6Th Spirit of San Francisco CA – Marty J.

Well, I've seen it all now. I've see a newcomer get a book from the lead guitar player for ZZ Top. And, uh... Man, that's a long time sober. 46 years, Ben. I was born in 1952, buddy. This is what your sobriety looks like in human form. So you know. Scary, is it not? i always like watching those people are getting the books come forward they don't know if we're going to do a human sacrifice or what the hell is going to happen you know and the drunks are going yeah whoever expected to get a standing ovation for getting out of a drunk lockup right so welcome to alcoholics anonymous the rest of it is upside down too it gets weirder from here and that's if you could figure it out you'd quit you know anyway i want to thank the committee and uh sweet little melissa who came and picked me up in her car and then locked it in a garage and can't get it out uh and we admitted our lives were unmanageable but anyway Anyway, it's been fun. I've enjoyed all of the speakers. Learned how to drink in Argentine or whatever they... Hi, excuse me, I'll do that in a minute. How long you been going to Elanon, sir? that's the one that's always trying to control me that's why I accused you well hi my name is Marty Jeffrey and I'm an alcoholic now I can't remember what the hell I was talking about thank you I enjoyed the speakers I truly did. There's been some wonderful messages here for those that have ears. And if you've come to a convention expecting... That's funny. If you come to anything and expect the speakers or the committees or anybody around you to do the deal for it, it's not going to happen. The thing's inside of you. It's most interesting. You know, Henry Drummond once said that if you go to read a book a second time, there's nothing new in the book. What is new is what's changed in you. And so every convention you come to, that's the spirit of San Francisco, is this thing that's going on in this room now beyond me. If I happen to say something that was really meaningful to you tonight, chances are I was talking and you were daydreaming. And you just thought I said it. i've had countless times people have come up and said you know that part where you talked about so and such and man that was touching and i didn't talk about that they uh see we're so self-centered that somebody says two words and we go off you know oh and then and we have a catharsis right in the room and sometimes people have to clean up after us that's right uh anyway i am an alcoholic and what that means to me is that uh there are times once i start to drink i cannot control the amount i drink i don't know if that means anything to you but man that was what was really wrong and then the other thing was i could not for the life of me bring into my mind with sufficient force the suffering and humiliation i was causing myself and others couldn't remember before i'd start drinking every single time i started drinking I couldn't remember. It was like, what's the big deal? And then I'd be taking that drink and then the craving would start and there I was again. And so it was interesting. I went to a guy one time in my early sobriety, a guy by the name of Bob C. He was like a, what do you call him, a switch hitter? Well, he was a counselor and an alcoholic. You know what I mean? And that I said, Bob, what is wrong with me? and he said, do you want the Alcoholics Anonymous four-word version, or do you Want the medical modality type description? I said, well, give it to me medically. I want to know what's wrong with me. And he said what's Wrong with you is that you have a biogenetic chemical disorder centering in the hypothalamic information control center of your brain, and that is made worse by your liver's inability to metabolize alcohol without producing acetaldehyde, which mixed with dopamine produces tetrahydroisoquinoline. which is a deadly combination given your narcissistic, egocentric core, which is driven at times by feelings of omnipotence, which tend toward their own integrity at any cost, even stimulus augmentation and cognitive dissonance. I said, what's the alcoholic appraisal of my situation? He said, your drinker is broke. Okay? Now, a lot of what's wrong with me centers in my mind. The book says if that wasn't true, I would never start drinking because it's not until I start drinking that the phenomenon of craving is set off, which, by the way, is exclusive to this class of human being called alcoholic. And I come to these meetings and I see people constantly get up and describe themselves as alcoholic addicts, which is from the Department of Redundancy department. because even Dr. Silkworth in 1939 wrote in the book that we have alcoholic addiction. So, yeah, I'm addicted to alcohol. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self seeking and selfishness, I tend to step on other people's feet. And then I'm so surprised, aren't you? When these buggers retaliate seemingly without provocation. And that basically describes a good portion of the unmanageability of my life. And so what this program, if you're new in these rooms tonight, just understand something so clearly that this thing is not about the speaker you're hearing tonight. I mean, I absolutely hated the first speaker I ever heard. And I'm sure you're starting to feel a lot like that. But I mean I was there to find out what not to identify. Somebody once said that our newcomers are like people going to a zoo to find animals with which they cannot identify. identify. And so this individual said that, you know, he jumped off a cliff in Hawaii and he'd done a number of things. I thought, well, what an ass. I would never do a thing like that. I might try to jump up onto a cliff In Hawaii. And everything he said, I turned to say, that's not me. And you see, what I would like to say to you tonight, just before I say anything to you Tonight is this. The book says that some of us try to hold on to our old ideas and the result is nil. And what that really means for me is that I have this kind of a mind, and I think it's fairly common in human beings, but my mind has a door that closes shut. And the only time you can open the thing is when you're talking to me on something I believe to be based in the truth. Now, it may or may not be the truth, but I believe it to be the true. And I may have believed it for a number of years, and the the longer I believe it, the more truthful it seems to me. You see? Like, I can drink normally. Now, I can't stand people that drink normally, but I always wanted to drink normally See? That is the obsession of the abnormal drinker. Not to get drunk. Many of us, if you're like me, I drank to not get drunk! I drank to get different. I mean, You know how that first number of times you kind of had that thing happen? And then, of course, alcohol is like a good card player. It lets you win every hand that doesn't matter. And then when you really need to win, you can't get the cards. But the first number OF times I drank, an astounding thing happened that I could only describe as that for the first time in my entire life, I was all in one place all at one time. And if you're alcoholic, you will understand what I'm talking about. And if you're not alcoholic, that's okay. We feel sorry for you guys. Honest to God. Imagine facing reality on a daily basis and never being able to do what we do. You know, in three drinks, you can just transform into an asshole. You know. And they can't do that. They drink, they sleep, they burp, they puke. They can't doing that. I feel sorry them. of them. And they will never understand, as I didn't understand about them, did you sit in the bars? Did you sit drinking and wonder why they were acting the way they were reacting? Like they would go home? What are you going home for? The fight hasn't even started yet. What the hell are you going on for? You must be some sort of a relationship where the other person is running your life. You never went into the bathroom first because they talked about you, unless it was your rounds and then you went in there because then everybody else would pay. Now if you're alcoholic you know what I'm talking about. See alcoholics traditionally, at least in the group I drank with, do not have a great amount of disposable income. It's kind of used up between getting out of scrapes and getting more to drink and your life starts to focus to a kind of fine point which is It's either, how am I going to get drunk? How am I gonna get out of the last time I got drunk? Or, I am drunk right now. And you see, the first time I drank, I had no idea. I know I'd think. I believe that in my body, this process that is called alcoholism had begun long before I ever induced alcohol. The book says that alcohol is only a symptom of what's wrong with me. Some of you have already confirmed that. I mean, I'm like this sober. Can you imagine me drunk? I stopped talking. I did. I would just take a few drinks and walk over and slap you right up alongside of your head. And I didn't even dislike you. I just wanted to see the look on your face. That's the honest-to-God truth. I was driven to do bizarre, seemingly heartbreaking things at times that in the morning I would wake up and have bits and pieces and flashes and, oh my God, why did I do that? that, only to go and do that all over again. In some places, that's called insanity. Okay? Here, that is called the morning after. You see, the first time I induced alcohol, I was and I don't want to get into a who drank youngest contest, you know. Somebody once said that if you made love, said that you'd made love to a zebra at an AA meeting, somebody would would say well at least yours was a female zebra you know you cannot go under a drunk doesn't matter what you've done they've done worse and when they come in they admit nothing never did anything and then all of a sudden they turn into terrible people right anyway i started i had my first drink i was 11 years old i had had a bad day now I mean that's funny when you're 11 years old everything is just as ugly as it is now I could figure out that life sucked I didn't need to be 40 I'd gone to school they passed around this damn form on religion I was not big on religion I got kicked out of Sunday school at age 10 for selling condoms now I want you to understand that this was a big spiritual problem for me for many, many years I resented and hated churches because as a little boy hanging around with another little boy whose dad was a pharmacist we got a hold of some condoms and all we were doing was filling them full of water and throwing them at cars putting them on top of our heads you know, things like that not a big deal I took them into the sanctuary and sold a few of them to my friends and was thrown out as a dirty little pervert the book says to some of us our spiritual awakening comes slowly, mine was right away. I knew if that was church, I was going to have nothing to do with it. Anyway, I carried that around for a long, long time. People would say, God, I think condoms. God, condoms, condemnation, God. God hates you, condems. And much as what is wrong with me is that I look at things through the eyes of a little boy. That was It was a belief upon which I was basing some of my behaviors. Think about this. If you have an untrue belief upon what you're basing your behaviors, you're going to have wrong solutions for the problems, aren't you? And the worst part is I don't know the thing upon which I'm basing it as untrue until somebody else is allowed in to analyze some of the data that's held in that one megabyte little brain of mine up there. And you see when you're alcoholic, you never let anybody in because if they knew who you were, really they bag you yeah alcoholics they say are narcissistic people that are having love affairs with themselves and cannot stand the object of their affections I don't want anybody in my head man if you ever found out how I thought I'd have to go to my room I was sitting at this table looking at all you girls and thinking they're right everyone should be a California woman There's some pretty girls in this room. My head is a bad neighborhood. Somebody once said, Marty, when you're deep in your own thoughts, you're behind enemy lines. It is... It's true. A friend of mine in the military said that to me not so long ago. I cannot go there unless I am on a spiritual footing. So I'm this little boy. I've got all of these delusions in my mind. Things that I've decided. Hated my family. I don't know if you can identify this, but I was sitting at the breakfast table one morning and my mother was breathing in and breathing out. Breathing in and breathing out. It was really starting to irritate. Breathing, breathing in, breathing out, breathing... I'm thinking, stop that! I've got pressure over here for God's sakes. They've handed around this form in grade 6 and it says on it, what's your religion? And I can't remember if we're Protestants or prostitutes. I always got these two damn words mixed up. This is a little boy. Me, the condom salesman. and I don't even know what the words mean. And so I put in the form prostitutes. Honest to God, seriously bad mistake. I was sent in the hall to learn to understand the true meaning of the word resentment. A resentment is a reoccurring bad feeling. Man, I lived killing that teacher. I used to tire myself out between the sexual fantasies and killing that teach. I was exhausted a lot of the time. I needed a drink. And so when my little friend called me over, he said, Dad is going to have this big, they finished building the house, and they're going to be free liquor. So we went over there and got into a thing called Loganberry Wine. Oh man, some of you finished up on that crap, didn't you? Man, it's magic. Goes down a real dark purple and comes up a foamy pink. Oh yes! Floats on the water like Dream Whip. like when you're 11, this is good stuff projectile vomiting only alcoholics can puke over their own heads and not get their hair dirty this is another symptom only alcoholists can pee somebody else's pants you figure it out, I've seen it done I'm drunk, I'm in this bathroom I'm having a spiritual experience my god, I am all in one place I'm thinking I can beat the hell out of my brother Michael Michael, did you get bright ideas when you drank? The only place you ever hear the words alcoholic and genius in the same sentence are at meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. Our ideas were insane. Michael was four years my senior. So if I was 11, he was 15. What do you think my chances were? But I knew with a certainty that I could beat the hell out of him and he had been tormenting me from the time I was a child and oh God, I wanted to beat on him. And so I got on my bicycle. Now you see, you shouldn't drive when you're drunk. I did a skin donation for about 45 yards and as I'm caroming across the pavement I'm thinking to myself, this does not hurt. Another alcoholic discovery. I get on the bike, I wind it up, whack, right into the back of a parked truck. We were going through the lower companionship thing quick. Real quick. Quick, I was progressing through the stages. Quick, I think I could have done the 20 questions and been in that day. However, people unlike diabetics in those days, they didn't ever think of kids as being alcoholic. I mean it was just preposterous that an 11-year-old child could progress through the phases of alcoholism. They don't realize that this disease progresses in different human bodies at different speeds. Some of us become physically ill right away. Some of use take years. I used to go to the meetings when I sobered up at 23 and some of you old farts would talk about drinking for 40 years and you would come over to me and say how could you possibly be alcoholic you little snot and I would say to you how could yo stay out there that long if you're really alcoholic what the hell were you doing drinking every second Friday or something and then I would you know I have a badly damaged liver I still have a poorly damaged liver what do you want me to do die would that be enough proof for you and then they'd come up and say oh you're so lucky to be in here oh am I I can't get any deader than dead. How lucky do you think you were to get in here? So for you young people that are in the room, I think you're just where you're supposed to be. You drink just the right amount for just the right amount of time and you come here and if you don't, you have two choices, insane or die. I don't care how old you are. I don' t care how you're dressed. I could care slightly what your sexual preference is and the more you try and differentiate yourself, as soon as you start saying and I'm different than everybody else in the room, you set another peg in that thing called isolation. Don't do it. Just come here, lay down your pack. If you're a drunk, you're drunk. And if you've got thinking like I've got thinkings, you're going to be okay. That's the good news that's in these rooms because that night when I went home to beat my brother up, I was well on my way. I remember my mother opening the door. Now, you've Got to imagine, my mother was quite British. She opened the door and went, Ah! Ah! Huh? This isn't, you know, a little bit of Logan Berry here. I wasn't an alcoholic yet. I hadn't learned how not to do that puking thing. A little bit o' blood, my knees out o' my pants, and I'm lying right away. I only drank two. You know what? There should be a manual to start off alcoholics. Now, never admit how much you drank. That's step one, right? I don't know. Two. So, I'm in the bathtub. My old man beats the hell out of me, which was one of his sports. And I don't resent him for that. I had it coming most of the time. And I can't find Michael to beat him up. But here's the interesting thing, you see, which is probably lucky, God has a sense of humor. Did you know that? Like this power, this huge power that makes the stars stay in place and makes the planets rotate and incredibly creates through me and around me and with me new things every day the same power that I don't want to burden with my problems think about that has a great sense of humor years after I got sober probably 15 or so years my brother Michael showed up at my door and all he had in the whole world was in a little Safeway shopping bag and he said Martz you are the only guy in the world I trust will you help help me get sober. Oh yeah, sure I will. Come on in, son of a bitch. I'll help you all I possibly can if you will do precisely what I say. Michael's sober today by the grace of God, certainly nothing I did, I remember watching him come off drugs and dope and booze and everything in my basement. And that bond that was between us was incredible. I mean, from this hatred, this was turned into the wonderful alchemy that is Alcoholics Anonymous into this incredible brotherly love. See? And then my other brother, he got sober too. Paul, like my mother, again, didn't know anything about alcoholism. She's got these three loonies. Now Paul got sober and then he started to put stuff up his nose. He found out a whole new purpose for the tank tops of toilets. You know? But he's still going to meetings, and so I sent him a bumper sticker one time that said, my other car is up my nose. And... He told me I was an unfeeling bastard, bastard. And my brother Michael, the other one said he sure is. He sponsored me. I know exactly what you're talking about. Paul is clean sober today. Paul was 50 years old having one baby after the other. I think he finally found out what the plumbing was for or something. I don't know. It's excited to be on the planet. So isn't it wonderful? But anyway, the only alcoholic that was in our family was Uncle Sam. And Uncle Sam used to get drunk and close one eye. And then he'd start talking about the war. And I thought, man, if I ever looked like Uncle Sam, I quit. Did you set standards for yourself? By the time you're finished, you could go under a snake wearing a top hat. If I ever do this, if I ever... Like Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam would talk about being on these big ships and fighting the Germans, and it was incredible. He'd been overseas, but he was in the army. And there's a big lesson here for all of us. Alcoholics will lie about anything. The truth could be good enough, and we lie anyway. And so when he was drunk, all of his accomplishments, all of His medals, all Of His stuff didn't matter to him. It had to be something different than that scumbag he perceived himself to be. And you know, after I was about two years sober, my wife said to me, You know, the thing I hated most when you drank was when that eye would close. Yeah. So alcoholism is very monotonous. If you're just starting out, very monotonous. You tend to do the same things over and over. People sometimes say that a definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and expecting a different result. I don't think that's quite right. I think that insanity, one of the symptoms of insanity is doingthe same thingover and over and expecting different results. But certainly the monotonious aspect of alcoholism is present in every single person with whom I've ever spoken. And that is, is that it starts out in the same cycle almost all the time. I always drank to recapture that night in that bathroom and that sensation. Dr. Silkworth said that elusive feeling that I once gained from alcohol. I drank every time I drank for that. And somehow, I would just go over the top. You know, I just, I Would just start to get that thing going and then over the top, you know? And that's the heartbreaking part of this disease. If you're visiting us or you're new here, you might say, hey, you guys sound like you're having a lot of fun. why would you quit? I didn't. It quit me. It didn't work for me anymore. And I'll tell you, the book says the most incredibly true thing. It says when you can no longer get the relief from alcohol, when you're drinking and fearful, now you have loneliness that few people could ever understand. That's the blackness and the madness that is this disease. And my life went and on through these episodes. And if you're an alcoholic like I am, I'm going to tell you something else. The tickets that you will pay increase as well. At first it was like roll the car and everybody would get out. And then, you know, you have a fight and nobody got hurt. And then all of a sudden it started. And one of the guys called me over one night and got a big bunch of whiskey into him and blew his head off with a revolver. And then another guy was shot and it ricocheted off another guy's button and it killed my friend Bobby. And it just started, you don't know, knife fights. and, you know, I was in places drinking with people. I had no idea why I was going there. You know, at 19 years old, I was a radio announcer on one of the top stations in Canada and I had a wonderful career and I used to get off the air and I would go and buy a gallon of wine and I Would go to Skid Row and I WOULD get the old boys off the floor and we WOULD drink together and I HAD NO IDEA WHY. And we USED TO line up at one of THE big breweries and they USED to give us free liquor and they used to say, what the hell are you doing in this lineup? Because there was Rubby, Rubby Rubby Marty, Rubdy, Rubmy, Rubbie And I'd say, hey, I'm here to see what it's going to be like when I grow up Sometimes humor spoken is the truth and the pain of that coming home, and why was I going there? I don't know But I knew that those people did not judge me See, if you're in this room today and you drink like I drink, you're going to start to run out of people who want to drink with you You guys just let me know if I'm interfering with anything over there Let's face it, the dance is the big thing. It's interesting, you know, if you're new in the room tonight, you will see the band hold their hand about there and there'll be 15 alcoholics on the floor dancing immediately. Do you remember when you used to have to kind of... Two more drinks and I'm going to ask her to dance. Time after time, I never learned how to dance. I was drunk that decade. I missed it. So anyway, it goes on and on. I don't want to bore you with that. I want to talk to you about the last night I drank because the last tonight I drank is extremely significant because it started like so many times before. The pledge had happened the night before. I will never drink again. Now I know that that's an uncommon sort of a statement for a lot of people but I was making this with an ever-increasing frequency And I had said to God, if you just please get me out of this scrape, I will never drink again. And I have done some incredible things. I really believe that the book talks about demoralization, you know, the picking away of your morals. That if you are an alcoholic like I'm an alcoholic, the things that you've done that are the black, mad things in your life will be the things which will make you feel better. The things that are most tender to you. That those things that You consider to be so ugly might not even offend some other people but to You. You, they're against your inner truth, against your morals, and therefore they are what you have to deal with. And I was on a continuing basis going down saying, man, why do I do that? And then I'd do something worse. And it was almost, it was getting to the point where I was afraid to drink with me. See, I used to be able to predict when the fight would break out. I used To be able To predict when I would kind of go into a haste. And at the end, I could predict nothing. I couldn't even tell you whether or not I would get drunk. I had no earthly idea. And people say to me, why did you quit? I'll tell you why I quit. Because I lost hope. Absolutely lost any hope of this stuff doing anything for me. I lost Hope in the real world. I wasn't having trouble drunk. I was having trouble sober. It was between the drinking episodes that my life was hell and I don't know about you. A lot of people talk about drinking around the clock for 200 years or something. Forget all that crap. It says in the book you may not even become a continuous hard drinker. just that once you start to drink, you lose control of the amount you drink. That's the only qualification to be here and then to have a desire not to be like that anymore. So what had happened that night was I had gone to the radio station party. I had picked up a pizza. I had walked over to the man I admired more than any other human being in the world, the president of our radio station. I adored this man and I walked over and said, I walked back over to him without a word and shoved that pizza right into his face in front of everyone. You think he was surprised. I was surprised, you know. And then I did some other things that were just, oh God, why do I do these things? You know, and I woke up with the bits and the pieces of the night coming through my mind and I was thinking, how did I get started again? Because I remember I made a solemn pledge to God I would never drink again. And thenI remembered I was in the record library and Iwas thinking to myself, man, youknow, did I tell God I'd never drinkagain? See, this is cunning, baffling, powerful. This is what they mean by cunning. This is alcoholic logic. Did I say I'd never drink again? Or did I mean I'd never drink to excess? Oh, and so, now I'm thinking, oh, now I need some data. Okay. Let's do the Bible. The Bible's always good. Let me think. Christ's first miracle. That's it. Turn water into wine in Canaan. Christ wants us to drink. Wine. He wants us to drink wine. wine. I've been drinking that damn scotch. If I would stay on the wine, I'd be okay. Does this make any sense to any of you? Oh yeah. Okay, if you're new in the room and it makes sense, get a group list. Normal people don't think like this. Normal people stick their hand on a stove and say, damn, that was hot. I don't think I'll do that again. We stick it on there and say say, I wonder how long I can hold it on this time. And then we do the big maneuver, changing hands. Oh! Ah! Oh!Ah! You know, stick your ass on there because your hands are too sore. You know it's so incredible, this thing is so powerful powerful, just Bill says, just under the surface that the stuff moves, you know, that we have this almost like subconscious thought life that is out to kill us. And I'm in that, in that library and I'm thinking, oh, I'll just drink a couple. Do you know that I had tried to drink a cup right from age 11? I had never been able to drink. Once I start to drink, I can't control the amount I drink. And so I went over and I had a couple of glasses of wine and all of a sudden the guy across across the table, looking very surprised. I said, what happened? He said, you just slapped me across the face. What the hell do you mean what happened?" And it got worse. Now, the bewilderment, terror, the four horsemen, alcoholics understand, as these little bits and pieces of the night were coming through my mind and the phone was ringing way off in the distance, you know? Way off. And I'm thinking, who the hell could be? It's a crack of noon. What the hell are they calling now for? You go to the phone, it's my stupid sister. What do you want? And I don't know whether she'd been to an Al-Anon meeting or something, but she got some information somewhere. She said, do you think you have a problem drinking? No. I didn't. Nobody drank like I drank. People would go under tables. People would, you know, puke. I never, you Know, I didn't have any problem drinking. Staying sober I was having some trouble with, but the drinking was going very well. She said, if I send a guy over from Alcoholics Anonymous, would you talk to him? I'm thinking, I haven't got enough trouble. Now I've got to help this jerk from Alcoholic Anonymous. I figured, what the hell? You know, maybe I can make a donation or something thing and they'll go away. Everything I say from here on, I want you to know it sounds like criticism, but it is the deepest. It is with the deepest affection. This man that came into my life saved my life. He had some shortcomings. He did not understand the meaning of the word rejection. Just didn't get it. He said, I don't know. I don' t know. He didn't know what he was saying. when he'd overstayed his welcome? Not a clue. It's time to go home, Dwayne. Go home, Jesus, go home. Don't you have a home? What are you hinting at? Oh man, this guy got stuck on me like poop on a collie dog. He was just like, you could not get him to go out and go home? Anyway, our first meeting, he's also a comedian. This is what you need when you're puking sick, hungover, guilty. Guilty. Do you want to know if you're an alcoholic? No one in the world feels guilt like an alcoholic feels guilt in the morning and you haven't left your house. You just suspect you've been somewhere bad. You don't know what the hell you've done. You know if it was bad, so guilt. built. This guy comes to my house and he says to me, I understand you drink even when you're not thirsty. Oh man, he's six foot four. He's a Norwegian. My wife was a Norwegian, I hated Norwegians. Out of the two million recovered alcoholics in the world in 1976, God digs up a Norwegian. And the guy's proud about being a Norwegian he's really happy about it, and I go when you think of my father-in-law who used to swear at me when I'd pick my wife up, you know, I'd walk by him to go and get her and I'd hear him say E-merker dita ferdi e-merkert dita e-simi e-t-a-barbecue so I thought, oh man probably there's some sort of Norwegian network or something, so anyway we go for coffee do you Do you remember ever drinking coffee, like before you got in here? Like he said, let's go for a coffee. Why? We'll talk. Why? And we went for coffee. And, you know, in the chapter working with others, it says, He says, you know, if your guy's in the right frame of mind, tell a few humorous incidents. This guy did not even find out if I was in the Right Frame of Mind. He just started talking about getting drunk and doing stuff. God, we love to talk about ourselves. And I mean, so when he would finish a story, I'd tell the story. And then he'd finish the story, and I did about half of my fifth step with this idiot before I even understood what he was doing. He just disarmed me like no human being had been able to do. No doctor, no priest, no clergyman, no one had ever disarmed me. Nobody spoke the language he spoke. Nobody seemed to understand at the depth that he understood. Nobody ever reflected back to me what I was talking about, and I knew in his eyes, he knew. Except he lied. You know, he said he'd been sober 13 years. I don't think so. You know? I knew what happened to people who were sober 13 year. They became Mormons. Went to Argentina. started bars in New York, Mormons, you know. Anyway, this was the most disconcerting night. I thought, I've got to get the hell away from this guy. And so he made this absurd proposal. He said, come to a meeting. I said, what kind of a meeting? He said a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I thought well, when is it? He said it starts tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock. It's one hour, you'll love it. I said okay, because I'm an alcoholic. alcoholics will agree to anything if there's time to get away. You know that? And so I left the house at 8 o'clock, and he was out there waiting for me. He made a mistake too, he said. Isn't that amazing? He said, I thought I told you at 8 O'clock. So I get in the car, we drive around, drink some more coffee. And we go to a meeting, and the meeting is in the back of a cafe, and I'm telling total strangers who are sitting there having their breakfast, I'm not alcoholic, I'm just going with this guy to this meeting. And he's saying, shut up, you're embarrassing me. That's what anonymous means. You can come into this meeting and feel confident that no one will care when you walk in the room. In fact, Marty said, I can guarantee that for the rest of your bloody life. No one will ever care when we meet. When you walk into a room. I was relieved. You know, being master of the universe and all the other responsibilities I had, I was tired. I went to a meeting, it was absurd. There were people there that were like 105 years old. These guys had been sent out to be wrinkled. I mean, they were old. And they're going up and down 12 stairs or some damn thing. I couldn't figure it out. They had a big swelled-up book. And oh God, they're talking about unrelated subjects at the same time and the wise ones are nodding. There's one at the front of the room, a really wrinkly one, who says, if you want what we have... You've got to be willing to go to any length to get it. I'm thinking, what the hell do you have? God, you're 108 years old. You're all wrinkled up. You can't drink for the last four more cups of coffee and you'll all piss yourselves. Why would I want what you have?! I couldn't believe that he was offering me this wonderful gift. I thought I got the hell out of here so I go out of there and my sponsor comes up behind me he says how'd you like the meeting well I'm an alcoholic I said geez that was I liked that that was good I almost wish I was alcoholic that was so good and I told him I said you know if there's anything I can ever do for you guys like a donation or any sort of maybe some radio time I'll help it's a good thing you've got going there keep it up well I'll tell you I was surprised when he came back that night again to pick me up for another meeting see he didn't understand the meaning of the word rejection and I opened the door and I said yes he said get in the car I said excuse me he said get in the car we're going to another meeting I said I don't want to go there anymore he said I didn't care get in a car get in car so I figured well he's big he's Norwegian there's no telling he might flip out get in the car and we go to a meeting and there's a bunch of those old guys at this meeting except there's just a couple of girls. Hookers, I figure. Oh yeah. I didn't know anything about Alcoholics Anonymous. What the hell did I know? Women that drink, women of the night, hookers. Well, you know that part in the meeting where they always say does the newcomer have anything to ask? I said, oh yeah, I got a question. They said, what would you like, Marty? And I said to these girls, are you guys hookers? You see, I'd been thrown out of everything meaningful. I knew how to get thrown out from a meeting and I wanted rid of these people so I thought this would offend them. You don't do that with alcoholic women. Ruth looked at me and she said, you know, I never was a hooker. But she said, occasionally, I'd meet an anemic little turd like you in the bar. And he was a very good boy. I'd take him home. And if he stayed good, he got lucky. If not, I just kicked his rear end out of the house. Well, I hate women and Alcoholics Anonymous now too. I hate Dwayne. We get in the car. I say, that's it. I'm not going to any more meetings. He said, that is ridiculous. Of course you are. Now, I know you've got to kind of soft-sell this to the newcomers, right? Like you wouldn't want to offend anyone and drive them out of here. Tell Duane. He said, you know, you're going to go to a lot of meetings. In fact, you are going to 90 meetings in the next 90 days or I'm going to kill you. So what the hell do you mean by that? He said well let me put it to you this way. If you wanted a beer, you just call me. I bring it over. You drink the beer and then I beat the hell out of you. I said, why? He said, because if you drink, you're going to get in a fight. I don't want you to get hurt by strangers. I'd rather do it myself. That's AA love. This is the kind of sponsorship I pray you all would have. I hated his guts for over two years. I worshipped the ground he was going to be buried under. I fantasized setting his car on fire. He had a dog that was so old it couldn't bark anymore. You, and you'd hear, meh, everything around these people was 108 years old. And this dog did tricks, you know, this is what you need, you're just sober. I mean, I've come out of a fast life, I used to, you now, bars and booze and music and he's got a dog that smiles. This one's, come on, take her, smile, and the dog would go. And the drunks, sober drunks would roll on the floor laughing. This is a big night. Hey! That's good. Let's go over to Dwayne's, not drinking, watch Tinker smile. Geez! No wonder I drank. But I'm scared of this guy. I'm terrified. And you know what he told me? He says, we got AA police. I said, what are you talking about? Oh, he said, it's all over town. Everybody knows you're an alcoholic. I said what happened to this anonymity crap? Oh well. He says not anonymous among us. We all know where you are. And he said, if you drink or anything, I'll know within two minutes. So you might as well just stop right now. Go through the 90 days and survive. And so I did. And then I went to my final meeting, the 90th day, which coincidentally was Gratitude Day. I was grateful. I mean, I was really grateful. Dwayne took me to this meeting. He put me right at the front of the room. And there's this old boy named Wesley Parrish. Did any of you ever hear of Wesley? Oh, get a tape. What a talk. Anyway, Wesley finished his talk. I hated him. I hated everybody because I hated me. In fact, everything Wesley talked about, if I just stroked out Wesley's name and put Marty's name in there, it would have been my story. That's why I really hated him because I thought Dwayne had told him everything about me. I thought that the big book had the word Plattsburgh and New York in there because that was the only city in the United States of America at that point I'd ever been to. That's how self-centered I was. They published a whole book with Plattsburgh, New York in it. So Marty Jeffrey would think that he was at home. You know, there is absolutely no limit to this thing called selfishness and self-centeredness. When you come in these doors, let me tell you something. Your best thinking is what's going to kill you. And so Dwayne for a period of time said, You can't think. You are sick. I will think for you. If you have no concept of a higher power, I am your higher power. God's a Norwegian. Kill me! Kill me!! Wesley finishes this talk at this gratitude meeting I go to and I mean it's like everybody stands up and they're all in love and they are all hugging and kissing. I want to get out of there because I'm going to puke. All I'm thinking about is tomorrow I'm out of this man's grasp. tomorrow I set his car on fire tomorrow I kill tinker tomorrow is really gratitude day you know I believe with all my heart and soul that you hear when you hear and you see when you see there's a guy from California named Chuck C used to teach that I listen to him all the time I mean he's just a mentor to me just a marvelous marvelous insight and so that night when when Wesley finished and everybody went to hug him. Wesley never minded about all of the people and all of The Adoration. He walked right past all of them and came right up to me and said, what is bugging you, boy? Yeah, you. He said, you know, you look miserable. I said, well, I am miserable, Wesley. I don't want to be at this meeting. He said get out in the parking lot. I figured I'm going to get to beat a fat little Floridian up. That's what's going to happen here. And we got out there And Wesley told me some stuff, and God let this happen to you if you're new here. He told me something that was so deep inside of me that I couldn't even think it. He just said some truths to me that no one ever had said to me. He told my things about myself of which I had only dreamed. He told that I had something big inside of m One of my problems was that I never had any organized way to get that out. And he gave me a marvelous vision of being comfortable sober and about being intimate sober. And he built this thing for me, and I went away from there, andI got in the car, and I said to my wife, you know, I think I'm going to stay sober. I thinkI'm goingto keep going to meetings. And she said, what? I said, I'm gonna stay in Alcoholics Anonymous. And she says, you mean you could have quit? Duane said, once you're in, you'rein. You can't get back out. Alcoholics Anonymous, if somebody's told you that all you're going to get here is sober, I'm afraid they're selling you just too far down. What there is in here for me was an unfolding of my human spirit, an unfolding of my intellect, an unfolding of my ability to be a friend and a father and all of those things that I longed for but could never touch. You know? In Alcoholics Anonymous there's absolutely no limit to what a human spirit can do and I'm standing testimony to that tonight if you can't get anything else remember as Bill said that a human colossal failure stood in front of you tonight transformed into something that is just so much better than what I had yesterday you know I went for lunch one time with about nine months sober with his old boy and he said been watching you in AA I said hey I thought that's probably good idea because I thought it was a real up-and-comer yeah he says I've been watching you and and he says, I keep looking at that beautiful wife of yours and I keep thinking I'll bet Marty's the lousiest lover in Alcoholics Anonymous. So I said, Bob, I know what your point is but I'd make it really quickly. Ah, he said, no point. I just think you'd be lousy in bed, that's all. Yeah, he says, it seems like such a shame of a waste of a beautiful woman being with a selfish guy like you. Bob, what do you want me to do? He said, well, what I want you to do is learn how to become a better husband. And I said, what has this got to do with Alcoholics Anonymous? He said it's got to deal with practicing these principles in all of your affairs and you, you little pig, are not practicing this in your home. home. I resented both the words little and pig. He said, you know, for someone like you to go home and make love to a beautiful woman like that, you need to think about bathing. You need to think of putting on your robe and you need think about wearing some cologne. Like pretend you're on a date. Pretend you're trying to impress her. Then I want you to get into bed with that woman and I want to slide your arm under the back of her head and I'll want you hold her near to to you. And I want you just to lay there, Marty, for at least 20 minutes and then I want You to say in a very soft and reassuring voice how proud You are of her standing beside You in the job she's done with the children while You're out there acting like a jerk. And then, Marty I want You to go to sleep. What an order! I can't go through with it. You know what I'm saying? Why would You do all that sucking up and then not score? You know, I'm an alcoholic. Alcoholic. Anyway, I knew he'd check with her. This guy wasn't even my sponsor. He was just in the group, the nosy turd. So I went home and I cleaned up and I put on the clone and I shaved and I got in bed and I slid my arm under her head and we laid there. And I said, you know baby, I'm so proud of how you stood by me through all of my madness and how you've been such a wonderful mother to the children while I was sick, and thank you. And I laid there, and she laid there. And I lay there, and finally she said, Are you having an affair? Yeah. Thanks for sharing that with me, Bob. You see, one of the big problems when you're alcoholic is that what you say is never interpreted it as what you meant after you said it. And like she didn't know the place from which I was coming, he was right. I had never slowed down long enough to have any intimacy with that woman. I was just mixed up. I didn't think I was going to be able to I didnít know any better. Thank God some big snotty AA old-timer stuck his nose into our business. It saved our marriage. Now on October 20th Shirley and I are going to be married 25 years. and two months ago because of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous because of the things you've taught me and the wonderful gifts that God has given me I was in a financial position to go to New York and buy her four carats a diamond ring to take it home to say to her baby will you marry me she said are you crazy I did it once I will never do that again Again, now she's got the damn ring and I'm not getting anything out of it. I'm thinking of reverting back to the head under the arm, trying to suck hold a little bit. The book Alcoholics Anonymous says that alcoholics are incapable of forming and maintaining a meaningful relationship with other people. That's the nature of what's wrong with me. It says that I try to wrest satisfaction out of life by managing well, I'll try to get people to do, say, and be the things that I want. It says that I'm dead if I don't learn to surrender to a power that sets out of myself. And you see, this power, I don'T know about you. I haven'T had a lot of times when God has spoken directly to me. I have had a time when I heard a voice. I was in the ocean in Hawaii. I was going to talk at a meeting. And I said to God, You know, I am so unworthy. Why would they call an idiot like me to talk to this group? I am just absolutely not capable. And I heard a voice that sounded exactly like my own voice in my head say, you just tell them to believe their own miracles. That's all you need to tell them. And so I went into that meeting that night and I delivered the talk much like I'm doing there and I said, oh by the way, God said to tell you guys something. He said, you're supposed to believe your own miracles and after the meeting was over there was the usual two or three people that come up to thank you because their sponsor said they had to. And this road-worn looking individual came up to me and said, You know, tonight I heard it. Tonight I know I'm going to be okay. And I said, What did you hear? And he said, I never believed in miracles. And tonight I know that what I have going is a miracle. A miracle is simply something we cannot explain. He said, I cannot explain why I've been allowed to come here one more time tonight, but I'm gonna be okay and you know what? It was all clear that a whole bunch of this thing is about crucifying the old Marty. Slowest death in the world and you'll fight and kick until the end because it's hard to accept what's better for you. So let me just sum up by telling you what it's like now. I have three children. I had an oldest boy who was the best father I ever had. This guy was born at 50. I can't explain that to you. He was just the dad I always wanted. He mowed the lawn and he took care of stuff and he was always just interested in me. Took me on the backyard and played ball. And then I had a middle son named Chad. He was born one year to the day that I sobered up. God kept doing things in my life that were so amazing because I was so skeptical. And Chad's a good guy. Incidentally, how is this for a mind blower? Any of you worried about your kids becoming drunks because you're a drunk? I mean, I was grinding about that, worrying about it all the time. Donovan has never had a drink in his life. In fact, he's sober six months longer than I am. And he mentions it every once in a while. Chad has never had a drink. I can't explain that to you. They don't smoke, they don't party, they're good people. Donovan's finishing a university degree in computer science, going for a PhD. One of my guys. Chad is a lunatic. He's just all over the place. He's into retail, out of retail, he's working two jobs. He's crazy. Just like me. And then we had a daughter and she scared the hell out of us. I said, 16 years old, she got a bottle of vodka. And she went down to celebrate, which ended up in her not being able to sit up or speak. And she scared me just terrible. I thought, oh God, I can't watch this human being go through what I've been through. And I watched her sink to lower companions and I watched the whole routine start again. And because of you, because of what you taught me, because of the associations I was able to make, we had financial ability. We had the place to send her to a private school. school. She's into equestrian horse riding. We sent the damn horse too. Off they went to school. A year went by, they returned her to me with bald head, 50 pounds overweight, angry, but not drinking. She came and she lived under our roof and she finished her grade 12 and about halfway through the year she said, would it be possible for me to go go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous with you? No. Get in the car. And she came to that meeting of AlcoholicsAnonymous, and I don't know what happened that night. I can't explain it to you. Every kid in the area showed up. I mean, every young person in Alcoholics Anonymous came to our meeting, and they all, they talked like I'm all, like, you know, I'm all And she's going. And so I like puked, and then I'm like, I'm all on the floor. And a miracle took place again, and all of a sudden I got this sober kid. And she found a boyfriend that doesn't drink. I can't explain any of this to you. I'm just telling you whatever you're dreaming for, it's too small. Get rid of all of what you think is going to happen. But it's too small. It's not worthy of you. Expect some incredible things in your life. Expect some pain because, you know what? Earth people have it too. Amazing to find out they also had flat tires. Expect a miracle in your Life. When you do the steps, it says, you know, if you've been painstaking about this phase of your recovery which is that you're cleaning up the wreckage around you you're making amends that's the wreck age that's two pains taking part expect to know a new freedom and a new joy expected to really comprehend the word serenity and to have peace expect that the fear of economic insecurity and fear of people will leave you don't expect to get rich you just won't be scared to be be broke anymore expect to be surrounded in a fourth dimension of living that is infinitely more wonderful than anything you have ever had before expect to have friends on every continent it's so joyful surely and i today are an empty nest we've got a beautiful home we've got just everything in the whole world and you know if i really got humble about it which which I do for once in a while, I have to admit that everything I need I got in Alcoholics Anonymous and everything I got and I need I find now that's exactly what I wanted all along. Good night. God bless you. Thank you.