Taking on Long-Term Goals One Day at a Time – Paul M.

my name is paul i'm an alcoholic good to be here and it's good to be sober and i want to thank the committee for giving me the opportunity in some small part of the service here tonight and my first thought is there is there anybody in minneapolis that's not here tonight you know you go downtown now it's like one guy walking around going where the hell is everybody you know and if he's alcoholic he'd be like oh they're all at the party and nobody invited me you know i didn't want to go anyway you know i just got a little spiritual postcard here from bob the speakers have been wonderful so far don't screw it up thank you bob that vote of no confidence and uh And it's something to be, you know, we say here, oh, you're a good speaker and you're a good Speaker. But I run with some people who, they're non-alcoholics, and they think being a good Speaker in Alcoholics Anonymous is like being the tallest of the seven dwarfs, you know? Kind of a little cachet in here, but doesn't go too far out there, you know? And talking about ego deflation, I called my sponsor tonight, I always do. We get into this dog and pony show. He'll say, where are you? I said, I'm in Minneapolis. Oh, you went all the way to Minneapolis to talk? How far would you go to listen? St. Paul, you know? But I told him how much he mattered to me, which is really a step forward for me in Alcoholics Anonymous. was before I came to AA, I was like the Irish man who loved his wife so much he almost told her, you know? And speaking about ego deflation, I Was at a conference there recently and this guy came up to me and he goes, are you Paul McQuaid? And the good news about sobriety, I answered quickly and in the affirmative you know I said yes I am before it had been like well can I get back to you on that you know and if I was Paul McQuaid why do you want to know and on the off chance that I am he says yes he goes I just want to tell you you saved my life so my very shallow low self-esteem starts to lift and I go pray tell more you know and uh hold nothing back you know and he says yes i was in a car in a long car ride and my wife and my mother-in-law were in the back seat and they were arguing incessantly like bickering back and forth i couldn't take it anymore and i always carry some acds in the glove box and i reached in and i grabbed one i stuck it in and it was you speaking so right away now i'm trying now you talk about self-appointed expectations this is what I think he's going to say I think He's going to say Paul the minute I put your CD in and your melodic voice started to emanate from the speakers it felt like the car was enveloped in a sense of serenity a sense of peace and good will to all mankind washed over us and it felt like the wheels lifted off the road and the car started to float down the road and then the sunroof opened and a white dove came down and sat on my head and I heard a voice saying this is Paul who I'm well pleased with but what he did say you see I put your CD in and after about five minutes I turned around and my wife and mother-in-law were fast asleep in the back of the car he goes thanks a lot you know i'm like don't mention it so just a shout out to the tapers here tonight if you have trouble moving this cd which you probably will even though i pre-ordered 200 just to take the bad look off it you know may i suggest you send out an email blast to some of the local sleep disorder centers you know do you desire coma like sleep help is on the way paul mcquade guaranteed to bring you from insomnia to narcolepsy in one listen, you know? And I can even write the reviews. This guy is so boring, he even put me to sleep. Signed, The Sandman, you now? I was just scratching the surface until I heard this guy. Signed Rip Van Winkle, you kno? Anyway, I'd like to tell you a little bit about how it was and what happened to Harners today as I move into the second or third hour of this talk that I'm going to give tonight. I should be able to cover. I've just seen the blood drain on a newcomer's face over here. I know this may come as a shock to some people, but I'm not from the neighborhood originally. It's about 25 years now since I left my native Cuba. Like Teresa was saying last night with the Irish, we talk pretty quick too, you know. I'm really starting to feel for these guys. this guy will be sitting later on with his hands in two buckets of ice you know I went there to do service and now I've got carpal tunnel syndrome thanks a lot but joint flex what can I tell you you know? But it's an honor. I'll tell you a little bit, you know, I'm from Northern Ireland. I grew up just out of the city of Belfast and the sort of neighborhood I came from, if you didn't drink, you move, you're not a drunkard. I don't know anybody who didn't drink. And I just want to welcome you here at Alcoholics Anonymous tonight. If you're new here tonight, there was some people that were new. I want to welcoming you to the greatest a singular event in my life. I want to tell you what was told to me and what's true in my life, that this is the last thing I tried and the first thing that ever worked. I tried many ways of stopping drinking, but I couldn't stay stopped because I was shackled to self. They talk about insanity for an alcoholic. Oh, you see somebody dancing on the bar? That's not insanity. I bartended for years. That's just irrational behavior, irrational drunken behavior. If you want to see real insanity in my life, send me out there with no drink and no program. But use people here tonight, and we need these newcomers. Alcoholic Sonoma is like a backwater pond. It needs fresh water. If it doesn't get fresh water, it becomes stagnant. And nothing grows in stagnant water. I die, you die, we all die. What's the point? And I think about what these two men have done here behind me, Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob? We can trace this moment in time back to that moment in time when Bill Wilson didn't, I don't know where it became in vogue that the newcomer has to call the person with sobriety. Bill Wilson went looking for Dr. Bob because he realized if I can help another alcoholic, I may stay sober myself. The turning point in all our lives and in that seminal spiritual moment when Bill Wilson with six months of bratty went looking for Dr. Bob and the thing about it was Dr. Paul was an educated guy and he'd been talked to talk that preached that preached over but this was different this was somebody talking his language and the incredible thing that's almost missed I missed it myself When Bill Wilson went talking to Dr. Bob, he didn't say to Dr., Bob, I got six months and you should do this and this and this. He said, I've got six month and this is what I did. And that's what alcoholic synonymous is. It's pure pragmatism. We keep what worked and we get rid of what didn't work. You talk about laboratory tested, people died drunk until they got this thing right. Because there's not a whole lot of options for alcoholics of our variety. There's jails, institutions and death. And once you've been to the first few times, the third one starts to look like a good option. But there's a fourth option on the table and it's a pretty good one. It's called sobriety courtesy of Alcoholics Anonymous where people like us can come in here on the worst night of our lives and it is not the grace of God when you walk in here on the one night you need to drink the most and you're given the grace not to drink. And it's so much more than grace because it's mercy. What is mercy? Real mercy is entering into someone else's chaos and that's what Alcoholics Anonymous did in my life. When everybody was going that way, AA came this way and we do together what I can't do alone as I said this is the last thing I tried and the first thing that ever worked and we're here today on our sobriety I was just watching the Bill Wilson interview before I came down and I'd heard this before but he talked about that vision that he had in Towns Hospital this chain like one alcoholic helping another alcoholic one ahead and one behind And that's what I ask in my 10th step. How strong is my link in the chain? Is it strong to the people that went ahead of me? And more importantly, is it strong for the people coming behind me? If someone comes up to me tonight and says, Paul, can I go to that place? Can I comprehend the word and know serenity? Can I know peace? Absolutely walk this journey with us because we trudge this road together. We're not sitting in some bar drunk tonight trying to figure out what's it all about, you know? You know those three o'clock in the morning conversations? Am I here? Are you here? Is this all really here, you now? I know everything I need to know. I found out in Alcoholics Anonymous. My name is Paul and I'm an alcoholic. That tells me who I am, what I am where I am and most importantly what I need to be doing. And if I know that, everything's all right. And when I'm all right, everything around me is all right too, even if it's not. Alcoholics Anonymous by its very virtue helped me to come to terms with my past so I could live in the present, which is the rest of today for the future. What a program. I came in here just to stop drinking and I got so much more. if you're new here tonight I want to offer you what was offered to me hope in human form that's what Alcoholics Anonymous is would rather see a sermon than hear one people get people sober God works through people and the spiritual conduit that he's using here is a fellowship of Alcoholics Synonymous if I'm doing AA alone I ain't doing AA I'm doing something but it ain't AA I need you and that's what Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob that time when they first met each other and I'm sure the I don't know if the words were actually said but it was a shot heard around a drunken world because what Bill Wilson was saying to Dr. Rob he said I need You and You need me because I am You and you are me and like my good friend Liz B always says without you there is no me alcoholic tsunamis this collective thing we come in here and the thing about it is we come in here we've seen it from 50 years right down to one day and we come in here, and it says in one of our books that alcoholic tsunamas is one of those places where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts one day, a month, a year, ten years, and we came in here and we throw it all in the middle. And energy, spiritual energy is like electricity. It flows from positive to negative, not the other way around. And we lift each other up by the very virtue of our sobriety. And we all have worth and value here tonight, whether you've got 50 years or one day. Because you know what? We're dealing in God's economy here. And in God'S economy, everybody has worth and volume. And the coin of the realm and the spiritual currency that we use is experience, strength and hope. How we drank, how we got sober and our hope for the new person. What a concept. What a program. I often tell a story about how Alcoholics Anonymous got started in Ireland. And if there was ever a country that needed AlcoholicsAnonymous believe me it was Ireland. Even to this day I was just over there last week and it's still coming along like in Ireland you don't get too many sightseers you know what I'm saying you don' have to ask who the newcomers are you know who they are they're usually sitting in the back row with a black eye and a busted lip from being in a street fight and that's just the women the guys look even worse your own. In 1946, there was no A in Ireland. There was a guy who got sober. He was from Ireland. He got sober in Philadelphia. His name was Conor F. I'm sure in this story it tells you the power of one alcoholic working with another. When all else fails, send in a.a because i guarantee you tonight there's somebody drinking them say i don't have to knock on too many doors tonight i've never been in this building ever in this time before my life but if i leave this auditorium now i wouldn't knock on Too Many Doors and I'll find somebody drinking themselves to death right now totally oblivious to what's going on in Alcoholics Anonymous and the friends and the family and welcome to all and on tonight who are standing around the bed saying, what should we do and what should we call and who should we call? And my program says, call me. I might not get chosen but I've got to be willing to go because Alcoholics Anonymous knows what to do with the man or the woman on the bed when all else fails sending AlcoholicsAnonymous. And that picture of the man on thebed, it sums up the whole spiritual virtues of AlcoholicsAnalymous You see the guy sitting on the bed hunched in shoulders terror frustration bewilderment despair his very body language screaming off the painting and the two people from maya leaning in open expansive please come with us walk this journey with us and we said there in ireland in 1946 this guy connor effort two years of sobriety. He went home to Ireland on a retirement vacation, and he realized there was no AA in Ireland. He sent a letter to General Service, and they said, well, why don't you start a meeting? And they sent him a startup package. And a bit like Bill Wilson 10 or 11 years earlier, he ran around, got a lot of closed doors, a lot of whatever. And finally, he met a woman just like Henrietta Seiberling. Her name was Eva Jennings, a non-alcoholic. And she says, I know a doctor who works with alcoholics. And you got talking to this doctor and this doctor says, I work with alcoholics and I haven't even heard of AA. But I'll tell you what, we got a guy down in one of the beds down here. His name is Richard P. This guy's been detoxed 25 or 30 times. You make any impression on him, I'll give you the full support of this hospital. Connor F went down to the guy's room and did what I'm going to try to do tonight. Sure, experience strength and hope. Harry drank. Harry got sober. And the hope for the man in the bed. Richard P., just like Dr. Bob, had been talked to, talked at, preached at, preached over. But this was different. This was somebody eyeball to eyeball. This was someone who knew his language. This was the language of the heart. That thing that we have here together where we understand each other. I might not have stood next to you drinking in the bar, But when you say an alcoholic, I know enough. I know you've experienced terror, frustration, bewilderment, despair. I know your put a drink to your lips as the tears roll down your face. I know like in my case, you drank against your own will for God's sake. I know that quicksand stretched all around you on many occasions. And Richard P. realized this guy was talking his language and he got out of his bed. And this guy would sometimes get drunk on the way home from the hospital and he got out of the bed and he left and never took another drink to the day he died in 1973 that's the power of Alcoholics Anonymous and those two men started the first meeting in Dublin and they got up to about 45 members in the first summer now check this out the first Summer 85% of the home group the first group got drunk could you imagine 85% of your home group getting drunk but they hung in there and they hunkered down some came back, some didn't and A is alive and well now in Ireland I have a special place in my heart I have a special place in my heart for A in Ireland I was over there last week my brother's got about 16 years I'm from the north of Ireland outside of Belfast and it warms my heart to see what happens in AA in Northern Ireland. They talk about people who normally don't mix. How about people who never mix? But there's one place that they mix in Alcoholics Anonymous. I've been at AA meetings in some of the darkest days of the troubles. Things are peaceful now, but when things are rough and there was one place that people would come together and it was Alcoholics Anonymous, I remember going out, I was home on vacation one time and I got asked to speak at a meeting and things were bad, I mean really bad. And we drove into Belfast and there were burning buses and barricades and we drove across from West BelfAST to East BelfAst. I'm a Catholic in the Protestant area. We drove across what's called the Peace Line. And like, I've been living in America for a long time and I've got three other guys in the car and you've got to cut the atmosphere with a knife, you know. But I love AA humor. this one guy says just think of it paul the last time a catholic was in this part of belfast after dark he was in the trunk of the car you know so we went to the meeting and these guys realized the commitment that we'd taken under the circumstances and no words were said but a firm handshake i laughed there's all these kids hanging around and they've got a thing called joy riding with the steel car drive them around them burn them and the guy says to the kids hey kids don't touch that car these guys are friends of ours and we went into the meeting and we left everything out outside the door and i sat in a meeting with people that i was probably diametrically opposed on every issue except one our alcoholism and that one issue that was more united is that night they never divided us I'm not going to tell you we left the meeting and went skipping down the road singing come by ah but I felt good knowing they were sober in the world and I think they felt good knowing we were sobering the world this is a special place we have here the magnificent reality of Alcoholics Anonymous I'll be honest with you I'll never took sobriety for granted, but I took AA for granted. Yeah, there's a meeting down there. It's there three nights a week. They should be happy that I'm going. And then you hang around here and you learn the history and you learn what's going on here. And you realize at times in AA's early history that our very lives hung by a thread and a left turn here or right turn there and who knows where we would be. Because I believe of all, what is a miracle? I know we throw the word miracle around a Latin AA, you know? I got up this morning, had a bagel. It was a miracle. And I had cream cheese, another miracle. What is a miracle? A miracle is a complete reversal of the up or upheaval of the laws of nature. It's in my nature to be drunk right now and I'm not. Now how did that happen? Didn't happen because of me. It happened because of alcoholic synonymous. that first word of the first step we i drink we stay sober and this wonderful thing and there's a guy that speaks guy tom and i like what he says he says and i'll echo those words because they're so true personally and i speak in the singular and i'm so glad we talked about the history was talked about here i don't want this thing going down on my watch I want this thing to be around for a long, long time as it says in one of our books since man first crushed grapes there's been people like us couldn't fit in took drink couldn't sit down couldn't get in ran at life with drink ran away from life with drinking we were society's first outcasts nobody knew what to do with us until Alcoholics Anonymous came along and Bill Wilson went to Dr. Bob because, you see, I need you and you need me because when you talk about you, I find out about me and the great news of Alcoholics Anonymous is we are not alone anymore. You know, and in my own life, you know, I used to get into a lot of mental gymnastics when I first came to Alcoholics synonymous. Why did I become an alcoholic? Where did I become an alcoholic? When did I become an alcoholic? You know the old alcoholic conundrum, what came first, the chicken or the keg, you know? Few alcoholics got drunk trying to figure that one out, you know? I mean, I believe if you sit down, you could probably figure out why you took the first drink. Intellectual curiosity, right of passage, peer pressure. But why the compulsive drinking? I sat down with four or five guys my first night drinking. We whacked up a couple of cases of beer. Why was I the one guy? I know them to this day. Why Was I the One Guy That Destroyed His Life Over and Over and Over Again? I don't know. If you're looking at the answer to that question, I don' t know. I don't know why I became an alcoholic and those other guys didn't but I'll tell you I know why I stopped drinking I stopped drinking and when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous I heard these three words pitiful incomprehensible demoralization there's not a person in this room who drank alcoholically that doesn't know what those words mean and they mean different to everybody I didn't have to ask for a thesaurus could you explain that again I'm not really getting it pitiful income for me it was sitting in an apartment in Rockaway Beach 3,000 miles from my family burnt every bridge on numerous occasions quicksand as Bill Wilson says stretched all around me if another man had done to me what drink did to me I'd have killed him with my bare hands and it's something when you're sitting as I was at 30 years of age and everything's gone and everybody's gone and you realize, like I realized, you know what? I backed the wrong horse. Because for a long time alcohol did for me what I couldn't do for myself. Alcohol worked. It worked like a charm for many years. For whatever reason, I don't know and I don' t care anymore. I had a hole in my soul and I tried to fill it with booze and people and places and things. Always looking for an outside fix for an inside job and I'd have some symbolic victories along the way but nothing of any permanence and I drink on and I drank on and good people if the love of family and friends could get me sober I would have been sober a long time ago but it's not the only thing that worked was another alcoholic and I drunk on I drank gone and I grew up in Northern Ireland ahead of the troubles. I had a big chip on my shoulder, working class Catholic from the wrong side of the tracks, big chip of my shoulder. In fact, I came to A and a guy says to me, you know something, Paul, you're a well-balanced guy. And I thought to myself, finally, somebody knows what's going on around here, you now? He said, yeah, you got a chip on both shoulders, you kno? I hated everything. I hated everybody. Could always find the needle in the hair stack and sit right on top of it, you know? So I'm blaming Northern Ireland because my life isn't coming together. I'm the sort of an alcoholic, I'll just give you a quick like, when I started drinking, I'm this sort of a guy, I was getting my stomach pumped out at 14 and 15 years of age. I'm that sort of guy, you might find your front garden tomorrow morning, 18, 19 years of age, good family, good principles, and I drank on and drank on and drank on. By the time I'm 23 or 20, no, 22, 23, my life's falling apart, but I don't want to look in. I'm into the blame game. I am a finger pointer. I want to look out. So I come home and I'm blaming Northern Ireland. I said to my father, I come home one night, you know, alcoholics were such grandstanders, you know? I come home and say to my father, sit down. I got some bad news for you. I said I'm going to America and don't try and talk me out of it he says talk you out of it will help you pack when are you going on you go Columbus let me give you some fatherly advice turn left at Greenland you know I hopped on When you're on the fly, you're an alcoholic. Erlingus, Ireland's national airline. The plane's still going down the runway and already the cabin crew's serving drinks. The plane is at like a 45 degree angle and the cabin crews are like Sherpas pushing these drinks carts to the... And everybody's ringing their bell looking booze. Bing, bing, bING, bIng, bINg, bInG, bИng, BING, BIng. You'd think you were in a pinball machine rather than an airplane, you know? and I washed up in this neighborhood called Rockaway Beach New York now it's amazing how alcoholics we got that built-in GPS system you could have blindfolded me and put me in a sack I'm going to find a neighborhood that drinks as much if not more than the one I just left and you talk to old timers in Rockaway beach it's a big Irish American neighborhood and they go oh Rockaway Beach the Irish Riviera it should have been caused cirrhosis by the sea they had more alcoholics per square foot and to make matters worse I got a job as a bartender now I'm using the word bar here in the loosest possible context it was a sort of bar you got thrown into rather than out of, you know? This bar had it all. Alcoholics, drug addicts, degenerate gamblers. And that was just the staff. That wasn't even the customers, you know. I'll give you a metal picture and then I'll move on. If you want to see a full set of teeth in this bar, you need 32 customers, you Know what I'm saying? So, male and female. every now and again like a glamour girl with like three teeth would stumble into the place upset the whole ecosystem you know hey baby where have you been you know oh but water finds its own level instead of alcoholics there's a lot of crazy drinking in this bar And what that helped me to do, guys drinking first thing in the morning. The story of my life, I would draw all these imaginary lines in the sand if I drink in the mourning. I was a mourning drinker for years. If I ever... The only fact that I could operate in that job, I was in a job where I could walk behind the bar at six o'clock at night and the first drink I poured was mine. So every line I would dry, every line that I would drink, every line they would draw on the sand, I would reach it, feel comfortable with it and step over it. I think that's called denial for the alcoholic. But alcohol is cunning, baffling, and powerful and above all, it's patient. If you be alcoholic, it'll get you and it got me but good. The worst years of my drinking, 27 to 30, were after I made a firm conviction not to drink anymore. The worst year. The time I was 26 or 27, I'm hitting hospitals. I'm having convulsions, seizures, round-the-clock drunks and you know the equation. the drunks get longer and the peer between them gets shorter. And I reached that point, I'm really trying to stop drinking. I'm doing a lot of things it talks about in chapter three. I'll stop for this and I'll stopped for this. And, uh, I'm making oaths and proclamations and there wasn't many around, but any that were, I'M SWEARING IN YOUR LIFE AND I'M SWEARING in mine, but I drink again and I drink Again. And it's one more attempt at not drinking followed by one more failure, drinking followed by one more attempt at not drinking ad infinitum as our book says. I live in that terrible place, that round-the-clock drinking. I love that iconic scene in that movie The Lost Weekend when Ray Milan wakes up and he knows he's got a second bottle and he's panicking for another drink and then he looks up and He sees it in the light fixture. And the bottle is casting a shadow across the ceiling. Billy Wilder, the director, wasn't an alcoholic but he knew about imagery. Living under the shadow of a whiskey bottle. I lived under the shadow of a whiskey barrel for many years. Not tonight. Not tonight my friends. We're living in the sunlight of the spirit here in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'm sitting there, drinking around the clock against my own will, shackled to self by the very biochemistry of this disease. I used to have seizures coming off drink. Now I'm having them while I'm drinking. I'll give you a little vignette. I try to stop drinking by myself. Not drinking is terrible. Believe me, if you're new here tonight, there's a difference between giving up and letting go. not drinking the minutes feel like hours and the hours feel like days i feel like i'm sitting in a cell like the count of monte cristo marking them off on the wall i'm free today because of alcoholic synonymous i'm as free as any time i've ever been in my life i'm from northern ireland we sang about freedom we marched we fought in the streets for freedom I wouldn't have known freedom if it had jumped up beside me I'm free tonight I'm as free tonight as I've ever been in my life I'm freed from the one guy I could never get free from which is me I'm living in the one place I never lived which is right here, right now every time I was going to have a nervous breakdown in AA, it was half an hour from now it never actually happened, you know I was a fearful person and a fearful people a fearful man will always find something to be afraid of there's a bogeyman behind every tree and I'm sitting there in that apartment and I'll give you one vignette I'm trying to come off drink I used to come off these drunks and I'd sit there and I said to myself okay Paul let's try and look at this with some degree of why am I doing this and here's the best that I could come up with before I came to AA lack of willpower if I had more willpower I could have half a dozen drinks and go home like that guy lack of discipline I was always a rebel buck in the system and then my ace in the hole was punishment from God he's headed for me from day one I got to AA and I found out none of those reasons are true I drink alcoholically because for a long period of my life alcohol is a suitable treatment for alcoholism but you know what it stops working and I end up at the jumping off place I've been to jumping off place twice in my life once with drink and once without drink and no program. Different type of pain, but pain nonetheless. So I'll just give you a little vignette. I'm in this bar of what alcoholism is. I found the hard way, if you're new here tonight, a drinking problem is solved by not drinking. Our book talks about it, the heavy drinker, a medical reason, a romantic reason, and they stop or moderate, no problem. I know some heavy drinkers. They can do that, not us. The evidence is stacked to the ceiling that I shouldn't be drinking an hour. What is insanity? Bill Wilson says, insanity for an alcoholic is not the drinking. It's the rationalization of the first drink while physically sober. I walked in the bar stone cold physically sober and told myself it's okay to drink again when it wasn't. And that's the insanity they're talking about in here and i'm in this bar drinking one night i collapsed an alcoholic seizure i woke up in a hospital where i've been before in a restraining sheet strapped down and they give me some librium to get me off the ceiling and a couple of days later there's a person by my bedside who muttered a life, a lot in my life at that time. And I wasn't trying to be cinematic, but I took her hand and I says, I don't know why I can't drink, but it's obvious I can drink and I will never drink again. If you'd have got an oath, I would have signed it in blood. Bob D says, Paul, did I put you on a lie detector? You would have passed with flying colors and I would have because I believed it as much as I believed anything but you see here's the problem and if you're new here tonight this is the problem before I came to Alcoholics Anonymous I had nothing between me and the first drink a thought would become an obsession an obsession become a reality and once the clock starts ticking on that sequence of events I have no way of myself of stopping the clock up in this moment in time I have never beaten an obsession to drink and I've got into the ring many times it's like getting into the room with a heavyweight champion my eight-year-old daughter could say daddy don't get in the ring but don't get in there he means don't take a drink and I don't know how not to take a drink before I came to AA so I get back in the ring and I tell myself it'll be different this time I'll bob and I'll weave And I'll stay off the ropes But the result is always the same Sooner or later, maybe not today Maybe not tomorrow But I'm laying flat on my back Looking at the lights Saying how did this happen again And it's the epitaph of the alcoholic This time it will be different And I was in that hospital And I left that hospital And if you'd have told me I was going to drink again I'd have said you're out of your mind And if your new here tonight I implore you to get something between you and the first drink and maybe you're saying oh I just got one day this all seems very complicated believe me we have a symbol here in Alcoholics Anonymous an emblem and there's three parts to it unity, service and recovery and I believe you can put all three parts into your life from your very first meeting. Unity we do together what I can't do alone. Many meetings make it easy few make it hard, none make it impossible i gotta be here service heard a guy sandy b say one day the has paid great and alcoholic synonymous is serving why our book talks about it i'm shackled to self driven by 100 forms of it my holy trinity is me me me if you put away one more chair than when you said on congratulations you're doing service recovery maybe the steps seem like a foreign concept we got slogans live and let live easy does it one day at a time they were like the banisters to the steps for me so I believe you can put all three parts into your life from your very first meeting and I'm going to tell you something and I am talking here not in the theoretical I am taking in the pragmatic you can stay dry on two parts of the triangle you may even stay dry in one part of the triangle. But if you want to be sober, if you wanna experience what's on offer here, it's been my experience I had to put all three parts into my life. Hey! Alcoholics Anonymous is not for people that need it. It's not even for people who want it. It's for people to do it. It's a doing program. It's in the doing. And it's in doing things that you don't even believe in I thought I had to intellectually sign off and everything oh let me see these steps okay oh they make sense okay I'll do that one maybe I'll do this one nonsense complete nonsense and the grace of God now is you can go through that program merrily with your sponsor or you can Go Through Kicking and Screaming but isn't the grace of God the result at the end is the same a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps but what is alcoholic tsunamis if you're new here tonight people say oh you're just an arm's length away from a drink I suppose that's true I'm 12 steps away from my drink and that's a long long way from when I first came in here but they're not 12 steps up to anything they're 12 steps down a sense of humility. I've seen people drink again, alcoholics, nomads, I thought would never drink again. And that tells me it's a daily reprieve based upon my spiritual condition. And what this program allowed me to do was to go from a place of powerlessness. What is it? I'm powerless over alcohol. I got a body that won't let me drink and a mind that won't allow me to stop. My lifestyle is manageable, drunk or sober when I'm running it and I like to run it a lot this program allowed me to go from a place of powerlessness not to a place where of power but where of access to power 24 7 on unlimited supply because my problem believe me i need i'm in alcoholics and amas because this program helps me do what i couldn't do drunk or sober and that's live out there in god's world 24 hours a day under his conditions rather than my demands. There's days of sports, spiritual warfare out there and I better have something between me and the first drink. And don't get me wrong, I don't do this program perfectly. I stay away from the water walkers in AA. They never had a bad day in sobriety brigade. That's not been my experience. Alcoholics Anonymous for me is a reality check on how our life is going today. This is where the rubber meets the road. And there's days I'm sober and there's days I don't drink, but I stayed around here long enough to figure out the difference and know what I have to do. So I encourage you. I'm going to tell you something. If you're new here tonight, you hear people say, oh, I came to AA and I got my life back. I don'T want my life back, it sucked. I'm like, if you want to go right ahead, I had it for 30 years, I could do nothing with it, you know? Are there people in my life today when I was drinking? Absolutely, but things are different today. Like the story used to be, my little daughter going to bed. The world out there which it will can huff and it can puff but if I stay close to the principles of alcoholic synonymous my sober house doesn't have to blow down and where were we before we came to AA we were lost out there in a sea of booze and there was any coordinates it was pain and misery and every now and again because we're great starters would wash up on dry land and start to get things going again but everything was built on sand no permanence and the first drink always came along and were washed out with more debris in the last time. That's not the way it is today if I stay close to these principles of alcoholic synonymous. So if you're new here, I encourage you to get something between you and the first drink. And for me, as I said there, I come out of that hospital and I'll just sum up the difference between a heavy drinker and alcoholism and the insanity of alcoholism as I said earlier it's not those crazy things I do when I'm drinking it's those times when I am not drinking and I am shackled to self and something is not right and I don't know what it is and I can never put my finger on it but something is just not right and I want I am out there and people are saying to me and I'm thinking I'm not drinking and it's a funny type of insanity it's that it's like some Victorian halls of Bedlam where you see somebody really crazy in some Thomas Hardy novel and you go there's somebody really it's not that type it's this long in my case I would go off drinking I'm off a week or two and it's just long slow prolonged internal scream and here's what happens to me when I go out there with no drink and no program about a week goes by I get this stone in my shoe I don't know where it comes from but it's there two weeks go by I get a knot in my stomach three weeks go by the top button feels tight all the time a month goes by it feels like everybody's on my case even if they're not put an x in the calendar i'm drinking again because i can't live under those conditions now that's not a drinking problem i haven't had drink in my body for 30 days that's a living sober problem and i need the 12 steps to alleviate that nothing else and i've tried every other way of experience and peace and joy, and I'll settle. Happiness for me is overrated. I'll set up a peace of mind. And the only thing that's worked in my life, and I would try everything else, believe me. I remember coming to alcoholic tsunamis. I was two and a half years off drink, no program. I came into alcoholic tsunamas. I didn't owe very much money. Within two and a half years, I was thousands upon thousands of dollars in debt and I know why today. I was still trying to fill the hole in my soul. There's not enough stuff out there to fill The Hole In My Soul. I take a trip to the Caribbean. I feel good for a few days but I always end up back shackled to self. A bad jacket feels good for half an hour but the man the glass i can't get away from him 24 7 the only thing that's worked in my life is putting those steps now i'm not saying the steps are the panacea for every problem you're going to have but they brought me to a point in recovery where i could decide what was my work what was god's work and if i needed outside help but first things first i had to apply the steps to my life and I drank again after that after coming out of the hospital and that woman says to me I got to get away from you before I end up in an asylum and I say what alcoholics say I don't need you I don' t need nobody and that's why I have a deep affection for Al-Anon here tonight because that's what we do to people we just squeeze and squeeze and squeeze till they're like go away and drink or go away and don't drink but you must leave my life that's what we do to people if you come into my sphere of influence you're going down i'll take you down with me that's my alcoholism i'm not proud of that but that's the truth here tonight but i'm here to tell you as far now as you go with drink you can come back up and then someone alcoholic synonymous i'm never gonna stand up here like some snake oil salesman in a traveling medicine show and promise you the moon and the stars there's things i lost through drinking they ain't coming back. And there's things you lost through drinking and they're not coming back either. But because of this program, I can live with my past. Who among us could live with the guilt and the shame and remorse if it wasn't for the 12 steps? I wasn't a sociopath. I knew the bridges I burned. I new the damage I did. I didn't have to hire a team of detectives when it came to step four trying to figure out who these people are can you help me I knew who they were they visited me every night lying there cringing in the dark with the could have's and should have's the would have's broken promises slam doors different countries different continents then I realized an alcoholic slum was that every time I ran away from life I was the guy firing the starting pistol. And they allowed me to step up and look at my part in my life. And if you're new here tonight, you're going to have to do that too. And I encourage you with the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, we give each other those coins to their own self be true and the truth will set you free. And I'm here to tell you those people that are new here today that stood up nobody can live your life, only you. we need you to live the life that you are meant to have. I believe there's a miracle here with your name on it. Nobody can take it from you, nobody can take it for you. Come up and get the life that your higher power always wanted you to have And we do that as drinking alcoholics or alcoholics with untreated alcoholism we're living incognito in our own lives nobody can live your life you were given this special talent special gifts they're yours you've been drawing them for years and drink step up and get that life and live that life that you're meant to live because nobody else can live that life only you and we're here together when we need you on this journey we're in this lifeboat together we are survivors from the sinking ship people who normally don't mix and do we sail off into the sunset patting each other back no we circle looking for more survivors and we help them into the boat and it's none of my business who's sitting next to me but I better be willing to put my hand out and help them for that I am responsible and I came into Alcoholics Anonymous I drank again after that I drank for three more years after that bottoms to bottoms but I came in to Alcoholics Enormous I was 12 steps by a guy who saved my life from the old South Bronx group and they had a mantra we don't give up on anybody and these guys came and they carried this message. My message might even keep me sober. They carried this message with one alcoholic working with another and that's what Dr. Bob said, right? When he said more than three minutes and I've said here in 50 minutes when he said at the 1950 convention you take all this away and what do you come down to? You come down to love and service. One alcoholic helping another. We all know what love is and we all know which service is and he was the mvp of 12 steppers 5 000 drunks in 15 years nobody can touch those numbers so knew what he was talking about love and service and that's what those guys did to me busy men took time out of their busy lives they carry this message to me and they brought me to alcoholic synonymous the greatest singular event in my life but the only problem was i came in here and it talks about in our book Contemporary Investigation you're looking at it I looked at these steps and there was people talking about the problem and the solution and how to go from the problem to the solution but as Chuck Chamberlain used to say you'll eventually hear what you came here to hear and you'll eventual see what you come here to see but you have to have eyes to see and ears to hear and I had neither and I sat around here I looked through those steps I thought they were very touchy very feely very warm and fuzzy I'd do these steps the next thing I'd be wearing flip flops in the winter time I'd have like wind chimes hanging up around the house you know join an Oprah's book club where does it all end you know I'm like Irish stoic stuff everything don't tell nobody nothing have another drink and you'll be alright. That was my code of conduct. It might have flew in the bar but it wasn't flying too far in here. I was sitting in the rooms of alcoholic tsunamis, rotten with bar room mentality. Crazy or off drink. That woman that I talked about, we got into an argument one night and I drew back and I put my hand right through the sheetrock wall and she looked at me and she says, you're crazier off drink than you were on it. And you know what? She was right. I never punched a hole in the wall drinking and here i'm punching a hole in the wall two and a half years off drink no program in here in the first half of the first step i believe this we don't do the steps because they're nice we do them because they are necessary for recovery if i want to get physically and mentally and spiritually and emotionally rehabilitated i must work this program i know of no other way and i fought this program and i looked at this program and the steps I looked at from a basically two-dimensional just words on the page I didn't realize that they're not even three-dimensional they're actually fourth dimension it talks about we read it God may you find him now and that was the one place that had never lived right here right now I was in the past full of guilt and shame and remorse I was into more full of fear every now and again i'd wander through the present what's this place let me get the hell out of here you know right and you can fool them at 7 30 at night the coffee pot i've done it how's it going paul it's going great smiling from the teeth out but at 2 30 in the morning with the could have and the should have and the would have and another sleepless night two and a half years off drink you ain't fooling anybody and a guy you know here people say oh watch him he's a 12-step inspector I'm glad for the 12- step inspectors because this guy came up to me in a meeting one night he says Paul you got a minute and I was keeping my arms length bit of humor deflecting everything he says Paul you Got a minute you're dying and you're down in AA and the sad news is that helps on the wall you're like a starving man at a spiritual banquet there's all this food on offer and you're living on bread and water he had my number and against my better judgment which is most things that have helped me in AA in fact everything that's helped me an AA has been against my better judgment and I fought this program I know it's a 12-step program there's no one trick ponies i was joking with doug the other night and uh i had this fourth step built up and built up i don't know why i know i just like i bought into every negative thing i heard about the fourth step and uh I fought it and fought it fought it i'm two and a half years off drink and uh my sponsor's like Paul we got to move through this program because he says you've made a decision but you're not backing up he says do you want God's will in your life I said absolutely I want God's will in my life who doesn't want God'S will in their life for God's sake you know he said well you've got to get rid of the things that are blocking God's Will from your life do you know what's blocking God'S Will from your Life? No resentments, harms fears, defects of character, shortcomings you tell me you want a relationship with Him, I believe He wants a relationship with you but how can the sunlight of the Spirit come in when you have all this stuff in the way and that made sense to me that was a metaphor I could get my head around so I'm going to do this fourth step and I'm finally going to be able to do it I'm only going to go through this fourth stop you see, I'm an alcoholic I fought this fourth start for so long and then I said to myself they want me to do a fourth step I'm gonna do the best fourth step that anybody's ever done in the history of Alcoholics Anonymous I'm on to a fourth stop where they're standing around the coffee pot going did you hear about his fourth step was it really that good oh I heard it was a spiritual masterpiece that had resentments and harms and things that you're afraid of and things I'm afraid of and things we're all afraid of it was work of art I want a newcomer to come up to me and go excuse me are you the guy that wrote that fourth step that everyone talks about and I'd be like why yes I am and yes I did and it really didn't take that long either so I set to work and my sponsor told me Paul it's like driving to Florida from New York the big book of alcoholic synonymous will tell you exactly how to get there clear-cut directions you cannot get lost the 12 and 12 let's think it was a spiritual guidebook that will tell you what you might see along the way I'm thinking myself he's sober since 1961 I got like modern defects of character you know i found out the defects i have have been around since the garden but that's a story for another day so i'm an alcoholic you know i can complicate a brown paper bag so forget about just a piece of paper and a pen i'm at home i turn my apartment into what only can be described as a spiritual nerve center i got like flip charts magic markers highlighters four pots of coffee going there's a guy scott r said you're like a dog running on linoleum a lot of activity but no progress you know i lived in an apartment i got the phone off the hook and my sponsor shouting up at the window hey how's that fourth step coming i'm like oh it's coming man it's a barn burner it's common because your phone's off the hoop how am i gonna know when it's finished would there be like a puff of white smoke like when you elect a new pope oh look the fourth step has been completed and there was rejoicing throughout the land you know i'm sitting in the apartment i lived overlooking the atlantic ocean and rockaway beach i have another moment of clarity i says why am i sitting in an apartment i should be down the boardwalk looking at that special place where the sea meets the sky and drawing inspiration from that. So I slimmed down the operation and took it down to the boardwalk, you know? So now I'm sitting in the boardwork with my legal pad, my big blank legal pad. And I'm still into aesthetics. I'm trying to grow the columns really, really straight, you know. I'm stopping strangers. Excuse me, do these columns look perpendicular to you? They're like, those are wonderful. Who's your sponsor, Frank Lloyd Wright, you know? and my sponsor catches and he goes what are you like do you think you're Charles Dickens it was the best of times it was a good time it was one of the worst of times you know there's no I mean there's not one trick ponies but tell you what those steps did for me as you move through them it's then and only then that I was able you know when my life took on new meaning you know when my wife took on new meaning and started to mean something it's when I went through the program and I turned around and took another man through the steps. That's when great events came to pass in my life. If I fail to enlarge upon my spiritual life, shame on me. I'm going to say something here and it's a bit off the topic but I believe somewhere, someday I'm gonna be asked one question. What did you do with the gift that was given to you? Well, I worked on myself and then I worked on myself some more. I did some more self-actualization. No, what did you do with the gift that was given to you? Shame on me if I put it in my back pocket. If you're new here tonight, if you're a new here today, if you come to get, but you stay to give, and it's in giving that one receives. and I had all these ideas when I first got sober I remember saying to my sponsor you know I think I'm going to go down to Indy and help Mother Teresa out you know he said no, no,no you're going to be you're gonna go to the meeting and you're gunna put your hand out for the still sick and suffering alcoholic and I'm here to tell ya as I say come into Alcoholics Anonymous just wrap this up 30 years of age didn't even have a high school diploma was a bartender I bartended the last 5 years drinking I bartend the first 12 years now eh I was able to take on long term goals and chip away at them one day at a time my sponsor said why don't you go back to school or in your case why don'T you go to school I said how can I do that he goes how do we do things around here Paul, one day a time I took a class I took another class I got a degree, a second degree two graduate degrees I work with special education children and it's the greatest joy in my life applause I go to these kids' houses, some of them who won't graduate. And I go there with my Mickey Mouse problems and realize I get a full knowledge of my condition and what's really important and what not important. I come into Alcoholics Anonymous and you know, I wanted to be these things, a father and a husband and a good worker, but I couldn't. But my sponsor says it was an active alcoholic. You're not an active alcoholic anymore. You can take on those long-term goals and you can show up for them one day at a time. And one of the great joys, I was 41, 42 years of age and I was blessed with a daughter who's the greatest joy in my life, who I love more than I love life itself. But I know today if I take one drink, I'll push her to the one side for the second drink. And I know that today. I know the truth about me and alcohol today. I almost drank myself to death in a lie and I'm free tonight. He'd be going on a plane in New York and come here. Before I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, booze was a common denominator in my life. Every decision I made was divided through drink at least once. I don't care if it's going to here or the wall. Enough booze to get me there, enough when I get there, enough to get my back. And when you live your life on those parameters, your life gets smaller and smaller and small with less people in it. But the minute I come into A, it's the opposite. More and more people come into my life I love Alcoholics Anonymous and as I said there, I came in here I'm so glad they didn't have a clipboard of my first meeting because I would have checked the box for not drinking I would've been happy with that and I would Have sure changed myself up so much because alcohol is when you mention the first half or the first step, I got so much more besides because I got me back I got you back and I got him back and I lost a whole lot and I would like to end tonight on a few words of a place of my birth I know them but I'm always afraid I'm going to freeze may the road rise to meet you may the wind be always at your back may the sun shine warm upon your face the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again may God hold you in the palm of his hand thank you so much guys Thank you.