“A Jesuit Priest Walks Through the Promises – Father Tom W.

Just from the Signs of Sobriety group, please help me welcome Don Kaye. Hello everyone. My name is Don. I'm an alcoholic. holic. Here comes the nervousness. I haven't given a speech for a long time, and I'm going going to do my best right now. My parents themselves were alcoholics. I started out by just sipping a beer. My mom or dad might give me a beer, and I was shy, and and I would run and hide from people. So Mom and Dad figured a few drinks would alleviate that shyness and help me to relax and associate with their friends. I started drinking at nine years old. I was just a boy. And I was able to finish them off by myself, full glasses at that time. The first time I drank a full 12 ounces of Olympia, I drank that down and had a pretty good buzz on. I was just a little guy around all these adults and they were getting a good laugh and I was weaving here and there and I had to go to the bathroom and barf my guts out And I swore I'd never drink again. But the next day, I went back for more. And this continued. My mother and father permitted this. It was at home. They wouldn't have approved it at school, but at home it was okay. and as I continued to grow and I went into junior high school I knew it just wasn't alcohol alone I got into other substance abuse as well on a daily basis at school school, and they would catch me and I would get suspended at school. And then as high school started, after high school started I was becoming a troublemaker. I became more more vicious, more mean. Let me backtrack a little bit. My sophomore year, me and some friends, we went to Oakland and we stole some wine, some MD 2020. Well, seven bottles of MD 2020 stashed in various places on our body and we went and hung out behind the store and consumed it all rapidly and we were real drunk we saw a whorehouse and we were curious and we ventured near and there was they confronted us with a line up up and I managed to pick one and my friend picked one. And they asked us if we had money. And I flashed my wad, but there wasn't any money in it. I was fooling them. So that was good enough to get us in there. And the woman had a shotgun suddenly. And I was terrified and I ran like hell out of there. Me and my friends, the woman was pretty quick herself even with the shotgun, and I was terrified. It was a scary experience. But we managed to get away. I figured I had to straighten up. We went back to the store and got some quarts of beer, and we went into Berkeley, Telegraph Avenue there in Berkeley and we can continue to drink. I started to feel sick to my stomach and I came upon this gentleman and asked him for a cigarette. And I punched him for no apparent reason. And some other people got involved, and there was quite a ruckus and a big fight. And the police came. A few cop corps came. They tried to get me, and I got away from them. But they did catch my companion, and I ran all the way back to school, and I hit myself. At that point, I was getting real nauseous and vomited profusely. and the woman I was going back and forth to the bathroom and throwing up and the dean of students talked to me and I was in full denial I said I didn't get in any fight I wasn't fighting and the cops showed up and there was witnesses several witnesses they were confused as to who I was the clothes were different and they weren't together on their analysis and the last one was quite sure it was me that I was involved and I was put in jail that was my first jail visit as a high school sophomore in high school and I was afraid there in the jail and then I got out and time went by and my junior year I took to stealing cars from an auto body shop there at school at night I would help myself to the key and go out for a nightly spin in until I was caught as somebody snitched me off and I denied it. I was very good at denying, but I was once again put in jail. After that, I dropped out of school and I started my worldly life and I became a bigger and bigger asshole. I My heart was black. I had no care about people. I was just very self-centered and selfish and continued to drink. And it escalated. I drank 24 beers a day, daily. After work, I would drink at the bar and into the night. And this continued. Then I was married, separated, divorced, and I just had a terrible attitude. My behavior wasn't conducive to it and my wife left me, divorced me, and I really didn't care. I wasn't able to have any feelings at that time and things just got worse. And I just did a lot of geographics. I moved around quite a bit, associating with all kinds of different people. I moved Around a lot because my first home there, I would lose friends and I would go to a new area and lose their friendship because I had a vicious, terrible attitude and I was often fighting. I loved fighting for no reason. It was this machismo, bullheadedness. I thought I was top macho, top dog in the world and this was a problem and it did continue and I was always in and out of jails, state prison and county jails for various reasons. always involving drugs or alcohol, though. I wasn't afraid of jail. I became used to it and it became like home. Free food. No rent. That was fine with me. me. My drinking escalated, and I switched to hard liquor, wine, beer, any of those daily. Then I started taking the morning drink, my morning beer for breakfast. And I said, He said, here goes breakfast, and it would just go through the day. And at night, the whiskey, I drank whiskey. And I incorporated other drugs with that nightly. And I couldn't live without that stuff. My body was used to all those chemicals and the alcohol. I loved my drinking. And it was almost like my goal was to be in a coffin with whiskey bottles all around me. The last bad, I was on a month-long vacation. I took a three-state drive with this date that I had. I was married. I wasn't happy in my marriage. we were fighting quite a bit and I was agitated so I escaped, I picked up another gal a stranger I had just met her and we went on a three state date for a month when I arrived home from this vacation as it were my wife saw me with this woman and was infuriated called the police and I was promptly arrested for other... It's a long story. I was not involved in this issue. I was framed. And I was put in jail. I was putting jails for it. So I went to court and the court said you could go to state prison for three years so you can go to a recovery home for six months. And I said, you know, I don't care. Put me in prison. But my friend was saying, he was saying you ought to go into the six-month recovery program. And I visualized four white walls with straight jackets. And that's what I had visualized this recovery home to be, something like this. And he said, no, no. Go check it out. So I went to court, and I agreed to go to this recovery home. And I went into the interview, and I was scared, and I was tearful. I thought the people were a bit weird and strange. I said, I don't belong in this part of the world. They're wimpy. So after the interview I was accepted. I went back to jail, waited for the court and the court accepted me going into this program and I waited. And I was still quite a big asshole. I was fighting with the cops and finally there was a bed open at the recovery home and the first two weeks I was just full of anger. I was angry at the recovery home and I was making a lot of enemies. I didn't care about people, my attitude was fuck the world. It hit me, I I started taking a look inside. I got a different perspective, and I started looking at myself, and I looked at the various episodes I had gone through, my attitude, my behavior of being a mean asshole with a black heart and all the people that I had hurt. And as I got clarity and the fog started to lift, I started to see things and it was it was embarrassing it was embarrassing to me so I thought okay I'm going to hang in here I wanted to leave because I was having cravings you know I was I was having craving I wanted that drink but I thought about if I left I'd be back in the joint and the people in the recovery home were trying to help me and so I was patient and I stayed there for six months and I'm ever so grateful to that program and I am thankful to myself and I thank God I thank the courts as well for offering me this choice but I still have struggles I still struggle struggle. I'm still finding out who I am, changing my attitude, becoming a better person, becoming the person I want to be, becoming a gentleman, being helpful to other people instead of abusing people and cops as well. I used to love to get in it with the cops. So I read a lot out of the big book. I've learned a lot through AA and I realize I have to surrender. You have to surrender. So now I'm happy I've been clean and sober. I'm very happy. I've changed and I'm proud of myself. My mom stopped drinking as well. She's got a little more time than I do and my mom was joyous. She was ecstatic. She hit the roof She was very happy to see her son clean and sober. She couldn't believe it. She was so grateful to God, and she cried, and it was... I'm enjoying my recovery. I have a home group, the SOS group. I cherish the Sos group. I've learned a lot and gone to different meetings. Before I had two sponsors, now I have one. But I keep socializing with deaf people and I feel good about it. If there was no Deaf Fellowship, I'd feel out of place. I might go back to my old behaviors. yours. It might be the end. I might be in jail for life. I could have been in the mental ward. You just lose it. Or dead. So I'm thankful to God that I have my life every day upon awakening in the morning, I still have my breath and I'm happy to be alive and I am grateful to God. This last couple months, I've had some pressure. I've really been struggling through some things and but I'm not giving up. I'm not giving up my sobriety. I wouldn't exchange it for anything. I I've been clean and sober 26 months, two weeks yesterday. I'm so grateful to have a clear mind. I'm happy to be able to help others and see other people get clean and sober and it's inspiring. It's a joy for me. When it happens, when I see other people getting clean and sober, it's very inspirational relational, seeing God working through us all. Thank you. The door to my left here will be closed if you need to leave the room for any reason. We ask that you exit through the rear. so as to not disturb or interrupt the speaker. Also, in accordance with Tradition 11 and Step 12 of Alcoholics Anonymous, only the speaker's portion of this meeting will be taped, with, of course, the speakerís permission. Tapes of the meeting will also be available to the audience. They will be available for Mike and Pat here after the meeting for $5 per tape. Also, a portion of this speaker meeting will be videotaped, but only the interpreter or the signer will be taped and not the speaker. And this is for the deaf people here tonight. Obviously an audio tape would be of no great value to them, so we're videotaping the signers. Having gotten all the business out of the way, it gives me a lot of pleasure to introduce a gentleman tonight who I've heard several of his tapes, and he almost needs no introduction in our area. Please help me welcome Tom W. love you. My name is Tom, and I am an alcoholic. And I'm glad to be here on a Saturday night. I live up in Oakland and I work most weekends doing desperate things with alcoholics and I'm never around on a Saturday night so a chance to get to a meeting and hang out with desperate people in San Jose is a plus. And it's really nice for me to come and see that there are some people still alive and out of jail, you know, that I have been noticing over the last 15 plus years that I've been connecting. So that feels good. And for folks that I haven't yet met, I was just reflecting as I was listening to the first speaker that we've never met before and so much of his story, the feelings and the thinking and the craziness is the way I think and feel. I just make that connection pretty easily. My sponsor is a hopeless alcoholic and needs meetings as much as anybody I've ever met in my whole life. And he's of the opinion, with 25 years sober, but what does he know? know. He's of the opinion that if you go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and are able to identify with the speaker, you're in a pretty good place. And if you go to an alcoholics anonymous and don't identify with the speaker at all, it means you need another meeting. So he's been nagging and whining about that towards me over the last 20 years and you'd think I'd get it more quickly, but I don't. I need a lot of repetition. Anyway, what I get to talk about is what it was like and what happened and what it's like now. This is a dangerous time of the year for me and again we have different dangerous times. I'm personally, I like the fall, I Like Autumn a lot but the slipperiness of this period is that it's election time And I don't know about you, but I can get swept up in things. And I have been known to hold on to resentments which cross state lines. And it was real important for me when I began going to meetings to hear about the traditions that said that outside controversial issues stay outside. side. And it was important because I had never been able to do that. I got sober during the, you can't really say the late Ford presidency because it was so short, but I got sober during the Ford presidency and I was drunk for the bicentennial celebration in July of 1976. I vaguely remember the great ships coming into the New York Harbor. I was not there, but I was having a couple of social drinks while watching the television. And then I kind of come out of the haze somewhere in August of 1976 and there was Mr. Ford and he was giving the acceptance speech for being nominated president that year And I looked it up later and I found out that my first day without a drink was that Wednesday, August the 18th of 1976. And by the time November came around, I was a couple of months sober and I was a total lunatic. Total lunatic Some people get excited about some stuff. Some people People get excited about other stuff. Political stuff has always made me real nuts. And I have been right wing and left wing and radical middle of the road. And the one thing that I've consistently held on to is that when I've believed something, I've really believed it. And if you disagreed with me, not only were you wrong, you were stupid. So for my own recovery, I really needed to have a good introduction into how the traditions work. Especially around the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. It doesn't say the only requirements for membership are the desire to quit drinking and agree with Tom. That's not in the tradition. and that 10th tradition that says that outside controversial stuff stays outside. And the tradition makes special mention of politics, sectarian religion and alcohol reform. And I think that's really wise because we have a tendency I mean we as people but definitely alcoholics to hold strong feelings and break out in fistfights. I was sober a couple I stayed away from politics for my first four years sober over because I was so nuts. And then I figured, I'm well enough. And I was going to meetings in Los Angeles. I was living down there. That's why I was going to meeting there and I was not commuting, you know, to go to meetings. And I started dabbling with the candidate just a little bit and then I got real involved involved. And then I started carrying literature around in my car and, you know, signing up voters. I mean, cats. And I knew that my higher power wanted me to tell all of you about my candidate. And I had all this literature in the car. And thank God I left it in the car.And I went to the meeting and I had a moment of clarity. And what I realized there was, and this was a meeting I loved. It was at Plummer Park in central L.A. off Santa Monica Boulevard, and truly dangerous, crazy, self-obsessed, whiny alcoholics would come to this meeting, and I just identified with them and felt right at home. But the moment of clarity was the realization that there were people in that room who thought off that King George III was our best president. And there were other people who wanted to start by blowing up the Bank of America. I mean, it was a little intense. And the moment of clarity was this is not the stuff that unites us. This is the stuff that divides us and it's real important, again, to keep that outside. I was in Poland a few years ago. I do get to travel. At the end of my drinking, I never left my room because they were out there. But sober... And if you don't know who they are, you might not be ready to get sober yet. Someone in Berkeley said that paranoia is just total awareness And I like that. That is a keen insight into my way of living. But about 8 or 10 or 12 years ago, you know, somewhere there, I got to go to Poland and I was working in Sweden for a while and I really do believe in little geographics. I find they really help leave the country, go somewhere else, work for a while, come home. I've done that more than once. So I went to Poland and I went through some meetings in Poland. And this is when the communist government was still running things. Things were a little intense, but Alcoholics Anonymous existed in Poland and by some moment of grace we got connected with sober people in Poland and the chances of that happening were slim, but there we were and we were in Warsaw and we Were staying with a fellow and his wife and their couple of kids and he was very sober and very NAA and about five years sober and he had been a very active member of Solidarity and this was the labor union that had helped change the Polish society so much. In fact, he spent some time in jail because he was an active union member and he got sober and he was doing a life. And somehow an article appeared in one of the papers about getting sober and recovery and alcoholism, and a phone number was listed. And he was on the phone duty and someone called. The person who called was a high-ranking member of the government who said he couldn't stop drinking. So this fellow, Solidarity member, who had spent some time in prison, made a 12-step call on this high-ranking member of the military government and found out that he was talking to the man who threw him in prison. Outside controversial issues stayed outside. And at the time we visited them, he was that man's sponsor. If it can happen there, it can happened here. But there's reasons for it. So anyway, I just want to mention that because I think it's one of the things that I don't always observe and it's one of the things we need to do because there are so many things we just don't agree on. I was in New Mexico a while ago and I've happened to fall in love with some people down there because of meetings and program and a few other connections and I loved them before I knew how they voted. And I showed up at this fellow's house. I was going to spend the weekend there. I was talking at a conference in Hobbs, New Mexico, which they call Hobbs America down there. And he had a large photograph of a former governor of California. and I told him that I would have to sleep with one eye open, you know. And we were able to expand our worlds, you know, and it was fine. And without the program, I simply would not have had a heart or a head big enough to even have a conversation with this guy. So I'm real glad to be sober. But let me tell you about what it was like and what happened and what it's like now? What it's like now is it's gotten worse. I for newcomers and visitors, you need to know that they do not ask people with a lot of mental health to share at meetings. With the exception of the first speaker, he was fine. But what they want to do, the thinking is if they get someone who is clearly a barely functioning person to talk, everyone else will feel better about themselves and go home thinking that they're doing just fine. And that's how it works. So I am not here as a role model. I am here as a warning. And as long as you understand that, we'll get get along fine. I had someone come up to me and, oh, they didn't like something I said and we were not going to be best friends. That was real clear. And she thought that because she was so horrified by something I'd said, I would change. And I told her that not only will I not change, I will always mention this thing that bothered you so much I read the book. I don't read the book a lot, but I read the book and parts of the book speak to me and parts of the book are always a surprise to me. The copy I got doesn't have any pictures in it and that bothered me for a long time. And what I've done with the book, what tools do I use to stay sober? I read some of the book. I read several of the pamphlets that just save my butt regularly. The Jack Alexander article, I think, is brilliant. When I am feeling really hopeless and my sponsor's machine is not connected, I read the Jack Alexander articles. I also really like the pamphlet called A Member's Eye View, and I very much like the pamphelet that says, So You Think You're Different. Those are my three favorite pamphlets in the book, so those are things I use. But I was in New Mexico, and I have a little habit that when I open the book and start reading it in real. But I I was in Abiquiu, New Mexico. I was trying to make some kind of contact with the higher power one more time. I was not being real successful. I was at a Benedictine monastery that was vegetarian and miles from the paved road and no telephones and no electricity. And I was feeling far away from you. And I opened the book, and it was under the section written, He Had to be Shown. Now this is one of the original stories from the first edition of the big book, and here's what it reads. When I was 18, at the end of high school, the high school team had a banquet at a well-known roadhouse outside of Akron, A roadhouse is a place where you could get a meal and a drink, and it was kind of off the beaten path. And everybody knew where they were, but there were no neon signs, you know. We boys drove out in somebody's car and went to the bar on the way to the dining room. And I, in an effort to impress the other boys that I was city-bred, instead having lived in Scranton and Cleveland. They don't think that's a funny line in Scvanton and Cleveland, but I think it's a real funny line, you know. I asked them if they didn't want a drink. They looked at one another queerly and finally, one of them allowed he'd have a beer. And they all followed him, each of them saying he'd had a beer too. I ordered a martini extra dry. I didn't even know what a martinis looked like but I heard a man down the bar order one That was my first drink. See, at least now the industry makes things like Annie Boone Springs Farms sweet wine so you can start with something that doesn't taste like gasoline, you know. Starter alcohol, you knows. Candy with booze inside of it. I mean, they know what they're doing, but this kid's very adventurous. I kept watching the man down the bar to see what he did with the contraption like that and he just smelled of his drink and set it down again. So I did the same. He took a couple of puffs of a cigarette. I took a cup of coffee. A couple of pups of my cigarette. He tossed off half of his martini. I tossed off half of mine, and it nearly blew the top of my head off. I vividly remember my first martini, and I was in college, and it was like being kicked by a mule. It irritated my nostrils. I choked. I didn't like it. There was nothing about that drink that I liked, but I watched him, and he tossed off the rest of his, so I tossed off the rest OF mine. He ate his olive, and I ate mine. I didn' t even like the olive. It was repulsive to me from every standpoint point. I drank nine martinis in less than an hour. I can't tell you how I identified with this very square, faceless man from Akron, Ohio in 1938. This has been my insides. I just danced with martinis for a long time and thought they were sensational, and they They were just deadly. I was listening to a guy up in Oakland in the past year, and he was at a meeting talking about the disease of alcoholism, and he said that alcoholism was a lot like dancing with a gorilla. You're not done dancing until the gorilla is done dancing. Now it's important to reflect on that for a couple of minutes, because the subtlety of the image might be something you miss, because early in the evening, you think you're in charge. You've asked the gorilla out, you've asked him out, and he's like, I don't know, I You think the gorilla's kind of cute, you're getting along pretty well, and in the back of your head you figure later on you might get lucky, you know? you don't know you're in trouble until the moment comes in the evening when you want to sit the next dance out. And the gorilla doesn't want to. And you discover you keep dancing. A little bit later on, the gorilla tells you that you're going to tango. And you explain that you don' t know how to tangos. and you find out the gorilla doesn't care. You tango and you end up doing unspeakable things and you're absolutely out of control. There was a commercial done a few years ago, Samsonite luggage put in the gorilla cage, you know, and the gorillas just knock the shit out of these things and they survive really nicely. A lot of us don't, you know? A lot if us don' don't. A lot of us get ground up by the gorilla over and over and over again. We die of overdoses, we suicide, we do drunk driving accidents. Casualty rates are real high with this particular dance. People who love us look inside the cage and they see us dancing with the gorilla and they get real anxious and they want to run into the cage and rescue us and then they get their arms and their legs yanked off and a lot of the Al-Anon program basically says stay out of the cage stay out of the case and then you have to talk about your feelings about staying out of the cage takes a whole meeting If you're clean and sober tonight haven't had a drink today haven't been drinking haven't done any chemical stuff today that's a real good sign that the gorilla has let go. If the gorilla has let it go get out of the cage. And don't go back into the cage even when the gorilla starts singing your song because that happens, you know. It's so cute and maybe we'll get along and I took some lessons and I'm sure it'll be fine. Dr. Gill, who is a sober physician up in Marin County and still alive, He got sober in Mr. Eisenhower's last year as president. I remember things according to who's president. It has always given me someone to blame, and I just remember who's president. Who was I blaming for that four-year period? Dr. Gill says that alcoholism is a disease that has three distinct phases. Phase one is the fun phase. This is when it's real fun. And that's a large part of my drinking story. I had a lot of fun while drinking. And I mentioned that at a meeting once, and one of the old-timers, not as old as me, but nevertheless an old-timer, said, You shouldn't mention alcohol and fun! You'll trigger the newcomer! And see, I just don't think that's true. I think it's important to tell the truth about your drinking, and if you give height, people will die. And if you had a good time for a while drinking, it's real important to say that. And the fact is, if I could still have a goodtime drinking, I'd be doing it. You need to know that. The fun phase is phase one, but it's a real phase. When I drank, I felt smart. When I drink, I feel graceful. When I drunk, I fell insightful. I was a high school kid growing up here in San Jose. I was real awkward. I was really uncoordinated. I drank and it was magic. It was magic! That's phase one. Phase two is called fun plus problems. It's still fun. But you start to have problems. Hangovers, tattoos. I'm personally grateful, and again this is an outside controversial opinion and you're sure welcome to disagree with me and I will not take offense, fence, but I am personally grateful that I got sober before it became fashionable to start piercing everything. I have met people who have been pierced sober and I'm glad for them. you have job trouble you have relationship problems you have family problems one of the earliest problems I began having was the mood swings we call it Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde I had those a lot I was sober just a little bit am I an alcoholic or am I crazy, or do I have a tumor? You know, the big questions. I was hoping for tumor because if it was fatal, I'd be dead in three months and then it would be over. But if it were alcohol, I'd die at 29. And I thought, I'm going to have to live sober for years and years and I'm not going to live and I personally at that time would rather have been dead. So I preferred death to sobriety. But I went to a meeting in El Cerrito, Oakland, Emeryville, Oakland. Albany, El Cerito. That's how you find it in case you're looking. Berkeley's in there somewhere too, but you can skip right over Berkeley until you're five years sober. Well, it'll make you anxious. Trust me. So I went to this meeting in El Cerrito to the El Cerrido Fellowship and I went through an old timer and I said, how do you know you're alcoholic? How do you KNOW you're alcoholic? And one of the reasons I've been able to stay in Alcoholics Anonymous is because of the way he answered my question. See, he didn't tell me how I'd know I was an alcoholic. Although I have seen alcoholics talk to other alcoholics in that tone of voice and it's not the tone of voice to use to me because you can't scare me and you can humiliate me and And you can't embarrass me. And rather than cooperate with that tone of voice, I have been known to get drunk. You know, it's just don't it just not it doesn't work. My parents used it with me to stop smoking, you know, and I showed them I smoked for seven more years. Oh, well, that's not the point. The point is, the guy didn't tell me how I would know. He told me how he knew he knew. He didn't tells me what my experience should be. He told what his experience was. Instead of giving me an inspiring little talk or a sermon, he shared his experience. experience, and that's real important for me if I'm going to hang around at meetings. I need to know that you share your experience and I get to share mine, and there's lots of different ways of doing this, and then I can sit in the room if I can take what I need and leave the rest. Then I can stay here, you know? And here's what he told me, this crusty old-timer with maybe nine months or a year. He said that he knew he was an alcoholic. because he had no way of guaranteeing his behavior after the first drink. I said, what do you mean? And he said, well, there are times that I drank and nothing happened. Nothing happened. Got home, no crises, no problems. Other times, I would drink and anything could happen. and he said I never knew which one it was going to be and that's my story I started listening when people began talking about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and by the way if you're looking for something to read that is not program approved I might suggest Dr. Jeckyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson it's a terrifying book it's an amazing it's terrifying book and there's no recovery in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Mr. Hyd wins, you know and it's all about this stuff that happens when you drink it's pretty scary I not only had a bad case of Dr. Jackal and Mr Hyde but I also had a pretty good dose of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves And I would drink, and I would become happy or dopey or sleepy or grumpy. Occasionally, I'd turn into Snow White. I had no idea what was going to happen. What's going to happened? So, fun plus problems. You know, also, and i want to mention this particular kind of problem. problem. Looking back, it's the scariest thing I ever did. But while I was drinking, it was the thing I rationalized most easily. And that was the vast amount of drunk driving that I did. I drove drunk for years and I thought it was hilarious. I thought I was in high school, high school senior drunk driving. I remember telling classmates of mine, I have no trouble driving while drunk. My trouble is getting to the car. Ha ha ha. Now as I'm just edging 50, you know, I'm looking back and I see the behavior was absolutely lethal. And any day of the week I could have been a statistic or caused statistics with the drunk driving. It's just horrifying to me. Fun, fun plus problems. Stage three alcoholism, according to Dr. Paul, is called problems. The book says, the good times were gone. Never again could we recreate the great moments of the past. They were but memories. And I was in problems for a real long time. My biggest thing with my drinking, I didn't do a lot of jail time or any jail time like the first speaker. I did go to San Quentin for a while, but I was there as associate chaplain, not inmate. You know, it's a little different. My big thing with me drinking was the depression. Depression, the depression and the isolation and the being inability to function. And then I would work up to functioning and I would function for a while and then I Would just collapse. I taught for a long time. I'm a teacher by training and my first teaching job was at Mission High in San Francisco and moved down to LA and where the riots were, that's where I taught school for the next seven years. and I loved my classrooms, I loved my students, I love that part of town I felt challenged and alive and creative and the drinking was my medicine the drinking is what I used to deal with anything that was difficult or significant in my life let me jump ahead a little bit but I was sober a couple of years Like maybe four years. The tools I were using, the tools I was using, never know. I went to meetings, I didn't drink, I did not use, I called my sponsor. I went through meetings,I did not drink,I didn't use,I called my sponsors. Those were the tools that I used. So I wasn't doing anything to deal with the emotional chaos of my life. And I wasn't doing anything to deal with my rage. And I Wasn't Doing Anything to Deal with My Fear, which was real up. And my drinking sedated all that stuff for a long time. What I used in the classroom to deal with my students was ridicule and sarcasm. And I had a real fast mouth. And I taught kids who were twice my size. and if they ever counted the votes in the classroom. There were 26 of them and one of me. So I was just fast on my feet and fast with my mouth and brutal. So I Was 3, 4, 5 Years Sober It Was Time for Student Evaluations And We Were Doing an Oral Evaluation of the Classroom And One of These Kids Who Was 17 Years Old, 18 Years Old serious young man. He turned to me and he said, he used my title, and he said, the course material's fine, but you have a way of making people feel real small. And I, he was absolutely right on the button. I had to spend Spend some time learning how to deal with emotional problems and stresses and strains in other ways besides sarcasm, ridicule, and humiliation. When I'm tired or caught off guard, that stuff comes right back and I can have a real fast mouth and I have to learn how to not do that day at a time. but that has been part of my fourth and fifth step that was a real big part of making amends to people because of my big, fat mouth. And I would excuse stuff because I'm funny. And so I would say, oh yeah, yeah, it was a little cruel but it was mostly funny. It was a Little Funny and Mostly Cruel and I had a lot of relationships like that so I've had some work to do. I'm almost done with tonight's talk then we can all go home to our moms I want to talk a little bit about step one and two and three because at 20 years sober I had a different understanding of one and three and three Step one asks a couple of questions Step one says a couple of things. Step one asks, are you still having any fun? And if the answer is yes, then you're not going to stay around. Go get done. You know, go get done and we'll be happy to talk to you. This is not a program for people who need it. This is a program for people who want it. And if your craziness is anything like mine, The only thing that makes me want anything is pain and discomfort. So if you're still drinking successfully and dating wonderfully and having success at work and making a lot of money and you're personally grateful, well, go do it. It has been years since I've danced that dance. And so I just can't have much of a conversation with you on those things. so I don't argue with people for whom it's working. Step one says, Noah, it's still raining. Step one says, General Custer, more are coming. I don' t know of anybody who has a lot lot of fun while doing the first step. I mean, the first step is an awful experience. It basically says I am bleeding and on fire and this has been going on for some time. When I got sober, I would bump into people who called themselves two-steppers. They didn't want to work steps. They did step one and twelve is what they said and that makes no sense to me. Step one, I'm miserable. Step 12, join me. So the thing for me in recovery, getting sober, how on earth do you get from step one to step two? Because for me, step, I mean mean, the hardest step is the second step. Four and five are inconvenient, and making amends can get a little complicated. But the really impossible situation for me was going from one to two, because one says we're doomed, and two says there's hope. Now, I'm a reader. I read a lot, did a lot of stuff. I still read a Lot. When I was in college, I used to drink a little and smoke non-habit-forming marijuana and then read existentialist novelists. Sartre, Camus. I remember in English, if I could have read them in French, I would have, but it didn't occur to me. I wasn't that pretentious at the time. But I would read... One of those fellows, his name is Franz Kafka. Kafka? Kafka's a little moody and a little unhappy. And Czechoslovakian, Jewish, complicated life, 1930s. And one of Kafka's lines, and I identified with this so much for years, Kafka writes, there is infinite hope, but not for us. Now that's what I believe. I thought, for you there's hope, for me there isn't. You know, I mean, I'm doomed. You're going to get along fine, but I'm worse than you. I'm just luck of the draw. It's not going to work out. So how do you get from step one to step two? And here is my current reflection on this. I do not think that Alcoholics Anonymous is a self-help program. I think if I could have helped myself, I never would have had to meet you dreary people. You know, and spend lives in rooms filled with smoke and, you know, people who vote differently than I do. Um, I didn't get from step one to step two by marching and working the program. That's not how it works. What happened is that I got carried from step 1 to step 2. And I got carried from step one to step two by the higher power, as I understand the higher power, through meetings in rooms like these. I did some footwork. I had to cooperate. I was in pain. I was bleeding and on fire. I went to an awful lot of these meetings. I made phone calls. I went out for people. I bought a book. I did a lot of stuff, but that was just a willingness to participate. I got carried to the second step. And one night at a meeting in Berkeley, I was sober for a couple of months, six, seven, eight months, and I woke up and I looked around the room and realized that I had just a little tiny bit of hope. Not a lot! But I find out I don't need a lot OF hope. I don't know if I've ever had 100% hope. I mean, I think you get stupid around 90% hope if you just stop paying attention, you know, and get grateful and lose your critical faculties, and I've never had that experience. But I regularly have enough hope to do left foot, right foot, left foot. Right foot, go to a meeting, say hello to a newcomer, talk to an old-timer, make coffee. I have enough hope for that a lot of times. And sometimes when I don't have very much hope, I just go back to bed. And there are days like that. This summer, one day, I went back to bed twice. You need to know this. I just, I couldn't think of what to do next, so I went back to bed. And I got up and that night I made a meeting and I just said it's been a real long day and I I just haven't had an awful lot of hope. And I go to meetings and I find that your hope is contagious. And if I associate with people with not too much hope, because I don't trust them, but people who have enough hope, I suddenly am able to do left foot, right foot, left foot. Right foot. And then I find I'm in a position of being able to trust the higher power. Again, not 100%. But enough. I just need enough to turn it over. There's an 18th century Jesuit theologian, which is my spiritual background. My training is in that particular reference. And this guy was writing a couple hundred years ago about his difficulty with turning it all over. And I mean, I turn itover, take it back, turn itovertakeitback, turn it overtakeit back. and I was trying to explain that to my sponsor using small words and speaking slowly so he'd get it. And he said, and again, I'm unique. I'm the only one doing this. Everyone else at meetings trusts God so much and has such a good time with the higher power in the program. What's wrong with me? And Terry said, when you find you've taken it back, turn it over. her. I said, yeah, but what else? Shouldn't I humiliate myself or cut off a finger or something? He said, no, just when you find you've taken it back, turn it over. So I do that. But this 18th century Jesuit said this, if you cannot turn over everything for all all time, then just turn over now. And when you're conscious again, turn over now. And when your conscious again just turn over now and so that's how I do step three. I regularly turn over the present into God's care and I find that gives me enough faith and hope to do left foot right foot left foot right foot, and then show up somewhere, you know, like at a meeting in Santa Clara. I don't know the future. I haven't known the future since I stopped taking drugs. There's a Baptist hymn that says, I don' t know the melody and I'm going to paraphrase the words but the baptist hymn says i don't need to know what the future holds because i know who holds the future and i just do right foot and left foot and go to meetings where there are women and men with hope in here and i learn how to cooperate with people i don t agree with a lot and frequently i have a real life i find recovery is slow business but it s very real i think it s a struggle a lot of times and I need encouragement. I'm one of those people that does get discouraged and I'm on of those people who have to take real careful attention for don't get too hungry, don't gets too angry, don't got too lonely, don' t get too tired. I have two last points to make then I'm done. When I was younger and even more arrogant I thought that I could handle hungry Hungry, just fine. And I could handle hungry and angry. Hungry-angry-lonely all operating at the same time complicated my life, but I didn't really need to call my sponsor or change my behavior unless all four were blowing up at the sametime. Then I had to do some action. Now I find 20 years sober, 49 and a half years old, any one of them puts me in a dangerous place and I find paradoxes my life is a lot of paradox but in many ways I'm in real good shape today and at the exact same moment I'm a mess equally true I'm resilient and flexible and at that time at the exactly same time I'm brittle and fragile schedule. I find that to be quite interesting. Little bits can throw me way off, and then a little bit of fine-tuning can bring me back. It's a daily program. So the hungry, I skip meals. I still do that. I keep thinking that you should eat, but I'm busy. And then it's three o'clock in the afternoon, and I want to start shooting people because they have turned into swine and it's for their own good, you know. And I won't kill them, I'll just shoot them in the knee so they'll remember. And I'll call my sponsor with my rage and he'll listen for a few moments and then he'll ask in his judgmental tone of voice, have you eaten? When I'm talking about deep meaning and significance And he asks about burritos, you know. Give me a break. I don't always notice when I'm angry. I mean, I don t. I mean I m from a half Irish, half Swedish background. We don t get angry. We get even. And I m of a tradition where we would get you extra cups of coffee hoping you d choke on them. You know, that s what I come from. So I don't notice I'm angry. I just suddenly notice I'm right. And you are wrong. And you must be punished and this gives me no pleasure. Scenario, and I call, I lived in L.A. for a long time. Maybe it only seemed like a long time I moved back up here And I'm the one that moved But I felt abandoned And I called my sponsor And I said, I'm feeling so lonely And he said, yes And I was like, what's wrong with you? And I thought, yes Fix me I mean, what do we pay these people for? And he said, Tom, there's nothing to fix. Sometimes we all get to feel lonely. What should I do? Make some phone calls, go to a meeting, talk to a newcomer, put up with an old-timer, you know. Dig in the yard, pet the cat. I mean, it passes. But that comes up. And the tired, I don't notice I get tired. I notice I getting tired. I get hopeless. hopeless. She suddenly we're doomed and the sun's burning out and, you know, it's never going to get better ever and you can't get good peanut butter anymore. And that's when I have to really do some stuff around making sure that I get emotionally recharged and And physically recharged. So it's real important stuff in my program, and I still clearly have trouble with that. Last point. I was at a meeting in Stockholm, one of my geographics, and an American woman came into the meeting, and I've always had a little difficulty around people who are sober who only have peak experiences now that they're sober, and they're so grateful and love everybody and have never been to a bad meeting. and I tell them they should travel with me. I mean, I'll show them that meeting, you know. My sponsor's pretty perky. I mean it's hard to put up with. I mean day after day of gratitude, you know. Oh please. So I was at this English-speaking meeting in Stockholm. This American woman came in. I had never seen her before but I find God has given given me the gift of critical insight. And I do not have to know you at all to take your inventory. And by the way, she walked. I knew she needed my advice. And she sat down and complained and whined and nagged about things. And I thought I'd straighten her out. And we don't give advice in AA, but she needed it, you know. So I made an exception for her and did it, you know, did it. I did to her the kind of stuff that I hate when it happens to me. And I ended by the patronizing little, keep coming back, little lady, it gets better, you know. And one day you'll grow up and be like me. Well, she looked at me and she said, you don't say that in New York. And I said, oh really? Well, what is it that you say in New Yorke? And she said, in New York, we say, keep coming back. First it gets better. Then it gets worse. Then it get's real. Then it's different. Then it is real different. And this is my experience. sober living is real different than any other way of living that i've had before and i've had to learn a lot and do a lot of not just do a lot of change i've Had to cooperate with a lot of change and just a fine point on that and this might be whiny and naggy and if so i apologize in the future in advance but some you know we add things on at the end of meetings where i live live and you know please keep coming back it gets better if you work it and so work it and read the book and take your sponsor out to lunch I mean all these things we chant at the end and that business it works if you work it has it just never again to me that sounds like Rambo spirituality self-help program crap you know and buy Tony Robbins tape and make him rich that's never made sense to me and I heard someone at a meeting say this instead Instead, she said, keep coming back. It works if you let it. Works if you let it and that's consistent with my understanding of it. I am my biggest enemy. I am the biggest problem. Most of my craziness comes out of the fact that I get in my own way all the time and what the program does is it gives me tools and the fellowship to help me get out of my way so that God, as we understand God can make a difference in my life and take me to a place of hope and service. Hope and service, and in my tradition those always go together. So I'm just real grateful to be sober tonight and glad to be here and it's been an honor to hang out with such a group of desperate women and men. Thank you. Thank you.