Why He Stopped Treating Alcoholism with Psychotherapy – Scott R.

My name's Scott Redman. I'm an alcoholic. I'm from the Bronx. Not a lot of cowbell activity in the Bronx If your gang told you to wear a cowbell, it was a bad sign Just wanted to tell you that. It really meant your days were numbered with that particular group I haven't smoked a cigarette in I'm 22 years sober since I'm 19 years sober It's a wonder to me. I just have to tell ya, when I came into AA, if I couldn't have smoked I think I would have blown my brains out. I just do. And I can't really be around it, especially for health reasons right now, but I'm just amazed. I'm amazed that a newcomer can get through a meeting without... I was a five-cigarette meeting guy. I used to drink scalding hot coffee to keep my throat open long enough to get a couple of cigarettes in. So if you're new here, God bless you. Just, you know, set fire to the person next to you and just suck in as much as you can. That's not against the traditions, igniting an alcoholic. Thanks so much for asking me here. I'd like to thank my friends who are here and the rest of the speakers. And thanks for showing me so much love and attention and care. I've been just treated so well since I got here. and thank you, Elliot, for treating me so good and spending your time with me today. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. I have a great life today. If you're new, I'm sure that thrills the shit out of you. I just knew I couldn't hear enough about it when I was new. I just wanted to hear more about your new car and your new, you know, skidoo and, you know, I just couldn't hear enough about it new wife in a house more more did you have you gotten a new spa you know and I'd sit in my chair at a lovely place called unit a which Clancy's only too aware of I was about five miles past any length that particular clubhouse and um I would sit in My Seat and just think that you know maybe you'll go home tonight and maybe your new house will blow up and maybe you're new skidoo will blow up while your whole new family is on it you know and we'll see how how spiritual you are next week. God, I hated you. And AA, by the way. I was brought up in the Bronx, in New York City. Always figured I'd wind up in South Dakota talking about alcoholism. I'm Jewish. I figured I would be here for the Jew hunt. You know, come on, Jaime, strap these antlers on. Always wanted to run a big buck Jew. It'll be fun. We'll knock his beanie off when he bends over to pick it up. We'll push him over. It'll been fun. It's good exercise for the newcomers. I'd apologize, but I'm not sorry. But yeah, my grandmother, if you want to know where she's buried, go to the cemetery. Whoever looks like they've recently turned over in their grave, that's where she is. And I grew up in the Bronx to a completely insane family. My wife never believed me about my family until she met him. And my mom threw an engagement party for us. My Aunt Rose came to the party and wore her wig backwards. And it had a bun on it. It had a bon on it? And the bun bounced off her forehead all night. And it was a look she was going after. It wasn't a mistake. She sort of wore it beret style. And that was the tip of the iceberg, believe me. Just absolutely insane. And if you got anything for free in my family, it meant it was stolen. And I had an uncle who was a welder who used to get free bales of steel wool. you know here's your paycheck and your complimentary bale of steel wool and his wife took a decorating course and made pillows and filled all the pillows with the steel wool so that stuff works its way through on you after a while so when you went to their house if you looked at the room everybody was moving a little bit you know the whole room was like a pulsing living thing they were insane Insane. And there was mental and physical abuse and chronic institutionalization and suicide attempts. Brutal. And if you're new here, all I've got is good news for you because my family had nothing to do with making me an alcoholic. I'm not telling you I didn't get hurt. I got hurt real bad. I'm telling you they didn't make me a drunk. I had very serious mental problems. I've had them all my life. And I still have them. And if it wasn't for you people, I'd be acting on them. But my problem is way worse than that. If it had just been a mental problem, I'd probably be in pretty good shape. There's lots of doctors. There's drugs they give you. There's all sorts of therapies. They work for millions of people. But my problems are way worse than that." I have a physical allergy to alcohol and I can't control or moderate. I have no governor on it once I start. And if it was just a physical problem, again, I'd be in much better shape because allergies are treated, doctors treat them really well. I mean there's tons of allergists, you know, doctors who just deal with allergies. There's all sorts of drug therapies and all sorts OF stuff but my problem is much, much worse than that. Because of the alchemy of this physical and mental problems swirling together, I developed this cancer of the soul that very few people understand. And I say very few people in terms of the world population. Very few people who actually have the disease understand it. They say only a fraction of the population of sufferers of this illness. And this cancer of the soul, this spiritual tapeworm ate me up from the inside and left me hollow and insane and alone and I didn't even know I had it. It plucked me beyond the possibility of being helped by well-meaning clergy, members of the medical profession, well-Meaning therapists. I was not alcoholic by the time I got to Alcoholics Anonymous. Again, I'm Jewish and Jews don't drink. you know because it might dull the pain and just come on South Dakota come on you can do it in addition in addition to the Judaism I had been in psychotherapy therapy for 18 years by the time I got to AA. I was going to be dead, but I was going to understand it. And I'm not putting therapy down. Therapy is great stuff. Works for millions of people. Big book says if you need a doctor, go get one. My colossal blunder is I was trying to treat my alcoholism with psychotherapy, which is like showing up at a gunfight with a knife. It's a colossal mistake. It'S a horrible mistake because I was doing good work in therapy, but i was dying from alcoholism. If you're a neurotic, I don't know if if anybody here has ever been referred to as a neurotic, but the idea of a neurosis is you have anxiety, anxiety, and you come up with a resolution for it, a way out. And it's a terrible idea. It's a horrible resolution for the anxiety. It creates more anxiety case in point. This buddy of mine in the Midwest calls me a while ago. He's working with a new guy and he sees the guy's got a month or so. He sees this bruise on a guy's chest. He says, what's that? The guy opens his shirt. He's got these huge purple bruises all over his torso. My friend says, what happened? I said, well, when I hit my bottom a month ago, I was going to kill myself. So I drank a bottle of vodka, got a vial of nitroglycerin pills from a heart patient. By the way, that's the last time the heart patient appears in the story. He is flopping around like a boated fish somewhere. He has collateral damage. He doesn't come back. He swallows the entire entire vial, and then starts slamming his body into the wall trying to blow himself up. You can't write this stuff. You can'T make this... He raised the bar for all of us, I think, in that moment. I really do. And, you know, if this guy's nickname is not Nitro or Boom Boom or something, then his home group sucks as far as I'm concerned. This guy should have a jacket, it should be on his car, it should been on a welcome mat to his house. His wife should say Nitro's chick on her shirt. I mean this guy should have nitro paraphernalia. You know you're going to hear some nutty stuff about alcoholism now that you're here. One of my personal favorites is that alcoholics don't like change, don't like change of any kind I've never heard anybody get to a podium and say oh man I just I hit the lottery I'm having sex with identical twins it's killing me the change is ripping me up I I just can't bear it for another minute I don't like change I don' like but I seem to have an endless appetite for change that that titillates me. I'm just saying it's not a real anxiety producer for me. But my personal favorite is that alcoholics are above average intelligence. I have only heard this at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. I, I have never heard it at an Al-Anon meeting ever, ever. And I have only hurt it at Alcoholic Anonymous Meetings. And it's not the product of some sort of, you know, it's It's not data from a survey. It's usually said by a guy wearing Depends, you know? So I go to therapy if I'm a neurotic and I free associate, I delve into my past, all sorts of different techniques to unravel and discard and come up with, shine some light and comeup with a better resolution for my anxiety. But I have alcoholism. So I got to therapy. How are you? I'm terrible. Why? Well, yesterday I was so drunk, I was too drunk to walk, so I drove. Well, what are we going to do about that? Let's talk about it. What were you thinking just before you did it? Nothing. Nothing. I wasn't thinking anything. My mouth filled with saliva. My brain got too big for my cranium. The room spun. I went out for cigarettes and wound up in Baltimore. And I was driving. I have no more idea than you do. This strange mental twist coupled with an allergy that I cannot stop drinking once I begin and the subsequent development of this horrible soul sickness and the landscape of it, the interior, the anatomy of the soul sickness is resentment, fears, and sexual misconduct. And once I'm in the grip of that, once a certain kind of thinking becomes established in someone with alcoholic tendencies, they've probably, and they're very gentle in the book, probably, ha-ha. they've probably placed themselves beyond human help. So if you're new here, I want to put forward to you that probably, and I'm not saying definitely, your problem is probably way worse than you even imagine. And that if you could really grasp the full magnitude of it, you'd look like an outtake from scanners and your head would blow up. If you could really get it in, because I'm telling you, I didn't get it when I first came in. It took me man, I'm grateful that I didn't get the full extent of the seriousness of my problem on one hand. On the other hand, I am really glad that I really understood on a certain level the enormity of the opportunity that was being presented to me here. And if you are new, I pray for you that you get on some level the enormITY of the OPPORTUNITY that is being presented here this way out. you know which actually leaves the sufferer in better condition than they were in before they contracted the disease that's a hell of a thing I grew up in this family it was the late 60s I drank till I didn't want to be a drunk overcame my alcohol problem with marijuana I'd like to welcome all the drug addicts here I'd to welcome any tweakers if there any tweakers here I like to walk them there you go someone had a leak in their head what the hell happened over there we're so glad you're here your special special and we love you and we're glad you're here if you've ever licked all the features off your own face welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous I'm not making fun of you I'm coming awfully close but but I'm really not I don't care what you've got I don' t care if you're a dope fiend which is somehow worse than any of us I don''t care if your a dope Goliath a the Bigfoot of dope addicts just catch alcoholism we'd love to give it to you and um and i caught i caught alcoholism in alcoholics anonymous meetings that's where i caught a very mild case at first it got progressively worse and now it's really bad really really bad um i uh shot some heroin one day and was hitching hiking from the bronx down in manhattan i got picked up by my aunt and uncle and take him to the hospital. My father had had a massive stroke, and I couldn't show up for my old man the night that he died. I couldn' t even go into the room and touch him on the cheek, give him a kiss, and watch him take his light into another room. I felt like a pig, an animal. I had holes in my arms. The sound of the heart machine couldn' d even get in, and there were a couple of times maybe a boy ought to show up for his pop. It was that night, and I could' n answer the bell. and um it was one of those days where i um where i got it i i got it i somehow was able to get you know appreciate the agony and uh i had to do some really fast work i couldn't bear being that guy the this worthless piece of crap and what i came up with as quick as possible was it was heroin and needles and all i had to do is never put a needle in my arm again and i wouldn't be the piece of of junk that couldn't show up for his old man the night that he died. And I didn't, I didn' put a needle in my arm not for 13 years. I just drank till I didn want to be a drunk and smoked pot till I don't wanna be a pothead and overcame my marijuana problem with cocaine and like to welcome all the cocaine users here. Cocaine's particularly good for sex if you enjoy sex from the Neolithic period. period. And again, I hope you catch alcoholism because if you don't catch alcohol ism, it's going to be tough being a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's going to be really tough. And without the identification, this incredible gift of identification, I'm afraid we're lost. I'm afraid we are completely lost and I have been blessed. I don't know know how it happened. I think it, I don't know how it happened where I could find a way through my drug addiction to my real honest alcoholism and engage in the identification process. And it's been the triumphant arch through which I've walked to freedom. It's the biggest gift that I've received in Alcoholics Anonymous because as long as I stay in the middle of AA and continue to take the you know, faith without works is dead and works without faith are dead, and as I continue to balance those two things together and make sure that I'm doing both, then I can appreciate my alcoholism. And as long as I have identification, I'm fine. I'm fined. Shortly after that, I was acting in a Broadway play and a new usherette walked in with long brown hair and I took one look at her. I didn't even say hi to her. I went back into the dressing room of this show and stood up on a chair and announced to the male members of this cast that if anybody talked to the new usherette, I'd break all the bones in their hands and feet. And we've been married 31 years. And, you know, in part because we've never wanted to get divorced at the same time. You know, there's timing involved in this. There's timing and serendipity, I would say. One of the biggest problems I've had and continue to have is that the defective character of mind reading has been a big problem for me. My wife once commented to me that I wasn't, she said you're not a mind reader, you're barely a mind user. Which hurt my feelings and and I think that I know what people are thinking and they're never thinking anything good. I never catch people thinking good stuff. stuff. I never catch him thinking, hey you're a pimp, you know. I catch him thinking you're pointless hosebag and I don't know why that came up. We had our younger son, our beautiful son Micah and we were surrounded by friends and family got a ton of phone calls and he was really welcomed into our our community. And two years and nine months later, when our son Jesse was born, nobody even showed up at the hospital. It just was too hard to be around us. It just hurt too much. We pressed ourselves on the people that loved us like a thumb upon a bruise. Something was always wrong. We always needed something. It just didn't work. Jesse was sick. He wound up in neonatal intensive care. My wife is all alone and the maternity ward, and this is Cedars-Sinai Hospital. It's a big hospital in L.A., and this doctor I didn't know called me from ICU and said, where are you? Your family's in big trouble here, pal. There's nobody here. There ain't a balloon in the room, and your kid's sick. And I said, you know what? I can't find anybody to watch my 3-year-old. I can'T come down. And this doctor, who I'd never met before, said a pretty remarkable thing. Certainly in today's age of kind of the impersonal medical stuff that we see going. She said, why don't you, I'll give you my phone number and my address. You can bring your son over to my house and my husband will watch him. And I said no. I had no way to accept this woman's generosity. And it was another horrible night. It was the, this is a terrible thing. It's hard for me to say it, but it's just true. It was The Terrible Night My Son Was Born. because now my older kid was trapped in the house with this crazy man racked with guilt. I would have done better for Micah if I had taken him to the waiting room and left him alone with a coloring book. At least he could have got the hell away from me for a while. And little were we to know that this was going to continue for three more years from this tiny little paper cut. You know, sometimes I've heard it a lot and I believe people, you know, when they talk about how furious they were when they came into AA. And that is not my overwhelming memory. My overwhelming memory is of being terrified and brokenhearted. And the shame and guilt I felt about what a miserable father I was, what a measurable son, what an embarrassment I was as an employee. I was the kind of employee where they'd start accusing each other of having haven't hired me after like three months, you know. You, no, you, you brought them, no. And on April 22nd, 1985, my show business career was gone. My wife was a tongue-chewing, babbling idiot from prolonged exposure to me and our sons were six and three. They could barely read or write. Their small motor skills were screwed up and there was nothing organically wrong with them they were cut off from the society of other children they were just scared all the time and they couldn't put small tasks together and uh they were very sick and um i crossed the line i swear i would never cross again i put a needle in my arm and my uh and i called my therapist of record in my 18th year of psychotherapy and i got him on the phone it was my first jungian therapist and he said to me and i didn't know this until i came in and was fortunate enough to stick around here long enough to read our literature and read our history. And if you haven't done it yet, you have a great gift in store for you. And, if you haven't done it, yet you have the gift of really getting to understand Alcoholics Anonymous and how important, how primary, how I can't talk enough about this idea of identification identification, because it's everything. It's everything that we have. It is the reason why Bill and Bob talked for five hours instead of 15 minutes. It was the whole shooting match. God, I've always identified with drunks. That's why I spent a lot of time in bars. I mean, but identifying with, at any rate, and that therapist that day said there's absolutely nothing that could be done for you. He said basically what Carl Jung said to the man who 12-stepped the man, who 12 stepped Bill Wilson. And I didn't know that until I came in and read our literature. And it made me feel really a lot more part of AA because I had that experience. experience. He said, I can't help you. And I had looked at therapy as the only thing that resolved anything for me and my world split in half. And he, I said, what? He said the only thing I can suggest is we have you institutionalized. And that's again, what Jung said to Roland Hazard. And then he said the thing that Carl Jung couldn't say, he said, or you attend a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous. He says this to me instead of saying what Jung Jung said eventually, which is he told Hazard that since time immemorial, there were recorded cases of big, big personality displacements and spiritual experiences. Not just being a deacon, not just going to church a little bit. We're talking about big grassroots conversion experiences, really. Probably conversion is not the most popular word to use in AA meaning, but that's really what it boils down to. to have a surrender that where you have a subsequent conversion. And why I went to the AA meeting is a complete mystery to me. I have no idea. It's not because I thought it was a good idea. I didn't even know what the hell it was. I woke up at five o'clock in the morning, got a bad check to write you, got my best clothes on and went to unit A at seven o'clock in the morning, which is believe me, five miles past any length. And I walked into this room. I took one look around and I said, oh my God. Oh my God, how did I wind up in Alcoholics Anonymous? How lame is this? This is beyond lame. This is beyond church, beyond synagogue, this is some plateau of lameness I never even imagined was available to me. Alcoholics Anonymous. And everything Everything was a miracle. I'm a miracle, you're a miracle it's a miracle the coffee is a miracle the furniture is a miracle, it's a miracle Then the AA unsolicited advice guy, he got me You know Do I want what you've got? No. No. But thanks, Clem. I appreciate it. Am I issued my own bib overalls next week? Do I bring my own pair? What's the deal? Are we going to hook a rug? I just, my skin crawled. I couldn't even believe it. I hated everything about it. And I went back to that meeting every morning for a year. Milton Merrill was sitting in that meeting and Rosemary Williams and, you know, some incredible people were sitting inthat meeting that day that I got to meet. extraordinary Al Marine guys like that unbelievable and and I was out of plans I mean that's the only reason I can imagine I you know I didn't have a good plan like boom-boom you know but he was above average intelligence and I I was not. And I was out of plans. If you're new here, I pray for you that you're out of plans. If you are new here and you have a plan, it's probably a beaut. Don't use your plan. Grab one of us after the meeting and tell us your plan we want to know the plan and in South Dakota I guess you're probably close enough do a little run over the border something like that one more run this you know set yourself up financially for sobriety something like that whole plan and I stuck around Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm consider myself to be very fortunate that I fell in with a bunch of extremely active people out of the out of my home group which was a strange group it was a group one of the oldest groups in LA that had not made a contribution to central office in 30 years it was just they thought that the traditions were a theme park somewhere they it just and I judge no man because I'm too spiritually developed but it was it was an interesting lot a bunch and but I was very fortunate I was blessed with a sponsor who just didn't say no and he had me out on panels right away to act in and downtown and I just was very fortunate by the time I was six months I knew I was going to drink I seen the drill hundreds of times people come in did the work and change people came in didn't do the work didn't change got sick got sicker got to the podium shared their gift with us and shared their ass right out the door or stayed here and and became columns of sewage and sexual predators, although I judge no man again because of this spiritual development. And my sponsor took me to his house and he read me Chapter 5 and on the way through he took me through the first three steps and showed me how to do an inventory and I felt like I stopped stealing somebody's chair here because I had done a lot of activity and a lot if action and all of that was really positive And now I needed to be anchored to a personal spiritual endeavor. And that's when I got out of it. It lit me up, and it breathed new life into a lot of the action that I was taking. And it was great. It's just like when you have a baby. I'm convinced of this. Just as the baby is crying, and now you're done. You're done, so you're walking toward the baby to flip the baby into oncoming traffic. and what god has done is then the baby does something fabulous they plan that they just they turn over or say your name or they sing it probably or something that makes it all worthwhile and you're willing to go on for three or four months before you walk toward the baby again and uh and my sobriety has been a similar thing to that you know just as i'm running out of gas and i'm going is this all there is isn't anybody else doing anything here and then something extraordinary will happen and and I I started doing the work in the in the rooms and following the steps I I was lucky enough to start sponsoring some people early on and I've it's been my work that I've done since I'm a year sober and and uh I did step six and seven after I read my inventory and then I wrote up my eight-step list and I try to share this anytime I talk is it's simply the best reading of step eight I ever heard. I heard it from this guy. I was at my old home group, the North Hollywood men's stag meeting, Monday night men's tag. I was a couple of months sober and this guy's name was Nino. He had a heavy New York accent and he had never read chapter five before. He was there with the hospital group. He Had hospital plastic on and he was reading chapter five in front of this men's group for the first time and he got up to step eight and he read, made a list of all those we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. Jesus Christ! And he looked out into the room as if to say, Have you seen this? Do you know what the hell is in here? It's exactly how I felt about it. I just couldn't believe it. Not those people, not that money. I would not have taken that much money if I knew I had to give it back. You think I'm a moron? I'm above average intelligence, for God's sake. And you know, if you're new, don't worry about it. It's eight steps from where you are anyway. And eight's not even the annoying one. It's nine is really the annoying ones. there was an extraordinary handsome woman named Alabama Crothers who was I called her the secretary general of my group she was an extraordinary woman if you ever get a chance to hear one of her talks this is a woman who talked like this she kind of talked like Louis Armstrong and used to talk about you young girls don't remember this but I used to hide my gin in my douche bag Wow But that was before your time She was an extraordinary Extraordinary woman And I went to her I didn't like my sponsor's plan About Step 9 And I said And I asked her And I talked to her For the secret And she said You have to pay the money back Okay Damn I thought there was going to be some other thing, some other ritual we could go through. But it was the same thing my sponsor said. It was the paying back part that really annoyed me. And I didn't know how I was going to make a bunch of amends. I didn' t know how to make amends to my children or my wife or my dad. And my sponsor wouldn't tell me what to do. He said just do your job in Alcoholics Anonymous and see what happens. And a couple years after that I wound up holding one of the men I sponsor while he took his light into another room and my father came back into my life. I didn't plan it that way. That's just what happened, you know? And I realized that my sons had no relationship with my father because I had no pictures of him in the house because I couldn't stand to see him. It was too hard. It's too painful. So I got a bunch of pictures of my pop, put them up in the House, and then I got to tell his grandsons about him. What What a sweet guy he was. And they started having a relationship with their grandfather. I didn't know what I was going to do about my kids. I didn'T know how I'd possibly, I couldn't sit down with these little boys and say, I'm sorry. It would have been awful. What a terrible, miserable thing to saddle them with some frothy emotional appeal to them. I had to stop acting that way. I had To start going into their school and doing this embarrassing stuff, sitting down with teachers and saying, saying, my sons have been difficult and they're a problem and you're angry at them because they seem to be willfully squandering a great mental resource that they have. And you're seeing kids that don't have it and are working hard and these kids seem to be flippantly throwing this thing away and it pisses teachers off. And that's not what it is. They're sick. They're very sick because they've been living with me and I've been very sick. And we're trying to make a new beginning. Can you help us? and no one ever said no, never. They cut resources loose for the boys. They got tested. We got special ed for them. The teachers said get him into sports. Let's see if it affects the small motor stuff. Get him into music. Jesse wanted to play drums. I didn't have any dough, you know. But I went to the store and got him a drum pad. It's a piece of wood with a piece of rubber and a couple of sticks. It's all the money I had. But it was a big deal to me. My kid had expressed an interest in something and I had gone and backed him up and it got home and I told the guys at my home group about it and if you got a home group like I had you'll know why because they were interested they wanted to know about my family they wanted to know that we were doing good they were spending a lot of time with me I need to tell them the good stuff that I'm doing they want a little bang for their buck you know I don't blame a man I want to know what the payoff I like hearing that stuff and um within a there were a lot of burnout drummers in our group at that time and like in a couple of months the AA drum set showed up at our house there's like these guys showing them up with these mega death drums you know dude and and a couple years after that I got to go to the House of Blues and hear both my sons play the House of blues on the Sunset strip and just burnt the dump down, burned it down, just obliterated the place. And off to the side, there's this group of weeping middle-aged alcoholics. The kids are going, what is with the crying old people, man? What the hell is that all about? They don't look like backup singers. On May 13th of this year, I was diagnosed with liver cancer. cancer. Three months ago. And on May 29th, I had surgery and they removed part of my liver and I'm cancer free. And I had a... My prognosis was really dark for the first six weeks. I could have been gone in a couple of weeks. And, you know, the AA Army shows up. It was my turn in the barrel. You know, I don't like that. I don' t like being on that end of the deal at all. I don''t like it. I like being one of the scout leaders. You know. And both my sons were with me and my oldest son comes to my hospital room one night and he says, you know, Dad, I get that you' re okay. I get you're, I'm watching you. I get your, you know I get yo' reokay dying. I get y' are okay. But I' m not okay and I need to know that you're gonna go after this thing and we had this extraordinary talk where I got to talk to him about the fact that my the fact that I wasn't scared and I wasn t grinding this was actually going to free me up to pursue my recovery in a really robust way that I was going to be able to navigate my way through this very difficult maze of doctors and hospitals and all of the stuff that goes with that, that I was going to be able to do it like a gentleman. And I was gonna treat and be treated well by other people. And I got to tell him the thing that you told me when I came in here. You basically said, what do you want? And I said, well, I'd like to write well. I'd some, uh, I like romance. I likes good sex. I like some of money. And basically what you said to me was, okay, you can have all that. You might even get it. You can work toward it. But I want to ask you a question. Do you have to be miserable until you get it? Well, yeah. Well, Yeah. I mean, if I'm not miserable about it, who the hell's going to be? And if, and, and how's it ever going to come to be here's the terrible idea there. The idea is is that my suffering is going to purchase the thing that I crave. That's the rotten idea. Great design for living. If I just really focus on this and stay miserable about it, it's going to manifest somehow. It's a nutty idea. Also there's very little oxygen in there and very little room to do service in there. It's very distracting. So what you asked me to do or suggested that i do is that i act like somebody who somebody would be want to act like and be a good example of alcoholics anonymous and extend my hand and do the work here and work diligently and have my dreams and work diligently on my dreams as long as they were subordinate to the big deal and the big deal is i have had an experience of identification and conversion and i am trying to have that that experience with other men. That's the big deal, you know? And, um, what a talk for me to have with the kid who I was locked in a room with and couldn't even go to the hospital to see his brother the night that he was born. What a talk from me to have when I couldn't show up for my old man the night he died. And my son said to me, I have a vision of you playing with my children. He just got married a couple of weeks ago. And I said, Micah, I vote yes. I vote. Yes. For playing with the kids. I'm in, I'm in and, uh, and you know, I've got cancer free and I've got all this other stuff going. It's for the kind of cancer I had, it's extraordinary. And one of the reasons is, is cause I was, when I was taught in AA, I took immediate action on this. You know, most people, a lot of people suffer with this. I am not saying all, but a lot because people get into vapor lock and man, man, this happened really quickly and my AA brothers and sisters just, you know, there was a groundswell. You know, if you've been here long enough, you've seen this incredible mechanism, this incredible thing. Some years ago I had a really kind of hot show business career going and I was being considered to direct this situation comedy. I was in my first year of sobriety around the end of it And I really thought that if I got this job as the staff director on this sitcom, that it would really benefit the guys I sponsor. It'd be very good for them. They'd see the program in action and they'd see really Alcoholics Anonymous manifest itself in my income. And I directed one episode and I didn't get the job and I almost drank and I was humiliated. I went to my sponsor just so ashamed of myself. and Don said to me, well, I guess you have the show business God. I said, what? He said, well what keeps you sober? I said God. He said God keeps you sober, you didn't get a show business job and you almost drank, so I guess you have this show business god and he has abandoned you utterly. Now when I came into AA I heard about God getting people jobs, getting people into relationships God getting People parking spaces not a big issue in South Dakota, I understand But in other municipalities, it's a bone of contention, okay? And it sounded really wrong to me. You know, really, really wrong. Some years ago, we got nailed in the Northridge earthquake. We got hurt really bad. Our house got squashed and I got a physical injury. and shortly after that I was at an AA function out of town and there was a woman who used to live in LA and she walked up to me after I gave a talk and said oh I'm so glad God got us out of LA before the quake and I said oh so he likes you he likesертв but where crap but he likesyou and she said well I guess he just felt you had some lessons to learn i'm out of here man i can't stay sober in that world for two minutes i don't wanna with a god saying get him get the redmond boy get him no evacuation plan for you jew boy get him get him turn his wife to salt kill his goat put a finger in his eye get him smote him smote his ass smote anyone he talks to we'll sort them out later it's like god is some deranged game show host you know well key your car it's it's boils for you you're due for a rash and you'll figure it out later there's a reason for that rash if I saw the deliberate hand of God in the suffering of other people it's not a world that I'm particularly interested in being around and this is just me I've been asked to tell my story so what the hell, I will. My God expects me to do my job in Alcoholics Anonymous if I'm living in the house on the hill or in a refrigerator box. My God's not giving me refrigerator boxes. My God is not handing out cancer. For me, there's no reason why. There's people and there's cancer and sometimes people get cancer. It's a funny thing. It's not funny but it's interesting. When I found out I had cancer, there was nothing for me to do. I had no outstanding business. I didn't feel any tug. I didn' t have to, well, I got to call him or her or do it. There was nothing. There was just doing my job. The guys came up. We had some meetings. I had the new guys I'm working with. I told them if they really wanted to hurt me, they could stop calling. That would be the thing. If they're concerned about my health, call. Paul, if you want to see me suffer, isolate me. They don't get to do that anyway because the fellowship that you crave, well, you build that up around you. But it was just extraordinary to be in the middle of that, to be In The Pocket and one more time go, oh man, this thing is just, it's manifest, it works, It's real life, real time. In real time this thing works. This action works. And so when I did six and seven because I was awfully resentful at that company for not giving me that deal, I had to say a prayer to say, Pop, I'm done. I have to get a world big enough so a lot of things can happen. and I cannot get a show business job and not drink. And I said, you got show business, you take it. I'm willing to do anything for a living. I'll do anything für a living, just keep me sober. And a couple of months later I was working as a cook on a catering truck and I looked up and I said I did not mean this. This wasn't even on the long list. I don't know where the hell this came up. Now in L.A. when they make a TV show or movie movie, they hire a caterer. You follow them around in the truck and you make food. It's a great job. It's teamster dough. You're breaking a racketeering law, basically. But it's really good dough. But I'm Scott Redman. And the first movie that I catered, the executive producer and star of the film was a guy I had worked with in the business. And he stuck his head the first morning of the shoot, he stuck His head into the truck. And He said, Can I have a burrito? Scott? And I I said, well, what's happening, babe? He said, is this your truck? I said no, but it's my spatula. I got home and I called my sponsor and I said oh, we're getting the gift down. Yeah, it's beautiful. Really getting a gift. I feel like I've been voted most attractive man on my cell block. This is beautiful. and he said uh he said sounds like you've got a resentment i'm resentful at scott for working on a kitchen truck it affects my self-esteem pocketbook ambition personal relations and sex because i don't just hate stuff i re-experience the hatred i reexperienced it so when i wake up i water the hatred like a little flower i want to make sure it's developing and that it's alive and doing well the worst thing is when i forget to hate something you know and the guy goes hi and I go hi oh I hate him why did I do that now I'm gonna have to redouble my glowering and snubbing just to get back to where we were I hate so that it eats my brain in my heart and throws me out of my own life and I just had to work that 10 step I had so I wound up cater I wound observing people who had been my assistant directors and stage managers on shows I had directed. I wound up serving actors who I had directed in shows. I'd come back to my home group with a new tale of humiliation every week, and the guys would just go, ah! Ha ha ha ha! It was just tears were streaming down their face. And Armisenflit, that X for seeing me, and that's that damn mind reading. Nobody rubbed it in. Nobody was rude to me or cruel to me, but I know what they're thinking. It's that mind reading, it's terrible when they talk behind your back and when they do things behind your back, when they start thinking behind your back. It's horrible and it's hard to catch him. You have to accuse them of it all the time. And I cooked for three years. I showed up and gave him a dime for their nickel and my son, I thought we'd get intimate on Oscar buffing night you know night where we shine you know shine up all my awards. And the fact is my kid wanted me to teach him how to cook and he and I've been cooking together for 20 years that's what we've been doing when he was off at University of Chicago he'd call me up and I talk him through a sauce you know stuff we had been doing for all this time I didn't that wasn't the way I figured he and I would get close and my sons are 29 and 26 now Micah is just graduated for the public policies graduate school at Cornell University and Jesse's on a a five-year fellowship to get his doctorate in mathematics at Stanford. And it's not because God likes my kids more than the children are being annihilated. It's just what's happening in my house right now. You know, after high school, Micah went down to Chiapas and worked with the Zapatista revolutionaries for a while. Little adventure. You know? And could have been killed a thousand times down there. there. And I just, I can't live with a God who would do such a thing. My God loved my kid when he was in Chiapas. My guy loves my kid at Stanford, you know? And so I did my job for three years. I showed up and gave him a dime for their nickel. I was sponsoring a lot of guys, very active in Alcoholics Anonymous. I continued to write because it's what I like to do. And at the end of the three years, got a company named Ketchum Public Relations called me up with a big offer for a a comedy writing job. And I really felt so strongly, and I think you'll agree with me that my sponsees would have really, really benefited from me getting this job. I mean, they would have just think about it, just think About it. Because they would have seen me suffer through these years. And now they would see me prosper thusly. And I think it would, it would just be a shot in the arm for their faith. So I did a videotape for these guys and I went I went insane before I even found out about the job I went nuts and I wrote about it I read it to my sponsor we had a good laugh about it and I laid it down and I said pop I told you I'd do anything and I meant it a couple of weeks later I get a call from Ketchum that I didn't have the job and I was good a couple weeks after that I get a call for my catering company to cater these commercials in the mountains above above LA, so I jump in the truck and I get up there and I give the call sheet, which gives you all the information about the shoot. And I see that the commercials are for Ketchum Public Relations. So I'm feeding them now. Now I'm feedin' them. And I look down at the end of the truck and there's a guy videotaping me. I said, what the hell are you doing? He said, we're taping the making of the commercial. He's taping my humiliation. And he's going to go back to New York and show it to me they're gonna go is that Scott Redmond with the meatloaf oh that poor son of a bitch and like now I'm going get a hobby you know and I go back to the hotel I call my sponsor and I said oh I'm getting the gift now we're really getting the gifts now it's a miracle it's just a big miracle miracle miracle. It's a miracle. God shot. And he said, he said I guess God had enough writers and needed a few cooks today. And then he said you know you told God you wanted to work for Ketchum and you forgot to tell him what you wanted to do. Oh, as long as he's having a good time, folks, I'll tell you. If you knew, I want to welcome you to Alcoholics Anonymous. The good news is that our problem mainly rests in our mind. This is the only recovery I know from a fatal illness that the text of which says that we absolutely insist on enjoying life it's the only recovery from fatal illness that I know of that leaves the sufferer in better condition than they were in before they contracted the disease my alcoholism went below the horizon and stopped presenting itself as a real piece of business all the time and I would have act without reason without sense I see my friends here tonight guys I haven't seen in a long time and a connection get begins my crazy idea is that I could live a successful life alone. The crazy idea is that connection is personality specific. That connection to me is the face and the breath of God. That connective tissue of Alcoholics Anonymous has kept my alcoholism above the horizon as a real piece of business, not a complaint. Stuff that continues to be a complaint is the stuff I still suffer because of. Stuff that's a real complaint I don't suffer from. I haven't had a drink in 22 years. As a real piece of this, it's a real business because it's not up there on my own juice. It's buoyed on the heads and shoulders of over 3 million members of Alcoholics Anonymous. I need you all, I love you all and I'm so grateful for being here and being able to share with you and hang out with you in South Dakota. Thanks so much for having me.