Admitting I Was Whipped Was the Richest Resource I Had to Work With

My name's Isaac, I'm an alcoholic, and tonight's speaker is a good friend of mine, and that man is M. I'm an alcoholic, my name's M. And the first thing I'm going to do is excuse myself, I was taught to do that, and so I always try to do that. I tell you, I'm grateful to be here with you people tonight. I'm grateful to be anywhere, because, you know, I think we're people that are living on borrowed time to begin with. So I'm very fortunate to stand here. So I'm going to try to tell you what it was like, what happened, and what it's like now, for me. I was born in Southern California, in Los Angeles, in the middle of the century. And I think it was right in the middle of a really good time for America, you know, there was a lot of prosperity, you know, we were coming out of the Industrial Revolution, and there was a lot of progress being made for the middle class, especially. And so I... My brother was born a year before me, in 1949, and my father was an engineer in the Navy. I keep hearing some... I'm wondering if it's me. Anyway, they had kind of a nice little life in Los Angeles. My father was an engineer, and my mother worked in a pottery. And... Anyway, in 1952, my older brother got the polio virus. And I didn't really know this, but I probably got it too at that time, because we were one year apart in age, and I was never really very far from it. I don't know if you know this, but it was a very... I don't know if you know this, but I probably got polio Syphilis, but I was informed. I had polio Syphilis from the beginning. So I never heard of it until I was 18 or 19. And I went to get it, and I was never really very far from the problem. Because it was a polio Syphilis from the beginning. I didn't know it was one of those, like... I've probably encountered it two, but didn't know. There was another bullet that I dodged. But anyway, it threw our life into kind of a turmoil, at the time. Because for a couple years, he wasn't even supposed to be, he wasn't even supposed to live. So we... I spent the next two years of my life kind of growing up in hospital waiting rooms, and sitting in a car. to my, to my brother. She wouldn't leave his side, basically. And I admire her for that, but at any rate, it made it kind of strange for me. My mother was also pregnant with my younger brother at the time, so there were three of us, and one of us, one of us was medically fragile, and that proved to be some difficulty in life, especially for me, because I was, I never really quite understood why his, why he didn't work, his legs didn't work like everybody else's, and I thought there was something wrong with us because of that, and I had to do a lot physically for him because he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was unable to do a lot of stuff, so we were really close, and I had to do a lot of stuff growing up because my mother and my father agreed to disagree, and so I was really basically raised by my mother and her parents, and I ended up having to shoulder quite a bit more responsibility than I wanted, and more than I thought I was capable of, actually, but it was... really when, in review, I know that it's more than I wanted, you know, I didn't want to be a good kid, and so I ended up having a lot of trouble in school, and a lot of trouble with my mother, obedience-wise, and my mother wasn't afraid to get physical with me, so I spent a good deal of my time in physical trouble, but I learned... early on that I could get good grades in school, and that was always a plus, that always got, won her favor, and if I did all the chores around the house effectively, then I would win her favor, too, so I kind of started to associate being treated well with how well you perform, you know, being loved or being treated well, however you want to call it, you know. You can name it whatever you want to look at, depending on how well you perform, and so the better I could perform, then... but it seems like I always did something wrong to outweigh that, so I was always in trouble. And... I had difficulty in school. They said I was... capable, but... you know, I would get bored. Would be in class, and... start making trouble and i would just dream up ways that i could get in trouble and uh wondering you know all every time i ended up sitting in front of a vice principal's office going why am i here again what if i hadn't done this or if i hadn't done that and i just couldn't stay out of trouble and so being in the situations that i was in i remember being in a taking my first drink i was in actually my first drink happened on combining a bunch of alcohol from the liquor cabinet and drinking it all at once and getting real sick and then i was on a we were at a cabin that the family had rented for thanksgiving and it was snowing and i went down to some function never made it back they found me in the snow but i don't really recall much about drinking except you know we grew up watching these black and white westerns and the guys you know they all drank the gamblers and the my heroes you know were all these uh guys so you know we i remember being about 12 or 13 years old i can't quite remember which but uh we got each of us got there were four of us and each of us got a quart of malt liquor and we and we drank that quarter malt liquor in a vacant parking lot in a vacant lot somewhere and something happened to me when i drank took that drink all of a sudden i was taller than i was i um was cooler than i was um i was funnier than i was before everything i knew i could talk to girls and i actually had an experience a couple of weeks before that at a dance that they have for the teenagers and i sat on one side of of the dance, admiring these girls that were on the other side, you know, with my hands in my pocket and talking to the other guys about how cute they were or whatever, but I never made it to the other side of the dance floor. But several weeks later, when I was able to drink liquor, I had quite a time at the dance. But what happened to me in that vacant lot was, you know, like I said, I had kind of an unusual childhood. I wasn't a real happy kid, and I didn't really fit socially. In those days, you know, having a hand to cap person in your family was a big deal. You had to take a wheelchair with you everywhere you went, and my brother tried to be integrated into the public school system, so it was very confronting. Anyway, socially, I felt a little bit inept, and of course, I was right at that adolescent age where I was probably growing faster than I was able to actually control my physical body. So when they gave me alcohol, all of a sudden, everything simmered down. Everything kind of calmed down, and it was okay, and I really liked it. And I said, we got to, there's no way this can stop. You know, we can't run out. You know, we have to do whatever is possible to not run out. And of course, eventually, that evening, we ran out of liquor, but we went looking for liquor. We went looking for liquor. We went looking for liquor. We went looking for liquor. We were looking for somebody that we knew did some of the other supplements we were so famous about doing around here. But anyway, before that weekend was over, I'd tried several different forms of drugs and a lot of alcohol, and it became my job from that point on to drink and get high as often as possible, whenever possible. And, you know, it was a pretty good And, you know, you can only imagine where it started to go from there because I liked it so much that I just pursued it with a vengeance. And, you know, I ended up running away from home. I ended up finding, catching me. I ran away to a place called Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco. And I spent the summer there, but at the end of the summer they caught me and brought me back. And, you know, made me go back home and do time, so to speak, in the city I was in and going to school and whatnot. And I ended up leaving all of society on my 18th birthday. I just said, you know, screw everything. I no longer have to do what you say is what I told my mother as I was leaving. I no longer have to do what you say. I'm a father. I'm a free person. He can destroy his life if he wants because that's really basically what I wanted to do and I wanted the freedom to do that. And, of course, I proceeded to do that. So, you know, I became, I ran away again to San Francisco and got involved with some chemists up there. And the next thing you know. And, you know, and I really liked music, you know. I really liked going to concerts and hearing live music. And so, you know, I made it my job to be as close to the center as I possibly could because that's where a lot of people like to do the types of things that drink and get high that I was doing, you know. And everybody from the spectators to the musicians themselves were, you know, were pretty deep into it. And I, so what eventually happened is I'm no longer just smoking weed and drinking. I'm starting to get into some other narcotics. And I remember one time having an injury and I had run out of the pain medicine that I was supposed to be, you know, taking. And a friend of mine brought over something and it worked absolutely really well. And, you know, it wasn't long before that became a part of my lifestyle too. And I was, all along, you know, I was really unable to resist anything that made me feel better. You know. I felt like. . . I felt like it was my right to do these things because I was really basically an uncomfortable person. And when I needed something to take the edge off of life. And I felt like it was my right to do that. And, you know, I basically, in retrospect now, you know, I see, you know, I see a lot of the things I was doing at that time as a big weight, you know. I thought I was having a good time and I thought I was really, I thought I was really living. But I was really just systematically destroying every opportunity that came my way because all I wanted to do was really get high. And every advancement in my life just meant I could get more high. You know, if I got a raise, if I came into some money or whatever, all that meant was I could get higher. You know, it never said, oh, I can buy a house. Oh, I can buy a car. Oh, you know, it was like, oh, I can party more. That's just the way my thinking went. And as long as it appeared to me, like it says in the doctor's opinion, we're only able after a time to differentiate the true from the false. And I really think it appeared to me that things were working. I was able to get out of the scrapes I was in all the time. It always cost a bunch of money. There always had to be all these lawyers involved in everything. And so, and they always wanted a lot of money. And it was never, it was never a fair deal. It was always like, that much? You got to be kidding. Okay, well, what are the alternatives? Okay. And, but eventually I ended up going to prison anyway. And a couple of different occasions. But that still didn't teach me. And, you know, finally, the last time I was in prison, I was only 30 years old when I got out. But I made up my mind that I was never going back. So I started, tried to put distance between me and the illegal things I was doing. In other words, I'm going to pay somebody else to do it. So that I still have my supply, but I'm not risking anything. Of course I was. I was risking the money, which I lost most of the time. But, you know, eventually, I'm going to sort of backtrack a little bit to my first introduction to Alcoholics Anonymous, because I was, I was in a huge mess. I was out on bail to the feds for some deal. And then I got arrested on the state level for a very similar thing. And so when I went to jail that time, I said, I'm not calling anybody. I'm not doing anything. I'm going to have to ride this one out. And I remember sitting in jail that whole weekend. And I went on Monday. And I go into this courtroom. And my Boy Scout master, the guy that had been my Boy Scout master when I was growing up, was the judge. And he sees me. And he stops the proceeding. He takes me into his chambers and says, what happened? You know, he knew me when I was a kid. And he knew also that I didn't have a father in residence. So he kind of, he tried to assert himself to help me. But I wasn't having it. Anyway, here he is again. And he's in a position to help me. And so he says, I'm going to release you on your own recognizance. In other words, you don't have to put up a bond or anything. But you're going to have to go to 90 meetings in 90 days. And he had a little pink card. And he wanted me to go to the other fellowship. But the other fellowship wasn't that big at the time. So the crew that I fell in with, we went to both meetings. We went to both fellowships. And so that was my introduction. I was 19 years old. That was in 1969. And I didn't pick up my final white ship until April of 2003. So I was introduced to this thing long before by a man that was trying to help me. And it did help me for a little while. But I wasn't having it. I was just trying to be a sneaky peep and get away with stuff. And I had no intentions of stopping. But, you know, push comes to shove, 30, 40 years later, I'm in and out of AA, you know, 12 years from the late 80s until 99. Well, I picked up my first time that I got a year chip. But then I would relapse again. But what happened for me is that I was going in and out. And I would come around here. And I would enjoy being at a meeting with people that had clean clothes on. And weren't trying to rob me. And were, you know, I enjoyed being around what I called healthy and wholesome people that were trying to do something right. But I was unable to really stick with that. So, and I never really met anybody that was willing to put me through the work. The people that I met would often enjoy talking to me and stuff. But nobody ever really mentioned anything. And I remember, I'd been in and out, but I was really trying to stay in. And I had about four months and I came to a meeting here. And it was a men's meeting that I came to regularly. So everybody was used to listening to me because I was really mostly complaining. And sometimes heatedly complaining. Other times, you know, just sort of complaining. But most of the time, I was very uncomfortable. I just did not like living without my medicine. And I was ready. That particular evening, I was angry. And I was just, I don't even know what it was about or anything. But I wanted to kill something and eat it. You know, I just, I really, and I sat in my chair. I'm right where my wife is right now. And I'm spewing for several minutes. And finally, I just run out of gas, you know. And they go on to the next person. Well, on the wall over there was a man named Dennis Sanfilippo. And he shared for a couple of minutes. And I liked what he was sharing about it. And he looked over at me and he said, I know how you feel. I know how you feel. I don't know how many other men had said that to me. But he got through to me. And I think I can help you, he said. And that was the only two things I remember him saying, you know. And then, you know, I got his number afterwards and started to develop a relationship with him, which was a profound relationship that changed my view of Alcoholics Anonymous and where I saw myself in it too. But I don't know how many coaches, I was an athlete, how many scholastic mentors, neighborhood men in my neighborhood when I was growing up that tried to help me, but I never heard anything they said, you know. And all of a sudden, I hear this guy. Maybe it was the few expletives that he was using while he was talking that kind of helped, you know, soften me up a little bit and said, yeah, this guy's speaking my language, you know. He's feeling something. He's just feeling some of those things that I feel. And I related to it and for some reason I believed he could help me. He just exuded the kind of confidence that we see happening in AA all the time. When you finally get that opportunity to click with somebody and help somebody and you have that confidence and it says in the books that properly armed with facts about himself. He didn't tell me about a bunch of other people and he didn't tell me what he thought I could do or anything he told me about himself. And he told me that I could do it, you know. And I believed it. And I had, you know, part of it, I was being groomed for recovery a long time before I got here. I was getting my ass tore out the frame over and over and my flesh was softening and my brain and my willpower, my resistance to the things in AA kind of stopped as I walked through that valley of the shadow of death that I think everyone has to walk through. I call it step zero. You know, you stop drinking and using but damn, what the hell am I going to do now? You know, and you have nothing to do until somebody comes along and says why don't you just admit you're whipped? You know, but I was primed and ready for the recovery thing. And he saw that and he took me for quite a way. I always felt it wasn't enough. His wife continues to assure me that it was. But he ended up passing away about a year and a half later, you know. Not right after I met him because I went through two little periods with him. But the second run, because I failed with him also, but the second run with him is when it really started to stick with me. And he ended up passing away and I had 18 months at the time, which wasn't very much. And I was really in a bad spot and I, you know, was sort of fumbling around, trying to find a sponsor. And I went through probably two or three or four men at different stages for about six months before I ended up getting with the sponsor I was for several years. And then now I've been with Ray for, I don't know, six or seven years probably now. It's been so long I can't even remember. But that's a really, really important relationship, I think. The relationship with a sponsor was really key for me and I've noticed it in the men that I've worked with over the years that it's really key for them too that you meet somebody that speaks your language and kind of understands some things that you're not too sure about. And that's what happened as I started going through the steps, you know, and I started realizing um, that my surrender, my admission of defeat by alcohol was really going to be the, my richest resource. And, um, and it was able, it was, my surrender, being so blatant, was able to help, help me see and understand a lot of newcomers, a lot of new men that are coming into the fellowship. And, you know, when I, um, the powerlessness of, of my, my ability not to, um, be able to control my drinking. And I really went by the test that's at the beginning of We Agnostics where it says if, if, you know, you can control the amount you take or, or, um, you have little control over the amount you take, excuse me, you have little control over the amount you take. And I, I never knew where it was going to end up. And, uh, so, when I admitted that my, I couldn't manage my own life, I really, it really automatically, okay, I can't manage my life, then who is? You know, who, who's going to have my best interest at heart? And, uh, who's going to show me how, how to do this? And, um, that's what a sponsor's for. You know, and, uh, and then some things need to be shown by other people in the fellowship, not necessarily your sponsor. You know, because, you know, the sponsor can't be perfect at everything, but some stuff needs to be, um, shown other ways. But I, it definitely comes from power grading yourself because I couldn't be here today, um, the person that I was. I'm surprised, even that I'm here now, still. You know, uh, the person that I was, um, I wasn't headed anywhere. Uh, and, I'm, if anything, um, my journey with, with, with, with, with, uh, recovery and sobriety has been richly rewarding because I've seen, um, other men recover and, and I've seen that, that I was a part of that. And, uh, that's something, uh, didn't happen before Alcoholics' Note. I, I was a carpenter and I built some stuff that people admired and I did real well sometimes, but it was nothing like seeing, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, seeing, um, the human life restored that, that, that, it's not anything that you do, it's just you get to be there to see it, you know, and, and you, obviously, you're being used in the, in the circumstance. So, that power greater than myself that had, that restored me to sanity was something I didn't believe in at first and I had to use His God, I had to believe in His God because that's what He told me to do. So, and I was so beat down that I was really willing and nothing He said was out of character or didn't make sense. It all made perfect sense, you know, but I'd just been ignoring it for so long. Other men had said it to me, but just not the way He said it. And, uh, you know, I made that decision in step three to, to turn my will and my life over and that was very hard because, um, you know, turn means to change directions and, and I was like, uh, a broken down aircraft carrier stuck on Peachtree Street. You know, there was no way to turn it around and, uh, it was in the wrong body of water to begin with, you know, just, it was out there, but, you know, it required a lot of work, you know, some cranes and a lot of men, a lot of women, a lot of people have, are responsible for me standing here today. You know, I can walk, go around the room and point people out but I don't need to because you know who you are and you know what you've done and you know what, um, what that means to me because I was that guy that, that nobody cared about. So, I went, I made that decision in the third step which means my sponsor said, okay, your decision said you're going to work the rest of the steps and I said, where does it say that? And, but, but I said, okay, you know, I didn't really, really see that part of it but I was, I was willing to go because I was really wanting to get this stuff off of me. I've been carrying this stuff since I was three years old, some of it, you know, and I wanted somebody to try to kind of gel that and make that, make some sense out of that for me and, um, that's basically what he did, you know, he told me to go buy the book and I'm a buy the book person, I go buy the business book diagram and, and I did those columns and I found out where I was to blame, I found out where I, what my part of it, in it was and I always thought, I'm just an innocent victim, you know, and I actually found out, you know, I woke up in the morning early and painted a target on my shirt and wondered why there was an arrow sticking out of my back, you know, um, so, you know, but I didn't really see these things, you know, the disease of denial is, is real big and it can cause us not to see what's killing us and, um, you know, I went on and worked the fifth step and, and worked six and seven and realizing about that time I started thinking I'm really something and I'm noticing the flaws in everybody else and, um, and I'm beginning to realize that I'm not going to make it any further until I admit that I have these these same character defects and I'm pointing my finger at everybody else for it and, um, so I've finally decided in my fifties to recover so everybody better shape up so I can catch up, you know, and, um, so, you know, that's kind of I mean, I really it was it was humiliating at first to admit, you know, the defects that I had but it ended up being uh, really freeing to me and because it moved me towards humility it moved me towards understanding those things and understanding those things in other men and that's one of the things that, that, uh, he taught me because I remember one day complaining like raising hell with him about oh, I've been doing all this stuff getting a package and mine seems to have been lost in the mail the prize certificate people have not gotten my address right and, um, after all this good stuff I'm doing in AA and, um, and, and he said to me just flat out with, like one of the quickest answers I've ever heard him say that basically I'm not doing this so you get a package you know I'm doing this so you can help the next guy it's just it was it was the fastest answer I ever heard him come out of his mouth and you know I do I use the same answer you know it was good enough for him it was good enough for me and, uh, you know I, I wanted to touch a little bit on, um, my current, um, battle which, um, you know I've been sober 12 years and, uh, I couldn't be the person that I was from where I was 12 years ago without Alcoholics Anonymous and all the love and respect and appreciation that I've gotten over the years when I didn't deserve it you know or maybe I deserved and I didn't know but I wasn't acting like it you know but, but you gave it to me anyway you know you gave it to me anyway I'm just very grateful for you and, and, and, just very grateful for that you know about 11 months ago um, in 10 days in 8 days it'll be 11 months that I was diagnosed with the advanced form of cancer and, and I'm really basically told that, um, you know worst case scenario was that I would have between 7 and 11 months to live and so here I am at this threshold and I'm not anywhere near dying I've actually enjoyed, um, um, you know the regular standard chemotherapy and, uh, I've able to, um, employ some other things some other, uh, alternative regimens in there and, uh, for a while we were making progress and, we slowed down a little bit recently but, I still have a lot of hope and I still believe that, um, I believe what you people believe cause you people have come up to me and said, you're gonna beat this thing and, you know, different ways different messages that I've gotten from all my friends in Alcoholics Anonymous and, and, um, and my family, uh, that, that I'm, you know, anyway it's, it's just been overwhelming for me to realize how much love I've received in Alcoholics Anonymous and how much like I said I, you know, I didn't really come acting like I deserved it you know I wanted it cause I figured you guys owed it to me you know I mean it's crazy that's, um, I'm trying to reveal myself and some of the attitudes that I had early on were just kind of crazy that I would think that that would work but, you know what happened was I kept coming back I kept saying I belong here I'm, I'm not drinking and I'm not using so I belong here and I'm going to keep showing up and I'm going to keep taking suggestions and every now and then I hear something that I want to apply again and I, and I'm going to give suggestions the ones that have been useful to me I want to share them with others and, um, that's what Alcoholics Anonymous has done for me and I couldn't, I couldn't imagine any of that 12 years ago you know I just wasn't in that kind of shape and, um, I don't know why I'm finally able to see it and I wonder what kind of magic made me see it so that I could possibly apply that to some of the other guys that don't see it yet but, um, I really basically believe that what happened in that surrender is I just got a beating like I couldn't take anymore of and I just didn't want to live that way anymore and I was willing to do whatever it took and I could not and I had to admit that I could not do that by myself I wasn't one of those people that could say I'm not going to drink no matter what so, no matter what happens and I say I'm not going to drink but that's not me no matter what happens and I say hell with it we should drink now because no matter what happens you know but so I need help you know I need Alcoholics Anonymous I need my higher power I need my sponsor I need the guys that I sponsor I need my best friend you know I need all the same thing we all need um that you need it and the sad part about that is we grew up in this culture that says if you admit you need something at least you don't have it and that there's something inherently wrong with that and that's not the case and I'm glad uh Alcoholics Anonymous and Simon on something completely different because um I definitely wouldn't be here and I'll close by something that's always meant a lot to me um John Kennedy but he he said the real enemy of the truth is the myth the things that we tell ourselves the lies that we the little small little injustices and the little small little lies that we tell ourselves so that the we make the myth be real and the and the that's the greatest enemy of the truth and and uh I'm very grateful for the gift of sobriety it is a gift for somebody like me thank you so much for listening