Spiritual Awakening and the Big Book – Big Book Study – Part 1 of 7 – Don

Don P. from Colorado. All the young healthy ones crapped out, you know what I'm saying? Wimps. My name is Don. I am an alcoholic, and I am a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I have been continuously sober since December 26th of 1967. And I always say that for two reasons. First of all, I want to impress you. I don't want you to be impressed with me, but I think we need to begin to impress everybody in AA with the fact that relapse is not a necessary part of recovery. If you're an alcoholic, you don't ever have to drink again. Some will, but it's not necessary. Had it not been for that simple little message, I probably wouldn't have stuck around. I have a home group. It's simply known as an AA group. When we were looking for names, we went to the traditions, and it said that any two or three alcoholics gathered for sobriety may call themselves an AA Group. So that's what we call ourselves. I'm not sure about you. We meet in the basement of a community corrections center in Denver every Friday morning at 6 in the morning. We're an outside group that meets there and pays rent So we can be available to the inmates who are getting ready to go to work Or who may have worked late shift and come back There's another meeting on Monday night at 6 o'clock We're just there And this was a hard decision for us to make I want to tell you a little about the group I'm going to try to get comfortable There's too many of you Well, way too many of you. You're all big book experts. I had occasion to go to North Carolina, what, honey, seven years or so ago? This, by the way, is the legendary Jackie. I was smart enough to say yes when she begged me to marry her. So I was gone for two years, and I'll undoubtedly over the weekend tell you about that because there are some incredible spiritual, can't even call them events, movements that took place as a result of that. But the upshot of it was I left everything, including home, group, family, the people I sponsored, every support that I had because having made a choice at the third step years ago, the time did come for me and it has come more than once that it's just me and God. It's all or nothing. And anything I get attached to or supported by, I am forced then to let go of it. Having done so, then I can have it back. We were laughing earlier. when I do these kind of weekends alone I don't allow them to be taped I'm adamant about that no microphones, no tapes but since there were three of us it didn't really matter he got me again anyway I came back to Denver after two years And one of the fellows that I sponsored, and when I sponsor, when we're through doing step activity, it's your turn now. Go to work. And he had been, but he called me up and he says, Now that you're back, I'd just like to go back through the steps with you. And I said, Don't be absurd, David. If you want to go through the Steps, pick somebody new and take them through the Steppes. That's how you do that. But if you and a number of the other guys would like to go through the steps just so we can recontact each other, that's cool. If you'll pick a time when nobody else wants to come and a place where we won't even be discovered and promise me that no one, no one will bring a big book, we'll go through The Steps together the way it is in the big book. See, I read technical experts and they just make me tired. The big book can get in the way, you know, of any meaningful spiritual growth. We'll explore that. So we picked Marty's place. Now, I don't know how I did it, but Marty came out of active alcoholism rich and cute. And he married a woman who was also rich and cute. So they live rich and cute in a loft in downtown Denver with gorgeous furniture and foo-foo coffee and Mozart's just there. You don't know where it's coming from. It's just kind of there. Big leather chairs. We were, this was a great meeting. And when we were all through, we decided it was so much fun, we went through the traditions together. And then we went to the concepts together. And in doing that, we woke up to our conscience. We were not available. We were becoming an inbred little group of arrogant jerks. Not outwardly. We're all too cool for that. But it was coming. It was coming to us. It was common. so we had group conscience and this group of highly enlightened spiritual people still took four group consciences to conclude that we needed to make ourselves available to give up our foo-foo coffee and all that and become available so we picked the most unavailable place possible in Denver and became available there And you're all welcome anytime you're in town on Friday morning at 6, come see us. There's about 15 of us and generally 15 to 20 inmates. And it's a lively meeting. We have very few rituals because we've also... I've also discovered and some others seem to agree with me that we have ritualized ourselves sometimes into uselessness by the time all the readings are done and all the T's are crossed and the I's dotted it's time for a coffee break nobody has time to share anything so we just kind of did away with that we have one person that keeps us on track because our format is very simple we cover a step, a tradition, and a concept back to back and then the next one that's just kindof how we do it And we don't spend a lot of time with the concepts because most people aren't interested in them. And that's a shame because there are a fine set of spiritual tools and principles that you can live in dealing with a world that doesn't live by spiritual principles. So anyway, now you know a little bit about my group. Interestingly enough, I'm in that time of my life when I'm being separated from this group again. I haven't been able to make it for two weeks in a row. And that's just the way that is. Another thing that I'm used to is that we go around a little bit so we can get to know each other. Getting some of that same basic information I just gave you, who I am, what I am how long I've been here why I'm here. I would say that I am sponsored and I do sponsor but I don't even like that word anymore because of what we've done to it. Nobody knows what it means anymore. I know what it mean to me, but I do not know what is means to you or to you. It has different meanings. So I am going back to my big book and to my mentor who is now, he is only 49 years sober, but he will do for starters. I'm his protégé that's right out of the big book that's the word that has some meaning he's my mentor I understand that we're peers but he's ahead of me on the path and he's mentoring me and I'm His protégée He sees great things in me if I live long enough I may even become a worthwhile citizen and he shows me how to do that this is a man you'll love this story got sober, became an attorney he hasn't always been alright and became a very good one 12 years sober he was put forward to be on Bobby Kennedy's cabinet or one of those advisors and And at the final meeting where the people were being discussed, one of the other fellows said, I'm not sure we want this one, Bobby. He's an admitted alcoholic. And Bobby is supposed to have said, well, how long has it been since he had a drink? And they said 12 years, and Kennedy's response was, is there anyone else in this room that can make that statement? And he got the job, of course. So those are some of the things that you need to know about me. But I need to Know Some Things About You All, Too. And if we go around like we usually do, I did the numbers. If each one of you took about a minute, we'd be here for just over two and a half hours. And I don't know anybody, including me, We can get it all done in one minute. It takes me that long to get to the important stuff, okay? But I would like to have some sort of an idea, and I know it will help Jerry when he comes in the morning. We think you've got a little food poisoning is what's happened here. So he should be weak but functional by morning. And where I come from, weak doesn't mean anything. You show up anyway. As long as you can function. But it will help him also to have some idea, because I'm not kidding, we're in a group full of experts here. I've been listening to you for two and a half hours. Most of you know this book better than I even want to. Oh look, there's Alvin. Oh my God, we are all right. We are all good. I know that some of you are quite familiar with Joe and Charlie's method of presentation of the book, which is excellent. It's an awakening call. I know some of your family members are familiar with the book. Some of you may be familiar with Joel and Mark's presentation of the Book, at least from the last time they were here. I know some of you have heard me talk before so you have some idea I'm a storyteller don't do a whole lot technical I can get technical if that's what you want but you've got to be new oh yeah oh they're after me already honey look the lights went out what do y'all want to do with this weekend this will not be the definitive big book weekend of all time my intent is that I will share myself with you in love if that's what you want I will show my experience and my strength and my winnings and my losings and it will all be from my source book which is this one there are other good source books but I haven't finished the big book yet somebody keeps He's adding shit to it, you know what I'm saying? It didn't mean that much yesterday when it said that. I do not continue to do steps to grow spiritually because the book I read made it very clear I don't grow spiritually by doing steps. I grow spiritually by working self-sacrifice for others. I awaken spiritually by doing steps I know some of you do the work you need to know that I think that's preposterous because if you mean you do it and you do the steps all the time that's not the work that's preparation for the work the work of Alcoholics Anonymous is to carry the message of Alcoholic Anonymous to those who don't know if you're alcoholic, you don't have to drink again. And I got that from day one. You're not going to get a lot of new out of me. My first five weeks in Alcoholics Anonymous, I got almost everything that I know, which was that I don't know hardly anything. I had a really good sponsor. He said, we don't think the truth is going to work for you, first of all. Told me why. I take the truth in this alcoholic self-centered mind and my ego catches it and says things like, aha, I can use that later. I can catch an edge with that. That's my ace in the hole. I'll hold on to that. And then I warp it so that it fits the rest of my mind. He said we suggest you forget anything you think you know about anything, particularly about spiritual matters. Because if you knew anything at all, you wouldn't be here. I was in my third penitentiary. He had a point. And I fought a little bit. I've come from literal death, and I'm still willing to fight a little bit. Surely, I says, I've learned something of the truth. He said it's doubtful, but it is possible. So we will concede the possibility. If you know anything at all about truth, when we're all through, it'll still be truth. And all the rest of it's garbage anyway. So why don't you just put it down? And by some form of God's grace I was able to do that. And I know some people don't even like the idea of grace. I don't understand it, but I sure do like it. I cannot earn what I've been given. If there were justice as I understand justice. Oh, please God, not that. There's mercy here. How many folks do we have under a year here? Oh, wonderful. We can show you how to learn to live a life that will make sense to you. That's what we'll show you. The first time I heard those words, I was in the fish tank of the Colorado State Penitentiary. Preceding that was from the same guy that said that, said, your very best thinking got you to the penitentiary. You're not doing too good, are you? But we can show you a new way of thinking. We can showyou a way of living and a wayofthinking that will make sense to you. And that was such a novel idea it caught me. I had never tried to live my life so it made sense to me. Despite self-centeredness, I was trying to live my lifeso it would make sense toyou. Because if my life made sense toyou, then I was okay. If it didn't make sense to you, well, we'll change it a little then. I didn't have an original idea when I got here. I had stolen everything that I knew. I'd been stolen from somebody. From movies, from books, from people, from the guys in the class ahead of me? Wherever I could get it. Because know this, at heart, I am lazy. I am physically lazy.I am mentally lazy. l am spiritually lazy. I would much rather have somebody else praying for me. It's just easier to go through all this stuff for myself? Oh my goodness. I would much rather be the boss, not because I'm smarter, but for a while while I'm the boss I can get somebody else to do my work for me too. God uses that, you know. I'm one of the most efficient workers you'll ever find because I'm lazy. I want it done quickly and I want It done right the first time so I don't have to do it over again, because I've got some serious laying around to do. I come from a functional home, and what I mean by that, it was not a perfect home. The human condition produces difficulties, just the human condition all by itself. I don't think life does. I hear people today talking about learning to live life on life's terms. I don' believe life makes terms. Only people make terms. Life is as it is and I need to learn to live in harmony with it as it is. But that's all philosophical. My family was functional because they met every challenge that came by. One of the best ways I can describe my insanity, and by the way, I'm into descriptions rather than definitions. If you came this weekend looking for definitions, talk to some of the other people here, but don't talk to me. I'll mess you up. If you press me for a definition, I'll give you one. And it'll take you six months of inventory to get rid of that one. Back in the late 20s, when it was more of a political movement than anything else, my grandpa and my dad were the two leaders of the Colorado Ku Klux Klan. That slopped over into the 30s when I was born. And we had some funky ideas around my house for a while. And I knew from the beginning they were funky. So, I didn't even have much resentment in relation to that. But when it came time to resent my dad, I attached that to him. Now, my dad and my grandpa in the mid-thirties awakened spiritually through some process of their own. and they took off those robes and they spent the rest of their lives making that mistake right, actively. I left the robes on them for years because that's what we do. That's what resentment does. I leave the robES on you years after you took them off. How stupid of me. But we'll examine that as we go into step four. I'm just going to kind of lay some groundwork here so you know. Well, because I don't know what else to do tonight. This is about change. Nothing less. Yes, if I am the same person two years from now that I am tonight, I will probably drink again. You new people, if you're the same people that you are tonight, two years From now, you will probably Drink again. This is about change. And it's not just about changing a few attitudes. I'm talking from my experience I'm trying not to preach these are things I know to be true about me I cannot be the same person I was 32 years ago December ever again I can't live with it I'm an alcoholic of the absolute hopeless variety there is no treatment for what's wrong with me Thank God. There's no way I can ever do anything right enough to keep myself sober. Thank God." I've tried most of them. I've been sick since I was little, and sick just means I have felt separated. I mean, healthy people aren't separated from other people, sick or well. You know what I'm saying? One of the most aggravating things about spiritual people is that they just seem to fit in wherever they go. Damn! And they don't seem to be different with different people. they seem to be the same person wherever they go until the next time you meet them. Then they seem to bethe same person only Was that a fly? You're quick. See, she reached up and pulled out right out of there. The first time I drank alcohol, I had what is described in the book Alcoholics Anonymous as a spiritual experience. Without quoting it directly, Carl Jung says that ideas and conceptions that used to rule the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side and an entirely new set of emotions and motives begins to dominate me. That's exactly what happened to me when I drank the first time. I don't know whether I was 15 or 16. It doesn't matter. I was a mess. 15- and 16-year-old people are. It's the very nature of the beast. I was also an alcoholic waiting for a drink. And a friend of mine and I I got some guys from our Air Force base to buy us a bottle of Bonded Bourbon, and we went out east of Denver to get drunk and have fun. Didn't know what either one of those things was. I hadn't had fun in a long time, and I'd never been drunk. But I'm game. So we went on and started drinking this Bonded bourbon, and I had the transforming experience. And I will use that word this weekend. This is about being transformed and changed. Dr. Silkworth says we must have an entire psychic changer. There's very little hope of recovery. You can stay sober without being recovered, you know. I'm not inviting you to my house, but you can do it. Too damn hard on the furniture, the dogs and the kids. and all the standard things that we describe happened. I got taller and broader and cuter and all that sort of stuff. What really happened inside is suddenly, in my mind, I had some plans for the evening. This was a new experience. I was a reactor to life, not a responder. Life would happen, something would happen. and I'd react to it with what I thought was the correct script. I'd begin to get all my scripts lined up because it was getting busy in here, and each script has as its ending. The curtain falls, and things get quiet so I can think and find out what the hell's going on in here. And that changed. I ended up with some plans, a couple drinks of Bondi bourbon is all it took, And I awakened to my own power. Oh, God. There was a guy in my class that had not been treating me well. A class bully. And I had the notion that because I don't like pain, I was a coward. I have since found out that that's pretty smart. To avoid pain when it's possible. Don't get in it. but then I was afraid so he was pushing me around a couple drinks of bonded bourbon and the plan was to meet him back at Bill Bonson's drive-in on East Colfax and in front of everybody whip him could have done it could have been could have gone it easily and there was also a girl in my class who hadn't been treating me at all and we were going to have a visit in front of everybody Hampshire in front of everybody everything that was going to happen was goingto happen in front of everybody so you could see my power wonderful plan for a 15 or 16 year old kid There's nothing wrong with that. My God, if that's all the booze did, I'd buy you all a drink. Take this little old misfit, this frightened, angry, confused little boy and put him in the heart of things. But it's in my nature that if one works, you have ten. And it's just in my nurture. In fact, twenty if you can stand it. And so by the time I got back to the drive-in, what the people there saw instead of me whipping the bully and visiting with a girl was my partners carrying me by the elbows while I puked in the driveway. And that really essentially covers the way I drank. I drank for the effect produced by alcohol, got the effect, whether it was for a minute or ten minutes or whatever. The effect was so profound, the change was so profaned, I would pay any price. Hello, Jackie. You're late, Jackie? You only get to pick on people you love. I would pay any price at all for a few minutes each day of that sense that it's all right for me to be me, and it's alright for you to be you. Now that was just the beginning. Along the way, it didn't matter what the effect was. I drank. In fact, drinking became such a part of my life that nobody saw it. When I got to Alcoholics Anonymous, I was certified by one government agency as a sociopath type 2. I have no idea what that is. I just know I don't need it. It's not good. Rashid, do you have that too? We have to talk later and figure out whether Type 1 is better than Type 10. parole officer said I was a psychopath. The psychiatrist said that I was a manic-depressive drug addict, and what I was was just bone-weary tired. Christmas night of 1967 followed the most thorough inventory I have ever done to this date, meaning simply I looked at my life for what it really was, then it was nothing. I had become absolutely, totally useless. I could find no reason to stay. I think it's the bottom of all human pain to know you're useless. I had two little boys because their mother had abandoned ship four or five years before that and they were with me. Also, I'm one of the freaks who came out of Berkeley in in the 60s throwing Alzheimer's acid around and screaming out where there's dope, there's hope, burn down City Hall. I'm not a drug addict. I'm just one of those that along the way did some dope. I'd hurt everybody in the world, particularly the people who love me the most. We're really good at that. It's almost like we just go looking for them. On Christmas Day, the kids and I have visited my folks, and my dad met us at the door and said, Don, your mother said that I can't let you in here anymore because she can't stand watching you die. You've got to really push a functional mama to get that done, and I had. By the way, for those of you who are thinking about making amends, One of the ways that I will do that, considering my mother is if she's ever in the room or ever likely to hear me tell the story, I will not tell that part of it that would hurt her badly. Anyway, when I looked it all over, I realized the kids would be better off if I'm not here. Even on a foster home, they're going to be betteroff than they are with me. I couldn't think of anybody who would benefit. I had no more hopes left. My God, I've been trying to get well since I was little. Any of you tried anything but AA along the way? I started with Dianetics. Well, that was a good one. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I just came out of my first penitentiary when I was 19. I was in the Big Eight Army Stockade Penitentiaries over there in Tokyo and went running blithely through some marine brigs and then got a bad conduct discharge. I'm home at 19 full of success and ribbons. so when I think about ok there's something wrong here and I did that because of alcoholism by the way I went on a 24 hour liberty it turned into a 23 day drunk and by the time I got back to my ship it was on the way to a war zone I missed the ship moving to a War Zone they really get irritated with you man No sense of humor at all. Well, that wasn't the worst of it. The guy that was with me was also a drunk, and we're pretty resourceful. We knew this was a possible shooting offense or some big long time goes along with missing a ship to a war zone. I don't know what he did, but he ended up getting us on a Pan Am Clipper that took us to Japan, and мы beat the ship to Japan by three weeks. It sounds smart, but that skipper, I don't know how mad he was when we didn't show up. But I can tell you from looking at his eyes when he pulled in and saw us standing there on the dock, he was not pleased. So I think about it. Okay, I know I'm sick. I've got all this going on. I failed totally and utterly. That's rock bottom. Bottom is simply the morning I wake up and know that whatever I have in mind for my life isn't going to happen. And at 19, I could get new dreams. So to solve a problem serious enough to put a 19-year-old kid in a federal prison, I turned myself into a science fiction writer. That's who L. Ron Hubbard is. He's a very good science fictionwriter. He must have answers for my problem. Now, we just saved about 14 years because I went from one fantasy maker to another. I've had visions, good visions. I was privileged to share the Easter meeting with the Peoria people in Nevada, with a Washoe. Had a vision. Saw a great bird flying high with no head and understood clearly that was me and my life. Flying high, no direction, going nowhere. Kept me sober four months. Some of you new guys are looking for visions to get for four months. That's my experience. I don't have four months left. This is either all the way or I'm out of here. I don'T have four MONTHS LEFT. I still like Dianetics best because we... Well, they gave us amphetamines so we could talk freely and become uninhibited. it worked took a lot of booze to cut the rough edges of it but it worked what I'm trying to share with you is by the time you found me and I did not come looking for you I did not know I was an alcoholic The alcoholism was so pervasive that nobody saw it. It was a natural part of my life. I was seldom ever drunk. I don't like drunk. For me, drunk is described as knee-walking and puking in the gutter. That horrible experience that comes at 3 o'clock in the morning, this one leaped out of me out of the big book where we should have slept the day around well they shut down my favorite bar at 2 o'clock one morning and I wasn't through I hadn't found it yet have you ever gone looking for it it's the fastest moving thing on the planet I almost caught it twice but it got away I'd get to Denver and it would be in Los Angeles I even had the address where it was going to be and I'd get there and it had just left on the way to Salt Lake me right behind it never caught it again I caught it once, the first time I drank I caught it. It's the edge. Never caught it again. Anyway, there was a point to all that. I've lost it, but it was a point to all that. They shut the bar down, and I had to go home because I knew I wasn't going to find it tonight either. There's another description about it. Sometimes you know it's never going to happen. And sometimes, you know, you just missed it. It's not going to happen tonight. But I've got to get through the night. And at this particular time, I was living in a chicken coop that I had converted into a little one-room apartment. It's really pretty nice. You clean the chicken coop up, there isn't a whole lot. Well, yeah, chicken crap, get rid of it, it's a nice room. Had a bed and a table And you had flowers and curtains It was a nice place Don't laugh at me I got back to my chicken coop And I was in that state of drunkenness Where you have to stay awake Because if I lay down I know what's going to happen And the bed is going to activate. It's going to spin and fling me out onto the floor, and I'm going to start vomiting on my own floor. And it's easier to just stay awake and keep drinking. Because if you keep drinking, there's another state you get into. It's called passed out. drink into a coma state then the bed doesn't spin and you don't throw up well some people do and they die we lose people that way they choke but most of the time I'm okay so by 3.30 I have drunk myself into that state where I can lay down and I leave the planet I should have slept a long time. That's acute alcohol poisoning. I'm up a little after six looking for a drink. I found me in that book where I had never found me anywhere else. I have memories that I bring to it. Maybe over this weekend we can stir the memories because that's what we do with new people. I share one of my memories and you say, Oh, I've got one that looks kind of like that. And then I'll show you another one. You see, my God, that sounds familiar. This happened to me and pretty soon we have contact. And it's with contact that you don't ever have to drink again. If I don't, you don' t. If we've shared these stories. So, there's another state of drunkenness. it's just before knee-walking. If you're not through with the evening and you don't dare go knee-walker yet, you've got to have a drink. But you can't drink one more drop without throwing up on somebody. Well, go back in the alley and stick my finger down my throat. We're fine now. We can drink again. I've got plenty of room for alcohol. Do you know that there's people that don't understand that? They drink and they puke and they quit. And so I begin to see some of the differences because of this book and your descriptions. I can say, yeah, that sounds kind of like me. But I've Got All These Drugs Going On Over Here. We don't care about that. What's going on with your drinking? Well, I got all this psychiatric stuff. That's very nice. How about your drinking?" We don'T mind if you're crazy, but be sober crazy. I work in corrections, and I tell my inmates, I don't cares if you want to continue to be a burglar. I really don't. Be a sober burglar your chances of getting caught are much less well I know something come on I know if they really get sober they're going to quit stealing and I also know behavior modification won't work for them anyway it never worked for me behavior modification you just caught me oh shit now I stand still and put on whichever face you tell me to put on. Then you tell Me how I am to modify my behavior. And I do that very quickly. I'm a quick study. And I'll do that as long as you're watching. But only as long As you're Watching. You haven't changed Me a bit. And if you watch too long, I will come up with a distraction for you. You don't play in that, do you? No. No. So this is what I bring into Alcoholics Anonymous with me. We don't deal with it as an event. Because guilt, well we deal with them entirely in the 8th and 9th step. But guilt is where you have caught me breaking one of your conditions or rules or values. And all I have to do is stand still when you tell me what I have done to square it, and I'll do that. A year, two years, shovel the walk, something. Guilt's easy. Shame is where I've just caught myself breaking one on my standards, one on principles, and there's no out. I can't give myself any penances that are adequate to the shame shame is so devastating and then I become aware of how totally powerless I am or I wouldn't have done that to start with and then I go do it again and I don't want to and then I begin to think I'm insane and I am my sponsor though God bless him he said we don't think you're a sociopath or a psychopath we just think you are a good actor I found the definition of insanity that will work for me in the story of the car salesman named Jim See, I'm very simple with this book. It says, it talks about insanity at that point. So I have to figure if I have this disease, then this is what this kind of insanity means. You know, Jim's had a drink and you all know the story. Whatever the precise definition of the word may be, it says, we call this plain insanity. how can such lack of proportion and the ability to think straight be called anything else and I got it that's what's wrong with me I'm not a sociopath and a psychopath I am self-centered to the extreme and have no idea of what proportion is if one works take ten It's that damn cinnamon mint. He gave me one earlier, and I got one for later. Okay? Don't expect it to all go away overnight. The fact is, I had two of them when I ate one just before I sat down. So we shared one, and I nailed two. Sound familiar? They had me applying this to my emotions. If this is a spiritual truth, I will be able to find it in every aspect of my life. If I'm going to work with you, this whole thing is about spiritual transformation. And truth is truth and will apply. and if we can't find a way to apply it, it's either not the truth or we haven't looked far enough. So how does lack of proportion and the ability to think straight fit my anger? Very nicely, thank you. I don't get angry. I go from calm to killer rage. Like that. and it's always over some world-shaking event. What really pisses you off that quick? When the subway doesn't come. I know. There's a place on the Internet that I can find out how to build bombs. We'll fix this place. That doesn't happen to any of you, right? Ninety-nine of you can tell me I'm wonderful. If one of you should happen to go by and not tell me anything, it's ruined my whole day. I may be cool about it but by the time I get home my family gets the brunt of it and by morning I've got to find out what it is that I did to you so I can undo it you can call me a son of a bitch but don't ignore me because if you ignore me I don't exist It's a lack of proportion and lack of the ability to think straight. And when it comes to alcohol itself, that is so clear. I cannot think straight in relation to alcohol. If I have a mind that can still think alcohol, I will drink it. My experience tells me that. I must have a new mind. I must get rid of this alcoholic mind. It's all in here. if I have an alcoholic mind I will drink now this puts me in a place of great danger if I'm going to operate out of fear it makes me extremely vulnerable I have no more choice over whether I drink tonight than I did 32 years ago when I had molasses. I've lost the power of choice. I cannot make that choice. I can't even think about alcohol because if I have the choice, I will make the wrong one. My whole life tells me that. I must have something else take care of that for me. Whether I drink or not is none of my business. That's either God's business or I'm dead. and I know that from life experience that's pretty scary and what the hell would I want to do all this work for well I don't know why not I do all this step work so that I will have the information necessary to tell you about you by telling you about me. An alcoholic properly armed with facts about himself can generally win the confidence of another in a matter of hours, and until that confidence has been gained, very little can be done. And if my life work is to help other alcoholics get sober, then I must bring to it the only weapon I have. Me. And my understanding of me as an alcoholic. that's all it works at least that's what they said that's what they did for me nobody likes being powerless I think we're a riot we sit around here and talk about powerlessness like it's chocolate cake give me some more put a little of that helpless topping on it while you're at it man I don't like feeling powerless I don' t mind being powerless because then I will seek power but I don''t like to feel powerless nobody does Do you enjoy being powerless? No. So I'm powerless over alcohol when it's in my body. I know the kind of reaction I will get. And there's only one reaction I have to concern myself with. It has nothing to do with the drama that I create after I had a drink. What's important is what happens to me after the first drink. I got to sponsor a psychiatrist one time. Wonderful man. Crazy as hell. Oh, people who've become psychiatrists ought to have their heads examined. The founder of one of the finest alcohol and drug recovery units in the United States at Pier 1, University of Colorado. Oh, Augie. I knew he'd find a way out. so anyway he's sitting at my house because the only way I know how to do this is the way I was shown we went through the big book for the first time in five weeks in order to go to the real A meeting on Friday night we had to complete what they call a 12 step study school and every Saturday afternoon every Sunday afternoon we gave up our yard and our movies and whatever else and we just went up to this school where sober members of AA hand carried us through the big book in the steps and they did that by saying things like you new guys for the next five weeks you have nothing to say if you knew anything at all you wouldn't be here and then for a three to four hour period Saturday afternoon, Sunday afternoon. They would read from the book to us. They had learned something that took me a while to learn. Alcoholics can't read. They pretend. But alcoholics don't read, they interpret. You need somebody around that knows how to read if you're going to read the big book. Because you can't interpret this thing. If you do, it'll just mess with you. Anyway, they read it to us. Gave us instructions. Shared their experience of it and with it. Helped us begin to learn how to activate our own memories. To not be afraid to look in the depths of my mind. Remember, I was terrified of that. The last time I did it, I killed what I found. They want me to go back in there. the other day the description in the image came to me to explain that to you my first inventory I had to kill myself when I finished it because I was looking at the darkness from the darkness the one you helped me with I looked into the same darkness but I looked at it from the light it made all the difference in the world as I read this thing the common experience they had the experience I had is that I was spiritually awake before I got involved with this or I wouldn't have heard you I'm not sure that everybody has that experience, but I was awake. The first awakening is that I don't have the power to do this myself. Now that's been a good guide for me along the way because I have a tendency once something works to get really good at it, to get locked in on it and to use it to start managing my life And I've done that here. There was a period of time when I used the steps to manage my life. Well, I've gone unmanageable again. But the first time out, once we understood the disease that I had, this strange allergy, the doctor calls it alcohol, that condemns me to drink. Once I start, I will drink again. Getting back to the psychiatrist for that description, he wasn't getting the doctor's opinion. I was reading it to him like I'd been taught. And I'm watching his eyes. When I sponsor, I want to watch your eyes. God sends me psychopaths. And the only safe place for them is in my home with my family. There's enough love in my home with our family. We're all safe. I want to watch their eyes because I push buttons and I need to know when to duck. Anyhow, I'm watching his eyes and what I'm seeing is this information going into his head and getting lost in everything he knows about alcoholism. And it's getting lost there because he knows too much. And I'm praying kind of hard. I love new people because they force me to learn effective prayer. which is, oops, I can't do this. Show me what to do. What am I going to say to this guy? How can it get any simpler than this? Please show me what you're saying. And I heard it come out of my mouth. I said, Don, what happens to you after the first drink? He said, well, around the fourth or fifth drink, I start forgetting where I'm supposed to be next and what I'm suppose to be doing. and I have another drink and the next thing I know I'm drunk. And I say, well what happens to you after the first drink, Don? Over on the fourth or fifth drink what happens to me after the first drink is the second drink. That's all I need to know about this whole business. Now I can intellectualize and quote the doctor's opinion, and I believe it entirely. But I'm working with new people who don't know what the hell I'm talking about. They're either too smart or too sick of what happens after the first drink. The second drink, if that happens to you, I've got some good news for you. You are doomed. Give it up. There's no treatment for that. If you've got it, you've Got It. and it's going to be there forever as far as I know to this day we can take a man to the moon and back and do other incredible things I can talk to Australia in less than two seconds these days it just fascinates me I push a button and a message comes back to me from Australia but we don't have anything at all that you can take that you an read or that you ca do will keep me from taking that second drink if I take the first one. I've even got a new mind. I don't think alcohol. But if I ever take a drink, I'll have another drink. Nothing I can do about that. Isn't that nice to know? How freeing that is. It won't stop me from drinking, but it sure does help me understand I probably ought to and then my life becomes unmanageable my sponsor said we're not talking about drama again and I was in a place where the stories were pretty dramatic my first sponsor had committed a double murder and an alcoholic outrage another one had thrown some people out of a three story window and one was a stick up man lots of high drama he said this does not define the alcoholism what's unmanageable the part of my life that is unmanangeable is this thing up here in my head, my mind I cannot manage to order my thinking in such a way that it's going to come out right the subway isn't here yet now we may not be to the bomb making stage But I bet you're a joy at work for the first hour. Yeah. Hi, how are you this morning? Bitch. Daddy, come play with me. Can't you see I'm busy? They didn't do anything. It's that son of a bitch that cut me off up there. On the freeway. I said one time, I heard the boldest lie I've told in years about six years ago at one of these things. I was saying, I really don't understand these people that get cut off on the free way and go shoot somebody. And I realized, the hell you don't. I understand that clearly. So don't give me any guns. my thought life is unmanageable. I've got to get that. If I can think my way out of this thing, I'm probably going to have a very bad time. And I was not promised that if I drank I would die. They knew full well that was not the thing to say to me. Please win. Okay? Christmas night of 1967 when I came to the end of the road I took a two month supply of amphetamines and shot them up my arm drank everything in the house and laid down and died so don't threaten me with if you drink you're going to die I can't wait I'm in a hell of a fix I'm now a failure at living and a failure of dying give me a break here well I came into understand that I will probably live that way. And I'll do anything to keep from having to live like that again. That way of living is trying to manage it up here so it all happens okay out here. And I can't do it. There's just too many pieces missing. And you never say your lines right. I love that part of the big book where Bill talks about the actor. The first time I read it, it terrified me because there I was, clean and clear. I'm glad you all know about the big book. It means I don't have to open it very much since we can just refer to it. I want to talk for just briefly, how many smokers do we have in here? I can feel somebody getting restless. Okay. Tell you what we're going to do, because that last thought that came my way scared me. If you will trust Jerry and I this weekend, we will take breaks at appropriate times, which may be 45 minutes, maybe an hour and a half. At the moment, I have a sense that maybe a little 10-minute break wouldn't hurt. Does that suit you all? Ten minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes? You want to go home? What do you want to do? No, it's very important that we be back and start on time. So we need to pick a time. Ten minutes? I don't know if a smoker in the world can do a smoke break in ten minutes. Fifteen minutes, all right? Twenty minutes after eight. This facility? we have one request to make because of the facility the request is that we not eat or drink in here that's what the cafeteria is for and if we would comply with that it would be very good so Three blocks from the place where I work is a little establishment that is designed to help people who have serious garlic deficiencies. A little Italian restaurant named Dario's. God, it's good. So we all go up there to eat pretty regularly. And it's so good that there's never any place to park within three blocks. So we just walk up. As a result of some stuff that's unimportant, I have neuropathy. And there are days I just don't walk well. My feet hurt. And this particular day, one of the guys I sponsor came by and took me to lunch. I allow that. And we drove my van because he not only can't read, he can't drive. And as we pulled up out in front of Dario's, the car pulled out, and so we just pulled in and took the slot. And he was just amazed. He was very pleased that God got us a parking spot. I indicated with some kindness that I don't have a parking slot, God. What had happened is that we were on time. had we been any sooner, the spot would not have been vacated. Had we been much later, it would have been taken by someone else. We were simply on time. And that's a critical thing to learn if you're going to learn to live a spiritual life. Because there's only one time it can happen, and that's right now. This is it. and it makes it a whole lot simpler. We talk about one day at a time. It's just much easier to just be here now. I think they wrote a book about that. It's unimportant. Being on time then becomes... Oh my goodness, they're still filing in. Look at this. I'm used to that in the prisons because they send different cell blocks at different times and you just stop and wait while the inmates sit down. But our spiritual way of living is a very much on-the-street way of loving. There are those who end up in monasteries and all that, and that's good, and I wish that's what would have happened to me because I like monasteries. I'm a very private person. Putting me in solitary confinement is just about the nicest thing you can do for me. I'm fine. It's just stuff of having to deal with people. It's always created difficulties. So, so, I can only experience God now. Now, I can hear about God from the past or I can dream about or think about God in the future. I can only experience God now and that has been my experience. The illusion that I was under as we approached conception of God that would work was that having had a spiritual event take place, that was it, it was over. I would wake up spiritually. My fantasy was very simple. I'd get my tweed jacket with the leather patches on the elbows, a little place up on the slope up. I lived near the mountains and it would be partway up the hill. Not a big place. Four or five bedrooms. Nice wood. a big porch with French doors leading off of the study where I spent most of my time working on things for humanity. And as people came by and visited, I would dispense a little wisdom. It was a simple life. Lord, I had no idea. And my experience of it is that waking up is instantaneous. It has occurred before you even know it occurred. And once it occurs, it's too late. You can't change it. We are warned here at one of those points in our little process to be really sure this is what you want to do. Think will before you take this step. Making sure you're ready to let yourself, abandon yourself utterly. Because once that's happened, it's too late. You're going to get help now whether you want it or not. And it's really, really difficult to watch someone who has surrendered try to unsurrender. I don't invite them over for dinner either. So how does that apply in my daily life? Well, I found that the people who wanted to give me a job were really happy when I showed up on time. And got my work done on time. And if I would do that, they would reciprocate by giving me a paycheck on time It got very critical. It went so far as to affect my life in that I had to be careful what I said to you because if I said I would be there at a particular time and I wasn't I was participating in my worst character defect rudeness. I am not a human being trying to have a spiritual experience. I am a spiritual being having a human experience. And so if I try to live by human principles once I become conscious that I'm a spiritual thing, it's going to screw me over. Not because there's any viciousness in the universe it's just I made a choice to live this way and now I'm trying to live that way. And if I try to live my life this way it won't work. And being on time is a big part of that. I can only experience the presence of God now. And according to what this book says the most important fact of our lives today is the consciousness of the presence of God. Nothing more, nothing less. That's the most important fact. Everything else comes from that. And that gets really simple. And it's almost impossible for me to grasp because the minute I say that I want to start thinking about it. And as soon as I start thinking about God, I've lost touch. doesn't mean God's moved anywhere I've just lost touch in meetings depending on how long you've been sober ask yourself how much time do I spend in a meeting listening to what Alvin says and how much of what Albin is saying is lost because I'm busy thinking about what my response is going to be when it's my turn you better not start thinking about it I lose touch with here and now does it bother you when you're talking to somebody and they're constantly distracted and wanting to go somewhere else and you know that it bothers me but thinking about something else And I have to realize sometimes that's my fault. I've interrupted them at a time when they shouldn't have been interrupted. That's what's going on. Maybe I need to be a little less rude and ask, is this a good time? And if it isn't, I'm going to deal with the kind of people who tell me, no, this really isn't a good timing. Get back with me later. and then I have the kind that say well what time should I call I don't know later when's a good time to call well now was a good time but we missed it is it making any sense I'm trying to cover a thing that's impossible for me to describe because the continued step work, not our work, but step work is based on doing it now. There's only one time I can pray now. I can think about how I used to pray. I can thinking about how I'd like to pray, but the only time I could really pray is now. How does that apply? Well, in making amends to my dad, I went to him with my little list. This was before cards. I'm that old. We didn't have cards then. We had lists. Did you all use cards? They're cute. They're nice. I like them. I had my notes, and I got to where I was able to say to Dad, I've lied to you, I've cheated you, I'm doing the preliminaries, and he said, stop please. All you can do by telling me all those details again is hurt me all over again. I know all that. You and I will have to start from here. That's exactly what he meant. At that moment, he and I started building a relationship. It was both man to man, friend to friend, and father to son. And we built that daily. Each time we were together, it was a new deal. We had 27, 28 years of building a friendship. And when he died, I had that wonderful experience of not being sad for myself because I hadn't done everything and said everything I wanted to do and say. There's nothing left to do. Nothing left to say. He was a tough old bird. he was 86 years old functional family they had their 66th wedding anniversary on Saturday and on Tuesday he went into his coma and on Thursday we had him pull all the plugs because he was tired and wanted to go home that's functional I know that's high function because I know he wanted to leave a couple months before then He didn't feel good. He had dry gangrene in one leg, and his memory was going on him, which bothered my dad a great deal. My father was an unmeasured genius. They did not have a test that would measure him. And he was a fun man. So when his memory started to slip, it really bothered him. He had more memory left at the end than I'm going to have the whole time I'm alive. But in relation to that, but his sense of humor was such that he took me aside one day and he said, you know, this memory loss thing has some great benefits. I only need to rent one movie for the rest of my life. so I was on time for his death I was on time for his life through a number of years and I was on time for his death and by being on time for that I was able to help him to die and he was in a coma the way I was able to help him and the rest of the family is because I didn't have unfinished business. I was available, as were the rest of my family, for the nieces and the nephews. The young ones who had no way of dealing with what's happening to Grandpa. We were able to talk with them and tell them, oh he can't talk to you because he's dying. But he can hear you. If you have anything that needs said to him get it said now. This was a good thing Because we're all right there on time. It has a very practical effect. So this weekend, if we have any business to conduct with one another, do it now. We will never be by this way again. Ever. First time I heard that, it threw me. Jack Brennan said that. We pinned him down. I come from the group of eight people that won the speaker who showed up and they were all through the show until we cut them out of the pack and backed them into a room somewhere and picked their brains dry. Some of them even knew things. Jack said essentially that same thing he said I'll be glad to go visit with you because I'll never be by this way again and I thought that was strange because I knew we were going to see him the next weekend we used to follow him around until we really knew we had it all and I knew we were gonna see him next weekend and then it got clear to me what he was saying I will never be by this way again. I'll be different next time we meet, and so will you. So anything we're going to do, let's get it done. Not that it's world-shaking enough that if we don't get it done, terrible, catastrophic things occur. Because most of life is just this simple little transaction. Okay? Being on time. I can only write inventory now. The team has got a sack full. Right now. Don't get too close to her. Because she'll fifth step it with you. No, I'm telling you, that was a wondrous thing. She and I spent some time together going over process. And it helped us to bond this evening in this room as she showed me some things that she's done. And the content was totally unimportant. It's that she and I have business to transact. We want to be with each other and talk with each other and produce things with each other. And she wanted to show me that what we talked about was real, it wasn't just fluff. But mainly we just got to spend some time together. And I really think that's all we've got. Being on time is important because all we've Got is time to spend together. We don't have anything else. You say you heard a tape of mine? What did I say? I'm going to let you off the hook real easy. I don't remember either. It was good. We connected. We spent some time together, and we got to spend some time together here. They helped me to understand that while the process us and the method was important. It wasn't all that important, it's what led to, what occurred in the midst of all that. That doesn't mean I didn't get totally fanatically step involved one time. We were step locked for a while in Denver. You've got to understand the Denver Young People's Group was exactly what Bill and Bob had in mind when they put this together, we were it. We had polyester clothes and white buck shoes and elbow ciphers and attitude. But you weren't doing it just right. You weren't doing it just right. We didn't bother her. No trouble at all telling you that. We all wore little butterfly pins. You've seen these little colored butterfly stick pins? When you came into our group, we gave you a little metal worm and when you finished your fifth step, you got a butterfly pin. Emergence of spiritual significance. I used to drive the old-timers crazy in our area. And then we became jerks for a while because we were it. We had the whole answer. The rest of A was not going to survive without us, and we just couldn't get enough places fast enough. My sponsor and Lee and I, at a state convention, a call came in, a 12-step call came in. And we leaped for it, obviously, leaped. We made damn sure everybody saw those white buck shoes go by to get this car. Got to the motel, classic man on the bed thing, a little drunk on the motet bed. We gave him an hour and a half of the finest available at that time. Hey, I'd have gotten sober. We were good. We triple-teamed that poor devil, impressed each other beyond belief. At the end of the hour and half, the guy said, You guys obviously really have your shit together, but I need a drink." Then we softened a bit, a bit here and there. On the other hand out of that group, and we're talking about a group whose core existed during the time from about 1965 to about 73, there's a core of 15 or 16 of us and a body of about 40. Of the core, one died, froze to death drunk in an alley. The rest of us are all sober and still very active. Out of the 40, the percentage is well about the same. A few we can't find. All still sober. And we tried to look over what was it we did? Well, you heard what we did. We did things together for one thing. Ours was a family. I'm this little old... This tooth had been knocked out in a fight along the way and it was still kind of sniveled tooth. Didn't know how to dress. I had learned to speak English, but I still dressed funny and acted funny. My kids were in a foster home. They wanted a woman that had nothing to do with me. I didn't have anything to offer anybody. So I picked the guy, a family man, as my sponsor. Because one of the first things I learned from my sponsors. When you see somebody who's got something you want, you get in their hip pocket until you find out what it is and how they've got it. You can't have what they've got, but find out where it is or where they've gotten it. So I jumped in his hip pocket.