Twelve Steps Down to Humility – Paul M.

Thank you very much for that. Nice start to the evening. I want to thank Kat for picking me up at the airport, him and Warrior the dog. I just said my name and Warrior rolled over and pled dead, you know? He's obviously heard me speaking before. But it's good to be here and it's great to be sober. I want to thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to come out here and do service. It's something I don't take lightly. You know, it's a great honour and a great privilege. And I mean, what a great hotel. It is absolutely beautiful since I got here. I mean the hotel is beautiful. The rooms are... Those towels in my room were so big and soft and fluffy, I could hardly get them into my suitcase. I really had to push down to get all three of them in there. Is that a bad thing? I don't know. It's really good to be here. It is funny, the little break there after the countdown, I got a chance to call my sponsor. I always call him. He says, where are you? I say, I am in Wichita, Kansas, oh you went all the way to Wichita to talk how far would you go to listen you know and I'm like sponsors who needs them, I do you know what I mean I can't be out there unchecked or unfettered but it's really great I love the countdown seeing the newcomers, the alcoholics and perhaps you've got to kick I've got two jokes on an endless loop but one of them is there's a guy with 90 days in the program and he's talking to a sponsor and the sponsor says I just think you were just 90 days ago he says actually I was sitting in a hot tub half drunk surrounded by beautiful women in bikinis and the sponsors says isn't it wonderful that you don't have to live that way anymore today, you know so maybe you're thinking is this it but I wanted to tell you this is the last thing I tried and the first thing ever worked you know and uh i know we got some people here that are non-alcoholics i want to welcome you the meeting of aa you know perhaps you're gonna kick out of this there's a guy with 25 years sobriety and he's out on a blind date with a normal drinker and she's having a glass of wine and he says no i don't drink she goes you don't drink at all he says not at all she goes not even one drop he says not even one drop. She goes, what would happen if you took a sip of my wine? He sat back and he says, well just imagine you wake up you don't know what day it is, you don' t know what time it is. Your car's gone your phone's gone, your credit cards are gone. She says that would happen to you if you only took one drink. He says no it wouldn't happen to you if I took one drink. And you think that's funny, you're probably an alcoholic you don't think it's funny I hope you enjoyed Rick's talk earlier on this morning you know but anyway I'd like to say a little bit about how it was and what happened and how it is today it may come as a shock to some people in the room here tonight but I'm not from the neighbourhood originally you know it's about 30 years now since I left my native Cuba you know I grew up outside of Belfast in Northern Ireland the sort of neighbourhood I came from if you didn't drink, you moved everybody drank I didn't know anybody who didn't it wasn't like, oh that's what alcohol does I seen alcohol up close and personal in my life from very early on but I just want to welcome the people here that are here tonight maybe you're sitting out there tonight and you're saying Paul, I don't know if you can see my face I'm not laughing I back myself into a corner I can't get out of I'm in a trap I can spring well you often hear that metaphor you go 10 miles into the forest, you gotta go 10 mile out I don't believe that in Alcoholics Anonymous I don' cure hard for the people that are near me, I mean that's so new I don´ cure hard deep and hard dark and hard painful the forest you're in may seem AlcoholicsAnonymous tells me and I will tell you, you're just 12 steps away from a new life. That's all. 12 steps away from a brand new life in Alcoholics Anonymous. People go, oh, I came to AA and I got my life back. I don't want my life back. It sucked. I had it for 30 years. I could do nothing with it. I got a whole brand new life in alcoholics anonymous. Are there people in my life on the old drinking days? Absolutely. but things are different today. My world is built on concrete. Where were we before Alcoholics Anonymous? Like the movie says, we were lost in a sea of booze. And if there was any coordinates, it was pain and misery. And every once in a while, we'd wash up on dry land. And alcoholics were great starters, great at getting things going. But everything was always built on sand. And the first drink would always arrive. and I'd be washed out to sea with more debris than the last time because of your help in this program as I said my world is built on concrete today and like the story I used to read to my little girl when she was younger the world out there because some days of spiritual warfare the world right there will huff and it will puff but if I stay close to the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous I don't have to drink no matter what one day at a time and I was an alcoholic who had to drink no matter what, one day at a time. I'm not here to sell Alcoholics Anonymous. It sells itself. Like our tradition says, it's a program of attraction, not promotion. But I'll tell you this, and I don't mean cashing prizes. You cannot get around tonight from where I came from without AlcoholicsAnonymous. It's an impossible journey. And why do I continue to come to AA since August of 1992? I know how the movie goes, but I wouldn't miss it to see someone walking in the worst night of their life and be given the grace not to drink we talk about the grace it's so much more than grace it's mercy and the definition of mercy that I like the best is entering into the chaos of another person's life and in August of 1992 when those people in my life and there wasn't many was going that way the only people coming this way was Alcoholics Anonymous and they carried this message my message might even keep me sober they carried this message and what is the message of Alcoholics Anonymous? I've seen it here all weekend when completed feet through alcohol step one I got a body that won't let me drink and a mind that won'T let me stop one drink creates a thirst I can't quench when I control my drinking and I don't enjoy it, I want to enjoy my drink and I can't control it I hadn't had a drink with your help since August of 1992 one drink tonight destination unknown you took that person from a place of powerlessness and unmanageability not to a place where of power that would be ego but a place worth access to power you took me from the problem step one through the solution to that spiritual awakening as I said there you cannot get where I am tonight from where I came from without alcoholics and all this so I want to offer that to the people that are new here tonight George Elliot the writer says it's never too late to live the life you're meant to live if you're new here tonight we can't go back I'm not going to be like a snake oil salesman we can's go back and change the beginning but if you stay sober here tonight one day at a time you can change the ending and that's not a bad deal for people like us because there's not an glossary of options for people i guess when we hit alcoholics anonymous it's jails institutions and it's death and by the time you're actually graveyard dead and alcoholics synonymous you've been dead mentally and spiritually and emotionally for years and anybody who married in your life was long gone because that's what we do to people we squeeze and we squeeze and there's nothing left in there go away and drink or go away and don't drink but you got to go away like Rick was saying his talking Alan on it's no coincidence when Lois Wilson wrote her biography it was titled When Love Is Not Enough if love could get you sober driving sober a long time before AA. So please come up here. I know we throw the word miracle around a lot in AA. The definition I like the best is a complete reversal 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? It didn't happen because of me, it happened because of Alcoholics Anonymous. If you're new here tonight, there's a miracle here with your name on it. Nobody can take it from you and nobody can take it for you. Come up and live the life you're meant to live before drink took you down a different road. Alcoholic synonymous is one of the few places in the world where you get the opportunity to live two lives in one lifetime. And it's not easy early sobriety. I've seen those people standing up counting days it's not easy early sobriety that roller coaster goes up and it goes down just don't get off stay on ride it out as i said there get into the program alcoholic synonymous with a sponsor if you hear nothing else before that i say here tonight hear this you know what alcoholic synonymous given me that i never had before i came to aa it gave me something between me in the first drink. I never had nothing between me and the first drink. The thought of a drink would become the obsession to drink. What is an obsession? An idea that crowds out all other ideas like snow on the windshield and when that happens in my life, I have no way of stopping the clock I always would drink. Up in this moment in time I've never beaten an obsession to drink I've gone to the ring many times it's like getting in the ring with a heavyweight champion a child could say don't get in the room but don't go to the room means don't take the first drink and I don't know how not to take the first drink so I keep getting back in the rain and telling myself the epitaph of the alcoholic perhaps you can identify it'll be different this time I'll watch it it was her it was him it was this it was that and I take the first drink and I'm off in the well-known spree that the doctor talks about. Because of your help in this program people say, oh you're just an arm's length away from a drink. I'm 12 steps away from a drink and that's a quantum leap from when I first walked into Alcoholics Anonymous but don't get me wrong they're not 12 steps up to anything they're 12 steps down to humility. I've seen people drink again in AlcoholicsAnonymous I thought would never drink again and that tells me it's a daily reprieve not a pardon and there's certain things I must do to enjoy this way of life and the only way that I coast in AA is downhill but it's small price to pay. The things they ask us to do here is a small price to pay for the life that we've been given. It's an amazing life Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm not here to sell it I was down there recently in Thailand and I am on an AA convention and I was talking to these couple of guys who are expats that live down in China AA in China is a whole different story the government allows it and they don't allow it but I was telling one of these guys and he says that he travels on business He says, we're trying to get A started in Outer Mongolia. And he says it's like the mid-1930s in America. There's nobody sober. There's no literature. He says and we went to the hospital where they bring the alcoholics. And we got this one guy and he's like two weeks sober. And we had him talking to other guys who were a couple of days sober. And he said we're using an interpreter. He says I feel like we're getting nowhere. things are getting lost in translation and the Mongolian people they're a lot like the Native American people, their idea of a God is a great spirit in the sky and one of nature and one of the guys who was just sober a few days spoke to the guy who was sober two weeks and he said to this gentleman from China, this American gentleman lives in Shanghai he says this guy here who's sober a few days says if they do these things that you talk about if they do these steps if they stay sober if they try to start a group and get a sponsor will they be able to soar like a bird and the guy says tell them exactly that's what can happen that's when I've been trying to say and I said to the guy when I get back to the states I'm going to tell that story every chance I get because alcoholics, I stumbled in here in August of 1992 but because of this program and people I've met in it many days, way more than I deserve I get to wake up and soar like a bird and get above the clouds and live a life that I didn't know existed for me the closest thing to a spiritual awakening that actually wasn't one was drinking booze it was this close it looked like the real deal I thought it was the real deal but it was bogus it was counterfeit, it was phony booze will give you a lift when I took that first drink there's been two turning points in my life the first night I took drink and the first day I walked into meeting of AA and both times I was looking for the same thing Carl Young that was a great friend of Alcoholics Anonymous said that alcoholism can be characterised as a low grade spiritual thirst I was looking for something for whatever reason I don't know and I don' t care today I had that hole in my soul and I tried to fill it with booze and people and places and things the alcoholic is the only person that tries to grow from the outside in everything in nature grows from the inside out except the alcoholic if I can get this and enough booze and this, get the right stuff together the right job right country, right continent but they're all symbolic victories and Carl Jung was so close I took you've heard the different metaphors in Alcoholics Anonymous I took that first drink at 14 or 15 years of age the stone came out of the shoe the knot came out of the stomach I could be everything I thought you wanted me to be and for a chronic people pleaser with low self esteem it was a magic elixir I took that first drink and just like Dorothy I knew I wasn't in Kansas anymore and that's alcohol, see I was in the bar business for years, I bartended the last 5 years drunk and I bartend the first 12 years most people drink because what alcohol does to them our book talks about it, a sense of conviviality a social lubricant, a fired imagination I drink because of what alcohol has done for me alcohol does something for me that it doesn't do for the normal heavy drinker one drink changes how I feel about me, you and this one of our speakers says the steps do slowly what alcohol does quickly change how i feel about me you and this and when alcohol does for us what it does for you're coming back for more i don't care what the consequences are if you're sober any time at all i'm sure you've been at a meeting i can countless meetings and you'll hear somebody talk and tell their story and they say the first night I drank I blacked out I threw up all over the place but I couldn't wait to do it again and we all nod our heads because we get that because alcohol does something for us not at an at a visceral level it fills all the holes, takes all the rough edges out, makes me be everything i always wanted to be i'm coming back for more now i took that first drink at 14 or 15 years of age i love that movie the charles dickens of the book the christmas carl every christmas eve when i get the wife and kids to bed i'll sit up and watch the alice or sim version and it's such an allegory for life you have the ghost of the past and the ghost of the present and the ghost of the future when i took that first drink at 14 or 15 years of age on a street corner outside of belfast if the ghost in my alcoholic future had stepped up at that moment in time and said i want to show you something look in that window you see that guy drinking around the clock against his own will you see a guy who has pushed away everybody who mattered to him you see that guy who was quicksand stretched all around him that's you in 15 years i just said you're to your mind you must be thinking of somebody else but that's exactly what happened i'm not a violent man i mean i only ever if another man had done to me would drink did to me i'm at a valid man i never had one bar fight and that was a draw although most people watching said that she won but we'll quickly move on so in the Merchant of Venice Shylock just wanted one pound of flesh not this disease he'll take your job, your car, your wife the shirt off your back but what it really wants is me six feet under there's a lot of terminal diseases out there I'm not familiar with those but I'm familiar with this one this disease will kill me stone dead with or without drinking my body I don't need booze in my body to burn my life to the ground I almost done it in AA because I wouldn't accept these principles but you couldn't have told me that I took that first drink at 14 or 15 years of age I've heard you'll hear different stories behind this podium some people were successful and then they crossed the line some people had a modicum of success, that's not my story 14 or 15 years of age within 3 months I'm getting my stomach pumped out on a school night my parents don't know what to do with me you know, I was like a boy bum, dropped out of school promising soccer career, out the window I would have told you that I give that up I realise in sobriety that alcohol took that from me that rabacious creditor but you couldn't have told me that before I'm out of my teens I'm a daily drinker before I am out of teens I'm taking morning drink and it got worse and it get worse and it gets worse but for the people who are new here tonight the good news for us is sobriete is progressive too and as far down as you go with drink you can come back up an alcoholic synonymous, now I'm not going to stand up here like I said, like a snake oil salesman, there's things I lost through drinking and they're not coming back and there's thing that you might have lost through drinking, and they are not coming back either, thank God for these steps who among us could live with the guilt and the shame and remorse of our drinking if it wasn't for the 12 steps to alleviate that I wasn't a sociopath I knew the bridges I burned the doors I slammed and the people I walked away from thank God I can't change the past but I was able to change my perception of the past because of the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous thank God I had a sponsor that pushed me through these steps and made me take actions that I didn't want to take it was said here a couple of times this weekend it's easy to do the things you want to do in AA. It's a walk in the park I got sober doing the things that I didn't want to do and on a more sinister level I got silver doing the things I didn' believe in this is a bunch of nonsense but I did it anyway and I took these actions and one of them was those steps and especially steps 8 and 9 thank God my father passed away but I was able to go back there and make amends with him he was dementia sitting in a nursing home I remember visiting him for the last time and I asked the nurse if I could feed him breakfast and we weren't perfect I'll tell you something it wasn't a perfect household it wasn' like we were a group of the Waltons goodnight dad, goodnight Paul there's none of that going on but because of this program we were ok I'd made my amends and I got in the car and it was the last time I'd seen my father and I pulled the car over and I thanked my sponsor for I said thank you for 20 odd years earlier pushing me through these steps and making me take actions I didn't want to take we don't do the steps because they're nice we do them because they're necessary for recovery if I want to get physically and mentally and spiritually and emotionally rehabilitated I have to work this program I've tried every other way known to man to get that vital spiritual experience and none of them worked some symbolic victories but nothing of any permanence that's a God shaped hole and only the 12 steps with God's help can fill that hole but you couldn't have told me that as I said there my life's falling apart in Northern Ireland but I don't want to look in I'm a finger pointer I'm always into the blame game I'm working class catholic from the wrong side of the tracks in Belfast I can't get a break I had a big chip on my shoulder in fact when I got to AA a guy says to me you know something you're a well balanced guy and I said to myself finally somebody knows what's going on around here you know He said, yeah, you've got a chip on both shoulders, you know. Hated everything, hated everybody. Could always find the needle in the haystack. So I'm blaming Northern Ireland, you know, with this can't get a break. You know, but typical alcoholic, always looking for an outside fix for an inside job. And I go home to my father one night, typical alcoholic grandstander. I said to my dad, half drunk, I said, dad, I said I'm going to America and don't try and talk me out of it he says talk you out of it, I'll help you pack on you go Columbus let me give you some fatherly advice, turn left at Greenland I know there's some people new people here don't know that Columbus was actually an alcoholic it's a very little known fact. When you think about it, when he set off, he didn't know where he was going. When he got there, he did not know where he was. When he came back, he had not known where he had been. And he got a woman to pay for the trip, not once, but twice. So you know he had to have been an alcoholic. So I hopped on a plane to America, but the first thing I unpacked out of the case was me and my alcoholism. And here was a guy going to make it big in America and I ended up getting this job in this crazy bar in Rockaway Beach. I know many of you know Rockaway beach, it's a big Irish American neighbourhood. People go oh, Rockaway Beach the Irish Riviera It should have been called Strokes by the Sea. They had more alcoholics per square foot but alcohol, we got that built in GPA system you could blindfold me and put me in a sack I'm going to find an ear for who drinks as much if not more than the one I just left and I got a job as a bartender I'm using the word bar here in the loosest possible context what's the book say we sort out sorted places well I worked in one of them I worked at a sort of a bar you got thrown into rather than out of this bar had it all alcoholics, drug addicts degenerate gamblers and that was just the staff that wasn't even the customers I'll give you a mental picture and then I'll move on if you want to see a full set of teeth in this bar you needed 32 customers it's sort of a high end place we're talking about and forget about ladies night most of the women that came in there looked like they did their make up on a trampoline, like over here and over here, back over here oh my god but water found its own level as I fit in it like a glove I used to work from 6 at night to 4 in the morning, I'm drinking before I go to work, I mean it's pretty pathetic actually, I worked in a bar where I could walk behind the bar at 6 o'clock and pour myself a drink and put it in the speed rack at the end of my drinking I couldn't even get there fears and phobias and hang ups couldn't ride elevators forget about riding the subway what's the old story booze give me the wings to fly and then I took away the sky and I ended up you know I've experienced every form of drinking I was a weekend drinker I was an early drinker a morning drinker but that then I became a binge drinker and it just got worse and worse but here's the ironic thing the worst years of my drinking 27 to 30 were after I made a firm conviction not to drink anymore. And like it says in chapter 3, I'm taking notes, I'm ticking proclamations. I mean, it's so sad. Rick talked about it so beautifully earlier on. Have you ever got a chance to go to Stepping Stones? They have that Bible where Bill Wilson would write these solemn promises. You know, 1925. I'm so sorry, Lewis. 1927. And I get that. Because, you know, Dr. Bob talked about that too. He said he felt weak as a person because he feels so miserably at something he wanted to do so well, which was not drink. I understand that. I mean, for a lot of years before I came to A, I thought I drank but it was lack of willpower, weakness, punishment from God. I finally got to A and I found out that I drink because the way I drink because for a long period of my life alcohol was a suitable treatment for the disease of alcoholism it worked till it didn't work and then up as the book talks about the jumping off place and I can't live with drink and I cannot live without drink by drinking alcoholically and denying it I created a world even I couldn't live in and then as the book says, boy thank god that book is written by alcoholics for alcoholics. You will know loneliness like few people do and boy is that the truth. And those last three years, I hope they were the last three years of my drinking I would go on these long drunks and the peer between them would get shorter There was a recipe, forget about it, maybe the first day I'd go drink in a bar and then use the Godfather parlance, I'd go to the mattresses, I just locked myself in the apartment and a drink around the clock. Here's a recipe for unhappiness. Lock yourself in the apartment, close the blinds, get as much booze as you can get and listen to the saddest blues music that you can hear. These are the sort of things I would listen to the great Warren Zevon. If you won't leave me, I'll find somewhere that will. You know, those are the sorts of songs that alcoholics like to listen to. Or the Alan Owen version of that song. if you leave me can I come too you know just kidding guys so I would sit up on these long protracted drunks and it would just get worse and worse but I will tell you something for the people that are new I almost went to the graveyard thinking I had a drinking problem. I know a drinking problem. Our book talks about a drinking problem is solved by not drinking and it gives a couple of examples a medical reason, a romantic reason a change of environment and those people can stop or even moderate but then it talks about us but what about the real alcoholic? I have alcoholism and that's a horse of a different colour yes it's physical, allergy to the first drink but it's also mental and spiritual and wrapped up in a body full of sick childish emotions bill wilson says not drinking is just a start alcohol has only mentioned the first half of the first step i need the other 11 and a half steps to help me do what i couldn't do drunk or sober and that's live out there in god's world under his will rather than my demands I'll give you one vignette I had stopped drinking and I busted out drinking again and I ran out of drinking in the apartment and I run out of drink but I was a bartender and I always knew where to get drink in the middle of the night and I go down to a local bar that I knew, the guy was cleaning the bar in the off hours I knocked the side door and he let me in and he put a bottle of whiskey up on the counter and a glass and a bucket of ice and went on cleaning the place and I'm pouring myself some whiskey I was going to go to the bathroom and I collapsed in the bar an alcoholic seizure I've had seizures before I've had convulsions before I'd been locked up for drink I put my pot in restraining sheets for a drink and I woke up at the local hospital which had been in before and there's a woman standing by the bedside it was close to me at that time in my life and they gave me some librium or whatever to get me down off the ceiling and eventually took the restraining cuffs off and I took her hand and I wasn't trying to be cinematic but I took our hand and I said I don't know why I can't drink but it's obvious I can drink and I will never ever drink again you got a contract I would have with my own blood. There's a friend of mine says, Paul, if they'd have put you in a lie detector machine, you would have passed with flying colors because I meant it. As I said, not at a visceral level. I'm done. It's over. But I left that hospital. I really didn't know what the problem was, step one. And I didn't really know what The Solution was, Step 12. And i really didn t know hard to go between one and the other one more time it was me against the first drink and like i said it wrong i've never beaten an obsession to drink but here's what happens to me when i try to stop drinking without the principles of alcoholic synonymous without the unity of the service recovery here's happened to me and i go toe-to-toe with this disease perhaps you can identify a week goes by and i got a week i get this stone in my shoe I don't know where it came from but it's there all the time two weeks go by and I've got this knot in my stomach I don' t know where it came form three weeks go by and I got three weeks it feels like the top button of my shirt is tight all the time, I'm talking through gritted teeth, a month goes by you could fry eggs in the back of my neck and I drank again and she said what non-alcoholics say I've got to get away from you before I end up in the nuthouse and I said what alcoholics say I don't need you, I don' t need nobody now my point to you is it was 30 days I didn't have a drink in my body you put me on any machine in the world you will not find a trace of alcohol in my blood in my life I submit to you that's not a drinking problem that's a living sober problem that not putting the plug in the jug isn't going to work for a guy like me, it's like people said back in Ireland I don't know if you've heard of it the pledge, people take the pledge to go to the church because drinking was so bad in Ireland, the church got involved you go tothe church, put your hand on the bible and you take a pledge that you will never take drink again so a guy says to me one time does that not work, I say that works wonderfully if you're not an alcoholic I could take that pledge all day long but I'm going to drink again that's not going to do it for a guy like me it'll do it the normal or even the heavy drinker but it won't do it people like me as I said there I need these 12 steps I would like to tell you that I came to AA the next week I drank for two and a half more years after that bottoms to bottoms you think about some of the times in AA there's something about Christmas in the life of an alcoholic here was a guy when i make it big in america i'm living up in the bronx the south bronx and the basement on a mattress it's christmas eve with a phone that only takes incoming calls i've got a huge abscess in my mouth i've gathered up the money twice to go to the dentist and i drank at both times i would go off the grid for months at a time thank god for making amends to my mother and father my mother would be going around outside of where we live in belfast and she'd be asking other people who had relatives in new york would you ask your son if he's seen my son just tell him to call home and let us know he's alive and my mother tricked me down through a bartender on second avenue the mutual friend and the phone rang i'd lay down Christmas Eve afternoon woke up the mattress was covered in blood the thing had busted my mouth and I reached for the bottle and the phone rang on my mother now there's a five hour time difference between New York and Ireland they're five hours ahead so and she says this is Christmas Eve and she said Paul I went to midnight mass tonight for you I just want you to know that I went midnight mass and i prayed for you i thought to myself don't pray for me i'm beyond the beyond i ain't coming back i'm dumb but i'm not stupid i could not see a way from there to where i am standing tonight these people could i'd be too myopic and i hung up the phone i'd like to tell you when i'd say that some frank capra it's a wonderful life moment but But I didn't. I drank on and I drank on. But I'm here as the sole recipient of an old fashioned 12 step call in Alcoholics Anonymous. I love that moment when people are telling their stories and it goes down and it goes done and then they say those magic spiritual words and then. And I sit up because I know God's coming in the next sentence. There's not a person in here who's sober more than one day that hasn't had an and then moment whether they realized it tonight or not i'm in another apartment and another drunk and i know come under the door as i'm sitting there drinking and i'd say what i've been hearing since i was 15 paul you're a nice guy but you drink too much and there was a man's telephone number on it against my better judgment in fact everything that's helped me in AA has been against my better judgment I picked up the phone and I called this complete stranger and he had been praying that I might call and I said I can't stop drinking I can' t stop drinking and him and another guy came it was a group in New York the old South Bronx group and they had a mantra we don't give up on anybody and they came to my house or whatever I brought the Barry to where I lived and they came to me and they talked about them but I found out about me and they shared their experience, strength and hope I was too sick to go to a meeting that night but about two days later I was strong enough to get put in a car and get brought to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous in Rockaway Beach New York and walking into a meeting of alcoholics anonymous is the greatest singular event in my life Everything else was secondary and tertiary Because unbeknownst to myself At the time I was moving from the problem to the solution I'm so glad there wasn't a guy Standing with a clipboard saying Check the box for what you want I would have checked the box For not drinking And would have been delighted But once again I would sure have changed myself Because I got so much more than not drinking I got me back I got you back And I got him back and I'd lost a whole lot in alcoholic tsunamis. I would like to tell you that I grabbed the ball and scored a touchdown but I come into alcoholic tsunamas what does our book say? We let go absolutely of all our old ideas and I came in here with old ideas that I wouldn't let go of bar room mentality bar room mentality that might work well at 3 o'clock in the morning in some gin mill under the subway in New York City but wasn't getting me too far in here I had to learn to march to the beat of a different drum and I wasn't willing to do it we talk about the three parts of the triangle I was going to plenty of meetings unity I understand unity many meetings make it easy few make it hard none make it impossible I need you and you need me as Liz B my dear friend would say, without you there's no me. I get that. Service. The guy that passed away used to say the highest pay grade an alcoholic's name is a servant. Why? Because by the very nature of this disease I am shackled to self. They told me they put away one more chair than the one you sat on. Congratulations, you're doing service. I had to shift. and I was doing unity I'm making more coffee than Juan Valdez you kidding me, service but I wouldn't do door number three it was said so perfectly there I wouldn'T do recovery I thought these 12 steps were touchy, feely, warm and fuzzy I do these steps, the next thing I'll have wind chimes hanging up on the house you know, I'll be wearing flip flops even in the winter time join an Oprah's boot club, where does it all end now I'm here to tell you you can fool them at the coffee pot at 7 o'clock at night, I've done it, how's it going Paul oh it's going great, you know when untreated autism comes to visit me 2 o' clock in the morning could'ves, should'ves would'ves guilt, shame remorse another sleepless night in quote unquote sobriety I came into Alcoholics Anonymous after two and a half years I didn't owe much money when I came in to AA I was two and half years off drink doing two parts of the triangle I was thousands upon thousands of dollars in debt and I know why today I was still trying to fill the hole with outside stuff a bad jacket feel good for a half an hour but always in the back of the same equation the man in the mirror me on me I can't get me off of me I'm shackled to self charge a trip to the Caribbean feel good three or four days but back to the same equation i don't like who i am on 24 hours a day seven days a week is a long time to be with somebody you don't and i didn't like how i was and finally i had a sponsor but a name only i'm finally gonna come to me now yeah and he says paul can i talk to you i says yeah he says you're dying you're down in hey you're like a starving man at a spiritual banquet there's all this food on offer and you're over here living on bread and water keeping my arm's length with your glib phrases and your one-liners she said you're not fooling me that's exactly what i was doing i still wasn't convinced the next day this is two and a half years of drink the next day i'm driving out of the brooklyn battery tunnel onto the gowanus expressway six lanes rush hour traffic and a guy cut me off I'm like oh really I chase after him I jam him against the guard rail I'm blocking three lanes of rush hour traffic, this is two and a half years off drink, I walk back to his car I don't care who's behind the wheel it could have been Tony Soprano I don' t care, I'm out of my mind to my ever lasting shame there was a little Asian man sitting behind the wheel shaking his wife is crying in the passenger seat and his three kids are crying in the back of the car I apologise profusely at his window which he didn't put down and I don't blame him either and I get into my own car and I hit my head at the steering wheel and I said I'm crazier off drink than I was on it and in some respects that's true I've been to jumping off place twice in my life once with drink and once with no drink and no program, it's a different type of pain, but pain nonetheless I drove to my sponsor's house immediately in name only, you can bring a horse to water, you could make him thirsty but unless he wants, you know how the analogy goes and I pulled up at his door, he was sober a long time but you can only help somebody who wants to be helped and he was smoking a big cigar on his porch and I called up I jumped out of the car and I said Jimmy I've got to talk to you he said what is it and I told him what I just told you and he sat back and he was smoking a cigar and he goes how old were you when this happened I said how old, this happened 20 minutes ago, what do you mean how old maybe this is why we're not getting anywhere here we're getting like lost in translation you know I think I can get hooked on phonics the shamrock version, bring up the speed here you know And he talked about Harry Thiebaud that was a great friend of alcoholics and I was the doctor and he coined a phrase for people like me His Majesty the Baby I was a child in a man's body worse than that I was having the terrible twos but I was heaven when I was 32 I was trying to force life a square block into a round hole he says Paul, you're like his majesty the baby he said I've got news for you you better give it up they don't make cribs in your size and against my better judgement as I said there I started to move through that programme I started getting into the causes and effects of my drinking I was walking around alcoholic tsunamis full of resentment full of it I was carrying stuff around from the schoolyard carrying these hefty bags full of garbage as I said there's a terrible way to live and this is in sobriety and the thing about these resentments we were burnt out of our house during the troubles in Northern Ireland by the opposing paramilitaries they came to the door and put a gun to my father's head and thought they were going to shoot him told him if you're not out of this house in half an hour you'll be burnt within the house they petrol bombed the house now why am I telling you this, years later the thing with these resentments they've no IQ, these resentents don't go oh Paul, this happened 25 years ago 3,000 miles away, I'm experiencing them like they're happening right now and all the spiritual toxicity that's released in your body when you're living your life under those conditions I was building these walls high Robert Frost the poet says a wall is a good thing maybe if you're a New England farmer but none of you are an alcoholic and I built these walls high and I build them deep you weren't getting in but guess what I wasn't getting out and I put this stuff down on paper stuff that I thought I was going to take to my grave and I got free of the only guy I could never get free from which is me and start to live in the one place I could ever live which is right here right now I was always in yesterday full of guilt and shame and remorse or was tomorrow full of fear I was a fearful person and a fearful person will always find something to be afraid of there's a bogeyman behind every tree I couldn't live in the present moment once in a while I'd stumble into the present and go, I can't stay here back into the past or into the future they talk about the fourth dimension, the big book it was explained to me I always thought the fourth dimensional was over the hills and far away it was explaining to me, no Einstein talked about the three dimensions of height, width and space And the fourth dimension is time By doing this program I get rocketed into the fourth Dimension. I get rocket into a place I could never live which is Right here right now because in the spiritual world It's always the same time. It's now it's always been Now and it always will be now and I couldn't live in now when i'm living in now everything's all right even if it's not all right i will be all right but i couldn't get there until i got rid of the stuff that was dragging me here and dragging me there as i say we do these tests because they're necessary i can't do that alone if you're new here this program is unbelievable it'll bring you through to a spiritual awakening you can go through those steps willingly or you can kick it and scream it but you will be a different person at step 12 than you were at step 1 you will have had a spiritual awakening you will see things differently the key to success in AA is to stay awake it's so easy to fall asleep in AA especially when you've been sober a while and just like driving a car you're going to be asleep for a long time for something really bad to happen I've seen it that's why I try to stay current and try to stand in that present moment so I did these steps is it nice to do the steps of alcoholics and honest and get a full knowledge of your condition yeah but what does the book say why do we do this thing to be of maximum service to God and others I don't see Paul's name there you know what I mean maximum service to God and others I said it's nice to get knowledge of your condition but you know my life caught on fire you know when my life took on a new meaning when I turned around and tried to take another man through those steps that's when great events came to pass in my life what the book says to watch a fellowship grow up around you is something you should not miss and that's been true in my live it's been one of the great blessings of my life, is the people that I've met and all. Why do I come to AA? It's the people. God works through people and the spiritual conduit that he uses to spread his love and grace is the fellowship of AA I mean what is it about this thing? What's Alcoholics Anonymous? It's only a place in the world that you can walk into a room full of strangers and start reminiscing You know what I mean? We all know we might not drink together but we get it terror, frustration, bewilderment, despair we don't have to go to the thesaurus we know what that looks like this disease of alcoholism and we're here helping one another I'm so glad we have this thing here this weekend I guarantee if I left this podium right now I wouldn't have knocked on too many doors and I'll find somebody drinking themselves to death right now oblivious to what's going on in here but we keep that door open for the still sick and suffering alcoholic like that iconic Don McLean song I don't want to be here the day the music died oh the music used to play but it doesn't play anymore as it was often said at this podium if A goes down right now it'll be on our watch we don't have to worry about somebody coming from the outside in and destroying AA, it'll be destroyed from the inside out. But coming here and sharing our experience, strength and hope. And I know I'm probably preaching to the choir here because the greeters are here and the coffee makers are here. And the chairpersons are here, and the secretaries are here tonight. And we'll go back to our home groups on Sunday and Monday and Tuesday and we'll tell them what we've seen this weekend. we tell them that the age of miracles is still with us and we have seen people come back from the dead in alcoholics and armists that's why I keep coming here you know but God bless you don't let it happen again I've got to start all over again my name is Bowman Alcoholic lock the doors so no newcomers can get out of here and it's not easy sobriety, I'm going to stand up here believe me and that's why coming to AA seeing the people involved sober long time sobriete I thought I'd come into Alcoholics and Alchemists I'd work this programme and I'd walk between the raindrops no serenity I found out is not the absence of adversity it's the ability to deal with adversity I've been through some tough times sometimes worse than I was when i was drinking tough time went through a divorce at 20 years sober almost put my head away but thank god i came to alcoholics synonymous it was said here last night if you're going through something alone in aa it's because you want to there's not one thing in this world that you have to go through alone when i would go through that divorce at twenty years sober you don't get people in trouble at 20 years plus sobriety spiritual pride how can I go to my home group and tell them that my wife is leaving me for another guy how do I do that but I better do that I've got to be transparent, I've Got To Be Current and I would come here and it was a difficult time moved out of the house and my little girl was 9 years of age I'd be putting her to bed at night and say Daddy I don't want to get divorced and I turned the gun on myself I'm not a good AA how come I didn't see that coming I'm helping all these people my own life's falling apart the truth be the marriage was over and she was the first one to jump ship and that's okay and I might have told my sponsor my sponsor was saying to me I don't want to take the high road do you know what was done to me and am I so glad that I took the high road and did things I didn't want to do and this other guy that was involved, I was talking to Rick about this yesterday I didn�t even know who this guy was and I gave him my sleep and I give him my serenity the only thing I didn �t give him was my sobriety and my sponsor says you better pray for that guy, I said pray for that God but I did, I got down on my knees and I prayed for him and I tell you how this program works she moved on and she got married to that guy and I'm happy for her we need to live a few blocks apart I met a woman in Alcoholics Anonymous got re-married got an 18 month old baby daughter at home right now I know what you're thinking I don't look old enough to be a father you know what I mean I get that all the time that's my wife's greatest fear that she's going to walk into the living room and realise somebody's diaper needs changed not sure if it's mine or the baby's I'd be like not guilty over here and I'm telling you this story because my older girl Kristen she was graduating from from Catholic Elementary School and did a big service in the church and each family was allowed half a pew and the church was packed, you got half a pew, that was it and I got there late with the baby, I was changing the baby in the vestibule or something, I got in late so I got to the pew and who's sitting there is this guy just the way it was and when I tell you there was no room, I had to squeeze in we were so close you couldn't have put that piece of paper between us but I was free I don't know what was going through his head but I know I was sitting there so close to this guy and because I took actions I didn't want to take and did things I didn's want to do and followed the guidance of a sponsor and had somebody in my life that wasn't as mostly attached to my life as I am. I need somebody who can stand outside and be objective when I'm subjective. What's the old saying in there? When you're inside the jar, you can't read the label. I need somebody standing outside the jar who can say, Paul, it may appear that way but that's not what's going on. And because of those things I talked about, I squeezed in and I sat next to this guy and it might as well have been a mannequin. I'm free, and I said to myself as I looked up at the cross I says thank you this program works under all conditions it's a wonderful thing Alcoholics Anonymous and I want to tell you a couple of stories before I sit down about the fellowship I go back to Northern Ireland a lot my brother's sober 20 years over there now and I was back one time and it was Christmas time and they talk about where people who normally don't mix well in Belfast Catholics and Protestants never mix there's one place they mix in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and I was there at Christmas time and the day after Christmas we call it Boxing Day one of the paramilitary leaders got murdered in the Mayes prison and the whole country blew up it was bad, down in Balfast burning buses barricades and riots and I was asked to speak at a meeting and my brother says to me Paul we can't go down into Belfast tonight he says it's crazy you know what I mean the barricades, burning buses, riots I said ah we'll go anyway so we get in the car four Catholics driving across the peace line from West BelfAST into the Protestant part of BelfAst East BelfaST and I love AA humour one of the guys says just think, the last time a Catholic was in this part of Belfast he was in the trunk of the car you know what I'm saying and we took this secured us right and we got to the meeting and these guys were standing and the kids over there do something called joy riding where they'll steal cars and drive them around and burn them out and these young kids were standing there and they seen us pulling up and they knew we weren't from the neighbourhood and they're like iron our car and the chairperson was standing outside the meeting and he said, hey kids because he knew them leave that car alone these guys are friends of ours and we walked into the meeting and we talked about our common problem alcoholism and our common solution to this program and I can't think of one other place in Belfast that night where Catholics and Protestants were sitting together but they were sitting there sitting together in AA and I thought to myself because of this program there's far more Uniteses that never divides us and I was glad to know that those guys were sober in Alcoholics Anonymous and I think they were glad to know that we were sober in Alcoholic Anonymous now I'm not going to tell you we left the meeting and went singing Kumbaya down the street you know but I left there and it was a stark reminder of the power of AlcoholicsAnonymous because a friend of mine was in Tel Aviv recently and he was at a meeting and it was an English speaking meeting at the end of the meeting they were saying the serenity prayer and by happenstance or maybe not by happenстance a Muslim woman was standing next to a Jewish man and because of their respective religions they're not allowed to have physical contact and there was this pregnant pause at the beginning of the meet and a little nervousness and then she picked up the big book and she held one side of the big book and he held the other side of the Big Book and the circle was formed we get a front row seat for the very best that humanity has to offer this is one of the great miracles of not the 20th century of all centuries for thousands of years there was people like us couldn't take drink we ran at life with drink we ran away from life without drink we were society's first outcast and because of Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith and we can trace this moment in time back to that moment in times people go well if it hadn't been Bill and Bob it wasn't John and Jim it was Bill Wilson and Dr Bob Smith and the old space race they would talk about a window of opportunity when the spacecraft would be coming back into the earth's atmosphere if it hit at the wrong angle it would shoot off into space there was a window of opportunity on Mother's Day weekend of 1935 and Bill Wilson stepped through it and took Dr. Bob with him and we can trace this moment in time back to that moment in times and Bill Wilson when he lay in that hospital six months earlier and I had stood outside that hospital on a sobriety night up in Central Park West and something happened in one of those rooms and Bill Winston had this divine thought I believe it was divine surely there must be other people out there like me I wonder if my experience could help them and he immediately went to work he had a vision of a chain a chain of drunks one drunk helping another not just in New York or the North East a global paradigm shift and that's when I asked myself how strong is my link in the chain is it strong to the people that came behind me is it stronger than the people that come to me tonight and said, Paul, can I go to that place you talk about? Can I comprehend the word serenity? Can I know peace? Absolutely walk this journey with us. And Bill Wilson got it. We didn't have a 12th step. But before he left the hospital, he even wanted to talk to the other patients. And I believe he was divinely inspired. We didn'T have a twelfth step, but it's so true. We need to help other alcoholics. Alcoholics synonymous without the newcomer. it's just a room full of noise it makes no sense to me the whole program is predicated on helping the next alcoholic alcoholic synonymous 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 what's the point and we didn't have that 12 step but it's so true because in my life you know what a 11 step program is for a guy like me it's nothing more than a self-help program i don't get me wrong it's a highly evolved self-hub program but it's still a self up program the 12th step completes that spiritual circuit i need you and you need me if i'm doing a alone i'm not doing aa there's a friend of mine says bb i said what's bb he said i don t know but but it's not AA. So if you're new, get people around you. Don't be alone. I have a disease that wants to push me to the circumference of the circle, but I must stay right in the middle because AA is a flat earth. If you go to the edge, you will go off. So stay right in the Middle of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'd like to end on a few words that sums up how I feel about you and how I feels about Alcoholics synonymous. May the road rise to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face and 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.