Shooting Baby Ducks – Workshop 12 Steps – Part 2 of 2 – Local AA Speakers

at lunch a couple people asked me questions one of the questions was do i have a degree in counseling because i run this business uh no i don't i studied chemical engineering which has nothing to do with counseling um my experience is not in counseling i've run several businesses that i knew absolutely nothing about um i know i know what good people are so i hire people who are talented and talented and motivated i don't particularly know what they do but i know they're trying their hardest I don't know hardly anything about counseling, but I know a lot about business. So one of the things that I've found over time is that if you're good in business, you'll be good in almost any business. Huh? No. It's all right. The second one is this one lady was asking me, as it related to sex inventory, what goes on in some of the rooms in AA. And she mentioned in particular about guys with longer sobriety doing what we call shooting baby ducks. do you know what that is 13 step yep so what uh what do i think about that i think it's deplorable but i think that we have the wrong idea let me give you an example we had a woman that joined my home group who was a former runner-up in Miss Minnesota. Striking woman. And there was a guy with about 21 years and about as soon as she hit the door, he was all over her like green on grass. And he was a boy who had hit out in a silo someplace up in the northern Midwest and got crazy. And anyway, he got sober and he was fascinated with the idea of this really attractive lady. And so he got her to go for a ride on his motorcycle and pretty soon they were all involved. And I was talking to this friend, a guy that I sponsored with about 20 years, and I was looking at that and I said, you see that going on? And he said, yeah. And I said what do you think's going to happen and he said well i'm not sure and i said i am here's what's going to happen she's gonna she came into alcoholics anonymous here's this guy and he picked her off as soon as she came through the door and she's going go riding around on his motorcycle and they're going to go date and and uh get intimate and do all of that stuff But in about 90 days from now, she's going to go, well, that was fun. And he's goingto go, but I thought we were in love. And the one that got killed in the process was the long-timer. All right? She just walked away. She went, well hell, that isn't what I want. And just changed her mind and left no emotional baggage in the process. and he's still recovering, okay? So we're all � do you know that there are predatory women, there are predator men, and that's always going to happen in Alcoholics Anonymous. And everybody's going to, you know, in their search for intimacy, are going to take the easiest possible road to it and they feel that newcomers are susceptible to that sort of persuasion, which in some cases is true but you never can figure out which one's going to get hurt can we stop it some of it can we prevent it no no because that's the way life is shouldn't long timers know better yeah Yeah, I won't. I mean, I can't imagine trying to have a relationship with someone who hasn't been sober for a while, which brings up a whole other thing, which is should you have relationships in your first year? Sure, but don't call it a relationship. Call it compatible forms of insanity. Yeah, you think, well, don't have sex. Everybody wants to have sex, so the whole idea about taking a bunch of randy, lonely individuals who come into Alcoholics Anonymous you think they aren't going to get together you're blowing smoke up your own butt that's going to happen so what you try and do is help them survive it okay when people come to me that I sponsor and they'll say so I shouldn't have a relationship right go ahead just try not to hurt somebody in the process and you'll get over it, whatever it is. And that's the way it is So what do I think about people picking off I mean we had a lady in my home group that's sober about eight years that picked off a guy that had one month I mean so it isn't a one-sided deal They see something they like You know, we're all attracted to shiny objects huh so there you go um so and now hopefully that answers those questions um well so we get awfully concerned about things that aren't going to make a hell of a difference um so that's inventory now when you get your inventory done, there's a thing in the description of the fifth step that talks about illuminating every dark cranny of the past. That brings up something else which sometimes belongs on the end of your inventory and that's called take it to the grave stuff. I'm sorry, did I hurt someone? Okay, it's not mentioned in the big book incidentally But what is mentioned is that we have illuminated all these dark crannies, and one of those crannIES is our behavior in certain areas. Almost all of the take-it-to-the-grave stuff has to do with some sort of sexual stuff. You know there's only so many ways you can do that? Unless you've gotten a laser and are going into outer space and you've figured out some way to make yourself feel better, almost everything's been done. One of the funniest things I've ever seen in an AA meeting was at an AA meet-up, a meeting that was about sex inventory, and a guy jumped up in the middle of it and shouted, and anyone in this room that hasn't done it, who says they haven't done It with a farm animal is a damned liar. So, how the hell do you respond to that? So, you know, we all have our challenges. And so normally the take it to the grave stuff is something that we consider to be abhorrent behavior. It's usually sexual, and it can be almost anything. And I can tell you that if you're nervous about that, that you've done something that you think is not normal or not typical or whatever, it's reasonable to believe that half the people in this room have done it also. You just can't do something that's never been done in that regard. So if you think you're totally unique in your sexual experiences, experiences, you are truly mistaken. And you'll never really learn that until you join the fellowship of the spirit and get to know some other people in Alcoholics Anonymous. And you will be sitting in the middle of a bunch of people hanging around somebody's house and they're all AA members and they'll start talking about what you did and all of them will have done it so um i don't care what you've done and there's just nothing left to make it a unique so uh if you got to tell somebody about it tell them about it in your fifth step and usually if you're going to fifth step with someone first you need a closed mouth friend i mean i'd be a little careful about who you fist up with most time people these days fifth step with their sponsors. Early on in Alcoholics Anonymous, people fifth stepped with clergymen, priests, rabbis, whatever. Today it's much more usual to fifth step with a sponsor. Make sure you trust your sponsor. And then go ahead. Now, you've got all these things that you've written and you're prepared for a long talk. You know, inventories aren't just little things that you can crack out in 15 minutes. Have you ever heard this business about I wrote my inventory on the back of a matchbook? Huh? God, you must write small. It generally, if I'm writing inventory, it generally takes me a month. and that's because I'm dragging my feet but it's still a lot and then you fifth step and fifth stepping really just has to do with reading it and so you read it and your sponsor will or whoever is listening to it if they have any facility with fifth stepping will look for messages in the middle of that. They'll look for character defects, they'll look for what's keeping us from God and then bring that to your attention at the end of the fifth step so you know what to go with in six and seven. But fifth stepping, other than we're so afraid that we're going to offend somebody with our behavior when we spend all those years offending people with our behavior, it seems a little silly. And if we're both on a spiritual mission, you know, explain that. I don't care if your sponsor knows. Let's say I'm on a spirit mission. I'm trying to get closer to God. The reason why I'm here is to clean the house. and I would like you to listen to this, and the whole purpose is to get closer to God. And you can say that whether they understand it or not, no matter how long they've been sober, it's not unreasonable for you to explain why you're there. The first time I fist-stepped, I fisted up with Don Pritz, and after the fifth step, I looked at him and I waited for him to respond. Now here's my beliefs again. I expected him to look at me and say, I would really appreciate it if you don't come anywhere near my wife or children. and I would also appreciate it if you would not tell other people that I'm your sponsor and I think in the future we ought to minimize contact and that's what I expected and what he did was he got up and hugged me now you have to understand that I wasn't that sober and so having some guy get up and grab me see I'm still running around trying to protect my masculinity and having some Guy hug me through me I mean And I'm going, uh-uh. And then I got it. And he didn't tell me to go away. He didn't say anything. He didn' t tell me that what he had heard had altered our relationship. He just said, I'm delighted that you've done this. And now we need to move on. um so my belief was that that the one i talked about originally if you really knew me you wouldn't like me and he really got to know me because i told him the deepest darkest stuff in my life and he knew the whole thing in the end and he would still accept me And my experience is, in fifth steps, that that happens. And we are always amazed that people are still willing to have relationships of some sort or friendships with us after they know what we've been through. And see, we think we're such terrible people. And one of those things about being damaged goods is laying your whole life out in front of someone and having them not reject you as a result. That gives you hope, okay? And then go find the specifics in the principal inventory where you find the specific and you can get rid of a whole lot of stuff at once. So do you have any questions about the fifth step? It's a fairly simple procedure. Okay? Yeah. Barb? Barb? When you do your fifth step, should your person that you're doing it with, probably your sponsor, let you go through the whole thing? You know what I'm saying? Or should they comment on each thing that you're saying? Okay. When I listen to Fifth Steps, we have a dialogue through it, and for a couple of reasons. One of them is I couldn't get to the end and remember everything. And so as a practical matter, I would much rather comment as we go along, but I kind of take notes. Now, so we have that sort of ongoing commentary where you may say, do you see this thread that goes through your inventory about control, about lack of control? Do you see that the thing that you're most afraid of is looking bad? Do you seen this? Do you seethat? And that's what happens in an inventory. So when they get into their sixth step and become willing to be rid of all of those things or to find the willingness to be read of those defects of character that popped up in their inventory, they know what some of those are. That's kind of a funny exercise because we don't get to choose, but at least we see the thing that's causing the problems, right? Don't ever sit and listen to an inventory and go, oh my God. in case you want to. That's not good. The same attitude, helpful and forgiving that you take into amends works well in listening to a fifth step also. And here are people who are just like everybody else. I mean, we all come with this stuff. And so we weren't sparkling members of society when we got to Alcoholics Anonymous. So, I mean what the hell do you think you're going to hear? You're going hear a lot of bad news and a lot bad behavior and you're gonna hear a lot about people who harmed other people either intentionally or unintentionally and that's what fifth steps are about. So you just sit there and listen to it. Now, I get accused of falling asleep in fifth steps. And actually, I'd like to. But falling back on intuitive thought, if you � I close my eyes when I listen to them. That's why I get abused and falling asleep. And the reason why I do that is because your intuition, when you listen to someone and you concentrate on what they're saying or more appropriately how they're saying it, you'll hear things that underlie what the words mean. And there are really a couple of ways to listen to people. One is to hear the words, and one is to hear what underlies the words. And when you do that, you can hear what they're thinking about themselves. And this isn't a trick, and it's not some sort of special gift, or it's not anything like that. If you listen closely to what people say, you'll hear things that they don't say. Now, does that sound confusing? No, you understand what I'm saying? And that has been helpful to me in fifth steps because I want to know... Sometimes people practice what is called circumlocution. That's beating around the bush, right? And so they'll talk all around the subject, but they won't talk on it because they're afraid of it. And if you listen that way, you'll hear them trying to avoid the center point. And it's kind of an interesting way to listen to people. And I have to listen in inmates that way because they won'T tell you they're afRAID. And prison is a very scary place, And it's an extremely violent place. And the last thing they're going to tell you is that they're afraid. And they're scared to beat hell, and they ought to be. And drunks are a lot like inmates. We all run around scared. So do you have any questions about the fifth step? It really is about sitting down and reading your inventory to somebody. Pick a person you can trust. You know, I know people that have gone and just picked out somebody in a bus station and said, well, you listen to this. I think that's silly. One of the things that you can do by fifth-stepping with the same people is to allow somebody else to really see who you are. And that's important. It's a real value to have at least one person in the world who has a complete understanding about who you are. And it's helpful, especially if they don't reject you. And they won't. So that's helpful. Okay, so let's say that you sat down and you have fifth-stepped this thing. and now you have to go home, what do you do? All right. And do what? Okay, we consider what we've done, right? The book talks about reviewing your first five steps and to see whether you've missed anything, right? The expression in the book is to make mortar without sand. So we go in there and we review the steps that we've done so far and see if we've left something out. Usually it's to take it to the gravestone, okay? If you're going to do that, put that first. then you don't have to worry about it all the way through your inventory. People have this sort of aberrant behavior, what they consider aberrant behavior, and they'll sweat all theway through their fifth step and not even pay attention to what they're reading because they're afraid of what they are going to have to tell somebody. Start out by telling them, go, hey, the worst thing in my inventory is this. And then you won't have that sweat through the rest of it. Then you can go, whew. That was easier than I thought it was. And so you go home and you take the book down from the shelf. Now, see, I went home, put the book up on the shelf and then took the book out of the shelf and took the work down from this shelf just so I wouldn't miss anything. Does that sound pretty silly? It sounds silly to me. but I did it anyway and I reviewed the first five what it calls the first five proposals and see if I missed something what if you miss something what do you do and do what yeah say I missed something and I've had those calls on occasions and they go I really they didn't want to talk about this. That's what some of the cults sound like. Some of them are just, hey, I missed this and this. And it was just something that would have been a normal part of their inventory, so it was not a big deal. So you clean that up, and then you ask for the willingness in the sixth step to be rid of those things that have kept us from the sunlight of the Spirit. All right? That takes courage. It takes courage because what you're asking God to do is to remove a part of you. and some of us will get into fear and say if all of that's removed then what's left and maybe I won't be who I was anymore and what am I going to do if I don't know who I am and what if that's remove you know what most people don't want removed what they defend themselves with? Could be. He isn't going to remove free will no matter how much you ask. Huh? Yeah, that's a gift. You've not taken it away. You make an interesting comment. Which one of you said anger? You did. We spend our whole lives defending ourselves. And we're scared to death, and we need some sort of instrument so we don't get hurt. We have to have some sort OF methodology where we can make other people back up or get away from us. You can use anger to do that. I sponsored a guy for a short period of time one time, And he went around telling everybody that he suffered from severe rage. And I said, I think you have a choice in that. He said, no, I'm totally out of control. And I says, so it can just happen at any time with anyone? And he said, absolutely, I have no control. And I said, bullshit. I spend as much time around you as anybody does and you don't do that with me. And he said, no, I don't. And I asked him, do you know why? And he answered, no. And I answered, because you couldn't get away with it. You come at me like that, I'll kick your ass right down the goddamn block. And I said, rage is a tool for you. If you get in a position where you get frustrated and you want to back somebody up, you use rage. And if it's someone who can't protect themselves, they'll run away from you. And it's a mean, terrible thing to do to other people. And you have absolute control over that, and you always have, and that's true. so he didn't like that very much because he didn' t want to own it and the truth is he had been using it for years to intimidate other people and it's a really mean thing to do if you want to know the truth it's a lot more fun to try resolution than beating people away from us so people want to hang on In the sixth step, people want to hang on to what they use to protect themselves. We do not want to be vulnerable. We don't want to being undefended. So we won't let go of those things that we have spent our lives defending ourselves with. I've been a loner almost all my life, and that was the way I defended myself. And so I still do it automatically, and there are parts of my life that I still haven't resolved, and one of those is being a lonER. I figured if you wanted to defend yourself you just don't have anybody else around you and so and I had an attitude we had this new lady in the group and I said how come you never ask me for help and she said I am scared to death of you And I said, whatever for? I mean, I'm one of the easiest people in the world to talk to. And she said, you look so mean. And I said, well, that's kind of the way I grew up and my face froze that way. And it's never really changed. And maybe I'm still defending myself with this don't tread on me look and I grew up with that I grew up with this look that said you fuck with me something ugly is going to happen to you and I'm still fighting it and I don't know what my face looks like because I'm looking from the inside so so I try not to be that way but But sometimes our anger sort of freezes on our face. Our anger or our fear kind of freezers on our faces, and it makes other people avoid us because of how we look. And that happens to me to some degree. Most of you have come up and talked to me about something so far, which I think is great. And I'm not trying to avoid talking to anybody. In fact, I'm out here to do precisely that. But we have the vestiges of our own fears following us no matter how long we're sober. And that kind of don't tread on me thing that I practiced for so many years has its vestiges still in my personality. So that's that. So is there any other ways that you kind of try to protect yourself that you think you ought to hold on to besides anger? Wow. Well, you're right after it, aren't you? Are you? So what do you do with that? I ask that it be reduced, and at every opportunity I do the opposite of what I would normally do. God has a use for that, as silly as that sounds. And so ask for God. Well, we'll talk about that in the next step. But the trick here is to be willing to be rid of everything, good, bad, indifferent, everything. Somebody asked me earlier, and I didn't answer the question, And the question was, should we write our good stuff, all those good things about us on our inventory? I asked my sponsor that once. And he looked at me like I just fell off a turnip truck and said, it's not the good stuff that's killing you, Bob. And so I'm not particularly concerned about the good stuff. I'm just trying to eliminate the bad stuff. And that sounds like kind of a one-sided approach, but the book talks about defects and obstacles and all the rest of that and doesn't say a damn thing about the goods stuff. so I have never ever under any circumstances written a list of the good things about me and you want to know the truth there are a bunch of good things about me and for me to deny that as it would be for you to deny it is like spitting in God's eye we are not universally evil people we have good, we have bad but it's the bad stuff that's killing me and I need to be aware of it so God can remove it because I do not believe that God will remove anything that I can't identify if I can put a name on it it doesn't go away. Try that. Interesting deal. If you can't put a name on it, I mean like I can't have a vague notion about something and ask God to remove it. If I don't know what it is, it doesn'T go away All right. So I at the end of the sixth step or when I've done the sixth steps have to be in a position where I am willing to have anything, anything at all removed. I have to go in with complete willingness for God to take anything that He chooses. And then I go to the seventh step. And the seventh steps is where I ask God to remove it. Now, the seventh set for me is the same position as the third step, which is that I have to go to God with the willingness to put everything on the table again and say whatever you've got in mind. That I will bow to God's will in every area and I will leave nothing off the table. I always get followed up on the seven-step prayer, but it says, God, I'm now ready that you have all of me good and bad. I now ask that you remove every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength as I go out from here to do thy bidding. Is there more in there than that? Amen. That's the amen that everybody thinks is on the end of the third step. But see, the third steps, you complete that prayer by writing your inventory and then fifth-stepping it and then going through six and seven and at the end to seven there's an amen. All right? So that's the endof the prayer. So I now ask that you remove every single defect or character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Which ones? All of them? I'm willing to get rid of all of them. I became willing in the sixth step, right? What's he going to remove? Right, his choice. So I had mentioned to you before that I always felt that there were parts of my personality which were surely offensive to God. And that was being aggressive and probably a little too candid and maybe a little too in-your-face. And I always thought that that, although, and frankly those were some of the ways that I defended myself. And so I had these defenses, and I'm thinking if it's a defense it must be wrong. and God said, you'd make a good platoon sergeant. You know, God says, I need you to go talk to someone because he won't listen to it unless it's presented in that manner. And so there are parts of my personality that I have been more than willing to be rid of and have asked with complete willingness to have God take them if they were objectionable, and I still have them. And I don't beat up people or I don' t harm people with them, or at least I'm not aware of doing that. It's just being a little too pushy. And I think that's not a very polite thing to do. and I'm wrong. See, part of this is am I willing to change my mind? How many times have I said that today? Am I willing to change my mind. Am I willing to believe that some of those things about my personality fit God's plan. You know I've had one guy that goes that's not right. He said And he said, those are defects, and you're just not willing. And my answer was, how the hell would you know? Which is a question that was asked to me on regular occasion by my sponsor. It was one of the best things that was ever said to me, was how the heck would you do it? How the hell did you know because I assume all these things and they don't work. So I say that prayer and God takes what He wants and sometimes we'll go through that and it seems like nothing's changed, but the question is how the hell would you know? Now, see, we'll all sit here and talk and then I'm going back to Colorado and two or three weeks from now you may be in a situation or I may be able to talk or maybe in a position and something that happened here today or yesterday will alter the way that I respond. And even though you may walk away thinking nothing's happened at all except we all sort of sat around and talked for a couple of days. God has a plan at work and I don't know what it is, but don't be surprised by it. Okay? One of the things that's clear to me today is if I continue to seek a spiritual experience, I will have one. Now, if I continue to want to live a spiritual life, I will. There is no end line to this. I would like it if when you got 40 years sober that you hit the end line and then you just kick back and go, hey, I'm done. I don't have to do this shit anymore. I'm going on vacation. I'm doing this shit. I'm not going on spiritual vacation. I'm gonna go take advantage of somebody. Wouldn't that be nice? There's no end line. I went to a birthday party the other day with a woman that had 50 years of sobriety. and she's in my home group you know i makes me one of the youngsters so uh i went up to her and she said well i'm not going to let you go she's a really good friend i said lynn um so now do you get stopped writing inventory and she said no but i'll let you know when i do and uh there's no end there's no end to living a spiritual life. So this is a journey and we just keep doing it ad nauseum. Okay? So in my seventh step, I've gone to God again, thrown myself at his feet and said, do whatever you want. I'm willing. And then he does. And so I don't have to be surprised at the results. I've just thrown myself open to them and maybe God wants to move me somewhere else to have me doing something else, and that's fine. So unless you have a question about the seventh step, I'm going to start talking about amends. We made a list of all the persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all, the next line is we did it when we took inventory. Right? So if you don't write an inventory like it says in the book, for instance, if you write out of one of those things, those matrices or checkmark sheets or whatever, you are going to wind up in that process without an amends list. So I've got this amends lists and I go through my inventory and the next thing I do is I look at all those people in my inventory or institutions or principals and I say, where's the harm? So I have to write the harm down, okay? And I have to have real harm. Sometimes we think that we were such bad actors that we harmed everybody and we didn't. Now someone asked me earlier today if If someone's on your resentment list, is there always harm? No. I don't think so. But draw your own decision. Pray about it and do what you think. Okay? I think there are some people that I was angry at that I didn't harm. Now, there's a line in the book that really creates a lot of contention. And that line is something about our former ill will. And so people go make amends because they don't like somebody, okay? So when that happens around Denver, the group I go to is really fundamental. And so, I mean, we all do the work once a year and we all doing this stuff and we're all out there making amends and doing the rest of it. But there are a couple of groups in Denver that are even more hard-nosed than we are about all that. And what that line in the book says is confessing our former ill will, okay? So they think that if you don't like somebody, you ought to go tell them that. That's really stupid. So I'll have all these little spiritual pipsqueaks coming up to me going, I need to make amends to you. And you go, okay. And they go, I don't like you. And you Go, all right. And? And they Go, no, that's it. I just don't want to be with you. I don' t like it. And I'd say, well, I feel much better now. And they'd go, what the hell did you just do? And I said, I was confessing my former ill will. And he said, it doesn't sound like your former ill well. So are you still mad at me, huh? Well, I hope you get over it. because I know it's difficult to carry that around. That isn't what amends are about. Amends are not about what you're doing. Amends aren't about someone you've harmed. I was a bill collector in Chicago, and I had to go back to those people or everyone that I could find and tell them that I regretted having done that and what could I do to make that right. Now some of those people I had beaten, and I'm not sure what you could a standard answer to that when I was making amends in Chicago was stay the hell away from me just get the hell away from you and don't ever come back and I have done that and those are contentious amends and some people said well I'm glad you're better or whatever the hell it was, but I had to make a lot of difficult amends. The most difficult amend that I made was to my father. My father was a chronic alcoholic and was angry and violent and had no second thoughts about punching the hell out of me, which was interesting because the last time I saw him alive, he had come to where i lived where i worked and the police i was it was a smaller town in wisconsin i knew everybody and all the cops and everything and they called me up and they said there's a guy in the bar here that we're going to arrest for vagrancy and um he says he's your dad um and is he and i said maybe if he's the right guy and i said that's my it sounds like my dad but my dad lived in illinois and so he said that the cop said look bob if you'll come over and and get him out of the bar we won't arrest them so i went over there and here was this little old man now he used to beat the hell out of me I'd pick him up. Just grab him under the arms and pick him right off the floor. And I did put him in my car and took him home. He scared the hell out of my wife. And I started giving him coffee to sober him up, and he looked at me and he said, I want you to know something, Bob. And I said, what's that? And he said, I don't regret anything that I've done in my life. And I said, get the fuck out of my house and don't ever come back. Excuse me. So he did. And he died. Actually, I did see him once after that when I went and made amends. when I went through my amends list my sponsor said what are you going to do about your dad and I said nothing he's the one that created all the problems he was the violent guy I was just a kid and he said what about when you grew up and I say what about it he said didn't you tell me one time that he used to call you on your birthday And I said, yeah, most years he did. And he said, what did you do? And I'd hang up on him and he would go, why did you do that? Because he was so drunk that generally I couldn't even understand what he was saying. He slurred his words so badly, his mind was gone. And he just made noises basically. And he said, and why did you hang up on him? And I said, well, because he's a drunk. And my sponsor said, yeah, you're a drunk? And I says, you know, I just didn't want to talk to him. And he said, do you know how difficult it is for a chronic alcoholic to pick out one day a year and find you and try and call you? You know how tough that is? Do you know what difficult that is?" And I said, well, I can imagine. And he says, well you owe him an amend. And I say, for what? He said, for holding him at arm's length your whole life because he was a drunk. Even when he tried to touch you, you wouldn't let him touch you. So I said, well, so what do you want me to do about that? And he said, get in your car, go to Wisconsin and talk to him. And I said he's in a goddamn Army home. He's in the army. He's not in a hospital. He's had a stroke. He's supposed to have any continuous thought at all. In fact, they think he's kind of a vegetable. And you, you know, I could go to Wisconsin and tell them I'm sorry for holding them at arm's length, but he won't even understand. My sponsor said, I don't care. This is about you cleaning off your side of the street. So whether he understands or not is irrelevant. So get in your car and go to Wisconsin and make amends. So I did. And I went to the Grand Army home in King, Wisconsin, And then I walked in, and I asked the receptionist there, do you have a patient here named Bob Olson? And that woman said, that's him right over there in the wheelchair. And I went over there, and he looked up at me, didn't recognize me or anything. And I said, I'm your son, Bob. And I says, I need to talk with you. I'm a member of a fellowship called Alcoholics Anonymous. And part of the process of getting well, not drinking anymore is clearing up the wreckage of the past and I owe you an amend. And I want to talk to you about it. And I wheeled him off into this little room and I said, I don't drink anymore. And he became very excited, visibly, because he'd spent his whole life fighting alcoholism. And he was paralyzed. And I said, so I've come to make amends. And I'm making amends for holding you at arm's length my whole life because you were alcoholic and I didn't understand what that was about until I became alcoholic. And I regret having done that and I'm willing to do anything to balance the books. I didn't have the slightest idea what that had to do with. And as soon as I told him I didn�t drink anymore, he got very excited. And then I left. And then he died. Okay. My dad died from gangrene. He had type 2 diabetes, and back then they didn't know how to control the diabetes, so what they do is they kept hacking off pieces of him. They had to cut his feet off, and they talked about taking off an arm. they finally went to my uncle Leif the banker who is brother and said we need to talk with you because we keep taking pieces off of him and we're going to run out of pieces so would you like us to do another amputation or would you rather we just let him die and it was my uncle's considered opinion his brother that they ought to just let him die. And at some level, my father knew that. And so what would happen was when anyone would come near him at the Grand Army home, he would scream because he couldn't talk. So we would scream. And he would screen out of frustration and despair. See the four horsemen of alcoholism, terror, bewilderment, frustration, and despair? See, despair is the worst. because it shows no hope. And my father knew at some level that he was going to die and he had nothing to say about the process. And so he died. And they buried him out behind that hospital. My dad was married nine times. women thought he was the best thing since sliced bread until they got him home and then it was like oh my god i can't believe i did that and out of the nine people out ofthe nine wives that he had married uh he only had two children my sister and i and no one showed up and actually my uncle had called me and said, Bob, Helen, who is his wife, he said, Helen and I are going to go to the funeral. But you don't need to fly all the way out here to Wisconsin. I know how you felt about your dad. And we'll just represent the family out there. And don't worry about flowers or anything. All that's taken care of. And I said, okay. Now, I'll tell you a problem that arose with me. and maybe you're going to encounter this. So my uncle calls me, and he tells me, your dad just died. Don't worry about it. I'll take care of it. We'll represent the family. It's going to be a very quiet service and very quick, and that's the end of it, and I said, okay. So I get off the phone, and my wife looks at me, and she says, who is that? And I said my Uncle Abe, and she said, what did he have to say? And I said, he told me that my dad just died. And she went, oh, my God, I'm so sorry. And I'm looking at her like, for what? And I probably said something like that because she said, but it's your dad. And I was like, well, I don't know. I said you don't understand. I didn't have any relationship with him. I was just a punching bag when I was a kid. And frankly, when my dad dies, it may just as well have been some guy that lives three blocks down the street that I've seen occasionally. But I have no emotional response to that at all. And she couldn't believe it, but she grew up in Father Knows Best. So I'm sitting there going, I must be really sick because I can't even shed a tear when my father dies. And I have never to this day shed a tears because my father died. And what I thought about, I might as well tell you about it now, was but when my mother dies, then I'm really going to feel bad. And when my mom dies, when my brother died, same thing. and I thought that I must really be damaged goods that somehow growing up I never was connected the wires were never connected in me for grief or loss or anything else like that and I must really be strange or dangerous or some shit because I can't feel emotion about my parents. I can't tell you how many people that have said I have the same situation. I'm not damaged goods. I just never formed a normal family relationship. I lived with foster parents when I grew up. They were grandparents or aunts and uncles or whatever. And so I never formed a normal family bond with my mother and father. And so I didn't feel those emotions when they died. So if that happens to you, you're not abnormal. You just never had the comfort of a normal family relationship. Now, two months ago, my oldest son had brain surgery. and he had a lesion in his brain, and the only way they could get to it was by going through the brain. So they cut a hole right up here in his head about the size of a Ritz cracker, and they went in with a scalpel through the grain to get to him. And the problem with going through their brain is they don't know what they're going to disrupt. and so that we had a very, very competent surgeon who went through the brain, cut out the lesion, cauterized the vessels that had created the lesions, backed out, put my son's skull back together and hoped for the best. My son cognitively is better today than he was before the surgery. He had seizures like every three weeks before the surgery, and he's in the business with me. And all of a sudden he couldn't work because he was having seizures all the time, and if he had one while he was driving a car, no telling what would happen. So they wouldn't let him drive. And the reason why I'm telling you about this set of circumstances is when I was in the hospital and I saw him when he came out of surgery, and he was, you know, he's all cut up, My head was almost in a turban of bandages, and he was gone. And I wanted to go hit somebody because nobody treats my kids like that. so what I found out is that I have a normal set of emotions just didn't have any about my mother and father in that like most parents I would jump in front of a bullet for anyone of my kids well Well, you know, it's really a bitch growing up, especially if you're in your 70s. So I agreed to this whole damn thing and the third step. And so nobody said life was going to be simple And when they talked about certain trials and low spots ahead, they weren't kidding. And so what's happened? Now I have a son who has no seizures, is perfectly normal, has a nasty scar across the top of his head. So he wears a lot of baseball caps, at least for the time being. And he's back in business with me, and he's doing a great job, and he'S got a good attitude. and see when he had that lesion in his brain, if it ever started bleeding, he'd be dead in two minutes. And he hadthat hanging over his head for eight years. And when he and his wife went to visit the surgeon, his wife complained and said his personality has really changed in the last eight years, and the doctor looked at her in wonder and said, my God, don't you understand that he was looking at almost instant death for the last 8 years? and that will change anybody's personality, and now it's changing back. So now he's free from that. That's a miracle. But it came, I'll tell you, it didn't come easily, but now I have a son that can go on about his life without all of that stuff hanging over his head. anyway I made amends to my dad I made a lot of financial amends it took me three years to pay off my financial amens how are we doing here I owed a whole lot of money I told you about my uncle Leif saying just pay it till it's paid and I did that and then one day I didn't owe anything um since then i have used the methodology that i uh paid my amends with uh and and when i sold my business and when I was in my early 50s that screen printing business um I was driving myself nuts and I went to work for Denver Public Schools and their adult education department and developed a program for them called Get Out of Debt, Stay Out of Debt. And did that for like three years and that's how I got tied up with the Department of Corrections. They said, well, you come over and teach inmates that because almost all inmates have problems with financial issues. So, and I've trained parole officers in business skills, communication skills, time management, working for multiple bosses got about everything. And that's how I got tied up with the Colorado Department of Corrections, and they kept finding ways to do more business with me, and that's How I Got Into Therapy. They asked me, would you consider not only training all of our officers, would you considered providing us with therapy because we don't have good providers? And I said, sure. And I said I wasn't much of a believer in it, but I'd go hire some people if that's what they wanted to do so I did that and I started providing drug and alcohol classes and cognitive classes and all that stuff you know I'm not involved in any of it I just run the business and hire good people the I'm financially secure because I I don't spend money, I don' t think I make a very good boyfriend because I'm too god damn cheap. Which doesn't bother me a bit. And I'm not really. I mean, I think I'm probably They're more generous than most people. And I spend an enormous amount of money on my kids, and I've got five of them. So the last amends that I made were to my children. Had again gotten caught up in other issues, and they don't treat them badly, and they really love me. Um, we were having dinner last night after the meeting. We went over at 10 o'clock to Friendly's and got a couple of cheeseburgers and we're sitting over there and my, one of the twins called me and he said they had their black and gold, their high school spring football game where they really have it against each other. And it's a huge school. It's 2,500 students. and so their football team is big enough to have two teams on the field. And so he's the starting nose tackle on defense. He's 6'3 and 235 pounds, and his brother's bigger than he is. And I had asked him to call me and tell me how he did in that scrimmage. And so we called me up and he said, I got two sacks and a whole bunch of tackles. and the coach said, don't get a big head because you were fighting against our second team. And I said, I can't tell you how proud of you I am. And he spends a lot of time seeking my approval and it isn't like he isn't going to get it. So I told him how proud I was of him. Let me tell you something about all that and about making amends and about kids. Um, when I was a kid, people said, you got no chance. You're just like your dad. Um, you're, uh, you'RE a wild kid. You got, youRE going to wind up in jail, da-na-da-na. Or you'RE going to be, wind up IN a mental institution. That's what they told me when I WAS a kid. So that'S what I expected. I don'T talk to my kids like that. this is what I tell my kids you are brilliant you are handsome you have the world by the tail you can have anything in this life that you're willing to work for your potential is unlimited your intelligence your work ethic everything about you will take you where you want to go. You are truly blessed. You can do anything that you set your mind to. That's what I tell my kids. And you want know something? They believe it. I have an 18-year-old, or 21-year old, who is a senior at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. He's on a full-ride scholarship in advanced engineering. He has never got anything but A's. He thinks he's the smartest guy in the world, and he won every math contest in Colorado. This coming year, he will graduate from Southern Methodist in advanced engineering, which is also a function of civil engineering, by the way. And then he's going to the University of Texas in Austin and get a law degree. He will never, ever lack money. He's going to have the kind of job that those Texans are going to pay him through the nose for for the rest of his life. He has everything that a person could want as a future, which includes this little Texas bluebell. Actually, she's about 5'10 from Fort Worth that is an absolute doll. All right. And so he brought her up from Fort Worth for Thanksgiving, and I walked into my ex-wife's house, which I bought. There's something that goes on a list. uh and i said what a stunning girl and she is and she's smart and she has all that stuff and um i've made amends to him probably two or three times and the twins probably three or four times and about real issues, but they know that I love them. And not only do I tell them that they have the world by the tail, every time I talk to them, I tell him I love him. I honestly cannot remember my parents ever telling me that, either one of them. and so I make a point at the end of every conversation to tell my children that I love them and that's not a casual comment and they understand it's not a casual comment so what happens when a kid grows up knowing they're loved knowing they are smart knowing theyre attractive knowing that they truly have a huge variety of choices in the world and that their prospects are just wonderful. You know what happens? They succeed because they believe it. And see, one of the hardest things to do here is if you don't think you can, You can't. If you think you can, or even if you think you might, you can't, and we are held by all this silliness that says that we can't and if we think we can't we can so that's why I keep asking you over and over again are you willing to change your mind. And not only go, yeah, I am sitting in this room right now. I'm talking about are you willing to take the steps that are necessary? Are you willing to go look? Are even consider something else. The only reason why I'm here is because it's time for a change. And not only for you, but for me. And so I hope you will. We're going to take a break. Thanks for listening. I hope that you enjoyed the podcast. is ad-free and we'd like your help in order to keep it that way. So if you'd like to help us be self-supporting by pledging a dollar or two a month, visit and look for the donate links. Thank you very much.