The Doctor’s Opinion on the Alcoholic Life Seeming Normal – Bill C.

okay this has been one hell of a month and i'm sorry to see uh bill go but we are definitely going to be talking about coming back um last week i compared uh our guest facilitator to CNN's James Carville. And I had a few people come up to me during the week and said, hey, I just looked up that guy, James Carvel, and you're right. He sounds like him and he even looks just like him. So I give you AA's version of CNN's James Carval. Here is Bill Cleveland. Bill, you got to unmute. I was unmuting. You keep muting me back again. Sorry about that. Just saying, I'm not James Carville. He's a Southern boy. I think he's from Louisiana. Yeah. So resentment is the number one offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have not only been mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick here's a great line when the spiritual malady is overcome we straighten out mentally and physically that's AA isn't it I think that's the approach that's what it addresses we're not good doctors you know we're pretty good physical trainers but we're pretty good spiritual characters spiritual weirdos and uh in dealing with the resentments we set them on paper we listed people institutions or principles of whom we were angry we asked ourselves why we were angered in most cases it was found that our self-esteem our pocketbooks our ambitions our personal relationships including sex were hurt or threatened so we were sore we were burned up Boy, that's us, isn't it? So we talked last week about doing an inventory and what we're looking for is what isn't moving in the stock. What's not moving. We're not looking for the good stuff. We're looking to see if there's anything that's not working. We're waiting for the stuff that isn't serving us well. and if you've been around alcoholics long enough for a period of time you become very aware of the fact that resentment is the number one killer of us how many of us have known somebody in AA that got really pissed off about something and just exploded into a relapse i got a guy right now that's been trying to get sober a couple of different times he's sending me nasty emails and uh this morning he sent me an especially nasty one telling me i should take the cotton out of my ears and put it in my mouth or something like something like that and i found my hands up over the top of the keyboard getting ready to lash out And I just deleted it. I think that's spiritual growth, right? And my sponsor likes to say people hesitate over the inventory. They think it's difficult. They think its hard. No, it's not. We know who those people are that we're pissed off at. That's our story, isn't it? How does the alcoholic life seem like the only normal one? It has to be someone else's fault. You can't be an alcoholic and not know who they are. So these people and institutions are floating around in our head every night as we go to bed. You ever hated somebody really good, and then you forget to hate them on a certain day, and then the following day you got to hate him extra to make up for the day you skipped? you know that's certainly me maybe less so today but when i got here i know who those i know where they were ralph gave a talk saturday night here locally karen and i went to hear him and one of the things he mentioned that i've been thinking about ever since and this is an aspect of that is that all of us get here with a certain skill set there's some things we can do and some things we're not good at. And, you know, if you're a good writer and you're a poet or something, you can sit and write stuff down. That's pretty easy to do. You know? And with me, you Know, I had, by the time I got to AA, I'd been to a lot of therapy, been to mental institutions. I absolutely love talking about myself. It's my favorite subject. And in therapy, if we run out of things to talk about, I'll just make stuff up to continue the conversation. You know, I'm a communicator. I'm an extrovert. You know? I'm that guy. I want to be in the meeting. I would prefer to be the secretary or the speaker. I don't want to just be sitting in the audience like everybody else. That's me. That is my strong suit. It is what is the negative aspect of my nature and also the positive because I'll do stuff. I'll just do stuff, I'll does do things. Well, I will do it, you know, and get out of my away. Here I go. It's that kind of a thing, you know? But some people don't have that. Some people don'T. You know, what Ralph mentioned, which I really heard because I know this is true, people many times aren't doing the work because they don't want to or they're lazy. They just can't. They're just not there. It doesn't come to them. It isn't natural. It It isn't, you know, it isn't a matter of just applying yourself. You know, they're not being resistant. They just don't have it. And I get that. And the inventory is the first step in that direction. Now, you Know, we can cogitate about the first step and powerlessness, and we can discuss concepts of God and the second, I don't believe or I do believe, you KNOW, we CAN ACTUALLY SAY THE PRAYER. We can say the third step prayer and not mean it at all. But they tell us to do it, so we'll do it. I'll hold hands with you and we'll say the prayer. Now we're asking you to actually do something to further your program, to start healing. We're asking You to write some stuff down. The first thing we want you to write down is the people you hate, the people that put you here. you know I was on a 12-step call one time and I brought this guy it was early in the morning I'd been up all night with him I brought him to the Alano club early in the morning get him some coffee and we're sitting at a little picnic bench in there and this old timer Rich Miller he's passed away now but he had a lot of time and I called Rich over to introduce him to the new guy and Rich leans over and shakes his hand and he says you know why we're sober? The guy said, no. He says, to take revenge on the sons of bitches that sent us here. And I thought, dude, I'm so glad I introduced a new guy to you, man. It's like, oh, man, man! so what we're looking for is we're looking for what isn't moving for what for what is causing us to stay in this negative life we're in and I think one of the primary things of that is that rage that anger and what it is it's the story that we tell Silkworth says in the doctor's opinion the alcoholic life seems like the only normal one how the hell do we pull that off how do we rationalize and justify our behavior? Well, it has to be someone else's fault. So we're asking you to list that. Who are you angry at? We can write a name down and then we give a brief description of why we're angry. What happened? Why are you angered? Well this guy beat me up with a two before. The third column is, how are you affected by that? Well, shit, I ended up in the hospital and it scared the hell out of me and it hurt me physically. I was hurt, made me really insecure every time I walked down the street. Now I look over my shoulder. There's a lot of impact on that. Then the last column is what were your faults and mistakes? Some people like to say, what was my part. Sometimes there certainly is a part, but what were your faults and mistakes? Well, I was sleeping with his wife. Oh, well, there you go. Sometimes it's that obvious. There were some resentments on my resentment. It was that obvious, you know, why that happened to me is because I had done something. in other cases maybe not you know if something happened to you in a child as a child maybe you were molested that's a common thing you run into you know growing up in alcoholic homes that's something that happens what part did you play i don't think a kid paid any part i think they truly are an innocent victim There's just no getting around that. Sometimes that's a justifiable thing. I was a victim. I didn't play a part. But if you're 40 years old and you're still hanging on to that, then you're unforgiving. You know, it's become an aspect of your nature. And the idea is to rid yourself of this resentment because the perpetrators, the people you're angry with, they don't feel your anger. I remember being told that and I thought, you know, I think they kind of do. You know, don't you think that? If I hate him really good, you kind of don't want to give up the anger. It's part of my personality. It's a part of who I am. You know? I hated my father. I really hated him. He didn't like me much either. I mean, I was a rotten kid. That was a shared experience. You know. He didn' t like me. I didn' d like him. And it was kind of the engine, the fire that drove my life for many years. I just, that anger, that horrible anger I had towards my father. He was on the top of the list. It was a pretty good list and he was right up there at the top, you know, that I do not like my father and I listed the reasons why. And I really looked at how it affected me. It affected every aspect of it. It was, it was a four bagger, man. That's an in-the-park home run, you know. It's everything. It affects everything. And I knew that I had to make amends. I knew – I knew I had – I had be rid of this. By this time, you now, I hadn't been around sober very long, but I was almost 40 years old and I'm thinking, this is ridiculous. You know, like when you take away the medication, it's hard to maintain the justification for the negative aspects of your nature, I think, isn't it? It's hard To let go of it. But you can certainly see it, you know, I may be screwed up, but I'm not stupid. I get it. You know,I mean, I'm reading the book, and I'm writing this inventory out. And I'm talking to my sponsor, he's sharing experiences with me, I realized now that I'm not alone, that these feelings I have are very commonplace, you Know, my resentments weren't anything exceptional you know and uh my transgressions my evil behavior you guys put me to shame man i thought geez i should have tried harder you know so by this time i'm feeling like part of what's going on i'm doing the inventory and when you do the inventory that's when you really join alcoholics anonymous when you write some stuff down we got you now you know it's going to be hard to go backwards now you're starting to write it down if you're writing it down you're starting to get it you know and uh on my father's 70th birthday and i was i don't think i was a year sober yet um i went up to the house and i and this this is a man that had gotten sober in 1954 so he was sober i got raised in aa you know i mean which i don't recommend it's like it's it's difficult you know especially when you're drinking and uh and uh so i took him in i said i need to talk to you before we go and i said come with me in this other room and i was taking him in the other room And he says, well, you don't need to do this. And I said, you better than anybody know that I do. Get in the room. I sat down and I told him, you know, my sponsor. I said what am I going to say? I think he owes me. I'm not really feeling it. I get it. I got to do it. But what amI going to stay doing? And Jay said, well you don' t have to list all the transgressions. He was there. He knows what happened. you were stealing his cars. One time I stole the TV set out of their house. He came and found me and took it back. I thought that was pretty ballsy. When your dad knocks on the dope den that you're living in and says, I want my TV back, you remember that experience, you know? But what I said to him is, I'm sorry that I wasn't the son that I know that you wanted me to be. And I meant that. I knew I was a bad kid, you know. I mean, it's hard to justify some of the things I did. And we talked a little bit. And what happened is I went out in the car. My wife at the time was with me. And we're sitting in the cars. And I started crying in the care. I started sobbing and I couldn't stop. I had a physical reaction. When the spiritual is addressed, the mental and the physical follows. It was like something reached out and just pulled all that rage out of me. Maybe not all of it, but a lot of it. I will never forget that experience of doing that. And it starts with the inventory. now my first inventory i did i did a fifth step when i was six months sober and i still have that inventory every once in a while i pull it out i look at it and it was pretty good was it thorough no no i didn't know enough to be thorough i hadn't been around long enough to really look at my life in some sort of an introspective way as an observer and really look at it and write some stuff down the one i did at 10 years sober was really good i knew some stuff then you know and uh and i did one here recently about not quite a year ago I think. And I didn't have any resentments to list. Is that possible? I thought I was lying to myself. There's got to be something. And a good definition that I really like for resentment is something that I don't like that I think should be different than it is. There's lots of things I don'T like. You know, there's certain foods I DON'T like, I just don't eat them. You know, there's politicians I don't like. So I turn off the news. It's like, but I don'T expect them to be different than they are. A resentment is something you don't Like that you think should be different, that in order for you to be okay, that thing outside yourself needs to be Different. And how's that working for you? You know? I mean, when you say it out loud, it sounds ridiculous, but isn't that the way we behave? She needs to be different. The reason I'm angry is because of the way she is. She's responsible for how I feel and for how I behave. I don't believe that anymore, but I can look back and see that's how I behaved. And I just don't get that I'm powerless. You know, I think you need to be different in order for our relationship to be better. And that's not true. I either need to accept you the way you are or move on. But to stick around in a relationship and try to force somebody to be different so that you'll be happy, that's a really good definition of insanity. And I've lived a lot of my life that way. And with that experience with my father, and then 10 years later making another, and recently this other inventory, what I wrote down for my resentments is aspects of my nature that I don't care for. Ways that I think I should be different and I think I'm as powerless over myself as I am over you. But at least if I have enough self-awareness, I can see what it is that I do that causes me trouble in my life. That I am the source of all the chaos in my life. And that doesn't mean that you're innocent. But should I choose to engage? That's on me. I have to be responsible for my emotional state and for my behavior not you you're not responsible i'm responsible for that should i choose to engage and that first inventory that we do is opening that door and that fourth column of that resentment list essentially is the list of our key defects of character that's where we start making the list of six and seven you know here it is you know i retaliate i argue i push i coerce i manipulate you know um i gossip just to help you of course i'm just me and some of your fellows are talking about you because we know that you want to be better than you are. You know, but I gossip, you know, 10 years sober, I went to an Al-Anon meeting. My dad didn't want me to go to Al-Alan. He goes, that's just for guys that are looking for girls. Right. And it's an old school attitude. And he loved Al-Al-Anan, but he just didn't think alcoholics belong in Al- Al- Anon. But some of my friends were going. So I went into a literature study, an Al Anon meeting at the Hermoso Llano Club, used to be on Sunday night. And they studied literature and they would take one of the Al-Anons there would take a piece of literature home, read it over the week, and then come back and give a little share on that piece of legislature. And one of them, one day, they have great literature in Al-Alanon, let me tell you, it'll make you uncomfortable. And, and one of them was gossip, pamphlet on gossip. And this one woman said, evidently, my life is so boring, I find it necessary to talk about yours. And just the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I mean, you know, I'm a men's stag guy. We can gossip with we can keep up with anybody. We're perfectly capable of doing some really good gossip, you Know, and and then we'll look at each other. And I'll tell you, if you surround yourself with some healthy people in AA, they will stop you from doing that. You know, there's always somebody that will stand there in the middle of a good gossip section where we're just eviscerating some bastard that none of us like, right? And one of them, somebody will say, you know, we need to stop doing this. This is childish. High school's over, boys. And then the rest of us are all feeling guilty. Now we're going to gossip about that guy that just said that to us, you Know? Who the hell does he see? Some spiritual giant? I just saw him last week smoking pot down on the beach. What do you think, you Now? character defects. This is when we start really looking at them. You know, we're looking for the immovable parts of the inventory. Here it is. It's about me. It isn't the other people. It isn't about the situations. It is about my reaction to life. How do I get along? What are my motivations? How do i behave? And at 40 years sober almost, my friends keep telling me you're not there yet bill it's not going to be till march you know and you're looking pretty shaky to me and uh but 40 years later i'm writing down aspects of my nature that i don't care for that i wish was different and then the other thing the more radical thing that i do with that this is really radical i pray and ask for them to be removed and at this point in my life I really mean it. I'm really, really done with it. And I believe when I pray with sincerity, a real sincerity, a genuine sincerity. One thing that helps me do that is I pray out loud so I can hear myself, what I say, not be in secret anymore. Please help me not make this about me. Please, please remove the bondage of self. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty much sick to death of myself, you know? I find you a lot more interesting than I find myself, you know, it's just more interesting listening to you than it is listening to the chatter that goes on in my head. I've got a problem with my hip now. I had to cancel a couple of engagements. And where do you go with that when you're 77 years old and your hip starts going out? i'm going to be dead in about a year or two i'm pretty sure this is the beginning of the end it goes there does doesn't your head do that shit that's what happens to me i just go right down the rabbit right down to drive sitting in my backyard yesterday feeling this in my beautiful home that i live in with my wife who kind of likes me you know i got a really hot wife i just i lucked out man this chick is just really great and she's sober we share the same path together you know financially, I'm doing fairly well. I'm okay. Things have worked out. You know, I'm not super rich, but I got fart money. I got a little bit of money. I'm OK. You Know, retirement's looking good. And I'm sitting in my ashram, my beautiful ashrams, smoking one of my nice, really nice cigars, whining about the state of my life. At some point, you just have to burst out laughing. It's just ridiculous. And at that point, I will say a prayer and ask, please remove this from me you know sit down and write a gratitude list you know i tell guys write a attitude list do i do one oh hell no you know you know yeah i'm a phony i'ma bullshitter you know what i mean i give great advice though i give really great advice And every once in a while, in a weak moment, I'll actually take my own advice and write down 10 things that I'm really, really grateful for. Now, recently, not too long ago, I did that. And two of the people that are on that list are guys that have worked for me for many years in a little company that I have. And they've done – the whole time I was having a liver transplant, I never worried that these guys had been with me a long time. and I wrote these 10 people down, mostly people. And I wrote their two names. And I called my sponsor and I said, Jay, I wrote a gratitude list. And he went, what? You what? I said yeah. I wrote it down. I gave somebody some advice and I told them if they do it, I'll do it too. So I wrote down this list. I was very proud of myself and I read in my list. Then he said here's what I want you to do. And then I go whoa, whoa, wait a minute i just want credit for writing the list i don't want an assignment you know i give assignments i don'T take them right he goes and he interrupted me as he has done for 39 years and he says i want you to go to those people on the list and tell them that they're on your list i want You to do that so one day i went down to the shop to my work and uh these two guys are there. And one guy was in, he was in my office and I told him, I said, Hey, Don, I want you to know that I wrote out a gratitude list of things that I'm grateful for and that you're on that list. And you're more than certainly an employee. You know, I feel very close to you. And I never worried about this place when I was so sick in the hospital because I knew you were here and I want, you know, how grateful I am. And he looked at me and he got choked up and he came over and nuzzled me. I remember standing in my office, this guy's worked for me for like 30 years, right? Standing in my Office, and I'm kind of holding him thinking, I'm so glad I did this. So Willie, the guy out that runs all the manufacturing in the place, this guys been with me for over 40 years. I hired him when he was 18. I think he wasn't even 18. I think he lied. He's worked for me for a long, long time. Excellent guy. And I said, Willie, I want you to know that you're on my gratitude list. I made this list and you're on it. And he cried. And he came over and put his arms around me and just held me in the middle of the shop office. You know, that's when you're looking around and go, whoa, I hope nobody's looking right now. I'm so glad that I did that and I sit out yesterday in my little ashram and whine about the state of my life you know so I can tell you this if you do an inventory it's the beginning of the end of letting go of all this shit that has plagued you all your life and I can also tell you that it doesn't end there after that first one there'll be more and every time you somebody comes to you and you listen to their inventory you know you have an answer for them you know that when somebody does that inventory they're now in the club if they make amends they may become one of your best friends if they start sponsoring people now your peers now your equals and the sponsor sponsee thing diminishes and now you're on the same team. I've really enjoyed doing this this last month. Thanks so much for having me. This has really been fun. Thank you all.