Why the Big Book Says the Problem Rests in the Mind – Scott R.

My name's Scott Redman. I'm an alcoholic. I want to welcome you. If you're new to Alcoholics Anonymous, I want thank you so much for inviting me to your party this weekend. And I just can't tell you how much I appreciate it. I have a lot of friends here, a lot people I've known over a long period of time who I see out on the road a bunch, and it's really a blessing. I want congratulate our winner this evening, who won the book. I just can't tell you how pleased I am that you've won. Sort of like being voted most attractive man on your cell block. You know, it's kind of an honor, but you don't know if you want to pick up the award. But I hope you never win again, and I'm really glad you're here. And if you can go through that and not feel welcomed in AA, then you've taken a lot of drugs. And we took a red eye here, which is weird without some form of accelerant doing that kind of thing. It's just weird staying up all night. I haven't stayed up all day in a really, really long time without just getting killed, you know, just doing that thing. And so it was interesting. I want to thank my adorable wife for giving a great talk this afternoon. I always feel I never, she never really gives the same talk twice and I never really know what's going to happen. It's sort of like walking into a psychological theme park for me and I adore her and we really needed to get the hell away for the weekend. I mean, look how desperate we were. Got on a red-eye. We needed to go out of the house, really out of that house And I'm not concerned about our sons breaking in and selling the place, really. I borrowed a car from a guy and sold it, but I don't see why my sons would do anything that silly. I'd like to welcome you if you're new to AA and tell you that I have a great life. If you're knew, I'm sure that thrills the crap out of you. I'm certain you're overjoyed for me because I know how thrilled I was for people who were having a good time when I got here. I just couldn't hear enough of it, you know, about how successful people were and having a great time and a new family and a new house and making all this dough. And I'd sit in my seat and I'd hear it and I go, oh man, maybe you'll go home tonight. Maybe your house will blow up, you Know? Maybe your new family will blow up and they'll ignite your car and you'll all go up in a column of smoke. And so welcome. If you're new, I'd like to welcome you. If you'RE a drug addict, welcome to AA. If you'Re a dope fiend, which is somehow worse than any of us, I'd LIKE TO WELCOME YOU TO ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS. I'D LIKE TO WHELCOM ALL THE TWEAKERS HERE TONIGHT. VERY EXCITED ABOUT YOU TWEKERS. LOVE YOU GUYS. YOU STAY REALLY QUICK FOR A LONG TIME, AND EVERY PART OF THEIR FACE IS MOVING IN A DIFFERENT DIRECTION. I LOVE THOSE GUYS! IF YOU'VE EVER LICKED ALL THE FEATURES OFF YOUR OWN FACE, WELcOME TO AA. I'M NOT MAKING FUN OF YA. I'm coming pretty close but I'm not making fun of you and I'll tell you why I don't care what you've got I don' t care if you're like a crack monster I don''t care if your a dope goliath a dope juggernaut the big foot of dope addicts I don ''t care just welcome to AA catch alcoholism catch the dreaded alcoholism we'd love to give it to you I caught alcoholism in AA meetings I didn't have alcoholism when I got here. And it was just a mild case at first. I just had a mild cause of alcoholism. I couldn't possibly have been an alcoholic. I had been in psychotherapy for 18 years. I was going to be dead, but I was going to understand it. And I'm not knocking therapy. I've got no beef with therapy. Our 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 going to a gunfight with a knife once a week. Once a week and getting these colossal ass poundings and not being able to figure out why, wow, what happened? What happened? Well, I've got alcoholism. Okay. Now the idea of a lot of therapy is to uncover, discover, and unravel. If you've got neurosis, if any of you have ever been referred to as a neurotic. The idea of neurosis is that you've got an unsatisfying resolution for anxiety. So that means that your solutions are worse than your problems, okay? So if you got that, so you go to therapy and a person, and this is why therapy, a lot of people use it because you go you free associate you can delve into your past, you uncover you discover, you put a light on it and you come up with a better resolution for anxiety But I have alcoholism. And alcoholism generates anxiety. It's such a horrific, it is so good at its job. A panel of therapists working 24-7 couldn't file my crap. They couldn't even classify it. You can't compete with that. I feel terrible. Why? Well, I was so drunk this afternoon, I was too drunk to walk, so I drove. well what are we gonna do about that let's talk about it hey let's talk about what you were thinking just before you did it nothing nothing the room spun my brain got too big for my brain and I was drunk my mouth flooded with saliva I was I put whiskey in my milk seemed like a real good idea. I love, I love alcoholic plans. I picked up a new one recently, I got to share it with you because this is, this is a great neurosis. This guy was sober for a while, this guy, a friend of mine in the Midwest sponsors this guy. Sober for about seven years, stopped doing the work, drifted away and got three DUIs in rapid succession. I don't know how he stayed out of the pokey long enough to get three DUI's. That's a Promethean task unto itself these days, right? So this is his idea. He makes five Molotov cocktails. He's going to go down to the county courthouse, going to put a Molotов cocktail on each corner of the courthhouse. He will blow up the courTHouse. Thereby, they will lose his paperwork. Does anyone have paperwork anymore? Does paperwork even exist? Now, I've never read the instructions on a MolotoV cocktail, but I'm sure that throwing is involved at some point. But he puts four of these things on each corner of the building, takes the fifth one, lays down in his car, and falls asleep. Now, these days, I don't know why, but they're just touchy about blowing up government buildings. I don' t know. They' re just nuts about that. So he' s not going to get 40 AA meetings. He' s got a black bag over his head. He' S in Guantanamo Bay right now, this guy. So his solutions were way worse than his problems. so I tried the therapy and it wasn't working because alcoholism is just too darn efficient in addition to the alcoholism I could not possibly have been the psychological problems i could not possibly have been alcoholic because I'm Jewish and Jews don't drink because it might dull the pain and you know you just you don't want to squander any agony opportunity that presents itself. One of the first guys that ever saved my life in AA in my first couple weeks, I'm sitting in my first home group and this guy identified as an ex-Catholic. He said I'm an ex-catholic which means that I don't believe in God and I'm therefore positive God is going to come kill my ass for feeling that way. And I said I'll be sitting next to him. I'm just gonna sit next to them because that was the world I came from. I grew up in the Bronx, in New York City. Anybody here for the Bronx? There's someone here. He's here in the witness protection program. And I grew up in an insane family and insane household. My wife never believed me about my family until she met him. My mom threw an engagement party for us and my aunt came and wore her wig backwards, and it had a bun on it. So the bun was bouncing off her forehead, and they're insane. They're still insane. A couple years ago my mother calls me and says, honey I got bad news for you. I said oh no ma what happened? She said well your Aunt Lena died. I I said, oh no, when? A year and a half ago. I said what are you talking about? She said well your Aunt Phyllis is in the mental institution again and she calls me and harasses me so I haven't been picking up the phone but Phyllис died last week and so I started answering calls again and they finally reached me to tell me Lena's dead. These are the communication skills that I was imbued with. They were just crazy and there was, if you got anything for free in my family, it meant it was stolen. And I had an uncle who is a welder and he used to get free bales of steel wool. Like here's your check and your complimentary bale of steel wall. What does this come from? And his, my aunt, his wife took a decorating course and made throw pillows and filled all the throw pillows with the free steel wool. And that stuff works its way through on you after a while. So when we were at their house, if you looked at the room, everybody was moving a little bit. The whole room was like a pulsing, living, breathing organism. They were insane. And there was chronic institutionalization and suicide attempts and mental and physical abuse. And if you're new, all I've got is good news for you because my family did not have one single solitary thing to do with making me an alcoholic. They had a lot to do with making be nuts, but not with making being an alcoholic and if you are new here that might sound very confusing because you might come from a terrible place and a lot of really bad stuff might happen to you. I'm telling you, I'm not standing up here telling you that's not so. I'm not telling you, a lot of bad stuff didn't happen to you. A lot of good stuff happened to me, really bad, and I had to do a lot of stuff about that. I had do a lot of work on that. Working on myself in AA, that's tough. Anytime a guy sponsor says he's working on himself, I always want to go, step away from yourself. Step away from your self. Because my disease reacts so poorly to a frontal assault. It does. When I start working on myself, that means I'm working on myself. That's terrible. And you see if my family had made me an alcoholic then the therapy would have worked. I did good work in psychotherapy. I could have worked out my family issues and I could've had a drink like a normal person. But I've got alcoholism. I've gotta physical allergy to alcohol. It makes it impossible to control and enjoy once I begin. I can't moderate. And if you're new and you're special and a drug addict, try some controlled crack smoking. Just fill your mouth up with crack smoke and say, hey, not in the mood, blow it out. And hats will fill the air. Hats we'll make you president. And I've got this weird thinking. It's the source of a lot of mirth at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, it's called alcoholic thinking, and I keep thinking myself into taking a drink that I can't stop taking, and what happens is my alcoholism goes below the horizon, it stops presenting itself as a real and present danger and a real piece of business. And it goes below the horizon. It stops presenting itself as a real piece of business, and I drink again. It's this bizarre twist. The big book of AA says that the architecture of my disease is composed of resentments, fear, and sexual misconduct, that that's the fifth wheel. Because to know that, that's great. That's self-knowledge. But to know that this cancer of the soul, this thing that has plucked me beyond the help of well-meaning clergy, medical people, intellectuals, well-meaning family, lovers, friends, career dreams. That this bizarre alchemy of the physical allergy, the weird thinking and the cancer of the soul, the architecture of which are resentments, fears and sexual misconduct makes it impossible for me to keep this thing as a real and present danger in my life. And I'm helpless at the hands of it. I've seen people who have every reason in the world to live and I've seen them drink and drink and trade himself out and die. And those who don't get alcoholism look at it and they say those things that are written in the second and third chapters of our book. How? How could they do it? You'd think they'd stay sober for him or her. The doctor told him if he got loaded again he'd be dead. How?! I know how, I know. And if you don't know how on your news stick around. And I'm telling you, the information's here. It really is. When I came in, there were certain people, and I understand why they said this, they get to the podium and go, you know, I used to know a lot, but I don't know nothing anymore. And i'd say, all right, I won't be asking him any questions. Let's get him off the list, right? And I understand what they're saying, but I also needed to hear people who really had picked up some information in Alcoholics Anonymous, man. What a relief, you know? So I was brought up in this just insane wacky family. I started drinking real young in the Bronx. I failed out of a gang. These guys would drink a beer. I went to try to join this gang and they were stealing cars and smashing them into each other, having demo derbies, very upwardly mobile think tank that was. And I was being brought into this gang by this guy named George. And he said, look, we just steal Chevy Biscaynes and Fairlanes because on a column you got your ignition. You take your just, you know, if it's on off, you take your house key, you put it in and you turn it on and you go. It's on lock, shine the car. I said, what if it'S on on? He said, then someone's in the car, you moron. And I failed gang 101. I went across the street. There was a recruiter for the hippies and there was no test at all there. I got right in, there was no paperwork. I flew through their acceptance process because I didn't want to be an alcoholic. Who the hell wants to be an alcoholic? You know, if you've been drinking at exactly the wrong moment, if you have been building up a bright outlook for yourself and your family and ripping it down around your ears in a senseless series of sprees. If you've been protecting your right to vomit, if you get excited about dental surgery, you could be alcoholic. If you're not alcoholic, what the hell is wrong with you? What is your problem? You ought to seriously consider catching alcoholism. I didn't want to be an alcoholic. I overcame my alcoholism with marijuana. I like to welcome all the pot smokers here tonight. You remember wow, right? Wow. Wow. And right after wow usually came what? What? Wow, wow, what? Wow! What? Wow, what, wow, what? Watching a pot smoker is like watching a dog try to run on linoleum. There's like a lot of movement, a lot OF activity, but no movement. They can't get a claw in the rug. And I'm really, I don't mean to piss anybody off talking about drugs. It's my story and if it pisses you off, please talk to Mitch. He asked me to talk here. I didn't call him up and ask him to come and please see him. I overcame my marijuana problem with pills, and I triumphed over pills with cocaine. Cocaine is a fabulous drug. It's particularly good for sex if you enjoy sex from the Neolithic period. And kick that gall darn cocaine with heroin. Heroin is a very dark, complicated, artistic drug. And then you cross the line and become a vomiting pig. I eventually sold heroin to a New York City policeman. He cheated. He wasn't wearing a uniform. And I got to discuss it with your immigration people this morning. They said, look, something shiny smacked me in the back of the head with a maple leaf and carried me right through that gate there. It was unbelievable. But I did settle for the full body cavity search, you know. Usually have to pay a lot of money for that. I was in my early 20s, and I was going through a cycle where I was shooting heroin. I was hitchhiking from the Bronx down to Manhattan, and my aunt and uncle pulled up in a car on the West Side Highway and put me in the back seat of the car. My father had had a massive stroke, and they took me to the hospital, and I couldn't show up for my old man the night he died. The curtain was down, and I could not show up. I was a pig, an animal. I had holes in my arms, and I cannot even go into the room and touch my papa on the cheek and give him a kiss and tell him I love him and say goodbye because dead was dead, and he was going to rot and be gone because that's what my world had become. My life had become so tiny from alcoholism. I had painted myself into a corner. The ice around my heart had become so thick that my father wasn't moving on, he wasn't making a transition, he was dead. And I had to do some quick work. I couldn't bear that agony. I used to say to my wife, I can't fit the pain in my head. And I had to do some quick work. I couldn't bear being the guy who couldn't show up for his old man the night that he died and I found out real quick, decided what the problem was. It was heroin and it was needles and all I had to do is never put a needle in my arm again and I wouldn't be the guy, who couldn t show up the night his old man died. And I didn't, not for 13 years. I just drank till I didn t want to be drunk. And 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 walked back into the dressing room could you ask them to keep their voices down at the coffee bar down there I'd really appreciate it's kind of really bouncing up front I'd appreciate if somebody would do that thank you and I walked into the Dressing Room of this show and I stood up on a chair and I announced to the male members of this company that if anyone talks to the new usher out with long brown hair I'll break all the bones in your hands and feet so for the next week or so any time anybody would walk near Nancy he'd kind of go like that and dash away. That woman and I celebrated 27 years of marriage last June. And man, we had a great time. We just had such a great Time. The earth opened up underneath us. We just fell in love. And you know, one of the most misquoted lines in the big book of AA for me is, I've heard people say, because it's kind of this deal sort of at the end of chapter three. I've heard people say, my worst day in here is better than my best day out there. No, no. I had a great time. Let's see, a pound of cocaine in an all-female jazz band or a panel at the prison. What do I want to do? What'll be more fun? Actually, what the line says is that I wouldn't trade my worst day in here for my best day out there, because I won't trade this way of life. I won'T live like a sap anymore. And that's why I do more in AA. I hang out with guys who do more. They do more, guys and gals who when stuff gets hard, they do more when things get good they do More. They do More in AA because I still have that kind of thinking. A couple years ago I was about 14 years sober and I needed surgery on my hand and the doctor said to me you know, Mr. Redmond, you're going to need general anesthetic. And I said, wow, general anestetic. You know what? I'm just going to do this. I know I'm not on the committee or anything, but it's noisy back there and it's distracting people in the back and we could really use your help, okay? Really could. It would be a big help. and I said general anesthetic this is great normal people don't get excited about general anesthetic no normal person goes oh general anestetic but I do and I'll tell you why because I know that when they hit you with general anestgetic they they hit with it and they say count backwards from 100 and you go 199 I love 99 I love 99 but I won't trade my life in for 99 anymore a couple of years ago I had to go back and get the same surgery and I went to a different doctor and he said I he said you know you need the same surgeon on the other hand and I said well I guess we'll be having that general anesthetic and he said, you don't need general anesthetic with this. And I immediately thought, no, I need another goddamn doctor. That's what I need right away. We had a great time. We had a great town. We didn't know we were a couple of dogs trying to run on linoleum. We had our first son, Micah, who was really welcomed into our community. We were surrounded by friends and family and got a ton of phone calls. Nancy started to become rather troubled. from prolonged exposure to me. She started getting ill, if the truth be out. And one day we had these 32-ounce iced tea tumblers in the house and I came home one day, I popped a cork on a bottle of wine and I emptied the entire bottle of wind into one of these tumblers and I turned around and my wife was giving me her pre-Alanon rat face. At least that's what I saw. Maybe that's not what she was doing, but that's What I Saw. and I said what she said what are you doing and I looked at her in the eye and I said I'm having a glass of wine can't a man have a glass of wine in his own home we got so sick that at one time guy lent us his car and we sold his car I will never forget this guy's voice on the phone as long as I live he said you sold my car that's like house-sitting for someone and they come back in urine escrow you know and the alcoholic life becomes the only normal one you know it was the end of the month we didn't have rent no really and I looked into my wife's eyes and I said I am so sick of being a punk irresponsible kid let's stand on our own two feet all right let's not borrow money let's do the right thing. Let's sell the car. And she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, let's do. And I know now why it's for the same reason that I get excited when I'm told that I need dental surgery. Normal people don't get excited about dental surgery. I do because I go from you need dental surgery, perk it in. I leave out the middle. I lead out the surgery. I leave up the whole center section. I live out the incision, the blood, the pain, the inflammation. I leave out the middle. If you're new to AA, welcome to the middle We're really big on the middle And that's what I did I went to, let's do the right thing, pay the rent I left out Grand Theft Auto I left out the whole middle Two years and nine months after Michael was born our son Jesse was born and by that time in just two years and nine months we had become completely isolated by alcoholism there were no friends no phone calls no family no one showed up it hurt too much to be around us and Jesse got sick he went to neonatal intensive care Nancy was all alone no phone calls no flowers alone and I get a call that night from the doctor at a big metropolitan LA hospital saying, Mr. Redmond, where are you? Where are you your wife is in tremendous psychological duress the baby is ill what it what what is this and I said you know what I can't find anybody to watch my two-year-old son I can come down there and this doctor said to me who I'd never met before ever said to Matt tell you what I'll give you my phone number and my address and you can take your son to my house and my husband will watch him so you can come down here and I said no I had no way to accept this woman's generosity now my poor son is stuck in the house with this insane man racked with guilt I would have done better to take him down to the hospital and leave him in the waiting room of the coloring book at least he could have gotten the hell away from me I don't know I had idea that we had painted ourselves into this corner on April 22nd 1985 I crossed the line I swore I never cross again but right before that that that happened a couple of other events took place in our life things just got they got they bad although our lives ran out between our fingers like a handful of water over and over again I I would work someplace about 90 days and they'd start blaming each other for having hired me which is hurt it just hurt my feelings you know you brought him no you did um uh i directed a tv show i acted on a broadway show i i i uh directed a film i had a book on the bestseller list i did all these things a time i never got to do any of them more than once because they'd move the business you know once i'm left and and i uh uh and i couldn't figure it out i just couldn't figure out why this bad stuff was happening to us. Our children got very, very sick from alcoholism. I didn't know. I hadn't read our literature. I hadn't about the warped lives of blameless wives and children. A Christian family moved in next to us and they talked about God a lot. My son Michael was about five. He came to me and he asked me, Dad is there anything such as God? And I looked into the eyes of my perfect five-year-old baby boy and I said no I lied to him I I basically said to him you know when it's dark and you're scared and you can't go to sleep tough that's all there is tough that's basically what I said to them I don't think and and and I thought I was saving him some skin I thought i was giving him the real existential deal with something every five-year-old craves the real existential deal, so he wouldn't be played like a sap and a sucker out there. And what I in fact did was I lied to him. And if you're new here, I want to urge you to read the fourth chapter of our book because what it points out is that I in effect did something diametrically opposed to what I thought I was doing. I thought i was giving him the real stuff and what I was giving them was the weakest, mushiest, most pathetic thinking of all. This bizarre idea that in in the face and the presence of all this immutable law that somehow we are just some little equation floating around in the air. It's a it's an insane idea, an insane idea. And I tell that to a five-year-old boy. A couple of months before I got sober, this was a good morning in the Redmond home. We started out on Broadway, that's where Nancy and I started out together, and then this is where we wound up. I had an accident, and I was taken to the hospital, and my blood pressure was 160 over 110. The doctor said, Mr. Edmund, you're going to have to lose some weight. And I said, you know, I want to, but I drink alcohol and I smoke marijuana before I go to bed every night, so I'm not going to be able to. And he said, why don't we prescribe some medication for you and I said what a country and he prescribed me chloral hydrate which is a knockout drop it's a Mickey it's a fast-acting knockout tropics just like getting hit in the head with a rock and I love these pills I love love love my knockout drops so Nancy comes home I'm eating handfuls of knockout traps and slamming my arms into the wall to keep myself awake to enjoy my knock out drop because you don't want to waste a perfectly good knockout drop. So I'm eating pills, slamming body parts into the hallway until I just seize and keel over. Now I'm going up into bed and now I'm incontinent like the rest of the 33-year-old men in America because I can't get out of bed to pee. But one night I got up and wet the wall and Nancy was excited. The next day I was. You wet the walls. You're headed towards the bathroom. this is, you know, part of your blood pressure treatment and things are looking up. Got some movement. Yikes! On April 22nd 1985 I crossed the line. I swore I would never cross again. I put a needle in my arm and I don't know why I didn't make it okay to put a need in my arms. I don' t know why. I didn't just move the earth so that would be okay. Don't know why, but I called my therapist of record in my 18th year of psychotherapy. I told him what I had done and he said to me that morning on the phone the exact same thing that Carl Jung said to the man who 12-stepped the man, who 12 stepped Bill Wilson. And this was my first Jungian therapist and I didn't know any of this. He said to me, you know what I can't help you I wish I could but I can and I said what what are you talking about he said I can help you the only thing I suggest is that you attend a meeting of narcotics anonymous alcoholics anonymous or we have institutionalized now on most other days I would have gladly chosen that institution that would have been fine that's colorful and adventurous people those are my people that's an uninterrupted source of narcotic that's like, you know, better than dental surgery for God's sake. Why I went to that AA meeting? Couldn't tell you. It's a mystery to me. God's a MYSTERY to me, complete and utter mystery. But I woke up at 5 o'clock in the morning. I got my best clothes on. I've got a bad check to write you and I went to a 7 a.m. meeting at a place called Unit A in the San Fernando Valley Valley. And I walked into this meeting, and I looked around, and I said to myself, oh my God, how did I wind up in Alcoholics Anonymous? How? 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. And the place looked like it was like the product of 200 years of inbreeding. I mean, that's the way the room looked. There were like identical twins carving their initials on each other's feet in the back of the room. You know? I mean and everything was a miracle. I'm a miracle! You're a miracle!! The coffee and furniture are miracles! Pfft! Pfftt! PFFT! Then the AA unsolicited information guy came up to me. You know him, right? He's got a belt buckle large enough to serve an entire fish on. I don't share that in Calgary. Not stupid. I just sold the car when he lent it to me. But you know that guy. Do I want what you've got? No, no. but thanks for spitting on me. I really appreciate it. Thanks Clem. Say hello to Martha for me. See you next week. I hated, I hated AA. I just hated everything about it. The only reason that I can imagine that I went back is I was out of plans. If you're new here, I pray for you that you are out of plans. If you're 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. My favorite newcomer plan besides the Molotov cocktails, which I just think is just great. and I've seen it the single most utilized newcomer plan I've ever seen in AA in the years I've been in is the one more dope deal to set myself up financially for sobriety plan it's going to wind up on the soft literature rack I mean this thing is out there it's out there and I hated it so much I went back there every day for a year and these people pried my jaws open and my wife was talking about it this afternoon and we were shown incredible love and kindness by these people who would come over to our tobacco rowed house and clear the mess away a little bit and not call attention to it and talk to us, you know. And my wife reached out to the Al-Anon family group. She had this great sponsor which she still has named Ruby who I love, I love love love. And we were crazy. You guys said don't get involved in your first year and we didn't. We stayed the hell away from each other. We, I was psycho. I had nothing to bring to my marriage. I don't know how to do anything. I didn't have a fight. I either scream until she shuts up or I cry until she shuts up. One of the two. I like the tyranny of helplessness. It's always been great. I'm also a loomer. I liked the loom. I am big. I'd like to loom with the light behind me and get her in shadow. I like that. It's like total eclipse of the Jew if I get her right in there, right? And if you can work like a loom, a scream, and a cry in a one fight, that's a hat trick man. Doesn't get any better than that. So these are the communication skills I'm bringing to the deal, right. I don't know how to do anything. Don't know balance checkbook, don't have to clean the house, can't clean house, don' t clean the houses. Been looking at guys ten years younger than me my whole life saying I wonder what it's like to be grown up. Crappy way to live. Don't even clean my own house, don't make the bed. I think somewhere in the back of my twisted mind that a certain amount of housework should equal a certain amountof sex. That there should be like conversion tables on the back cleaning products of house work to sex. So I'm bringing nothing. I'm coming to take something. So I'm going to my wife, I go, hey, I'm finished, babe. And she's saying, yeah, you're completely finished, believe me. And we had insane rules in our house for our boys. We just had these crazy rules. They weren't allowed to cuss and eat sugar and watch TV. But dad would be carted out on a gurney once in a while. It was a Wheaties morning if I peed on the wall. But don't curse. It was when you can't control a thing in the middle of your life that's eating your soul, you just try to get the trimmings right. If we had really appreciated how bad the problem was when we came in, I don't think we would have made it. I really don't. We knew there was a lot of terrible stuff happening, and we knew the boys had been grievously injured, really injured, right down to being so distracted that they had a hard time putting small tasks together, you know. But I think if we had really appreciated how terrible the problem was, I think we would have gone mad. And I stuck around AA for six months and enjoyed the gift of step none. You know the giftof step none? Nothing. And I had seen the AA drill hundreds of times in just six months. People came in and did the work and changed. People came and didn't do the work, did not change, got sick, got sicker, got to the podium, shared their gift with us, and then shared their ass right out of the door or stayed here and became columns of human sewage and sexual predators, although I judge no man because I'm just too spiritually developed. So I knew I was going to drink, and I saw it in my wife. She said she saw it in me. I saw stuff really starting to happen and I asked a guy to sponsor me because I didn't want to drink and great guy, still is a great guy and he made sure I'd done some reading from the big book of AA. He invited me to his apartment and he read me chapter five that night and on the way through he took me through the first two steps and we reached step three and got on our knees and said a prayer which I felt was embarrassing and unnecessary but I did it anyway. And then he finished chapter five and he went back and he gave me instructions on how to do a fourth step in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and I stopped feeling like I was stealing someone's seat here. And I took three months, you know, to do my inventory. I went back, and I read it to him when I was nine months sober. And me personally, I feel very grateful that I didn't drink during that dangerous period in between the time where I got sober and had completed my inventory and started doing the work here. I consider myself lucky And I know people wait a longer time than that and stay sober. And I think they're lucky too, you know. Man am I lucky! And I went back and I read it at nine months. I did step six and seven for the first time, which had become sort of the fulcrum for my relationship with my higher power. Then it came time to do my eight-step list. I try to share this anytime I talk because it's simply the best reading of step eight I have ever heard in my life and I want to share with you if you're new. I heard it at my old home group, the North Hollywood Men's Group. I was a couple of weeks sober and there was a hospital group there with a guy named Nino. I'd never seen Nino before. I've never seen him since. This was over 18 years ago. He had a heavy New York accent and he had never read Chapter 5 before. He was there with a hospital plastic on his wrist. He got up in front of this men's group and read Chapter 4. Chapter 5 for the first time and got up to Step 8 and 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's in here? It was so pure. It was so beautiful because it's all I saw and I did not see anything else on the list, man. Nothing. Nothing! No, no. 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 stupid? Oh, man! If you're new, don't worry about it. It's eight steps from where you are anyway, for God's sake. And eight's really not even the annoying one. Nine is really the annoying one. I wrote up my eight-step list and I didn't know what I was going to do about it. My wife was down there and my kids and my dad and everyone who I'd ever worked for. I was a terrible thief. I mean, really bad at being a thief because they all knew pretty much. And I didn't know what I was going to do about it. And my sponsor said, don't worry about it, do your job at AA. Do your job in AA. I didn'T know what he was telling me. He was suggesting that I take a seemingly bunch of seemingly disconnected activities that if I did it, because my disease reacts so poorly to a frontal assault, that if i do these seemingly unconnected activities, I'm going to starve this horrible, horrible soul sickness that I have. This cancer of the soul, this spiritual tapeworm that ate me up from the inside and left me hollow and insane and alone. He said, do your job at Alcoholics Anonymous and see what happens. Thank God he said that to me. So I started doing my job in AA. I started hanging out with people who were doing the deal in AlcoholicsAnonymous. and my sons have have received 18 appropriate birthday gifts that they wanted on the day of their birthday not once in 18 years have they received the day actor after radioactive guilt gift from the only place that would take a hot check from me here's some drywall boys all the kids are loving the drywall right now. It's Pokemon drywall. Oh man, I don't feel guilty on my kids birthday anymore. It was all over my inventory the stuff I had done on their birthdays because doing that inventory and doing the prayer meditation have led me to these positive actions. I exercise the the birthday muscle 18 times. I'm happy joyous and free in that realm, you know. And I started doing my job at Alcoholics Anonymous. I service and she said actually this is a marriage not a coffee commitment. And she was right. She was right I had to really start trying to be engaged and not thinking that I was going to do a few simple things and we were gonna move on with the business of life. And and I had to do some stuff that was just terrible very embarrassing and very painful. I had go into my kids school and sit down with the teachers and say you know, my sons have this great potential. They are very, very smart. They're functioning at a very low level and I've been very sick, very sick and I'm making a new beginning and we need help can you help us? And not once did anyone say no. Ever. Not once. And our kids were in very serious condition. And they got tested and they got a bunch of, because we advocated for them, they got bunch of resources cut loose for them and the special ed teacher said get him into big motor stuff, we'll see if it affects the small motor stuff and get him into music, get him in a sport. So I spent some dope dollars registering him for the little league, you know did the right thing. Never could get that done, you now. Spent couple of bucks on the right pair of jeans not a lot of money a couple of bucks you know go to my first Little League game my wife comes to the game it looks over there's everyone in the first base stands and there's me in the Sun going insane you know just going insane my head's going up and down three hat sizes I'm just going bananas you know there's a vein pumping on my forehead like a garden hose I'm here I'm doing my job I'm here I'm here the kids were thrilled to see me mr. Redmond's gonna blow up man look at him look at them I was nuts and it took me a couple of years for the voices to diminish in volume and number to just go and sit with the people to just be in the first base stand to just be at my sobriety station and uh I got over there I did get over there and my son played for a couple years and Eventually, he got paid one of the great compliments a human being, I believe, can be paid in a life. He was intentionally walked. And if you're not a baseball fan, that means they're scared of you and they want to get to the weenie behind you. And he didn't want to jump up and down and scream and yell because you've got to be cool. You don't want To be a geek, right? So he just laid his bat down and he trotted up the first baseline. and on the way up the first baseline, he turned to me at my sobriety station and he just shot me just a little bit of stuff. It's the old man. You don't want to spoil him. Don't be lame. And tried it at the first base and I could have missed the whole thing. I could've missed the whole think. I'm not telling you Jesse got intentionally walked because I was sober. I'm telling you I was there because I were sober and I've gotten to tell enough guys who are drunk on their kid's birthday again because this alcoholism goes below the horizon. It stops presenting itself as a real, real issue. And they drank again. And Jesse wanted to play drums. We didn't have any dough at the time. We didn' t have dough for a long time. I went to the music school. I couldn' t buy him drums. I bought him a drum pad. It' s a piece of wood with a piece of rubber and a couple of sticks. And I did the right thing. My kid wanted... I got him the thing he wanted. He wanted to be able to start that process and I got that thing for him. And I went back to my home group And I told the guys, and I'll tell you why I told them, and you already know if you're a member of that kind of a home group. They wanted to know. They were rooting for me and my family. They were interested. They wanted us to succeed. They loved us. And the guys were thrilled for me. And within two weeks, the AA drum set showed up at our house. There were like a lot of burnout drummers in our group at that time. And guys are showing up with these mega death drums, you know. dude and Jesse would sit behind this drum set and you couldn't even hear him there's a little tiny tiny little voice and a couple of years ago our sons played the house of blues on Sunset Strip in LA and they burnt the dump down burn it down playing hip-hop music to this no but I can't deal with that now Shall I continue talking? And playing hip-hop music to this packed crowd, eight, nine hundred people elbow to elbow. And there were this weeping little crowd of middle-aged alcoholics standing over at the side and the kids are kind of looking over there going what is with the crying old people man? What's that all about? And we started making a beginning. Our family really, really started making the beginning I was in my first year of sobriety and I started sponsoring one of the first guys I ever started to sponsor my first here was a guy named Roland and Roland used to call our house every night and he'd leave a message and he would say on our answering machine he'd say Roley Scott it's Roland I love you I'm sober good night I need hang up they call every night about five years later when my son Michael was six years into this and I was six year sober he came to me and he said you know dad when I was a little boy I couldn't fall asleep until I heard Roland's voice on the machine and once I heard Rollins voice on the Machine I knew everything was okay I could go to sleep and I think that some and this is the kid who I try to rip God out of his life you know and and you guys came over the answering machine you came into the house every night and you tucked him in I think some nights he probably stayed up till he passed out And he and Roland have a wonderful, pretty remarkable relationship to this day. In my first year of sobriety I had a ghost writing job for 20th Century Fox and at the end of that year I was offered a job or I was being considered for a job directing a situation comedy. And I was starting to sponsor some guys, and I was becoming sort of a spiritual Goliath at that particular time. And I thought if I got this job directing this situation comedy, that it would really benefit the guys I sponsor. It would really, really help them out. So I did some more trying to get this job, and i didn't get the job, and I almost drank, and I was humiliated. And I went to my sponsor, I told him what had happened. And he said to me, well, I guess you've got the show business, God. And so what are you talking about? He said, Well, you wanted a show business job. You didn't get it and you almost drank. So I guess he said, What keeps you sober? I said, God keeps me sober. So okay, God keeps you silver. You wanted the showbusiness job, you didn't get it. And you almost drink. So I guess you have the show business god and he has abandoned you utterly when i came into alcoholics anonymous i gotta tell you i am so freaked out and upset right now the guy just did that to me still in the back of the room i feel completely unsafe you know and i i'm like trying to choke my way through this talk and it's like i'm really having a tough time guys so i don't i don' t quite know what to do, you know. I don't like to see anybody leaving a meeting but I'm just I'm just really having a tough time and I really appreciate your help thank you very much thank you when I came in alcoholics anonymous I heard God getting people jobs got hit people relationships God getting People parking spaces I said oh no not the parking space God what if he doesn't give you a space and that I didn't know what to make of that. My wife and I were caught in the Northridge earthquake, probably some of you heard about it down at the last really big awful earthquake down in LA. Our house got smashed up. I got a bad physical deal. It was awful. We really got creamed in it. Shortly after it we were at an AA function at a town and at this AA function a woman who used to live in LA came up to me 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 likes you but we're crap but he likes you that's great and she said to me i guess he felt you just had some lessons to learn i'm out of here i can't live in that world i absolutely cannot live in a world with a god up there saying get him get the redmond boy get him no evacuation plan for you jew boy get them turn his wife to salt kill his goat put put a finger in his eye, get him. I can't live in that world. I see the deliberate hand of God into the suffering of other people. Our book says that this life is not a veil of tears. God wants us to be happy, joyous, and free. We absolutely insist on enjoying life. Absolutely insist on enjoying life. This is the only program I know of for people with a fatal illness that says we absolutely insist on enjoying life, there's no book about cholera that says cholera's a hoot, you're going to love cholera, then you'll meet other people with cholera. Then you'll meet people who just caught cholera it doesn't get any better than that. And when I did six and seven that day because I had to write the tenth step I was resentful at myself for almost drinking, and I was resentful at that company for not giving me the job. And my sponsor said, after I read that inventory to him, he said, you know what, Scott? You're going to have to have a talk with your higher power. You see, I made a mistake when I came here. I didn't get it. I did not get that the big book of A.A. said that no one can fully comprehend that power which is God. I do not know that St. Thomas said that God is absolute and complete mystery. I don't know that the mystics say that to know God is to not know God. So I misidentified some people in AA as the source of the power, you know? Well, I got sober there. This mystery happened to me there with those people, so they must be the source of it. I've heard somebody say in AA that the sponsor's job is just to keep the newcomer entertained until God takes over, you Know? I love that. I love That, You know? And It's true. And when I misidentify those people and those places and those things as the source of the power, I injure them and I injures myself. And when I say that God wanted me to learn more lessons, I ascribe a meaning and a personality and a logic to it that is dangerous for me. It's hurtful to me. And I'm sorry, we all come different ways. When there's two babies and they're both sick and I pray for one and I think God is going to somehow save that baby and kill the other. I just am not interested in being in that world. I pray for the baby to move closer to God and for the parents to be comforted. And then I try to do something, try to help. So when I did six and seven that day and Don said to me you are going to have to do something. You are goingto have to get a God big enough so you can stay sober through the loss of a show business job. And I said, Pop you got it. You take it. You take show business, I've had it, I surrender it. I will do anything you want me to do for a living, you take show business. And within three months I was working as a cook on a catering truck and I looked up to God and I said I did not mean this. This wasn't even on the long list. I had now in LA when they make a TV show or movie, they hire a caterer. You follow the company around, you make food for them. It's a great job. You make a lot of dough. It's Teamster dough, but I'm Scott Redman. The first movie that I catered, the executive producer and star of the movie was a guy who I had worked with in the business. He stuck his head on the truck that morning and he said, can I have a burrito, Scott? I said, what's happening, babe? He said, is this your I said no but it's my spatula and I went home and I called my sponsor and I said oh we're getting the gift now you know we're really getting a gift it's beautiful so it sounds like you've got a resentment what did they take workshops I'm resentful at Scott for work on the kitchen truck it affects my self-esteem theme pocketbook, Ambition, Personal Relations, and Sex. A five-bagger for sure. What are the defects of character in me that if God would remove, the resent would be gone? Resentment's no big deal, just the source of all spiritual disease, the great destroyer of all alcoholics. It'll cut you off from the sunlight of the spirit, drag your ass out, and kill you dead. But don't be alarmed. Work a step a year. Relax. Don't worry about it. I'm going to die because I don't just hate things. I don'T just hate things! I hate things where when I wake up, I water the hatred and care for it like a little flower. I want to make sure it's healthy and it's moving right along. The worst thing is when I forget to hate something. When a guy goes, hi, and I go, hi, oh, I hate him. Why did I do that? Why did i do that?! Now I'm going to redouble my hatred time, redouble by snubbing and glaring to make that he knows that I hate them. It's terrible when you get a back step like that. I hate in a way that when my head hits the pillow, it becomes a rotisserie. It eats my brain and my heart and it turns my life black. I'm going to die. What am I going to do about this? Pop, please. When I drew close to him, he revealed himself to me. Please remove this impatience, this low self-esteem, this fear of confrontation, this fear of financial insecurity, this grandiosity, this greed. Please. And I did that 10th step over and over again because I wound up serving people who had been my assistant directors and stage managers. I wound up serving people on sets, serving actors who I had directed in TV shows. I'd come back to my home group with a new tale of humiliation every week. And the guys would go, ho, ho. I helped some people who felt they had fallen from a height in AA when they came to AA. I had a friend named Paul who felt he had fallen form a height and he used to say this prayer. He'd say, Pop, I'm willing to do anything for a living, just keep me sober. But please don't let it be as bad as what you did to Scott. and I learned how to show up and give them a dime for their nickel and my son Jesse didn't much care about me being a writer but he loved the fact that I was a cook and I taught him how to cook and we learned howto cook together and we still cook together and that's not the way I would have had it that'snot the wayI would have chosen to be friends with or close to my son and I cooked for about 3 years and at the end of that period I had an overture made to me by a big public relations firm in New York called Ketchum Public Relations. And they were considering me for a big-time comedy writing job. And I thought, you know what? If I get this job, I really think it will benefit the guys I sponsor at this point. Because they've seen me suffer, and now they'll see me prosper thusly. I think this is going to be really good for them. And I went mad. I went cuckoo before I even found out about it. My brain blew up, I had to write about it, I wrote the 10-step, I read it to my sponsor, I prayed about it and I was fine. Shortly after that I had made a videotape sort of as an audition for this job. Shortly after I got a call from Ketchum that I didn't get the job and I wasn't cool. And then shortly after that I got another call from my catering company asking me to cater some commercials up in the mountains above L.A. And I got in the truck and got up there and I grabbed the call sheet, which is this piece of paper which gives you all the information about the shoot. And the commercials were for Ketchum Public Relations. I'm feeding them now. Now I'm feeding them. I look down at the end of the truck and there's a guy videotaping me. I said, what are you doing? He said, oh, we're taping the making of the commercial. He's taping my humiliation. and he's going to go back to New York with the tape and show it to the guys in New York and the guys in New York are going to go is that Scott Redman with the meatloaf oh my god I went home that night and I called my sponsor and I said oh we're getting a gift now oh we really are it's a miracle it's just a miracle miracle miracle miracle and Don said to me you know I guess God had enough writers today and he needed a few cooks. 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. If you're new I want to welcome you to Alcoholics Anonymous. I want to suggest that you stick around long enough to get a diagnosis. the good news is our problem mainly rests in our mind again there's no book that I know of about treatment from a fatal illness that contains that sentence we absolutely insist on enjoying life my sponsor used to say something I loved so much he said you know what, AA is the only recovery that I knew of from a fatality a fatal disease that leaves the sufferer in better condition than they were in before they contracted the disease wow wow it's really remarkable and the bad news is is our problem mainly rests in our mind and um some years ago i was at a meeting and i talked to this new guy and i went home and he called me and i um talked to me for an hour i said uh-huh about four times say no i wasn't dead and uh he was telling me about he's stalking several women he had a couple of restraining orders out against him, but he's 11 days sober, and it's different now. And at the end of the hour, he said to me, I feel so alone, and I said, what are you talking about? I hardly even know you. I just listened to you for an hour without interrupting. What do you mean? And he said, well, I don't have a woman. And I said to him, what exactly would you be bringing to a relationship right now besides the stalking skills. What do you bring to the party today? People two weeks into leukemia remission are not having dating problems. Alcoholics are because our problem mainly rests in our mind, because our problems goes below the horizon. And what has happened as a result of clearing up my resentments, my fears and my sexual misconduct, of this hammerlock being loosened on my heart. My problem stays buoyed above the horizon as a real piece of business, a real and present danger even when I'm not concentrating on it because it's buoyed on the shoulders of the men and women of Alcoholics Anonymous and by the higher power that you've introduced me to. It's a miracle. It's real miracle. Even when I am not thinking about it, I'm safe. And some years after that I was in the house, Nancy and I were in the house. This new guy called me and Nancy knew I was talking to a new guy and she heard me say into the phone, let's say the aliens are coming. And she stopped short. She ain't missing a second of this. I said listen to me, I am not arguing with you. I'm not fighting you. They might well be coming. That's an outside interest right but I do have one question why you why have they come for you why have they traversed the universe for your sorry ass why you've got two weeks of sobriety you live in a hole why what don't you think they'll call a cop go to a post office plus he's sleeping with a Bible on his chest to ward them off so they're gonna traverse the universe walk into his room and go oh no the Bible let's go home years later I was at my home group and I was sharing that story and the guy in the story walked into the room and I saw him walk into the room and i'm telling the story and he's listening to the story I'm watching him anywhere like this he went so the horrible memory if you knew here every craving has a beginning a middle and an end if you're willing to stand and take the whooping if you can call out to one of us if you can ask for help if you say pop I'm willing to accept the craving I'll stop treating the craving with a drink I've been treating my own alcoholism I'll stopped reading it please remove the obsession I will stop treating this craving and accepted and asked for help crawl on my belly call one of the members of a so I can stay available for this thing so I can take advantage of the opportunity that has been afforded me I'm out of the cycle of spree and remorse I want to get involved in the cycle of surrender and commitment where each surrender creates a bigger opportunity for a bigger commitment and it's snowballs I want a big sexy robust everything that's what I want if you're new here I want oh I want to urge you to take this thing as seriously as you possibly can and then go out there and have the time of your life. If the aliens are coming for you, welcome to AA.