The New Answer That Replaced the Drink – Scott L.

Hi you guys, I'm Scott. I'm alcoholic. I got a bad case of it there there's three boxes of Kleenex up here and So if anybody thinks they're gonna cry through this you can pick one up I'll leave them over here Get them I don't think it's going to be that kind of talk But you don't ever know when you come into a place like this what you're gonna get So I would first like to say thank you very much to Neil for inviting me, to Jeremy who's been a very, very fine host and to all the rest of you for just coming. Man, man, look at us, look at us. Isn't this phenomenal? For those of you with less than 30 days you're the ones I came to talk to and I mean that with all my heart. What a blessing it is for me that you are here. I'd like to open by inviting everyone to invite God to the meeting just think I got this from Lois Wilson just in case you don't have a God borrow mine I recommend him very highly it's got a great sense of humor if you don t think so look around the room and but if you don't have a god you got if you're like I was when I got here afraid there might be one borrow mine. I recommend them very highly and address him as a god of scots limited understanding because that's about as far as that's ever gonna to go and uh so i'd like to just do that and i'm going to step out of my shoes up here because we invite god and my feet could be on holy ground and i'll try to carry that in my heart when i'm here let's take a moment to acknowledge the presence of deity amen thank you it's a little warm in here if my sponsors called I came wearing a coat and a tie okay Jeremy thank you and yeah I don't sweat like I used to yeah anyway I am I used to drink I was bad to drink and I didn't start I was a late bloomer I didn's start drinking so I was 18 years old I I needed to drink before then I know I I know there was one morning, it was the first morning I went to kindergarten. I could have used a double that morning. It's not easy for a five-year-old to get a double. You probably know that. So I just did without, and it was terrible. But anyway, I was 18. I was in college. I was going through fraternity rush, and fraternity boys walked into a bar, and I followed them into the bar. and they ordered a beer, ordered the same brand of beer. They go I'm such a chameleon I can do what you did so fast. Looks like we did at the same time. We start drinking this beer. I do not like the beer. I do not like to taste. I don't like the way the foam feels. I don't like anything about it except by doing it with these guys. And I'm hyper vigilant I'm watching them like a hawk and I'm drinking at the same pace they are. As we approach the bottom of this beer I'm thinking let's pay these nice people and get out of here. They ordered another beer and I I didn't fly in from Nashville, Tennessee to talk to you. I came to talk with you, play with me, okay? So as they approached the bottom of the first beer, they ordered a second beer. Does anybody have a wild guess what I did? Ordered a second. Very good. I'm in the right room. Yes, sir. Now keep paying attention. The questions are going to get harder. And by the time the second beer hit bottom, I got the magic that all alcoholics understand. understand, and the earthlings do not understand it because it doesn't do that for them. They waste every drop they drink. And I suddenly got taller. Who got taller when they drank? Taller? Come on, put them on. Who go taller? Thank you. How about better looking? Right? Pump pimples jumped right off. Right? Expert on many subjects. Right. We have experts. first. I am expert on subjects I never heard of and can't even spell, right? Fantastic. Dancer? Yeah, boy, you can hear the dancers. Yes, Lord, we have dancers. And gentlemen, now I can talk to the girls, right, and ladies, you could stand a list of that crap, right. I mean, this is the magic juice I've been looking for it works for everybody I've be looking for this all my life and I'd paid a high price for any one of those and did but I hadn't got to the big one the big onus her first time in my life something deep in my soul went and it was just okay to be Scott never had been it never had been by the time I was five or six years old I realized what was going to be the greatest truth in my lifetime been with you for a little while that's what I'm not good enough I'm not good and if I'm awake I'm on red alert trying to hold up the right mask to keep you from seeing the real me my mission is to keep you for finding out who I am because clearly bunch of together people like you would not have a defective model like me around if you knew and my job is to keep your foot finding out Who I really am it takes a phenomenal amount of energy to do that and I told it earlier today but I I know I can't be be Scots. I'm going to be the second coming of John Wayne, except for the fighting. I was a little bit too pretty to risk this. But other than that. And so see if this sounds familiar. So this is the persona that I take on. Big boys don't cry. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and go and get stuff that helps you get going. Never let them see your weakness. Never ask a stupid question. Give what you want. It'll make you happy. Never surrender. Never give up. No matter what. Never apologize. That's a sign of weakness. How am I doing? Pretty good, huh? Yeah. Most of us get get here doing some or all of that act based on this belief, this core belief that I'm not good enough. That all turned out to be crap by the way it was all exactly wrong but it's how I ran my life and anyway I zipped through a four-year college in five years and two summer schools where are you come on I know you're here oh yeah yeah my friend from Tennessee right here Trey yes sir yeah, college is a good deal. Let's stay. Yeah and I think they finally realized I was going to keep coming back so they gave me one of those diplomas and I was contagious. They knew I was a problem so they gave me when I was gone and I joined the United States Air Force and went to Valladolid, Georgia where I speak the language to Air Force pilot training and in the second six months of that training we flew the T-38 which you are all familiar with. You may not know that you are, but you are because I know you saw the movie Top Gun everybody did. I've got some news for Tom Cruise. That black airplane they had the dogfight with was not a MiG. Do I sound confident? I've got over 100 missions in that plane. Don't know how many he's got, I've got well over a hundred and I'm pretty sure it's not a miG. It's a high performance airplane. In the Air Force that means after-burning jet engines faster than the speed of sound. Let me take you on a ride. So I crawl into of that thing, I take the runway. I lock the canopy. I lock the brakes. I run up to what we call military power. It's everything short afterburner. Roll a couple yards and light the burners and you get a little kick out of that. You like a little kick. That's why you're here. Right? That's how you got here, right? And about a mile later at about 170 miles an hour which is fast for a tricycle you think back on the stick you don't actually move it when you get in that plane you adjust your rudder pedals and your seat height so that your right forearm rests on your right thigh they got the throttles and your left hand control stick in your right if your right arms up in the area all over the sky it is so sensitive you literally cannot fly it so at about a hundred and seventy knots I think back back on the stick, the nose wheel comes off. At about 180 she flies off. I raise the gear at a thousand feet. I raised the flaps begin to apply forward pressure on the stick. I hold her level at a 1000 feet till we get to 600 knots and pull up. I'm level at 40,000 feet three and a half minutes after I take the runway. This thing will roll twice a second. We did that. A loop is defined as the 360 degree turn through the vertical plane pulling positive G's. And this plane at At 10,000 feet, I entered at about 550 miles an hour and I pulled about 5 Gs. Let me tell you what that means. You're pulling 1 G right now, it's the force of gravity. At 1 G, a 200-pound man weighs 200 pounds. At 5 G's, a 250-pound weight is 1,000 pounds. That is exactly what that is. That's exactly what it means. Everything on you now weighs times five. That includes your upper eyelids, by the way, and you will notice that at 5 G. All right, 10, 000 feet, 550 miles per hour, 5 G, wings level inverted at 20, 000 feets. Took two miles vertically to pull her over on her back. Loosed 10,000 feet down the back side. Total lap time under 25 seconds. Disney does not have that ride. And I tell you all that for two reasons. The first, of course, is to impress you. Yeah, me too. Yeah, we got to get one of those. And the second one is to help you see my alcoholism and maybe yours. Finished for the day about 530. He had the officers club. I'm gonna talk about a particular night I used to go out to get drunk intention I'm going out to your trunk tonight, and if you're not going out you get drunk I don't want you along you're gonna be a problem later You've been with people like that. Yeah, they should do something else but But did you ever get drunk by accident like on the night You reassure your one cuz tomorrow whatever and I probably who got drunk accidentally at least once accidentally drunk These are my people okay, so I do not plan to get this particular night as a matter of fact I'm certain to the depths of my soul I will not get drunk this night. The Air Force Thunderbirds flew this airplane for seven years, I did not fly with them but a friend of mine are going to do their show tomorrow morning and we're gonna take the runway together and as we come off the ground I'm gonna slide up under his tail like so and if I could stand up on my cockpit I can almost touch his tail. My plane is white when we land the top foot of the tail of my vertical is going to be black with a suit from his jet exhaust. We're going to be going as fast as 700 miles an hour pulling as many as seven and a half g's doing things you can't even have nightmares about nobody with the brain would get drunk the night before going to do that are you with me is this making sense with you so far okay all right now the questions are gonna get harder so so here's plan a all right i'm gonna go by the club and have one no more than And two, no, you know the answer. This is what you told someone on the phone. And they believed it again. That's why they have to go to Al-Anon. All right, so I'm going to have one no more than? I should be home by 630 no later than it's good to have a plan it is an excellent plan we're gonna call that plan a but somewhere between the first step of the first one in the bottom of the second one I think I changed my mind it's not what happened what happens I got this cravings so for talks about but if your cravings being satisfied you don't even know you have it yeah but I I know I said I was going home, but I'm going to watch one more quarter of the ball game set them up again. I'll tell you what, Jeremy, rack them up. We'll shoot just a couple more games. Two more over here, bartender. Plan B is a couple More. Now, I don't know when we go from plan B to plan C. I know we went to plan A. I know plan C, but why are they blinking the lights? So I leave the officer's club exactly 1 o'clock in the morning because they—a lot of pilots here. We'll talk flying later. And I drive home drunk with a hand over one eye. We're the one-eyed drivers. Come on. Yeah. I had a guy tell me one time he was afraid a cop would see him with his eye, so he put a piece of duct tape over his eye. I wonder what a cop... And this other guy carried a pair of drunk driving glasses in his glove compartment. He sprayed paint at one lens black. He just puts those babies on and got it covered. Yes, sir. So I drive back home drunk. I walk in. my first wife rips me a new one there's a lot of information in that sentence play it back and uh i've had to head into the bathroom with my after drinking chores i told you the question they're gonna eat harder who puked at least once pukers come on put them out pukas how about your nose who poked out your nose at least one these are my people yes for those of you who did not have the privilege of puking out your notes we would like for you to know that if you do the next day your sinuses will sting with every breath and maybe the day after yeah okay who could forever no speakers put it back up I know it didn't stick with you who explore to yourself never again come on put them up never again never again who swore to somebody else never again yes sir II boy now I'm from I live in Nashville it's about 40 miles from the buckle on a Bible Belt so So I get a lot more there than I may here. But I might get some here. Who swore to somebody one hand on the Bible never again? That's a pretty good number. Okay, who peed in the closet? Did you really? Did you Really? I never did that and I'm very embarrassed for you. I don't believe I would have told that in public, ma'am. That's not very ladylike. And I do not think I would've told that. You might want to talk to your sponsor about this since we shared in a meeting in the fifth step. I cannot believe you said that. I am so embarrassed for you. You let anybody in here, don't you, Neil? Maybe we ought to have that door closed. Anyway, I never did that. My first wife is still angry about that antique coffee table but it used to be in the living room okay I'll give you that yeah my uh my gang we have a history on a New Year's Day we typically take a meeting into a gated community that's a jail and and we do our unusual places panel we talk about unusual places where he's urinated vomited or come out of blackouts it's hilarious and we got him laughing in the jail some of you've been told they don't laugh much in the well they do on national in Nashville on New Year's. Yeah, yeah and I've heard some of the coolest stuff. I'll share just a few of them with you. A lot of guys have peed in washing machines, dryers and refrigerators and I ad-libbed this. I was in a jail 35 years ago and I ad-libbed that thing when I was telling my story. Who peed in the closet? 25 guys. One guy put up his hand and I worked him over like I just did you and went and when the laughter died down he said hey man no big deal it wasn't my closet was it your closet at the time not we don't want the whole fifth step just answer the question I knew this is going to be fun with you guys tonight so I where was I I was puking, I think. Oh yeah, a couple of my favorites. This one guy, I just got this recent treatment. Guy came out of a blackout on the roof of his house naked peeing in a gutter. You can die from that one. The guy in the jail said he had crawled through his girlfriend's bedroom window and he was having a very pleasant evening when nature calls for a crib very quietly down the hall. And when the lights came on, he was peeing at her mother's dresser. Look up bad night in your dictionary. That's his picture right there. And two more of my favorites. One guy peed in the floor vent of the heat and air. It's the gift that keeps on giving. And a young lady had vomited off of the balcony of the church during the service. Wait for it. While her brother, the preacher, was delivering the sermon. These are my people, yeah. I thought the two most creative and important inventions of the 20th century, both invented by alcoholics by the way, one was that little half moon of carpet they put around a commode for you to kneel on. That wasn't invented by one of our people, you know, that hard bathroom floor on those knees are tough. And that soft commode seat you could rest your head on between heaves in there, remember that? that. Those were not as cold, of course, but they were real nice, and so I'm in there puking up my toenails and quitting forever. I always quit forever. People think quitting drinking forever is a big deal. It's a hard deal. I don't think it's hard at all. I've done it over 2,000 times. I don'T think it'S that difficult, and I would pray the pre-AA prayer, and we're going to do it together. You guys have been good tonight, so trust yourself you know the prayer, okay? Yeah, let me set the scene for you again. It's somewhere between 2.30 and 3 in the morning, and I'm in the bathroom kneeling on the prayer rug, and we're down to the point of proceedings where there's nothing coming out but noise and an occasional tear. Remember that part right toward the end? And then I would pray the pre-AA prayer. I'm going to do the first line. You do the second. Trust yourself. You know the prayer. Are you ready? Here we go. God get me out of this, and which is alcoholic for a men as I'm sure you know for those of you who are new if you're not sure you need to be here we have a one-question test did you know the prayer the earthlings don't know the Prayer stick around well I had teeth then I'd brush them went to bed it's around 3 in the morning I get up at six and at 730 I'm in that airplane with the worst hangover you've ever had I'm wearing jump boots of flights it I'm wearing a g-suit without I will black out today we're gonna pull seven and a half G's today yeah I've got it feels like to put your knife on and right here I get the headache an exact same place every time my throat and nasal passages are raw from puking all of that stuff stuff. I've got a trimmer in my hands. I selected 100% on the oxygen deliverer. It will not cure a hangover, trust me. I tried it hundreds of times. And I'm also tight on the leader flying the mission. What I describe to you is willpower. Many of us have a lot of it. There's no defense against this disease. By 530, now I spent that day, I flew that mission and I was tight on that leader. I flew it well. I spent the rest of that day drinking drinking whole milk, eating saltines. I don't know why. Alka-Seltzer had a new product out with Limited. I was field testing it for them. And about 5.30 that afternoon, I head to the officer's club. The one thing I know for sure in the depths of my soul is I'm not going to get drunk tonight. Tomorrow morning, I'm going to be number four in a four ship. At eight tomorrow morning, it's going to me one, two, three. I'm gonna be number four in the four ship We're gonna be pulling seven and a half Gs at 700 miles an hour. nobody with a brain to get drunk tonight before going to play number four do i have to go on or can you tell the rest of this story i bet you can yeah over and over and over again and i was powerless over alcohol i was ignorant of the fact that you can't leave ma'am i'm not through with you yeah they all say that I knew you guys were going to be fun from this afternoon. Wow, what a joy. Anyway, I flew the missions and some guys get hit at a golf hole 300 yards, I could drive an airplane. I was one of the gifted ones. There were two in my class and I finished at the top of my class. My next duty station I flew a foreign jet all over the world literally. I've flown around the world twice in the same month. people saying it's flat. It's round, trust me. I checked twice. Which is to say I've been drunk on five continents and quite a few islands. And I went to Southeast Asia. I flew Puff the Magic Dragon, the original side-firing gunship. Probably not too many here old enough to remember, thank you. And uh, I was eventually transferred into an intelligence mission over Laos and the president was I was on TV twice a week saying we're not in Laos. And my mission was so classified, we weren't supposed to pray about it because God didn't have a high enough security clearance. And yeah, and I'm not proud of what I'm about to tell you but I was so drunk at four o'clock one morning taxiing my plane out that I taxied off the end of the taxiway into the grass. If it had been four in the afternoon, if there'd been a plane taxiing behind mine, if I'd hit a rock, a ditch or a stump, somebody else would be with you folks and I would still be in a military prison. I was drunk that night by our standards, not this .08 social drinker DUI thing. I was drunken by our standard that night and I'm not proud of that. That's what alcoholism does to nice people like us. It has us disrespect the things we care the most about and tear the hearts out of the people who love us the most. That's when it does it. The disease is greedy once in a while and it'll get it all if I don't do absolutely everything necessary to stop it, everything. I came back to the States and my last duty station I was instructor pilot on a four-engine jet with a worldwide mission that was 26 years old you think I didn't have a gift most people don't get to live their dream I got to throw mine away I'm honorably discharged I resigned my commission after five years and it probably saved my life and maybe some others and I got a job as a sales rep in the summer of 1984 the senior part of my company said to me one day you're going to treatment right now or you're fired the man was a great communicator he could like explain things and uh june 28 1984 which was my 41st birthday i signed into a little charm school outside of atlanta georgia to over correct for a problem i didn't have that's how i got here that's how i get here and uh i told y'all earlier today i'm actually what they call try addicted addicted, I'm addicted to everything I tried and I could afford it. And I came to you with a full load and I didn't sleep the first three nights. I'm laying there in that treatment cell the fourth night knowing I ain't going to sleep again. And some of you may recall if you're not sleeping, you're drinking, it stays dark for a long time, actually all night long. And uh, I don't remember exactly, lights out at 11, I got to stay there until 6 in the morning, short bathroom break, I gotta lay there. And am bored to death. What I'm about to tell you happened to me. I did not do it, but I began to see my life as you might see a series of short movies. I've always given myself credit for my intentions. I'm probably the best intended person you're ever gonna meet. I do close-up magic and I was going to get a clown suit when I was on the road instead of running the bars and chasing the girls, put on the clown suit, take my magic kit into a children's hospital, do a show. You got a med ticket, Rick. I haven't done it yet, but you know one of these days and our third step talks about a a decision for me that it was between an intention and a decision and intentions followed by more intentions a decision is followed by action that's how I can tell them apart today but I didn't know that then but I'm laying there this night I can't see the intentions it's not pretty I began to think about the single worst thing I'd ever done I got one stance flat alone I'd always been able to stop it my Tennessee neighbor Jack Daniels knows how to help me with that my Spanish speaking friend Jose Cuervo he knows helped me help me about that my girlfriend Mary Jane she knows how to help with that they weren't there and I'm laying there with this horrible thing I've done all over me and I can't get anything between me and this terrible thing don't know how long that went on and I eventually reached what I was going to call bottom for the next 30 years one of the boys I sponsor redefined bottom for me he said bottom willingness and surrender have the same definition it's when someone who's qualified asked me to do something I don't like that I don t think will help them. I don t want to do that, I don' t think it matters, I d do it anyway." And that's bottom surrender and willingness. And if you don't have those, you don t have bottom surrender or willingness. Just because you re here doesn't mean you're at bottom. Anyway, I didn't know any of that at the time. And I finally had such pain. This is the part very difficult to describe. My vocal cords did not move, my mouth did not move, and my mind did not think. Just from in my chest screamed It was internal. It was loud. God forgive me! And what I'm going to tell you happened in the next instant. If you've had x-rays taken of your teeth, when the dentist lifts that lead apron off of you, it felt like something like that flew off of me and my body felt so light I thought it was going to float off the bed. At the same instant this magnificent white light came on shining just on me and on my bed. And I could feel the light in every cell of my body and I was aware of every cell in my my body, and it felt so good it almost hurt, and I cannot explain that to you either. The partition about a foot behind my head came within about a feet of the ceiling. The light was coming over. It was all focused just on me. I've never seen light do that. It was doing it that night, and I knew that God was right there, and that God had the power to forgive me, and I was forgiven. I used to say he forgave me, but I don't speak for God. I'm not comfortable around people that do. I don' t know if he ever judged me. I simply do not know. I know that I received his forgiveness at that point for the single worst thing I'd ever done. This is Bill's story, page 12. But soon a sense of his presence had been blotted out by worldly clamors, mostly those within myself. I don't speak for Bill either. But I'll tell you, I do not believe that event alone would have brought me 40 years of recovery. I get to tell this story to quite a few of us. And every year I have people come up to me and say I had an event like that and then I drank again after it. It was just a cornerstone. Don't feel like you got robbed because you didn't get one of those. You might not have been sick enough to need one, and I was. And that was a beginning, and i woke up. And i don't know how long i lay in the master's presence. What we call time does not exist there. And also, by the way, with my eyes closed, i can see that room in better detail. I can see this one now, and l have 20-20 vision. And i do not know how along i lay in the presence of him who i love. l'm not aware of anything else that passed between us. l simply don't knoW. I do know that at some point I must have gone to sleep because the next morning I woke up, and I had not done that in several days. I woke UP wanting to be one of his guys, and that was my first cornerstone. I zipped through a 28-day treatment program in six weeks flat. I've always picked things up. I think they kept me over a couple of extra weeks to help the new people. Good. I'm glad you got that. and I went back to home to Nashville where the only person I knew was in recovery was one of my customers and I didn't want him to know if you don't recognize that that's newcomer thinking terminal case I'm gonna die from what's going on in here really soon upon get some help with it and I started following your aftercare plan 90 meetings in 90 days I went to 87 two of them I just don't remember. One night I'm about to go to the meeting, my son fell and injured himself. Put him in a car and went to the emergency room. And we all know that was the right thing. I thought if you miss, you just miss. Because I can't figure out all by myself that you might be able to go two meetings in a single day. Because I have this minor case of terminal newcomer thinking. And so every old place mentioned playgrounds. My favorite playground in Nashville is on 8th Avenue. And I had a two-year chip in my pocket the next time my car was on 8th avenue. I refused to turn onto the street for over two years. I'm not kidding you. I'm gonna, this being recorded, I'm going to give you the two best-kept secrets in AA anyway. All right here's the first one. The directions on how to do a four step have been cleverly concealed in the pages of this book. It's one of our best kept secrets and it was well so called kept that the people this treatment through did not know that and I completed their alleged four step step fill in the blanks do you still hate your mother kind of psycho babble thing and uh i called down to the treatment center to bernie was a counselor there had my big white light experience i see that fifth step confession i might tell somebody the whole truth who to tell berny he's a counselor and i can look at him until he's ripped out of his mind you know what it looks like when somebody's stoned i know you do face is real relaxed you got this dumb grin he just sort of shovels when you know What It Looks Like I Know You Do I did and uh I asked him for that would you hear my fist up he said yeah finish four and i'll hear that's a great thought i'm gonna do my fist step with this junkie perfect choice six weeks later he won't even know if we did it much less what i said perfect choice so i completed their alleged four-step called him went down i did my fist head with bernie which is where i began to get relief now if i had been doing the actual steps i'd be the ones out of this book when an actual sponsor that's one who's already done them out of bits book i would have got i would've gotten relief before then as an aside berny was not actually stoned he was sober over 20 years that was serenity i didn't know what it looked like because they have this minor case of terminal newcomer thinking and uh at about four months i've done everything they said to get a sponsor all right if you're under a year you won't get this one everybody else toured fill in the blank i was so insane saying I was looking for a sponsor I could relate to. How insane is that? I'm a newcomer. I can't figure out if you go to two meetings in a day. Who can I relate to? I can relate to some other squirrel that has no idea what's going on and no hope either. Thank God I didn't find a sponsor I could related to. We'd both be dead by now. No, no, not that. What I needed was a sponsor whose suggestions I would follow. Why would I do that? Because I want to look like he looks. I want want to sound like he sounds, want my life to work like it looks like his life is working. Anyway, there was a guy there and he's sober five years. And when he talks, the voices in my head shut up. If you're new, I know you know what I'm talking about. That committee that meets in there, it can be adjourned. We can help you with that. But mine was not yet adjourned, but they would sit quietly when this guy talked. We're graduates of the same school. I can kind to relate would you sponsor me says well we'll see here's your first assignment assignment i thought a sponge like a new best friend gonna introduce me around show me some of the better meetings maybe loan me some money fix my wife we don't have time to dawn to cover all the things i was sure about that were actually wrong that's just one of them anyway i don't have time to tell it tonight I'm not ashamed of it took me a week I did the assignment sponsor me he said I'll sponsor you in my way I said what does that mean exactly he said you're too sick to stay sober on the fellowship of AA you will need the program also I got no idea what he's talking about and he gives me the number one best kept secret in all of AA it's the definition of the program now the way we keep it secret is we read it at most of the meetings it's on page 59 immediately before step one where it says here are the steps we took was as you just said as a no steps no program we don't see people in and out of the program we see a minute out of The Fellowship yeah the magic is in the step work meetings are important the magic is in the step work and I said he said you will work the 12 steps at the pace I set though I laid him out or I will drop you like a bad habit cuz I don't work with losers and he he saw he had a huge ego to crack through and this was his first shot at it and and he scared me he scared me so bad that the truth jumped out of me I don' know about you but I say the truth for emergencies i don't spread it around real thing and uh and uh yeah and i said i don'T want to do the 12 steps he said that's okay i said oh good he said as long as you do them i DON'T think we're communicating i've been hearing the word willingness i said yeah he said well here's the definition when i as your sponsor ask you do something you don't like that you don'T think will help that you don't think matters if you don' want to do and you do it anyway well I don't like how this is going so hit him with my Sunday punch I said why yeah some of the old timers are laughing you know the hammer's coming here and Jerry said I don t answer why questions to the men I sponsor the reason is why is a management question first step says you're not in management consequently all the questions begin with the word why have the same answer an answer you don t need to know and I hated that when when he said it, today I'm braced as one of my cornerstones. Oh, so was not knowing, it made me crazy. Huh, incorrect, it was needing to know that made me crazy. When I laid down the need to know, I got peaceful from a position of peace I began to know. But the knowing isn't worth near as much as the peace. Anyway, he said, I'm feeling kind of generous this morning, Sparky. I'm going to give you one why question. Don't ask another one for the rest of your life. And I've deleted the word why from my vocabulary. He was right. He said, the reason you have to do the 12 steps is because alcohol and those other things you're doing are not your problem. What? They're not your problems, they're your answer. They make you taller, smarter, better looking, the whole thing. So we say to a guy like you put this stuff down, we've not said put down your problem, we said put it down the only answer you have ever known. This is the lubricant of life, this is why your skin fits. Put that down! And when you do, you can't leave it down because it wasn't your problem it was your answer so if you're going gonna put it down and leave it down you're going to have to pick up a new answer that's better than the old one and it is and it and I'm saying why every time the man takes a breath and he says our program the 12 steps to come I go into the dentist we got to drill before we can fill if we just filled with the good stuff the poison still in there it's gonna detonate one of these days like the dentist we got novocaine here we call it sponsorship fellowship home group love it's not near as hard as the way you've been living not near his heart this next next 45 seconds is what I came to say. That's where he got me. He said, think of yourself as a garbage can. I got that one, Jerry. He says, what we're going to do with these steps is we're going to dump you out. We're going to scrub the can nice and clean and stand it back up. We'll go through your life and most of it's garbage and we're going to throw it away. Portions are good. For example, you love your kids? I said, a lot. He said, great, we'll keep that. When we finish with these 12 steps, you're going to be a big, empty, clean can with just a little good stuff in the bottom. The reason it's one of these days something very heavy is gonna slam into your heart he said your father's gonna die and on that day you got a little good stuff in the bottom but on that if you don't have that big empty clean space to lower that store that pain in well we love you back to spiritual health you will escape and they only escapes you know are killing you and tearing the pizza hearts out of people love you and I ran out of why and I allowed the man to coach me through the 12 steps and I got what I think is the most powerful promise in our book it's first line of page 60 it says 12 having They may have had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps. People read A results, not what it says. A is one of several or one of many. D is senior. Problem is even one thing, a spiritual wakening. It's my experience. Spiritually awakened alcoholics do not drink beverage alcohol and they don't get thirsty. If you're new, I don't think our mission here is to change you so you don't drink again. That's a side effect. The mission is to changing so you never get thirsty again. And it happened to me somewhere in the step work. For me, I think it happened in step four. I've seen it anywhere from the beginning of two all the way to the end of nine. Somewhere in there, something happens. And the alcoholic who's walking a spiritual path is rendered unthirsty. And the new answer is better than the old one. And therefore, the old woman doesn't call my name anymore. That's what happens. That's What Happened to Me. Life has happened to me. Since I've been sober, I have made way too much money. I have been up against bankruptcy, which I'm fairly close now. I have had two divorces, one I wanted and one I didn't. My daughter fired a pistol into her mouth and survived. We went through that. She's doing fine. I talked to her yesterday. She's going great. I was diagnosed with cancer in my throat in June of 20. They took my teeth. They did so much radiation to my jawbone it's now dead. It's still here but they killed it and they had to take my teeth before they did that. I'm now on a liquid diet. I've got scar tissue in my throat and and through all of that I have not wanted another one why because the new answer is in fact better than the old one I was sober I guess about six years and And my first wife used to control me with my guilt. I was guilty. And yeah, you bet. And I went through the 12 steps. I got my innocence back and she couldn't control me anymore. It was very hard for her. And she was standing there screaming at me one more time. And I got this moment of clarity. And what I saw was I'm six feet away around 210 at that time. She's about 5'5 and maybe 100 even. And I'm just before punching her in the face and it ain't going to be a it's gonna be a full shot And when she goes down, I'm going with her She's on the way to the hospital. I'm on the wait of the jail. It's a bad plan works I all by myself It's good thing why anybody else there? And I didn't about face while she was still screaming and walked out got in the car drove away bought newspaper Look at one ads look at apartments and 48 hours later. I moved it was imminent She wasn't gonna quit that and she's gonna push that button hard enough one of these days and I was going to rearrange her face and it was going to be bad for everybody. I went to old timers and I said, I don't believe in divorce and yet I'm sure if I stay with her I'm going to hit her. What should I do? And they said turn it over and I say how? I got real quiet and nobody could tell me. Believe what you like. I believe what I'm about to tell you. I went through the source. The first thing I got was the realization of what is it that I turn over and the answer is the result. How do I do that? One, I stand today where he is. If there's one in myself, how would that one is God? Do you find him now? When I find God, it's where? My God is the God of right here, right now. And two, I pray within his principle. Quit worrying about motive. Big book on page 60 tells me very clearly I cannot trust my motives. It's good to have good motive, but principle always trumps motive. I'm just not going to have time to talk about that tonight. I wish I was. The other thing I got was three prayers. I'm going to share them with you. Prayer number one, God, if it's your will for us to be together, put us together. other. Number two, if it's your will for us to be apart, put us apart. Those are easy ones. Here's the big one. God, if its your will from me not to know today, please leave me not knowing. That's the one. When I can pray that one, I can have my sponsor's definition of serenity. He said, serenety is not freedom from the storm. Serenity is peace in the middle of a storm. The only way to have that is to give up my need to manage the storm, and the only way to do that is is to know the manager of all storms. That's what this thing is about. I was able to pray that prayer daily and mean it for 10 months, and then one morning I knew. And then one more morning I new. And that's what happens. Before I forget, I have to share this with you. My third sponsor picked up the nickname Rusty. Toward the end of his drinking, he was drinking mouthwash mixed with Kool-Aid in rather large quantities. and he wet his pants many times, his zipper rusted shut. And we nicknamed him Rusty in honor of the zipper. And he loved this nickname. Here are a couple of gifs from Rusty. I'm not responsible for what I think. I'm responsible for how long I think it. I can't keep garbage from showing up here in my head when it gets dirty up here, I can sweep. My favorite one, he said, He said, in the history of this planet, nobody's ever been put in an insane-a-sign for being insane, never not once. They put us in there for acting insane and nobody's been let out for being sane, they let us out for acting sane. So he said on those days when you're crazy, if you don't act on it, they won't know. Don't tell them they're not ready. pick up the phone tell one of us we're ready and we're not all crazy on the same day that might be the best advice I ever got I just love that sponsorship has been such a joy for me I'm the victim of great sponsorship today and I hope I always am tell you a couple other stories some Some time ago I was sitting by a stream, just sitting. I looked across the stream and I saw a cloud. And I thought, I'll bet every drop of rain in that cloud is following God's will perfectly. Matter of fact, I'm sure they are. So is that tree. So is the bird in the tree. So is them in the stream. Why can't I? And it was hard on me. Why can'T I? I got my answer. And the answer is I am. And so are you. I am convinced to the depths of my soul God did not put me here to be perfect. If you think you're supposed to be perfectly, I wish you a lot of luck. It's going to be a tough trip. But if I'm not supposed to be perfect, what's my job? My job is to make mistakes. They've sent the right guy. And all my life they told me we learn from our mistakes. It's not true. Guys like me don't. We learn from living with the results of our mistakes." I'm like the dog that went on the rug. What did he learn? Nothing. When he started learning, we rubbed his nose in it. Me and the dog had that in common. We prefer to have our nose rubbed in it if that's how we like to learn. So here's the definition. Mistake is an invitation to a lesson. That's all it is, and I don't have the power to make mistakes so ugly that God can't turn it into wonderful. I simply don't know how to do it. I don' t have that power. It's just an invitation for a lesson, so here's the learning process for a guy like me today. One, make a mistake. Two, a mistake is just a lesson dressed in his work clothes. That's what it is. Make a mistake, be notified of any mistake. I don''t always know. Sometimes you have to tell me. Three, own a mistake up. But, yeah, that was me. I did that. And if they only know 80%, I've got to tell them the other 20. Four, consult a spiritual advisor about how to five, make the amend. Usually, not always, but usually there's an amend to be made. Six, embrace the lesson. The lesson does not come with the making of the mistake. It comes with making ofthe amend. That's where I rub my own nose in it. That'swhere I learned the lesson, by making the amend seven share the lesson. That's what really sets it for me. me. When I share the lesson, eight, I have to tell you I made a mistake. If I stand as a sinner beside a sinner, he can hear me. If i just tell you about the lesson I'm preaching and nobody wants to hear it. Nine, make the next mistake. I've discovered God's will. I know what his plan is. God's Will is for me to screw up. It's why I'm here. It''s my mission. There is a phenomenal freedom in that. I cannot tell you how freeing that is. This idea that that's why i'm here I'm convinced that Planet Earth is a school. Jeremy and I were talking, we're pretty sure we both flunked out of somewhere else or we were expelled as behavior problems. And the first lesson is, well, Scott, how does it work when you run full throttle after your own will? How's it working? That's how I got here. That's why I got there. We talk a lot about progress. I'll give you a definition. Progress is making the same old mistake a little less often or making a new and finer quality of mistake. anything beyond that's perfection that's not my assignment it's just not the assignment yeah so half the freedoms have my own permission to make mistakes the other half is you have my permission make mistakes that includes all the men I sponsor it includes all my family members it includes my husband-in-law these guys not from Tennessee I'm up tell husband-to-laws the guy that's married to my first wife. They didn't know that, Trey. It includes Vladimir Putin. It includes some politicians in my country. I think I got their heads up and locked. It includes those of you who got your driver's licenses out of Cheerios boxes. Everybody Everybody has my permission to make mistakes. Because if I'm going to be upset by what you do, I'm a prisoner of your behavior. I don't want to be a prisoner anymore. I came here as a prisoner. I'm free today. My own permission to makes mistakes. I have my own and you have it. And those two things free me to be right here. One day at a time is the hardest assignment I've ever been given. I believe that, yeah, yeah I don�t drink today. And it certainly means that. It also means live only in this day. It means to be here. I think all the good questions contain the word today and all the answers contain the word today. And the question is not, what am I going to do about my finances? It's the wrong question. The question is, what do I want to do with my finances today? You feel a difference in that? What would you do about your relationship? Uh-uh. What would we do about it today? Feel a difference on that? Put the word, today, into all the questions and all of the answers, life gets pretty easy. I would like to read you the first couple of sentences in the big book chapter figuring it all out. But we don't have that chapter. So I'm not gonna be able to do that for you. And what it tells me, it's not my job to figure it all out. I just need to be here. My feet could learn a lot from, my mind can learn a lot from my feet. My, my feet never go into the past and they never go in to of the future. Let's stay right here. By the way, I asked a question. Yes, sir. The socks always had to match the bow tie. Yeah. And before you ask, the answer is yes, I did. Yeah, baby. Yeah! Now if you had looked closely, you would have seen it was not tied perfectly. That's on purpose. There are two reasons. Winston Churchill was asked one time why his bow tie was never right. He said, I want you to know I tied it. Clip-ons are always perfect. I want you to now I tied them. The other reason is some of the ladies can't stand it. Can I fix that tie? Oh yes ma'am, go right ahead. Thank you. I use it for bait. Part of my mission every day, I ask God each morning to bless me with Bless me that I don't miss any chances to be of service and spread love and joy. I can't see the bow tie, but you can. I have almost no days that somebody doesn't say something to me about the bow tie, how good it looks or whatever. And it's just my job is to lift their spirits. Serving a God of love is not a part-time job. It's just not. So one day at a time, I get the word to, I've got three vocabularies, speaking, praying, and thinking. I have to use the word today frequently in all three of those. Quit trying to fix the rest of my life and quit trying to figure it all out. I did not plan to cover this, but apparently I'm going to. I'm gonna tell you the great secret. A lot of people think they know, but they really don't. Are you ready for the great sacred? In the long run, we're all dead. We are just passing through here, okay? Now, death has a bad reputation. You probably noticed that. And my fear of death has been gone for about 35 years. I was sitting at my desk one night typing, and all of a sudden I was in pain. I did not know it was available. I did Not Know You Could Hurt Like That and Remain Conscious. I'm being driven to the airport, hospital, and it occurred to me that at step three I'd offered God my will and my life, never had to offer him my death. So I did. I said, I'm not asking you to go, but if it's your will, my time, take me. My fear of Death has been going since then. in. If I think of myself as this body, death looks like the ultimate bad deal. If I think myself as the spirit that inhabits the body, it looks like moving day. I'm gonna move out of this beat-up efficiency apartment into a universe and more. They tell me that there's a storm on planet Jupiter twice the size of Earth. I want to see it up close. I wanna know why it's there. I want to travel the stars. I walk through the pearly gates and hug my mother again and tell her what a great mom she was and meet some of these fine people that carried this message to me. There's nothing to be afraid of. This was invented by the same God who invented smallmouth bass, vanilla ice cream and sex. Good job. Thank you. Right? And it is therefore good. It is therefore good. And while we're on the subject I'm 81 years old and I have a young girlfriend. I want you to know that. Yes, sir. She's 77. And perspective is an interesting thing, isn't it? Yeah. I've discovered the source of all of my anger. I don't know where it all comes from. My anger comes from being sure I'm right. Never have been angry who wasn't also absolutely certain I was right. And being right comes from having passed judgment of the judge to be right, to be angry. So, judgment is a grandmother of anger and it's the actual source of the problem. That's why I can't work on my anger. Anger is a problem. It's not the problem, anger is a symptom. The problem is that judge. I realized that about 10 years ago added to my morning prayer. Bless me please. I do not judge any situations as good or bad. I've been to Russia twice and Ukraine three times. I know people on both sides of that war, and I cannot look at that war and say it's bad. I don't know. I don' t know. For all I know, that war has turned more people toward God than all the churches in the universe. I don''t know. When I step out of the business of judging good or bad, it frees me. I ask him to bless me. I do not judge any people as good or mad. That I love them as he loves them, especially the ones I find unlovable Because I've got times when I'm unlovable. I don't need you to judge me then. I'm usually judging myself then. So it must be, when you're unloivable, you must need me to judge you. And so I try to do that. I'm not judging and needing me to love you, rather. Because that's what this whole thing is about to me. It's about love. It's learning to love everybody. Let me ask you an interesting question. Who's had the experience, the moment before somebody asked you a question you did not know the answer and you open your mouth and piece their great golden truth that you didn't know falls out in three hours later you can't quote it sometimes you can't remember it who's had that put them up way up look around the room look at this look at this for those of you who are new that's what happens here I'm gonna share a couple of them that happened to me guys sponsor called me a rah rah rah rah-rah this guy I'm sponsoring and I cleaned that up quite a bit and it's because I can't carry a spiritual message in the bucket of sewage I had to clean out my language and that was difficult for me I was an Air Force pilot I was proud of my profanity and but anyway I heard myself say to him isn't part of my assignment to learn to love the unlovable and hen I both said Wow cuz see I didn't know that a lady asked me one time she said hope and When expectation is both about the future, what's the difference? And I heard myself say, expectations are specific. They come from my head where my disease continues to reside and they're actually premeditated resentments because if I don't get them, I'm going to be mad. Hope comes from my heart and it's gentle and it based on the simple truth that the loving God holds my future. And I didn't know that when I said it. If you're new, stick around until those kinds of things start happening to you. I call them postcards from God Postcards from God that's what they are and they are such fun I had an experience the last time I was between wives I'm either between wives right now or I'm out of the wife business I'm not sure which one but anyway I'm currently unwifed and I've got a I've got a picture of me thinking I was about four years old, cute little kid in a jumper and a straw hat, and you can see the joy on his face. And not too long after that picture was taken some things happened to me it should never happen to any child. I have been through the forgiveness process in step four. If you don't know what I'm talking about I hope you will find out. I'll give you a clue. Step four is not about writing although there's writing involved. It's the the observations and prayers that will change your life. But through that process, I become emotionally disconnected from all those things that happened. Through step nine where I cleaned up my own mess with his help, I became emotionally disconnected from all of my mistakes in the past. But I was, I had that, as I said, I was unwifed and I had the picture blown up two feet wide, three feet tall, put on the floor, I'm sorry at the wall, at the foot of the bed and I was looking at it. first thing I saw every morning, last thing I saw every night. I was looking at it one time and I thought, who would he have become if those things had not happened to him? If he'd received the love and nurturing and guidance he clearly deserved, who Would He Have Become? I got my answer. The answer is, that's my assignment. It's my assignment to become the man he would have become. And the only question is, am I willing to do the work? So far, I've been willing to dothe work. And I think I think I have become the man he would have become. I've been an actor all my life, pretending to be the man I think you want me to be. I come to you in the first couple of years, I'm gonna try to be who I wanna be, that's an act also. Today, I'm trying to be the man God put me here to be and things happen to me like I had to learn to cry and if you need to learn cry, see me after, I'll give you my email address, I wrote it up, I can help you learn to cried. I had to clean up my language. I was a great joke teller, it cost me about 98% of my material. I mean, I just don't tell them. And I just had to make changes to become the man he would have become because I think that's my assignment. I think it's everybody's assignment and it's not too late. It's never too late, my God is the God of not too late never too late so let me tell you about that little boy he he woke up every morning just excited to be alive he was thrilled with life he he had complete faith in the people who who took care of him he was not concerned about their future at all he was fascinated by simple things like butterflies and sunrises. He was in touch with his emotions. He used no bad language. He laughed easily and frequently. He judged no one. He was open to learn. He happy, joyous, and free living each moment as it came. That's what you've done with me. That's who I've become. Not perfectly. I still I still screwed up, I still got things to learn. I learned some things this past year. I think it's one of the most exciting things about recovery. There's always one more thing to learn, I'll take you flying one more time. I climbed in that high-performance airplane for the last time and I knew it was the last, probably the last I would go through the speed of sound, it was a last time I would light afterburners and I leveled at 40,000 feet three and a half minutes later and Jacksonville I was 100 miles west of Jacksonville Florida and Jack's Center gave me what they call a barrel it's a 30 mile circle around a point on the ground with altitude block if you're gonna do acrobatics at 9 tenths of the speed of sound after use a room and they gave me that circle and they gave me all the controlled airspace which was 18,000 to 60 what they don't know is the Air Force tells me frequently not to exceed 45,000 feet in this airplane and the reason is because there are things can happen in the very thin air at ultra-high altitude you will not recover from allow me to define not recover that spin crash burn die and owe them an airplane that's not recover but I was young and immortal and I wondered how high it would go so I pulled the throttles back out of afterburner cuz you run the afterburners at high altitude he gets really quiet when the engines quit cuz they're gonna so I'm I'm at military power. I'm doing 700 miles an hour, pull the nose up a little bit, roll into about 15 degrees of mag and I'm climbing in this circle just to see how high we'll go. The answer is 52,300. At 52.3 she was done. 52.5 would have been 10 miles even and she would not do the other 500 feet. She was done and I could wash the cockpit out with a stick like this and nothing happened and I rolled out on north. I didn't mean to. I just realized the climb was over. 52-3 was all I was going to get, and I rolled down on north, and I looked for the first time. It's 9 o'clock in the morning on a clear day. The sun's coming up over my right shoulder. The sky above me is black as my vest at 9 o', at 52-2 through a clear canopy. I looked out to the west, and saw the curvature of the earth. I didn't see it a little bit. I saw it. This thing we're riding is a ball. It's round. It's blue. It's floating there in space, held by love, I think. I didn't see anything else. I had something, a physical sensation like something warm had been poured over me and ran down me like waxed down a candle. In the poem High Flight, the author says, I put out my hand to touch the face of God. I did that that morning. I touched the face. I touched it with the face Of God. And I love to tell this story because I see it again when I tell it. And I sat there maybe 30 seconds, maybe a minute. I was making a tremendous risk. Eased the throttles back very carefully and brought down and shot one approach and landed. I may be in the town drunk. I'm not the village idiot. I did not get around to telling them. I just broke the law by over a mile vertically. I didn't quite get around to telling him about that. And I didn' tell that story the whole time I was in the Air Force. Burke Harlan is the most spiritual man I ever expect to know. And at eight years, I spoke at his 12-year anniversary. And I heard myself telling that story for the first time. And I said, and I don't know why I'm telling this. Of course you do. It was my first official experience. I just didn't happen to notice it for 30 years because I am not a skyrocket of success here. Let me tell you something. You can't do something like that and not want to do it again. And in 2004, my little business had a pretty good year. I went out to the National International Airport and I chartered myself a Learjet. They don't let me drive anymore. more, but I put my wife and two kids in the back. A Lear 31 will go to 51,000 feet. Would you like to know how I know that? And I plan to see the curvature of the earth again. Aren't you? Aren't you? We serve a big God, and I've learned to dream big. That's one of the fabulous gifts I've been given. I've learned to dream big. I plan to see it again. I have been blessed to tears. People, they say how are you? And I say I'm blessed almost to tears. How are you? If it gets any better I'm gonna have to become twins to receive it all. How are you if the genie pops out of the bottle and says three wishes I have to come to take the afternoon off call me tomorrow I got none to ask for. My My favorite came from a guy named Ed Mutum. I hope you know that name, find it if you don't. And Ed would say, I would say to Ed, how are ya? And he would say so much better for seeing you. I would said that to you, I am so much better for seein' you. We invited God and I believe he came. If you borrowed my God and you get touched here tonight, borrow him again. If you've borrowed your God or you conversed with your God and invited him and you got touched, do that. that's I think that's what that moment of silence is for and I'm gonna close with what I think it's the most important things ever been said in a meeting I know it's a most important thing I've said tonight here are the steps we took or just suggested as a program for recovery I love you with all my heart thank you