something really insane. We broke down and started praying together. What a wacky idea to use the only thing that has ever helped me out in my life. The only answer I've ever, only true ultimate answer I have ever had and apply it to the most important relationship in my life with another human being. And we started, we didn't take the steps together. I do that alone and hope I'll do that for the rest of my life one day at a time. We started holding hands and saying, please, I say Father, she says higher power, please help us to stop taking everything so personally. Please. Please help me to have a sense of humor. Please help me to remember this is my life, my wife, my lover, my buddy and my bride and not my adversary because everything was beginning with this notion that we're trying to get over on each other and once you've lived with alcoholism as she did long enough, that's not a crazy idea to have because she had to fight this notion oh I'm going to get screwed again, oh no oh, here it comes. He's having a problem. Bad news for me. I'm going to wind up paying for this somehow. And that wasn't nuts. That was truly the way that it worked out a good deal of the time. And we started praying. We started taking action. And then one day we're praying and I said, and please, Pop, let me do anything my wife tells me to do today? And I thought, this is really going too far. We're way over the top now. And I realized that I meant it. I realized that I mean it because I trusted her enough at this point to know that she wouldn't ask me to do anything that I wouldn't want to do. And she started doing it too. She started saying the same thing. And it really, it changed our marriage. I do not believe that that's because God likes us more than the people who are getting divorced. I really don't. I really don'T think that God likes certain people and gets them away from the earthquake and God doesn't like other people and leaves them in the earthquake and picks up their house and goes... For me, and this is just the world I live in and this part of my 11th step, I just feel that that's my job. Sometimes my job in an AA is to show a guy or a gal how to have a sober, loving marriage that works. Sometimes my job is to tell them my job is to show them how to have a sober, successful divorce. I don't think one is better than the other and one is God's will and the other isn't. I just don't. That's just for me and it's really given me a life that I like living in. I don't think that God wants me... My job might be to show a guy how to live in a house on the hill or to live in a refrigerator box. I know which one I'd prefer but I don' t think God's up there divvying it out. A guy I sponsor who's selling his house he calls me he says I'm in real estate hell we fell out of escrow. I said you know actually you're not. Real estate hell this is real estate health So fighting with someone to get the refrigerator box to sleep in, you win, you beat them up, you get in the box and then you hear rain, the pitter-patter of rain on the box. That's real estate hell. You are in real estate discomfort. That's what escrow is. That's a real estate discomfort. Real estate hell is a whole other thing. For you addicts, hell is not having a rough day at work. It's working all day to get a shot and then knocking the spoon over. That's when I made a couple of people. People were really sick with that one, didn't they? The 12th step. It happened to me when I came in and I didn't even know it was happening to me. I was feeling pretty bad about myself when I came into Alcoholics Anonymous. I was three days sober and I went into a group that was to become my home group for 10 years. And I sat there that night feeling incredibly sorry for myself and I felt the presence and the power of that 12th step that first day. A guy named Paul, who I know to this day, shared at that meeting. He talked at that meaning and one of the parts of his story he talked about, because I felt I had really low self-esteem, he said that before he got sober, when he hit his bottom, he took a gun and put it to his breast and he shot. He woke up in a hospital and a nurse said to him, the bullet passed right through you and came out the other side and he looked at the nurse and he said, oh no, did it hurt anyone? And I said, that's low self-esteem. I don't think I have low self esteem. That's low self-esteem. One night I came home from talking at a meeting. I think I had saved everyone in Covina that particular night. And I came home and I asked my wife how she was. She said, I'm fine, but your son is having a bad acid trip. I went inside and Micah was playing with a headless doll under a black light in his room. Fourteen. He's fourteen. Bad acid trip? Scott Redman, circuit speaker. Child, acid trip. Not supposed to happen. Right, Jim? At any rate, I went inside. I said a little prayer. I went back into Micah's room. I put my arms around him. I said, this is a pill. It's going to wear off and I'm not going to leave you. And he said, thanks, Dad. And we sat up. I called a member of Alcoholics Anonymous who was a psychiatrist, is a psychiatrist. And he prescribed some medication for Micah. My sponsor went and picked the medication up and dropped it off. This as a kid, I couldn't find anybody to watch him the night that his sick brother was born and AA was all over him. I thanked the psychiatrist. I said, good night. He said, huh? I'm not going to sleep till Micah goes to sleep. And he stood up and he talked to Mike. You didn't tell me my kid wouldn't have a problem. You told me I'd never be alone again ever. And the nights when you were busy, I'd have my father and the nights When he was keeping Saturn on its axis, I would have you, But I'd never, ever be alone again. So we put Mike into therapy and that was he enjoyed therapy and it gave him a lot of self-esteem so he could really go into the drug trade. Because you know, without that self-esteem, you really can't be entrepreneurial. And he got thrown out of high school for dealing drugs and what my wife and I did is we did what we've been given in AA and Al-Anon. We presented my son, not with playing God, not with bullying, with sensible, flexible, consistent limits. Where God's involved. Look at those traditions. It's all over him. A loving God as he presents himself in our group conscience. And we were taught at that time, we started to get taught by people how to take those traditions and apply them in our family as a group. And man, did it work. Did it work magnificently. And we just said, look, we're going to do this with you. Okay? First you had the therapy. Now you've been thrown out of school for the drug dealing, so now you're going to go to an outpatient treatment. They'll have random drug testing. If you test dirty, then you'll go away. We're not going to take a leap. We'll just go with you on this. He went into the drug program. He tested clean for a year, and that was that. And does he have the allergy? I don't know. He's having a great life now. We just stayed with him. My wife comes home from a meeting. I said, how was it? And I said, oh great, I shared what's happened with Mike. I said you shared it at a meeting? You told people? She said, honey, what do you think our club is about? Do you think it's just a coven I go to? Hello? We don't live with secrets anymore. There's no elephant in any living room here. My wife, her first Al-Anon meeting she ever went to. They have something in Southern California called pressing problems. At the end of certain meetings they do pressing problems at the end. First Al-Aman. Woman raises her hand. Pressing problem. As she was leaving the house to go to the meeting, her husband was getting on a chair and putting a noose around his neck. My wife figures that's it. This woman's life is over. She'll have a life. That will be it. Next week, the woman's at the meeting. My wife can't believe it. Not only was she at the meeting, she didn't have any pressing problems. When Micah was five, I told him there was no God when he asked me who was God. And when I was a year sober, I started sponsoring a guy who I I sponsored him this day. I sponsored them longer than I've sponsored anybody, my darling Roland. And I got 10 months more than him, and I've been his sponsor since Jump Street. We just adore each other. And he used to call me every night, and he'd say, leave a message on my tape machine. He'd say Scott, it's Roley. I love you. Good night. He'd hang the phone up. And five years after this, when I was six years sober and Michael was a little boy, he came to me and he said, you know, Dad, when I was a Little Boy, I couldn't fall asleep until I heard Roland's voice on the machine. and when I heard Roland's voice on the machine I knew it was okay and I could go to bed I told him that there was no God I tried to rip God out of this kid's life and you guys, you came and you got us you came in and you took my kid in at night and you take care of him and after all those troubles and getting through it the way our family got through it Micah graduated high school and elected instead of going to college to go to Chiapas, Mexico and work with these Zapatista revolutionaries for a while I'd see Peg and Dick every once in a while on the circuit during this time and I'd just go now during the 60s I smoked a lot of dope and stared into the mirror and went like this a lot I mean he's out there he's doing it he believed it and he's gone they're all a bunch of wacko commies in my house anyway Nancy I got Nancy on the rebound from a Marxist commune. You know, I mean, they're all they're nuts. They're all nuts. And she's going, oh, isn't this great? I'm going, no, it's not great. It's not great while he was down there a month and she agreed. This is not great because it's Chiapas. They don't want my kid down there. The Mexican military is depicted as such a kind, loving group of people. There was really I mean I get these images in my head of my kid being filleted, and there were plenty of people being fillet down here. And oh, I would just get overwhelmed with fear sometimes. And I'd take my steps in the morning and I'd say, Pop, take the Mexican military. Take them because I cannot handle this. And I'd get a lot of relief. One morning I couldn't take it. I just got the waves of fear just kept it just I just kicked my ass. AndI called my sponsor. I told him what was going on. He said, you know, this might be the greatest thing he ever does. And I said, kiss my ass. I said that to myself. I'm not an idiot. but i did say that to myself i said easy for you to say it's not your kid you know what it's the greatest thing he ever did uh the year after that he came back he went up to college and nancy went to check him in up at school and you know they're the boys are being checked into their dorms and their moms are making their beds and the boys go on you know just going nuts you know And my kid's up there going, I've been to Chiapas. Who cares? Make my bed. Do whatever the hell you want me to do. He can do anything. I mean, do you think he can go to the hardware store? Well, he went to Chiaps. I think he could handle Osh, don't you? It just became the acid test for his life. I mean he really became his own man in a beautiful and productive way. Would I have denied him that? In two seconds. Absolutely. And thank God Paul walked me through all of that stuff. He was such a tremendous help to me. As a matter of fact, I had changed careers about five months ago. And you know, I've been talking all this long spiritual stuff about not having the show business, God, about not being what I do for a living. And five months ago, I was confronted after doing a lot of 10-step work about being broke, about irresponsibility with money, about one kid being in college and another kid ramping up. Got to produce that tuition, and I knew I had to change careers. I mean, I really had to � in the past, I've taken other jobs, and knowing that if a writing job came along, I'd leave that job. But that's not what was in the offing. Commitment to a company like a person making a moral choice, make a real commit to them in doing it, and it was like my insides were being pulled at him. It was just absolutely killing me. And my sponsor said to me, as I was talking to him and I read him this inventory I'd done about it, he said, let me tell you how spiritually developed I am. I said, please, go right ahead. He said, I'm so spiritually developed that when you realize that this is the greatest thing that ever happened to you, I won't rub it in. And it is not the greatest name that's ever happened. to me, but it's been damn good. And I'm really successful at it. It's really worked out for me. I'm just going down my notes to make sure that I haven't forgotten anything. I've been talking for 78 hours and I just want to make Sure that I don't miss a trick here. Two things I wanted to talk about before I end tonight. For me in sponsorship, I absolutely insist on enjoying life. This is the only text that I know of that contains the sentence that is about recovery from a fatal illness that contains the sentence, we absolutely insist on enjoying Life. There's no book about cholera that says, cholera is a hoot. You're going to love cholera. You'll meet other people with cholera, it's fabulous. It just doesn't get any better than cholera! I believe Alcoholics Anonymous is the only treatment for a fatal illness that actually leaves the sufferer in better condition than they were in before they caught the disease. I really don't know of any other that does. We're lucky to have it. Our problem mainly rests in our mind. If our problem didn't rest in our mind, why would we possibly engage in a drink that would help us develop the phenomenon of craving again? And what brings us to actually making that choice but the soul sickness, which the fourth step addresses very, very directly. And I think the 10th step continues to address. And again, the good news is our problem mainly rests in our mind. Otherwise, how could we benefit spiritually from having this disease? And the bad news, of course, our problem namely rests in your mind because newcomers suffer from different kinds of sicknesses and problems. A guy walked up to me on a trip I was on. He said, what do you think about me going out with a newcomer? And I said, I tell you what, instead of going out with her, go to a hospital. Go up to ICU. Find a woman on life support. Unplug her. Have sex with her. Finish up. Plug her back in and walk away. Same thing. He just looked at me and went, oh man. I don't think it stopped him, but I hope it really ruined it for him. But I judge no man, but you know that because I've been saying it all damn day. People two weeks in remission from leukemia aren't having dating problems? Alcoholics are. I met a newcomer some years ago at a meeting and he called me when I got home and he talked to me for an hour. I said, uh-huh, four times. He said, no, I was not dead. And he explained to me he had been stalking several women. He had a restraining order taken out against him, but he's two weeks sober now. It's all different. And at the end of the hour, he said, I feel so alone. I said. What do you mean you feel alone? He said. I mean, I don't have a woman. I said well what exactly would you be bringing to a relationship right now besides stalking skills? What exactly are you bringing to the party right now? What a catch, huh? But because our problem mainly rests in our mind, we're privy to this. One of my favorite stories, and I just... I haven't seen this guy in a long time. I was... My wife was walking through our room, and I was on the phone with the new guy, and all she heard me say into the phone was, let's say the aliens are coming. she stopped short she ain't missing a word of this i said look i'm not saying the aliens aren't coming they perhaps are that's an outside interest let's say i have one question why are they coming for you why you you have no life you live in north hollywood you're 11 days sober why have they traversed a universe for your sorry ass don't you think they'll like call a cop look up you know even go to a post office why you plus he's sleeping with a bible on his chest to ward them off they're going to come across an entire galaxy walk into his bedroom and go oh no the bible let's go home so some years ago i'm sharing this story at a meeting and the guy who i'm talking about walks into the meeting. So I'm watching him now. And I'm telling the story and I watched him go like this as he's listening to the story. He went, And I saw the horrible memory come crashing in on him. I believe for me that a sponsor has to be allowed into my life anytime he wants it. I believe from me that if I stop allowing myself to be sponsored and I have to recommit to that all the time. I believe for me if I don't work the 10th step I will stop sponsoring because the men I sponsor annoy the living crap out of me at times. It's really hard. It's a great joy. One of the men that I sponsor, his name is Phil and he had a couple of years of sobriety. He pulled me aside and said I've known a woman a couple of months she's pregnant and I want to get married what do you think? And I took a deep breath and look I don't have any rules. I react different ways at different times. I know this guy. I didn't resent him, and I'll tell you what I said to him. I said, I'll do whatever you want me to do. If you and she want to get an abortion, I'll help you. If you two want to marry, I'll be your best man. I'll give you a chance. I'll say whatever you wanted to do they got married. I was his best man this total disaster. I mean just disaster They had a baby. The baby was sick, and the baby was really sick. The baby's lungs wouldn't accept oxygen, and she had to be taken, rushed to the hospital, and put on something called an ECMO machine. They surgically attach something to the baby's heart, which takes the blood out of the baby. The baby puts oxygen in it and puts it back in. It's hard to think of a more invasive process for a child. What a country we live in. You know that in England there's so few of these machines that they pull the baby's names out of a hat and the ones that don't get picked die? And there was not even a question of it. They didn't even have insurance. They took them into that hospital and they saved that baby's life in a second. So here the baby is, here is he, here is the wife, and Alcoholics Anonymous just shows up. Now to go to prenatal ICU, you've got to be an aunt or an uncle or a relative. So, you know, big Ethiopian men, little Japanese women. You know, overweight Jews, skinny Presbyterians. Finally the nurses just went, go in. Don't even waste your breath. Just go. Just mob the place. Mob the place! Then the word went out for blood. They're dropping blood off. Most of them can't, you see. You know, because they got tattoos on their faces and they're, you know, been, you know, junkies and stuff. But they go anyway. They're dropping the blood off in jars, you know. Two weeks after they were home from the hospital, they call the hospital. I said, Phil, they're still coming with blood. You might want to talk to these people. They're really off the deep end. Go to the home group that night. people were loving this guy and following this pregnancy. We came to the home group, said the baby was sick. He's a working guy. If he ain't working, they ain't making any money. They ain't even eating. They passed the basket. The guys threw 600 bucks in there so they'd have some dough so they could be at the hospital. That is Alcoholics Anonymous. Thatisthealcoholicsanonymous I have seen over and over and again. And if it is failing you, stop failing it. If the 12th step is not making you comfortable, I assure you there's something wrong with the way you're working it. Because it has been true for me always. The minute it makes me nuts, the minute sponsorship makes me nut, being sponsored nuts, being responsible, the moment it makes you uncomfortable, I know there is something wrong with the way I'm approaching it because it is perfect. This is a perfect spiritual message being passed on by imperfect people. and um a year later my friend phil pulled me aside and he said you know when you told me to that you would back me up no matter what i did i didn't believe you the only way i believed you is when you came to the hospital every day for the 16 days she was in there i believed yeah i you know why i was at the hospital 16 days i wanted to be with my dad more it was self-serving and self-seeking and it worked and it was and it wasn't it doesn't matter Every time I walked into that hospital, I said, hi, Pop. And my dad was there for me again and I got to hang out with him and hang out mit the baby and do the stuff. I just love you to pieces. And I'm just so grateful to be here. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you all asking me down. And I want to answer two quick questions and then close with one little story. I have two questions here. one is, what the hell is a tweaker? Mr. Anonymity just raised his hand over there. Speed freak. They're quick. They stay quick.They wear out their clothes from the inside a lot. And they have usually very well-organized wallets. What do you say to the person who continues to use and come back and forth, in and out of the program, saying AA will always be there. I do a different thing with each one of them. I find some of them to be insufferable and don't like to talk to them. I find... I find some of them, I adore them so much, I'll talk to them every time they come back, and I don't care. I find there to be no hard and fast rules. There's one guy, I can't say what his nickname is because I can, but it's Mark the, and he can't stay sober for 11 and a half seconds. And one day, a guy next to me is sitting there and he stands as a newcomer. He has been standing, he started standing as a new comer way before I got sober. And he stands again, and this guy next Toomey just, it just came out of him and he went, what stamina. to take that ass-pounding over and over and over again. And, you know, there are some guys who I just don't want to hear it. I'll tell you one of the things that really my heart goes out to them. When I hear a guy slip, get to a podium and try to use it as a teaching tool for us. Well, I just want to tell you I've been out there. Don't do it. Oh, don't do It. I've done it for you. Thanks. Like you did it for me, right? But whenever I hear that, I go, man, you still don't get it. You just don't getting it that you've got to stop knowing this stuff. You can't take your failure and somehow use that as sort of some badge of knowledge that you're going to pass on to me. It doesn't, you know, our book says that an alcoholic needs a message with depth and meaning. And the only thing I have felt that in is in the story of a man who has gotten out from under, has found a way to live one day at a time in this life and become of some use. So it's a great question. And my answer is I have found myself reacting at different times in different places. One of the things that Al-Anon has given me that some people feel this way and some people don't. It was a gift to me. I came home one night and I said to my wife, you know, this guy Johnny wants to borrow 20 bucks from me. And I don't know. I don' t want to enable him. And my wife said, what do you mean, huh? Enable him. I said, well, you now, I might enable him . . . I didn' t know what I meant. I just heard enable at a meeting. And she said, Well, sweetheart, you' re not going to make him non-alcoholic if you don' t give him the 20 bucks. He' l just either be a drunk with 20 bucks or without 20 bucks . . ." I have a question for you. What do you want to do with your 20? That's the pertinent question here. I can't make the guy a drunk or not a drunk without, from my point of view, I can'T enable him. And again, different people have different opinions on that. That's just where I went with it. So when I'm nice to a guy, when he comes in, I don't think, well, if I'm Nice to him, he'll think he can do this. I don'T think I really enter into his thought process when he's taking the big journey. The big journey is the glass that's about two feet. and when you make that decision you are stone cold sober man to get to that place to make that decision, stone cold sober what a chill I was mentioning to some friends before the meeting one of the greatest things I ever heard at an AA meeting I heard at the international and if you haven't been to an international go to one because you're going to have to hear all the you know the sharing about it afterwards. You're great, I loved it, I loved that you should go. Had to listen to that crap for years and then I went to one and I came back and I went, you really should go to the International. And I was at the International in San Diego and it was just an open mic meeting, it was a member of AA, people were talking about how they got a higher power and this guy stepped up to the mic and he said, you know, I asked my sponsor when I was new when I would find a power greater than myself and he told me, and he said to me, go to meetings, don't drink, and you'll be contacted. I just thought it was just the greatest thing, the greatest thing in the whole world. I want to end my talk with a compliment paid to you by my son Micah. It's one of the most beautiful compliments I've ever heard and he paid it to you guys in this room. He was babysitting for a couple on the program a year or so ago and the guy said to Mike, what do you think of hearing your dad in AA? And Micah said, I don't really care much about that. I mean, I don' t really care much about the talks and stuff like that. He said, all I can tell you is that since I'm a very little boy the men and women of Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon have taken very, very good care of me and never once has any of them demanded that I believe what they believe. Wow, what an extraordinary expression of what Dr. Bob said all of this boils down to. Everything I've talked about today, all the 12 steps boils down very simply if you distill them to service and love. And what a beautiful expression my son had. And that was based on his own personal experience as 14 years of a member of a home dedicated to Alcoholics Anonymous in Al-Anon. Thank you for my life. Thank you, for my children. Thank you from my wife. Thanks for listening.