Step 3 and the Struggle Between Self-Will and Higher Power’s Will – Charlie P.

Thank you, Sonia. I told Charlie I was nervous about hosting him, and he said that he was going to make it extremely easy on Lynn and I, him and Katie, and they've done exactly that. It's been a joy. Help me welcome Charlie P. from Austin, Texas. Off to a good start. Y'all don't go to work right away when you get there, do you? Hi everybody, my name is Charlie Parker. I'm a very grateful recovered alcoholic. My sobriety date is March 22nd of 1985 and I am truly grateful for that. It's one of the most important things that's ever happened in my life. We're real excited to be here. I went through a series of airplane flights to get here. That one from Tupelo, Mississippi over here was 19 minutes. That's just up and down, and I'll get to my level of nervousness in that later in the story. But it was the shortest flight I've ever been on, I believe. Well, no, yeah, that's even shorter than the one I'll tell you about here in about 40 minutes. But I'm real happy to be here today. Randy and Lynn have been doing a good job taking care of us. I want to thank everybody on the committee and, you know, that had anything to do with getting us here, some of you folks we met before. And, you Know, just anybody that had any thing to do was putting this thing on. We're real grateful for it. And if you've been around AA for a while, You know that it takes a lot of people to do a lot of work to get something like this to come together. And, you know, and if it's like the group that I come from, there's also a lot of people who didn't do a darn thing. But they have a lot of ideas about how it could have been done just a little bit better, you know. So for them we got a position on the committee for next year, you know. I'm here. Here I got my wife, Katie, with me. Katie is, well, she's sober five months longer than I am, and she thinks it's a really big deal. Stand up and say hi to everybody, Katie. I like to think of myself as some of her best work. And boy, that is not kidding. I mean, you know, but most people don't really understand the size of the job she had. You know, I hope to talk about some of that, you knows, as we go along. But it's really fun because, I mean she's going to talk Sunday morning and I'm telling you she is a powerhouse. Sometimes she's kind of like getting a drink from a fire hose, but you know you get a little more than you were hoping for sometimes. times. One of my sponsors said, boy, when you read inventory with Katie, it's like she digs and then she digs a little deeper and then you dig a little deeper. But anyway, we're just really excited about everything that's going to go on this weekend. I show up here in a coat and tie because I have a lot of respect for the tradition of Alcoholics Anonymous and my sponsorship lineage. It was okay if you didn't want to to wear a coat and tie, you just, and you still had to do it. But if you wanted to do it under protest, that was just fine, you know. But I got to tell you, I don't know what it looks like from where you're sitting, but the bulk of my experience in a coat and tie before I got into this fellowship, I had a very simple job. All I had to to do is stand there and when it came my turn, I'd say, no contest, your honor. That's about it. So, you know, I'm not sure what we'll talk about tonight, but you know in AA we talk about talking from our own experience. And that's one of the things that I really like about AA. And I got a little joke I like to tell to kind of just get warmed up and and get some of the nervous off I'm in. Some of you may have heard this joke before. A couple of you probably heard me tell it before, but it's a good joke, and I like the way I tell it, so I'm going to tell it again. But it's about this old guy that he's driving along this old country road and he sees a sign on the fence post and it says talking dog for sale. And he can't stand it. You know, he stops the car and he goes up to the barn or the farmhouse and he says, so you got a talking dog? Talking dog for sell? The guy goes, yeah, he's around back. And he walks around back, and there's this red hound dog laying there. And he looks at the dog, and he says, so you can talk? And the dog said, well, I certainly can. And he goes, good grief, how did that happen? He said, Well, when I was young, I started picking up some of the language from some ofthe kids around me and stuff. And as I got older, I started getting more advanced to develop some oftheno nuances of the language and picking up slang terms and that sort of thing. And he said, You know, it's just made for an amazing career for me. He said I had a 19-year career in the Drug Enforcement Administration. and I was able to infiltrate some situations that no human agent would have ever been able to get into. And he said, but, you know, and I've eaten in some of the finest restaurants in the world and stayed in someof the finest hotels, but really more interesting than all that, some of my pups have started developing foreign language skills and have become international diplomats. And, you now, I've got two pups who are in the United Nations right now. And he says, it's just been a fascinating life. And the guy says, boy, it has really been a treat talking to you. And he goes back around front where that old farmer is sitting there whittling. He goes, how much do you want for a dog like that? And the guy goes, I don't know, $30? And he says, why would you sell a fantastic dog like this for $30. And the guys goes, oh, none of that crap he told you is true. It's kind of like that around here. It doesn't matter how good the story is if it's not my experience, you know. So I'm going to roll on into it because I've got a lot of ground to cover tonight. I love the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and so does my mother. And my 89-year-old mother is real fond of you guys. You know, I grew up in Dallas, Texas. My home group now, I should have said this at the beginning, My home group is the primary purpose group of Alcoholics Anonymous in Austin, Texas. It's a big book study meeting. We meet on Tuesday nights at 730 if you ever find yourself in Austin. We'd love to see you. We think it's an amazing meeting. We study the big book line by line, week after week, and it's just a lot more fun than it sounds like. We usually run about 175 people on a Tuesday night studying the big books. It's phenomenal. I mean, I had a buddy of mine down from Indianapolis the other day. He said, we don't have a meeting of any kind in Indianapolis of this size. I mean – and you can feel the energy in the room of people that are fired up. You know, we're not studying the book just to have a quick answer, you know, for somebody. It's about getting clarity on what the book is saying, having that experience, and then carrying that message out to other people. And it's the most electric thing I've ever been involved in. And my sponsor was Mark Houston. Most recently he passed with somebody, I don't know if you've ever heard of Mark Houston, but do yourself a favor and try to get a hold of a CD of his because he changed our world, and that's a lot of what we're going to talk about tonight. And before that it was Jim F., and right now it's Myers R., and here you're goingto have the evil twin Chris R. here next year. So I wish I could be here for that. I come from a pretty normal family. I grew up in Dallas, Texas. We live in Austin, Texas now. I like to make that real clear because sometimes if I'm not careful it will sound like we still live in Dallas and we don't. But I grewup in Dallas in a pretty normalfamily, you know? I mean, I don't know exactly what normal is or what dysfunctional is or what a functional family is, but I can say this much. Everything's pretty good in our house. I mean nobody was knocking each other around, there wasn't any drinking. I grew up in a Baptist household there in Dallas and I mean there was no drinking going on in our house you know and it turns out the family was rampant with alcoholism but not in our little nuclear family but the reason I say pretty normal families, I've heard enough fifth steps over the years to know that a lot of people had it just one heck of a lot worse than I had it growing up. I had a pretty decent growing up. I grew up with a sister who's five and a half years older than I am and kind of perfect, you know. And my mother was a first-grade schoolteacher for 42 years, and I was darn well prepared for the first grade. I got to tell you, I kind of rocked it, you Know. But, I mean, my sister was all everything, you Now. I mean, she was National Honor Society first chair flautist, drum majorette, you name it. You know, and then here's this thuggish little brother, you know, that were coming along. But I grew up under the burden of potential. Anybody else grow up underthe burden of potentiall? I mean my whole life growing up, my mother would always say, you now, why can't you live up to your potential? You know? Why can'tyou be more like Charles Moliere across the street? You know, I mean, and I'm like, gosh, thanks, Mom. It's flattering, but I'm really not holding back that much, you know. But I'm flattered you think so. But, you Know, I Mean, and my sister was a tough act to follow, and I don't know what it was, but I know all the stuff in that little church that they were saying not to do, I couldn't wait to do. I mean、 you know, everything they were talking about just sounded so appealing to me. And I don't know what caused my alcoholism. I know none of that did. None of the stuff that happened to me caused my alcoholism, none of the things that didn't happen to me cause my alcoholisim. I'm a big believer in singleness of purpose and Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'll just say a little bit about it. You know, AlcoholicsAnonymous is about alcoholics working with alcoholics. We don't try to be all things to all people. We're about alcoholics working with alcoholics. And, you know, I think a lot of times we spend a lot of time, when you get here, I know I did, I spent some time trying to figure out why I was alcoholic, you now? Anybody else that, you kno, what happened to me? What is it made me alcoholic? I've come to believe it doesn't really matter. It's kind of like if you're out hiking in the woods and you come across a grizzly bear that's getting ready to pounce on you, it doesn' t really matter how he got there, you kow? You know, we've got to deal with it. I've come to believe, I didn't start drinking until I was 16 years old. I drank a little bit before that. I mean, I got drunk a few times when I was 13, 14. I don't have a lot of clear memories of it, but I didn'T really start hitting it pretty hard until Iwas about 16 years old. And, you know, I used to think that was really young to start drinking, You know, and good grief, now it's not even young to stop. You know? I mean, it's like you've got people coming in. And I'm not busting on anybody. I have much love for young people and Alcoholics Anonymous. But for me, I started drinking when I was 16 years old. And I don't know at what point I crossed the line. But, you know, on page 30 in our book, the founders are saying we learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we're alcoholic. It says this is the first step in recovery, and there's a lot going on in that sentence. First of all, if I'm going to fully concede to my innermOST self that I'm alcoholic, one, I best know what it means to be alcoholic, right? And there's big difference between fully conceding to my innerMOST self and walking around saying I'm an alcoholic. I'd been walking around saying I was an alcoholic for a long time before I got to the room and said alcoholics are anonymous. I was not one of these guys that you hear people saying, you know, I told my family that I went to AA and they said, really? I didn't even know you had a problem. And you're like, that was not my experience. You know, there wasn't anybody, you Know, everybody was like, oh, thank God. You know? And, you KNOW, I will say that one thing about that potential, Twelve years of heavy drinking and use of outside issues can significantly lower people's expectations of you. You know? I mean, by the time I was 28, they were like, oh, for God's sake, just get a job. You know, I mean... We're not worried about a career anymore or a position or education. Just get off the couch, for Christ's sake. You know, and, you know, but what is it that makes me alcoholic? It's two things. I've got two things that make me alcoholic. I've said this a lot, that I've only got two problems with alcoholics. I mean, with alcohol that make an alcoholic. One happens to me when I drink it. The other one happens to be when I don't drink it, other than that, I really don't have much of a problem with alcohol. Just, I just struggle with it when I'm drinking it or when I am not drinking it. And that's what we mean by alcoholism. In the book, I'm a big book guy, and all this is right here is a large print copy of the fourth edition of the big book that my sponsor got hold of and pulled the stories out of the back and leather-bound it and that sort of thing. But I'm an alcoholic. I'm not a big-book guy. I love the big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And the book doesn't wait long to start making promises to a drunk like me. Right there on the title page, it says how many thousands of men and women have recovered from alcoholism them. Heck, if you show up here like I did, knowing you've got alcoholism, and there's a little book that will tell me how these people recovered from it, that's pretty good news. Well, what is it that makes me alcoholic? And the book does a beautiful job of describing it in The Doctor's Opinion in the first 43 pages of the book, but it talks about that I've got two problems with alcohol. One happens to me when I drink it, and that's the physical reaction, the physical aspect of alcoholism that makes my different from my sister. My My sister is not alcoholic. She never will be. She doesn't, you know, I can't pour enough vodka in her to make her alcoholic. I couldn't. You know what I mean? We could pour enough Vodka in her To get her drunk, and we could put her behind the wheel of a car and she could get a DWI. In fact, you'd probably admit that there could be somebody sitting in jail this evening that went to a party last night, drank a little too much, got a DWi on the way home, but they're not alcoholic, right? Would you agree that that's possible? Well, if you can get a DWI without being an alcoholic, then getting DWIs and going to jail and that kind of stuff doesn't make me an alcoholic because that's just what happens to people that drink a lot. But what makes me an alcoholic are these two things that the book talks about. It talks about this physical craving. It says this physical reaction that doesn't happen to normal folks. It only happens to about 10% of the population. Only about 10%. percent of the population even has the capacity to become alcoholic, right? You know, and it's because of this, what the book calls a strange reaction to, they call it the phenomenon of craving. And when I drink, something happens that ain't regular. It triggers in me a craving for more booze. And I didn't know that when I got here. I didn' t. I mean, you know, I never knew that I had triggered the phenomenonof craving when I'd take that first drink. In fact, I just thought I changed my mind, right? You ever go in, you know, I'm just going to have a couple, right, we're not going to do like we did last time, you know, and I'm definitely not drinking with those guys again, you know, i'm just gonna have a couple. And I'd get in here and I'd have a cup of drinks, I'd change my mind. You know, it's like, I believe I'm gonna stay here boys, you go, you ever go with the guys after work and they go, hey we're gonna go have a couple of drinks after work, you want to go? And you're like, well yes I do, I I believe. And then you get there, and you know what they do? They have a couple of drinks. It's the dirtiest thing I've ever seen, you know. I mean, and then, you Know, they'll go, Listen, dude, my wife's, I got to go. My wife's making spaghetti at the house. I told her I'd be home for dinner. And I'm the one sitting there going, Really? Spaghetti, you say. Okay. I believe I'll stay here. You know, and the book does a whole lot of description about this craving and what happens to it. It even says that there have been many situations that arise out of the phenomenon of craving that cause men to make the ultimate sacrifice rather than continue to fight. And that ultimate sacrifice is what we see around here when you see people, you know, suck on the wrong end of a shotgun and that sort of thing. You know, this powerlessness over the physical piece of it, it's a huge problem. It's not my biggest problem because if my biggest problems was what happens when I drink vodka, my answer would be what? Don't drink vodka, right? You know how hard would that be? But just think about it. Are there some new people here tonight? How many people here have less than six months? Welcome. We're glad you're here. Because believe me, I spend a good deal of time sitting around the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous raising my hand saying, My name's Charlie and I'm an alcoholic. And I had no idea what it meant. And I figured if there is such a thing as an alcoholic, I must be one because I didn't know anybody that drank more than I did. I mean, I always say that the shortest version of my drinking story is that the guys that I drank with thought that I did too many outside issues. And the guys That I Did Outside Issues With were shocked by my drinking. So everybody I knew thought that i was getting a little too loaded. it you know i mean i always related to there was a band that got sober the whole band got sober by the time i did and i loved the quote they said they knew they were they were crossing the line when the guys in motley crew told them you know you guys need to back it down just a little bit you know what i mean when you got these death metal groups telling you man you guys got to slow it down some you know but anyway let's keep rolling because what happens is the second piece of this thing, and I didn't think about it for a long time, is that every time I ever took that first drink of alcohol, the one that triggers the craving, the one that sends me off on another run, the craziest decision that I can make in my life, the decision to try to take another run at this deal, every time i ever took that 1st drink, I was stone cold sober. I can't blame the 1st drank on being drunk. I make that decision sober because of what happens to me when I don't drink alcohol when I don't drink after a while it gets pretty bad you know when I don't drank my problems don't go away if if your problems go away when you stop drinking it's it's a different thing than alcoholism for me when I'd stopped drinking it seemed like somebody turned the heat up on them a little bit you know and you know Harry Thiebaud wrote a paper one time called the ego factors and surrender in alcoholism is brilliant there was a line in there where he said He said, the recuperative powers of the alcoholic ego are astounding. You know, and what he means is, you know, I'm the guy that, you Know, I mean, think about that day when you were calling detox to see if they had a bed. Oh, God, I'll do anything, right? I'll go to bed. I'll say, I can't live with it. Now, you give me about two weeks, and I'm going, I don't really like this place very much, you knows. I don' t like the counselors here. I don''t like it. I've been looking for the suggestion box and can't find it. You know, because after a while I get uncomfortable. When I don't drink for a while, and the book calls it restless, irritable, and discontented. And after a While, I need some relief. And when I need relief, I can't think about what's going to happen if I drink again. When I need Relief Bad Enough, I Can't Think About What Happened The Last Time I Drank. On page 24, it says that at a certain point in the drinking of every alcoholic, He passes into a state where the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail. So the only requirement for membership, a desire to start drinking, will get me a front row seat in any AA meeting in the world. But it says right there on page 24, it won't do a darn thing to keep me sober. It says right here, The most powerful design to stop drinkin' is of absolute no avail." It says, "...I've lost the power of choice and drink. My so-called willpower becomes practically non-existent. I am unable at certain times to bring into my consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. I'm without defense against the first drink. And that suffering and humiliation, I can't call to mind. It doesn't matter whether it's my suffering and Humiliation or my family's suffering and Humiliation. I can call it to mind when I need relief. So it always blows me away when we have a new person come in the room and they have a, you know, well let's do a Step 1 meeting and everybody tells their war stories and talks about all the terrible things that happened when they were drinking, like we're going to scare this new guy into getting sober. Page 24 tells me that my stuff won't scare me enough to keep me from taking the first drink. Why would I care what happened to Randy? It's not like I'm going to be in the beer store one day grabbing the cooler and going, oh, hold on a minute. Remember what that guy said in a meeting the other day. I don't want any of that. You know, I mean, when I need relief, it's coming. And I always say, you know, we could talk about this a long time, but if you're somebody that can make up your mind to stop drinking and pull it off, you don't even belong in Alcoholics Anonymous. You know? I lost the power of choice and control somewhere along the line. And, you Know, one of the things I like to talk about, I Mean, Because our book says men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. Any argument on that one? You know, I mean, I probably still love vodka more than most people that are out there drinking it tonight. But, I meantime, I think it's a little understated, you know, I mean to say that I like the affect produced by alcool. I like banana pudding, you now, but I love the affect produce by alcools. The first time I got loaded, I remember thinking, oh, we're going to do this a lot. You know, and from that moment it moved to the center of my life, and I didn't even know it. And the thing I really didn't know was that anything that interfered with me and my drinking was going to get moved out of my line. If my job got in the way of my drinking, the job's going to have to go. If a girlfriend says, if you don't stop drinking, I'm going to leave you, I'd be thinking, well, honey, I don't want you to leave, and I like what we got and I'll try to taper down and I won't do any of that but in my heart if you're talking about not doing anything ever you're probably going to have to go because that's just not available for me somewhere along the line it was working real good early on and then it started getting a little sloppy one time I'm leaving a bar in a blackout I was a black out drinker I blacked out a lot regularly. I always drank for oblivion and Katie was not a blackout drinker, Katie was a brown-out drink her but and it turns out she was vulnerable to things in blackouts that I didn't have to worry about let's just say that you know and you know because but one night I'm leaving a bar and had five Long Island teas and by the bartenders count and I leave and I'm and I mean my My mother's station wagon. I wrecked every car my mother ever owned. I should tell you that I was so poorly treated as a child that I finally ran away from home for good at the age of 28. I'm not kidding either. I never went back, you know. But, I mean, I'm leaving and I ram into a car. I'm in a blackout and what brought me out of the blackout was this impact that I can see the fenders sticking up but we're still rolling. I drove Katie by the scene of the crime just the other day. The car's still rolling, so I keep my foot on the gas and I get the car down and around the corner and I grab my shoes. For some reason, my shoes were off and I go running back towards the bar to report the car stolen, and I got to tell you this is not an extraordinary night in the life of Charlie Parker. This is just kind of the way things rolled back then, but I'm running back to this bar because I am going to take anything but personal accountability for this accident and and I run back and as I'm running back under this line of trees over here where I'd hit the car there's glass all on the street and there's two cops standing out there and they had their flashlight like this and they're shining them and there was glass everywhere in the street as I running with my shoes in my hand I remember thinking good grief man they got here fast, you know what I mean? Because I just hit him. And so the next day, the police called and they said, Mr. Parker, you're going to have to take a polygraph test in order to get your car back. And I said, why is that? They said it was involved in an accident before it was reported stolen. I said you're kidding. And they said no, they ran into a parked police police car. And you remember those moments of clarity. I remember thinking, that explains how they got there so fast. You know, because I've been a little foggy on that one, you know? But I mean, that's what I'm talking about when things started getting sloppy. But somewhere along the line, I lost the power of choice and control over alcohol. It talks about it on page 44. It says if when you honestly want to, you can't quit entirely, or if when drinking you have a little control over the amount you take, probably alcoholic. And well, the way it showed up for me, I don't know when I crossed that invisible line. I think that's why we call it an invisible line, but somewhere along the line it started getting really sloppy because one of the things, I love pawn shops. I love pawn shops. Where's Where's Chad? Where's my boy, Chad? He said he was a pawn star earlier. I love the pawn shops because... I see you. He wasn't going to put his hand up. All right. Say hello to these fine people, Chad. You know, I love them. I love pawn shops because I like the whole purity of the equation. The thing I liked about pawn shops was that there was no shame. There was never a pawn broker that went, good God, man. You know, what are you going to do with this money? Or weren't you just in here this morning? It wasn't like that. You just take in the deer rifle and they give you the money and you leave and you come back with the shotgun. And we drunks make some brilliant plans. We really do. I mean, we're smart folks. I love it. Scott Redman used to say, you know how you always hear people say that alcoholics have a higher IQ than most people and everybody nods their head, you know, in the meeting. He goes, You know, you only hear that in Alcoholics Anonymous movies. It's like the AMA is not out there going, Man, did you see Charlie crash his car into that tree the other night? He is a genius, you Know. In fact, I called my mother because she used to always talk about genius IQ and that sort of thing, and I finally called her to the desk. Mom, the big book says I'm a genius. I'd never seen it. I didn't see it until just a little while ago. But it says he has a real genius for getting drunk at exactly the wrong time. And I was like, I'm a genius! You know, but that's a little sidebar. I didn't mean to talk about that. But when it talks about losing the power of choice and control, we make these really solid plans. And I mean to the point where if you took it and showed it to somebody over at the University of Alabama, they'd go, pretty solid plan, you know? And our plans work right up until they quit working. And the plan I had was that you had 90 days to get everything out of the pawn shop. And I forgot a critical piece of this equation. I didn't own very much stuff, so I was having to pawn stuff that didn't belong to me. That creates hard feelings in your family and that sort of thing. But, I mean, I had a plan. Man, I wasn't just selling the stuff. We're going to pawn it and we're going to get some money later and we'll go back and get it. We'd roll like that for a while and it worked really well until it didn't work. One day I'd pulled an insurance scam that was enough to get everything out of the pawn shop. I stopped in the Spillway Pub there in East Dawson. I'm just going to have a couple of drinks because I've got a lot of ground to cover. I didn't walk in there and go, Oh Bobby, spiritual malady is on me today or you know I've had a beer on the way over here and it has triggered a phenomenon of craving you know nothing like that but all I know is I came out of a five day blackout on the edge of the bed at my mother's house I had a lot of blackouts I didn't have many of those this was five days of nothing and I have one memory from that five days and I had eight dollars in my pocket and I still had all those pawn tickets. I just had this big old gangster wad of pawn tickets that I carried around in my... And you know those mornings, you know, those mornings where you're just sitting there going, Oh no, oh no, you know, because I'd shot my wad on the insurance scam and now I got nothing. I don't have any and it's time to get everything out, you know, and I would have to go to my father who was a good man, worked hard for his money. Nobody was giving him his stuff. And I would have to go to him and say, Dad, if we act now, I can get you a pretty good deal on all your stuff. You know? But if we wait until tomorrow, it's going to be strictly retail. You know, and, you know, are there Al-Anons here tonight? How many Al-Ans are in the room? Welcome. I'm glad you're here. And believe me, we know that's not funny. I mean, you know, I have to say that like it's funny or I'll start crying. I should warn you in advance because I don't know what's going to happen later. But I'm a big guy, shot competitive shotguns and Harleys and all that stuff. But I am liable to cry like a little girl in a pink dress up here at any minute, you know. So don't be shocked by it. I'm okay, you know. But I couldn't tell that story if I didn't put a little, you know, humor on it. Because the thing I remember was that we would have to get in the car. And this was in Dallas. And Dallas is a big town, man. I mean, you're not just going to the pawn shop. It was like we've got to go over on East Grand and get your deer rifle and go over onto Buckner Boulevard and pick up the metal detectors and your sterling silvers and garland, and we've Got to Go to Oak Cliff to Get the Shotgun. And so it was all day in the car with me and my dad and all that shame. And as we'd be driving around, I'd be saying, Dad, I swear to God I will never do this again. and if i was lying to that man i darn sure didn't know it but what i didn't know at that time was that i didnít have the power to make good on that promise when i was promising him that iíll never do this again i might as well have been promising him that i was going to flap my arms up here tonight and fly around the room and come back and land behind the podium because i didníd have the power to making good on the promise thatís what weíre talking about when we talk about a hopeless state of mind and body I had a thing that happened when I drank that made me, so the way it winds up is I got the mental obsession that develops after I'm sober for a while that makes me powerless overtaking the first drink. And once I take the first drinking, it triggers this phenomenon of craving, which makes me powerless overtaking a second drink and a third drink. And what happens, the book talks about the terrible cycle. And the way that looks for a guy like me is when I really get going on this thing, I'm going to drink until I have to stop. and then I'm going to stop until I have to drink. And that's the terrible cycle we're talking about. And if you're caught in that or if you've been caught in that, you know as well as I do, there's a bottom below the bottom you know. I always say don't ever say it can't get any worse. All that shows is a lack of imagination. You know what I mean? Because what seems awful this year might look pretty peachy in a few years. You know, so that's my little thing on alcoholism. But, you know, and the thing we talk about when we talk about singleness of purpose, you know, I mean, on page 18, there's something that happens when you identify with another alcoholic. It was the first place I'd ever been around where, you know people, you know, there are people that already tonight, I'm sorry, what's your name? Were you working registration when I came in? Dan? Gary. Gary, I could tell Gary from 25 feet away. I was like, oh, I'd have drank with that guy. You know, I mean, that's like the highest compliment I can pay anybody in Alcoholics Anonymous is, you know. And I can't tell you how many times, you Know, Katie and I will be flying somewhere, and, you KNOW, and like talking to Randy. I've never met Randy before, but they'll go, listen, I'm going to be standing in baggage claim, and I look, and I go, wait, don't even tell me. Don't even talk to me. Don't tell me what I love to play this game. I love it. I love the escalator. And I swear to God, you come down the little escalator and you look around and you go, that's our boy right there. You know, I mean, because we sense each other on an energy level. I mean on page 18 in our book it says, but the ex-problem drinker who has found this solution, who is properly armed with the facts about himself, can generally win the entire confidence of a new man in a matter of hours. And the big thing about that is it says until such an understanding is reached, little or nothing can be accomplished that's why we talk about singleness of purpose in here it's not that we're trying to keep the filthy dope fiend out of our rooms if you're alcoholic and anything else welcome but we don't I don't talk you'll never hear any my sponsor he's saying I'm an alcoholic and anything because it doesn't matter what we're identifying around in here is being alcoholics if I go to another fellowship I'll identify what's going on in that fellowship, but in here saying I'm an alcoholic and a whatever would be like saying I am an alcoholic and a Texan or an alcoholic and a contractor. That's not what we're at. But that identification is so important that I don't know, I'd like to say a little piece about that because I didn't hear anything about that for a long time. Well, what happened for me? Boy, let's get this thing rolling. It's time for me to start getting sober. What happened was it got really, really sloppy there at the end. And, you know, the pawn shop story is a wonderful example of how cool I was when I got here, how slick I was when I got here. You know, that's the guy that I brought to your fellowship, was a guy that was a burden to his family and everybody that was unfortunate enough to love me. And what you guys have done with my life, I will be forever grateful for. What happened with me though you know and my story is it's kind of it's kind of different you know we talked about what it was like what happened in what it's like now what we were like what happen and what we are like are like now for me it's kinda like what we're like what happened and then what happened and what were like now because I what happened for me was I came into Alcoholics Anonymous and my storey deals a whole lot with untreated alcoholism in the rooms of AlcoholicsAnonymous because Because what happened for me, I came into AA and I had a sponsor that I'll love until the day one of us dies. You know, it's a – but Mark Houston used to like to say, how do you know what you don't know? You know? And that will give you a brain cramp if you're not careful, you know. But, I mean, we were doing the best we could with the steps. And I went through an understanding of the steps, and I want to be sure and talk about this Because what happened was, one of the biggest mistakes I see made in Alcoholics Anonymous, if there are any mistakes being made in alcoholics anonymous, and maybe there aren't. But this, you know, but what happened for me was I came in and we talked about being alcoholic. We didn't talk about physical allergy and mental obsession. We talked a whole lot about the areas of my life that are unmanageable and write down all the things in your life that aren't manageable. I don't read the book that way today. I may feel differently two years from now. But it seems to me that what it says in step one, if you read those first 43 pages of the doctor's opinion, it seems like what it's saying, the simple question it's asking in step 1 is, when we talk about unmanageability, is can you or can you not manage the decision to stop drinking? When I want to stop, can I quit entirely? And that sort of thing. We get into broader scope of unmanagability later on, and I'm really looking forward. We're going to do a workshop tomorrow, and before I forget to say it, we're going to talk about what was the biggest change in the way my sobriety was in the first years than the way it's been the last nine years or ten years. Because what happened was, well, I mean, I've got to tell you, I got serious ADD working up here, you know? I mean my brain is liable to go off on bunny trails at any moment, you Know? And there will be times in the talk where I'll say, we're going to get back to that later. And what that means is that this is not the proper time in the Talk to introduce that little chunk of information. But I've got to tell you, when I tell you we're gonna come back to it later, we're probably not coming back today. You know? I always get real excited when I actually circle back around to one, you know? Sometimes I'd be going along, and I'd go, Katie, what was I talking about? But one of the things that happened was I came in, and basically it was, are you alcoholic? Yeah, and we talked a little bit about it. And then it says, are You willing to believe that there could be a power that can take you beyond where you are today? And if I said yes, we went right to the third step prayer. That was my experience. In fact, after that A, B, and C, it says A, that we're alcoholic and could not manage our own lives. B, that probably no human power could relieve our alcoholism. And C, that God could and would if he were shot. And I've got to applaud you guys because normally around the country, that's where everybody chants like a bunch of high school kids at summer camp. It drives me out of my mind. God could or would if they were shot? Do they do that anywhere around here? because you guys didn't do it at all. You don't have to do it. The thing I was going to tell you is that the chanting in AA, it's not AA. It's optional. It's come in through the treatment centers. I love the treatment center. But they send us people, and if we're not here saying, and you look like a jerk if you're the one going, sorry, pal, we don't do that around here. But for God's sake, when I came in, they would do the Lord's Prayer, and they'd go, keep coming back. And then it was, keep coming back, it works. And then it was, keep coming back. It works if you work it, and you're worth it. So work it. And I'm like, oh, for God's sake. You know, I mean, you know, I always picture this poor new guy coming in going, geez, I want to stop drinking whiskey, but do I really have to do all this shaving, a haircut, two bits? You know? All this stuff. I mean... But I digress. You know that's my little rant on chanting. But the only thing I'm saying is you don't have to do it. In fact, well, I'm not quite done yet. It turns out amen is an awesome way to end a prayer. We're the only fellowship that would take the Lord's Prayer and go, I think we can end it a little better than Jesus did. I'm just saying. You know, but I better be careful. What happened for me, though, in that C, it says, the next line says being convinced we were at step three. Right? Being convinced of what? A, B, and C. Well, this is a lot of what we're going to talk about tomorrow, but what happened for us was we went right from C, that God could and would if we were sought. If you agree with that, then he said let's get down on our knees and do the third step prayer. And by doing that, we skipped this entire body of work that we're going to talk about tomorrow afternoon that is really not that important. It's just the root of our problem and the basis of my sobriety for the rest of my life. Other than that, just go to 90 meetings in 90 days and you'll be fine. So I missed a lot. I didn't know it, but I wound up working a program based on the abstinence from alcohol, right? And I was the guy that was in the meetings, you know, thinking, you know, I didn't drink. And you know that guy. I mean, I was a guy that went to school, and I was like, I'm going to I mean I was that guy that left for work an hour late this morning and screamed at my wife on the way out the door and slapped one of the kids and kicked the dog and burned it out of the driveway and got to work and looked at two hours of Internet porn and left an hour and a half early and played some Internet poker and got a a half gallon of ice cream on the way home, but by God, I didn't drink today and that makes me a winner. You know? No, that kind of makes you a Nimrod, dude. Better than when I was drinking. But I mean, I was...I didn't know I was doing this. There was never a time in my sobriety where I made a conscious decision to do middle-of-the-road sobriete. I just I thought I was doing AA, and I was going to a lot of meetings, and I Was very involved in the fellowship. But now it turns out, it's mentioned in the book, that I was in constant collision with something or somebody, even though my motives were good. And it felt like I was killing myself out there trying to be sober. And I hit the wall at four-and-a-half years sober, and I hitthe wall at seven years sober. We're going to talk about it a lot more tomorrow afternoon. But what happened was I didn't have anybody. In my mind, I'm thinking, you know what? I've tried this deal your way, and I'm getting knocked to the mat every time I step into the ring. I'd blown up two relationships back-to-back, had two babies, two child support checks. Things were going ugly. To say I was in constant collision was an understatement. You know, I was overdrawn at the bank all the time, and it was a little stressful. You know, I could tell you some stories about that. But what happened was that about seven years, I made a conscious decision to pull away from AA a little bit. I'd been working a program based on rigorous honesty and all that stuff. And what happened, though, when I kept hitting the wall in sobriety, I didn't have anybody. I'm telling myself I'm running up against the failure of AA, right? I didn'T have anybody telling me, Charlie, you're not running up agains the failure or AA. hey, you're running up against the failure of self-will. This is what it looks like when you try to run the show yourself. Well, that's what we're going to talk about a whole lot tomorrow. And, well, so what happened was I go off into a relationship. I should point out that Katie and I were litter mates. We sobered up just darn near the same time. Essentially. Can we say essentially the same Time? I mean, you know, is five months really that big of a deal? You know, she thinks so. But she'll tell you about it on Sunday. But we were best friends for 20 years, and she was married the entire time I knew her. And, I mean we were literally like brother and kid sister. There was zero flirtation or sexual energy or anything like that. She was like my kid sister, and we were very, very, very close. And, well, so I go off and, you know, I've been in two marriages. I got married again. Now, Katie's not approving of any of these marriages. I mean, she's watching out there just like going, what are you doing? And you couldn't have stopped me with a chainsaw, you Know. I mean – and I lose sight of how prodigious self-will can be sometimes. I mean because I don't blame my problems on Jim or anybody. I mean I'm not saying nobody was saying that stuff on pages 60 to 63. but if they were, I wasn't trying to hear it. You know, I'm sitting in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and I am self-will run riot. But what happened was I go off into this marriage and I married a woman out of state. It was a commuting marriage and she had an awful lot of money and the lifestyle was really good and we had a penthouse apartment in Manhattan and a beach house in the Hamptons and a lot of this stuff was going on. We're traveling all over the world and it was the most dishonest relationship I've ever been in. And I should point out to you, in case she ever hears the CD, that the most dishonest thing about that relationship is that I was in it. She was not at all getting the deal. You know, it's funny. When you start looking at that self-will stuff in 60 to 63, it is unbelievable. I mean, how it can rewrite history for me. I mean my first marriage, if you had asked me 17 years ago or 20 years ago when I got that, If you'd asked me what happened to that marriage, I would have told you that she's cheated on me and I don't roll like that, you know, and, I mean, that was the end of it and that sort of thing. And I would Have believed it. But if you asked me today, given the current level of work we're doing and that's sort of stuff that's happened since Mark Houston and what stuff I hope we get a chance to talk about, I would tell you there's a very good chance that I was exhibiting a level of selfishness and self-centeredness in that relationship that would have driven anybody out the door. It's a huge shift, but it happens as a result of this work. What happens was I'm in this relationship, and one day we're leaving the Hamptons, and I had some friends that we had chartered a plane to fly from the East Hampton Airport out there into New York City, and we're going to go to dinner. Pretty civilized evening, right? Now, 12 years ago and after, this is the first time I ever chartered an airplane. I've been a gambler my whole life, right, I know about odds, but we're flying out over the Peconic Bay, and I'm sitting in the passenger seat. And we're at Shelter Island, and there's this... And all of a sudden, it's very, very quiet. And we were in a glider at about 3,000 feet above the water. And I put on the... It was a charter plane, the pilots right here, And I put on the headphones. And what you don't want to hear your charter pilot ever saying is, come on, come on, and he's jacking those controls. And they go, they said, you're cleared to Gabreski. And there was an airport right there at 10 o'clock. And he says, you don'T understand. I've lost engine power. I can't make land. We're going to have to ditch. And I'm like, what? I mean, I'm a gambler. what are the odds of that, you know? The first time we ever charter a plane, we're going to put it in a drink, you know. Long story short, you know, he says brace for impact, you know, and you're like, does anybody know how to do that? You know, I mean, and we hit the water and it's like six, it's nighttime, we hit the water, it splashed down at six flags times a thousand. I mean it's noise and spray and the windshield comes in and the cowling comes off and then absolute silence. And all of a sudden, I'm like, I think we're okay. Right? I mean, we survived this deal. And right about that time, let me tell you, this wasn't much of an airplane. Really awful boat. You know? I mean... I mean. Right about the time I'm thinking we made it, I feel something on my knee and it goes up like that. And by the time, I go up to get some air. Now, I've tried the door and it won't come open. And I go up to get some air, and there's nothing but water in the roof of the plane. And that's when I remember thinking, so that's it. So that's It. I die in this stinking airplane today. And I started jacking that door, and it came open. And we talk about selfishness and self-centeredness. I can tell you when that door came open, my first thought was, I'm out. I'm Out. I'd like to tell you my first thoughts was my wife or my dog or the pilot or something like that, I pulled out. I got some air. I went back down and got the wife. Went back down, got the dog. And long story short, there were five adults. The only non-survivor was our dog because the dog drowned in the plane. But we all got out. We actually revived the dog for a while, but he died two days later. But we were on Anderson Cooper, you know, live from the headlines with Anderson Cooper and all this stuff. And the reason I say all that is because something like like that when something like that happens it can change the way you look at things you know it was a it was uh and it's funny I love to tell the story we were at Crested Butte one year fishing and at the Crest of Butte AA conference it's a lot of fun it's kind of like summer camp for a you know you're there the whole week and you do all this kind of stuff and we were fishing and I caught this monster trout a little bitty hook barbless hook about this big and I can't and I boat this guy you know and and the cat the guy will won't let us touch it, but he holds it up and we get to kind of take a picture with it and everything. And then we put it back in the river. And I always had a vision of that fish going back down to the bottom to his other fish buddies and going, oh my God, I was in the sun. I saw the boat. I've been returned back. He goes, I got to think I have a higher purpose. I think I'm supposed to work with other fishes. But I like to say I mean, there's no Earl Hightower story, but I like to say that I was part of God's catch-and-release program. But what happened was, coming back, and I want to get a little further into this. What happened was that's when we started hooking up with some other people. And it started by going to John Henry. There was a guy there in Austin. I called him up one day, and said, John Henry, I'm so self-centered. I can't even be in a conversation with anybody. you know I mean I have to just force myself to go how are the kids you know and act like I give a flip about the answer you know because I don't I mean I'm all about me and and this is 17 years sober we're talking about here I mean uh I walked in the a club one time and this guy goes hey Charlie how you doing cuz we need to go back to Las Vegas sometime and I go yeah I turn turn around, I was horrified. It took me two days to remember that I went on a Vegas trip with these guys. They were all sober. We're all over 10 years sober. And when I got to thinking about it, the reason I didn't remember being in Vegas with this guy is because I wasn't in Vegas what this guy. I was in Vegas, with me. You know? And me and me and me and how does this affect me and what do you think about me? And this guy just happens to be along for the ride you know that's why and that's the level of self-centeredness that I'm capable of carrying around in sobriety I could tell you story after story after story turns out it's mentioned in our basic text but I had missed it for a long time and that's what we're going to talk about tomorrow afternoon well we started doing some work him and John Henry started taking me out we start going out to this treatment center on Mondays and talking to the guys the next thing you know I mean they're asking me to sponsor them and there There were times where, I mean, it had been a while since I'd sponsored a brand-new guy. And now I could talk to you about living stuff, and I don't know who would have asked me for advice, but as far as taking a brand new guy and explaining to him the hopeless state of mind and body and being able to give him what we call the gift of desperation and get him inspired to go through the work, it wasn't happening. And I had to learn. There were time when I would tell a guy, I'd go home and read the doctor's opinion and Bill's story, and I would go home and read The Doctor's Opinion and Bill Story. And there were times where I felt like I was a step ahead of these guys. And I will tell you this. I mean, I'm all about sponsoring guys, and I really believe in my soul that if a sponsor and a sponsee are both giving it their best shot, God takes up a lot of slack in a deal like that. Don't wait to sponsor somebody until you feel like you can do this deal perfectly. But it helps to read the book a little bit and have had the experience yourself. What happened, though, was I started doing this work and I started hanging out with a buddy of mine, a 12-step buddy of my own that was taking 125 Vicodin a day, among other things. And we got him in treatment and he met this guy with an iPad that you guys are going to meet next year. And he starts talking to him and Chris was telling him, you know, about what the true nature of alcoholism is and this sort of thing. And he got back up and that's how he got involved in Primary Purpose Group in Dallas And that's why we wind up starting a primary purpose group in Austin. And then next thing you know, Katie and I wind up at this big book workshop with some guy named Mark H. Somebody had asked me about a big book work shop in Dallas. And I'm like, now here's how peculiar this is. You want to see the hand of God looking back on this thing? We wouldn't have even been terribly interested in going to a big meeting, you know. Because I like to share, you Know. But a big book weekend, for God's sake? You know, I mean, what? You know? Oh, good. Let's talk about the book all week. Lit us on fire. We go up there. There's a guy sitting up there, his name is Mark Houston. And to say that he spoke to us is a little bit of an understatement. There was a guy, and I mean everything he said, I felt it right in here. I felt that connection like we were chained together. And he's saying stuff. stuff. And at one point I leaned over to Katie and I'm going, what book is he reading from? You know, I mean, I've been around AA for 17 years. I've never heard some of the stuff that he's talking about. And I mean this was clearly a dude that was taking this thing to a whole nother level, you know. And, I mean we sat there in that workshop. Oh my God. Mark changed our lives, you know, and the message that came through Mark. And Mark was never big. I mean Mark did a lot of of work for a lot of people. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've gone to conferences and had people come up and go, Mark Houston changed my life, and I never met him. All I ever did was listen to CDs and that sort of thing. But even Mark was the first one to say, when I die, I think it'll be obvious to you. I hope it becomes obvious to you that all I've been doing is sitting on the riverbank handing out river water. If something happens to me, just go right to the river. But wow, did he take us to another level. And what happened him was, as a result of all that, we started having a meeting on Thursday nights at the house with Mark and me and all my sponsees. And there was never one time that he walked into that house that I didn't know it was a big deal, you know, that this is something significant, that he's taking time out of his schedule to come spend an hour with us every Thursday night. And, there were times where he'd just blow us out of the water. One night, he called me on the way home. He goes, Charlie, I've got to tell you something. He's like, I kind of feel like I'm running that meeting. I go, Mark, let me tell you something. You're running that meeting. Believe me, we need to hear what you're saying. So what happened was he talked about how do you know what you don't know? He started working with a lot of chefs and he sat down and he started talking about doing the amends process. Actually making all of our amends. Becoming willing to make amends And so, you know, the first time he sat down, you know, that was the first thing he talked about. Because, you know, when you start working with a new guy, what's the first thing you want to do? When you want to go back through the work, the first thing we want to do is write inventory, right? We're thinking we're all going to get together and write inventory. And he sits down there one night and he goes, what happened to your amends from last year? And you're like, oh, I think they're in a drawer in my office. Because what happened was I was amazed before I You know, and that list has a way of making its way into the drawer, you know. And that very first night he goes, I have a feeling there's a significant experience available to you guys in the amends process. And we thought it was like Swahili or something. I mean, we're like, how does he know that? You know. And we started doing the work and we started, you now, really getting, oh my God, I'll never forget when the first workshop where he brought this guy. He kept talking about the disciplines of 10, 11, and 12 and living within the strict spiritual disciplines of10, 11 and 12 and discipline is the horse I ride. And when I'm practicing the strict spiritual disciplines of 10, 11, and 12, and Katie and I are out there going, la-la-la, la, la-, la-, please shut up. Because we're not even in the neighborhood of the strict spiritual disciplinesof 10,11,12. I've got time for this story. He brings this guy up during that workshop. I'll never forget it. He brings his poor guy up, and he says, Paul, would you come up here and sit down? And the guy comes up to him and he goes, Paul, tell me. They both have microphones. He goes, tell me, Paul, do you meditate? And the guy goes, well, Mark says I'm a truck driver. And sometimes I meditate when I'm driving the truck and that sort of thing. And Mark goes, okay. He goes a couple of things, Paul. First of all, when you're driving the trunk, we really need for you to be about driving the trunk. You know, I mean, we don't need a guy hurtling down the road in a tractor-trailer rig meditating. meditating, you know. And he goes, second of all, in the future when I ask you a yes or no question, I'm going to expect a yes-or-no response. So I'm gonna ask you again if you meditate and it's important to me for you to say no. And Katie and I are sitting there going, whoa man, am I glad he didn't call me up there, you Know? But I mean Mark was like that. He used to say he was big on yes or no questions because he said you know you can ask an alcoholic if they're married and you get a five-minute answer you know it's like that was yes or no you know some but you know what so what happened we're gonna talk about a lot of the stuff that I like to talk about on time in step three of my biggest change in is my head my biggest spiritual awakening at 17 years of sobriety and a lot it happened with a completely new understanding of step 3 and I hope that some Some of you can come tomorrow and talk about it, because we actually have time to talk about it at great length tomorrow. But what happened was when we started doing all this stuff on selfishness and self-centeredness, because what happens in my life is it's not a battle of am I going to drink or not drink. Now that's there, and that's coming. That's a huge problem. But in sobriety, it's a struggle between self-will and God's will. Self-will. Self- will and God-s will. Consciousness. I really only got experience with two powers in my wife. One is God and one is self, and it's which one is running the show today. Because what happens for me in sobriety after a while is self-will starts rising up, God's will starts dropping down, and before I know it, God's Will is off the table. God's not even a part of the equation, right? And so the way that shows up for me, the 12 in 12 actually says we can have faith in God and keep him blocked out of our lives. And the way that shows up for a guy like me is I'm going, oh yeah, yeah, man, God is awesome. Right? I mean, God took away my drinking problem and God is the deal, you know? I mean – and I don't need him for this. You know, I don'T need him FOR this thing with work and I DON'T need Him FOR this thing with my wife or my kids or my money. But I mean if I ever get a really big problem, I'll bring God right in, you know? And it's like in the meantime I'M going, take a knee, God. I'll let you know when it's time for you to go in. You know, I don't know that's going on. And before long, God ain't got nothing to do with it. So one of the things we talk about a lot is if you want to see what I really believe, if I've made this deal in step three, don't listen to what comes out of my mouth. Watch my feet. That's how you'll be able to tell what I realmente believe. If I'm telling you I've mad this deal with God in step 3 where he'll provide what I need if I stay close to him and perform his work well, would you be ableto tell that if he followed me around? down, right? Would you be able to, would you think here's a guy in a God-centered life? And now let me tell you, before we go any further, I am not nailing this deal perfectly. I mean, don't think that for a minute. In fact, I'll tell you a little story. I was, I was in, I went to give a sponsee a chip one night over at the treatment center on a Sunday night and the next day I'm over at the Sprint store. Oh my God, has Sprint made some inventories in the past, you know, and and I'm in there and at one point the one guy was going to help me but the manager came in and he's fouling the deal up. And at one point I found myself up on my knuckles on the counter yelling at this guy, you know, and he goes back in the back to fix my problem and I stand back, you Know, and I look over and this guy is grinning at me kind of funny, you Now, and I go, whew, man, they're getting me a little worked up in here and he Goes, Did you see me get my 90-day chip last night? Here I am, you now, know, Mr. 22 years sober, you know, and I go, listen, dude, what you just saw was not exactly our principles in action, you know, if you stick around here for a couple of minutes, you get to see what an active 10th step looks like, you know, but I mean, it's getting better all the time, you know, I don't know what else, the thing that I worry about now, are y'all familiar with with the bedablements on page 52 where it talks about we're having trouble with our personal relationship we couldn't control our emotional nature we were prey to misery and depression couldn't make a living had a feeling of uselessness we were full of fear we were unhappy couldn't seem to be a real help to other people was not a basic solution not just a little case by case solution but a basic resolution that picks all this stuff more important than seeing and reels of lunar flight. What they're describing there is untreated alcoholism. But the problem is, I don't want to get too heavy into the idea of medication and that sort of thing, but untreated alcoolism can look an awful lot like depression. And I'm not saying nobody in the world needs to take pills. Believe me, I have to have a couple of cocktails before I start doctoring anybody. But clearly more people are taking it than need to be. And the thing I can promise you is if you walk into a psychiatrist's office and you describe the symptoms of the bedevilments on page 52, he's not going to say what you need is a spiritual awakening. You know, he's going to stay open wide, you know. So the thing when I'm worried about an alcohol in my sobriety now is not drink, don't drink. It's I don't want to live in those bedevillments again. I'm scared to death to go back to living in the bedivillments in sobrietry. You know, what we talk about is the second surrender in Alcoholics Anonymous, right? There's the first surrender. I don't know. I'm bringing it to a close. There's The First Surrender, which is the surrender to alcohol, and that's pretty easy, you know, because it comes off of having your butt kicked, right. I mean, when I get here, it's pretty easily for me to calf rope with alcohol and stuff because I've been whooped. The second surrender is the hardest one, and that surrender is the surrender to self-will. And boy, working your way up to that surrender is a booger. You know, I've always said being just on the other side of a surrender is an awful place to live. I'm not exactly sure what all I want to talk about, but I will tell you this. We started working the steps at a new level of the work. We start getting involved with all three sides of the circle and triangle, service, the fellowship, the recovery program, doing all that stuff, working the steps. We're getting out with other people, working the steps, and all I can tell you is the change that has made in our life, I would have never seen coming, right? I mean, I assume we're all Dallas Cowboy fans here. Is that right? Yeah. I like to say that in areas where it really gets the rise out of people, but, you know, you say that at Philadelphia, it doesn't go well at all. But I've been a Dallas Cowboy fan since they were really good. You know, I mean, I remember back when, you know, but the thing about it is, well, I've been going to all these Cowboy games. One time I had a sponsor and he goes, you know, my family's got a skybox at Texas Stadium. And I said, oh good. And, you know, one day he calls me up and he says, hey, do you want to go see the Eagles game in our skybox? And I say, yes, I do. And the reason I tell this is because Because what happens is we get in the car and we drive to a different entrance. And we go into a little quiet parking lot. And we get to carry our own stuff in. And we're going this quiet little entrance. And you go up this nice, quiet little escalator into a civilized little hallway. And there's guys with trays of cookies and tubs of ice. And the thing I didn't know was I didn' t know whether to be excited about being up in the sky box or whether to pissed off about being in the cheap seats for 20 years. That was exactly my experience with Alcoholics Anonymous. If I had died in that plane crash, I would have missed everything. If you're new here, we love you. We're glad you're here, and we hope you keep coming back and become a part of our family. I think there's a lot of message of the hope of recovery out there for the new guy in sobriety, but I'm talking about the guy that's been around for a while, three years, five years, 15, 25, 30 years, and dying on the vine. If you're sitting in the room, there's somebody in the room tonight that's not experiencing what you hear some people experience. And the way we look for them in the meetings, the way I look for untreated alcoholism in the meetings is I wait, and Katie taught me this, I don't want to steal it without giving her credit, is wait until somebody, you know how we all laugh it up in the AA meetings? Well, look around. That's your opportunity. Because when everybody's laughing, look around and somebody ain't laughing. There's somebody in that room who doesn't think a darn thing is funny. That's the one I like to go up to and go, Well, how long since you wrote inventory? Where are you at in the amends process? Are you sponsoring anybody? Do you practice the spiritual disciplines of steps 10 and 11? I almost missed it. If I died in that plane crash at 17 years sober, I would have missed the whole thing. If you'd have come to me when I had 17 years sober and said, Charlie, what is going to change your life and set you on fire is the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, right out of the big book of Alcoholic Anonymous. I would have told you you're crazy because I've been in AA for 17 years. I know what AA offers me. I'd never stuck a toe in the water. There was an experience available that was so much bigger than anything I'd ever been involved in. I'm looking forward to talking to some people this weekend. The one thing I'll tell you, this is a program of action. Katie likes to say that a moment of clarity that's it's not followed by action, is of no value. What happens is I'll come to these things and I get around people that are in the solution. I get comforted knowing that the solution is out there. And what happens is, and by God, I think I need to do an inventory. I think you're going to have to do this. I think we need to get with that annoying big book guy from my group and see if he'll take me. But what happens as I go home and I fall back into my life, I fallback into the kids and Ifallback into work and Ifallback into stuff before long, I really should be doing this stuff. And if you're not experiencing what you hear people describing sometimes, I'm here to tell you it's still available. And it's available out of a very simple process right out of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Get with somebody who's done this deal and say, show me what you did. You know, but I love any time we get involved in something like this. It is such an honor to get to come up here and talk to you people. We love the program of Alcoholic Anonymous, We love the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I want to wish you guys a wonderful conference and I look forward to speaking with anybody the rest of the weekend. Thanks a lot.