Doctor, Alcoholic, and Addict – Paul O.

I'm an alcoholic, and I'm sober. That means I'm spiritual. Sober is more spiritual than drunk. And I'm glad to be here this morning. I'm your basic, generic, common, ordinary, routine, garden variety, rather mild alcoholic. And really, I was mild. I was more the heavy social drinker that went a tad too far. Just bad enough to get here and stay here. I've gotten a little worse since I've been here, as a matter of fact. As a matter of fact, I even became an alcoholic after I got here. I was never an alcoholic before I started coming to these meetings. I wasn't even meant to be an alcoholic. I don't even look like an alcoholic. Except when I'm drunk. Except when I'm drunk. When I'm drinking, it never occurred to me to be an alcoholic. My mother never suggested it. No school counselor ever says, why don't you try being an alcoholic? They seem to have a lot of fun, you know. In fact, I wasn't, as I say, an alcoholic. I'd been coming to these meetings for seven months. I picked it up here. That's where you get alcoholism, places like this. Before I became an alcoholic, I was all the time finding myself accidentally drunk. Now that I'm an alcoholic, I'm not. I'm not an alcoholic, I don't even drink. My comments about the fun of this weekend and the fun of, I come to AA for the fun of it. I thoroughly enjoy AA. I find staying sober both easy and a lot of fun. If I'm reminded of a gal, I didn't hear her say it, but she was quoted as having said that she used to drink for the fun of it. And she drank for the fun of it until it became a habit. And she drank out of it. And she drank out of habit until she had the drink. And then she had to go to AA. And she went because she had to until it became a habit. And she was a habit long enough, now she comes for the fun of it. And then, that's pretty much the way my parents think. They say, God, I can't think of any disease that's more fun to get over than this one. That entertainment last night and the whole thing, it's just a joy. It's—if you're not enjoying your spriety, if I'm not enjoying my spriety, I'm not doing it right. And if I'm not enjoying life, I'm not doing it right. There were comments about the talks. I just loved hearing Angie the first night and Keith and all the talks. Max talked the first afternoon, Friday afternoon. Told a bunch of those Al-Anon people a perverted version of my story. She likes to insist that her version of my story is good. to insist that her version is the sober version but uh i like my version better uh the i'm there i'm having see uh our leader said she didn't know where to say i was from we came down here from uh redmond washington turned to me as we had flown down here for most of the years of my life my adult life i was doing everything i could to hide my drinking i was in practice of medicine and i was trying so hard to not let people know how much i drank or what my life was like and i i spent all my time trying to hide that i never drank hardly ever drank in bars i drank alone at home and so on i hit it hit my life as much as i could and now here 18 years later i fly all the way from redmond washington down here to tell a couple of thousand people my deepest innermost secrets and everything i was afraid of and and somehow it keeps me sober i mean everything is the reverse of what it always was but anyway um i originally from california or originally from ohio by october in california and in 48 days but who's counting we're going to move back to california to laguna niguel and uh speaking of that uh tom here said that uh just before the meeting he said that on december the 2nd of this year he's going to have his first birthday and i thought you know that's really terrific and on the december the 2nd of this year max and i will have been married 46 years actually actually we will have been emotionally involved to varying degrees of intensity for over 60 years now i've often said that you know young people today just don't have what it takes to have that kind of a relationship they just don't have it but one thing you've got to be very very old but they can make it if angie says the way to be an old-timer is you don't drink and you don't die and have a relationship like max and i you don't drink don't die don't drug and don't divorce and anybody can make it and so we will be celebrating that just before we move back to california what i started to say was in california uh the meetings i used to go to um and the ones i'm going to go back to always have me start out with a show of hands and i have a show of hands i haven't had that recently so i'd feel much better if we could have all the alcoholics please raise your hand oh terrific yeah we definitely have a quorum we can go on what about those other people i know there's alan on here i can feel the vibrations can we see the hands of all the alanons don't be ashamed now put your hands up that's that's enough that's enough that's enough that's enough alanons are quickly addicted to compliments yesterday don't don't laugh don't laugh no no no don't you should never laugh at the eleanor no you shouldn't i speak our book speaks very kindly of them it says they're not at fault they seem to have been born that way you know the reason you not laugh at them i understand there's one or two of you out there having a little trouble making this program and you might want to look into al-anon they have uh our entire program steps traditions everything they have the entire program and they can drink too another reason you might not want to laugh with them is one of the most common problems i see is an alcoholic coming to me and going bonkers because they're trying to live with or relate to another alcoholic and it never occurs to them there's lying to the fact that alanon provides the answer for that as they were as i was to the fact that aa provided the answer for me or my drinking and uh and when you suggest alan on to them they get real insulted why would i go to an element i'm in the air and the only reason i can think of is that is when you get to the aaa you've pretty well reached the bottom of the social ladder you you you've got to have something lower than that i can see i make a lot of friends here today so i use aa for my sobriety and alan on in the sense for my sanity yeah i better get off that subject i uh i said i was an alcoholic i don't need to know what one is as long as i know that i is one and that you know how to face over and as long as i do what you tell me to do uh i don't have any problem with saying silver i uh i know that when i when i say i'm an alcoholic what i mean is that i react peculiarly to the drug alcohol i do weird and peculiar things when i drink it i uh in fact if you did the weird and peculiar things when you drank that i do when i drink you probably wouldn't drink it you uh i just my body reacts differently to it than other people i don't have any problem with that my background is in originally pharmacy and then medicine and internal medicine i've used all kinds of medications all my life specialized in pharmacology and every drug i've ever used or recommended or studied or prescribed every drug has some people react differently to it than others it's uh ask anybody can take aspirin except the people that can't anybody can take penicillin except people are allergic to it get somebody shot of penicillin turn away lay the needle down the guy's dropped dead behind you think wow he sure is allergic you better not give him any more of that you know he sure got a lack of willpower you know i react peculiarly my body reacts peculiar to that drug i just i can't drink safely sanely sensibly socially i can't drink worth a damn in fact yeah and um so if you act like that it reacts like that the alcohol you just decide to not drink it you know you don't even have to be very smart to figure that out i figured it out many times and uh i just don't drink this stuff you can't drink like a man don't drink at all and uh that wouldn't be a problem for me except uh i have a brain i have a brain that insists on drinking i got a body that can't drink in the brain that insists on drinking i can't drink but i gotta drink that's called a dilemma what it means is that without a you're screwed and i was screwed for a long time didn't even know what the answer was you know what the problem was i uh i used to think the first thing you have to do is come to a is figure out why you drank and uh I figured out reasons why I drank. I used to drink when it was hot. That's what beer was invented for. And we used to drink hard liquor when it was cold. You'd go to a football game, you'd always take a bottle when it was cold. I remember going to drink in one of the sad situations. I would go in the funeral. We'd always have a few drinks at the funeral, you know, at the wake. I'd drink in a glad situation. You'd always drink at a wedding to celebrate. I'd drink in the daytime. Drink daytime drinks. Drink at night, you'd drink at the nightcap. I'd drink when there was a lot of people around, because the people around drinking, you have to drink with them. They get insulted if you don't drink. They think you're trying to stand out and be different. You have to drink when people are around. I used to drink when I was alone, because I was lonely. Yeah. Sometimes I'd drink it just because it was there, you know. You'd open the refrigerator and say, here I am on the second shelf, you know. I hadn't even planned to get any when I went to the refrigerator, but there it was, you know. It was good. I used to go out and buy some because there wasn't any there, you know. You never know when somebody's going to come by, you know. The only thing I can tell you is that every drink I ever took seemed like a good idea at the time. It just seemed like a good idea. It may not have seemed like a good idea a short time later, but it seemed like a good idea at the time I drank it. It seems as though, again, just looking back on it, I had no awareness of this at the time, but it seems like I drank for the physical and the mental effect, in a sense. At least I used it. It seems like, well, for instance, I used to go to church dinner dances. I've always hated church dinner dances. I hate them because they're people. They expect you to talk to them. I don't know how to talk to people. And he said, what are you doing standing up there talking now? I said, well, it keeps me sober. Plus, in fact, I guess all the test pills that Anthony was talking about haven't worn off yet. But I used to relax mentally and I could talk to people at these church dinner dances. I would relax physically and I could dance. Today I don't drink and I don't dance. But I would go to the church dinner dances and have a few drinks before I went there. Be very careful not to drink more than two drinks while I was there. I would relax mentally and I could talk. I would relax physically and I could dance. And it was just fine. And I'd come home and drink afterwards so I could get to sleep, because I always drank to get to sleep. I was born with congenital insomnia. But it seems like those two got out of sync over a period of years. And again, just looking back at it in retrospect, I would find that I would get too relaxed physically, and I wouldn't even have begun to relax properly. Not mentally yet. And I would get too relaxed physically. I might show up in my voice and I would talk very slowly and carefully so nobody would notice. Or I would trip when there was nothing to... I'd find myself lying there on the floor, you know. And my brain would say, Get up, you fool. These people will think you're drunk. And my body would say, What do you mean, get up? I'm paralyzed from the ears down. I'm just paralyzed all over, you know. And being a scientific fan, I would lie there and think, Isn't that strange the way alcohol affects me, you know. I wonder if anybody else is paralyzed like this, you know. I'll have to look into that some day. It was a fascinating thought. It didn't help me get sober, but it was a... And other times the opposite would happen. I wouldn't have even begun to relax physically yet, and I would get too relaxed mentally. It would be like... Just all my brain cells would get together and say, Ah, what the hell. He's drinking anyhow. Let's take the night off. And they'd go on home and go to bed, you know. And my body would go on doing things, you know. And in the morning, I'd try to figure out what my body had been doing when nobody stayed on duty on my brain, you know. And I used to worry about what I'd done in blackouts until one day I heard Cliff R. from Oceanside say that he used to try to figure out what he did in blackouts. And one day he came to the profound realization that he never ever had come out of a blackout to find that he had spent the night helping the Little Sisters of the Poor. And... And so since then, I've never tried to figure out what happened to my... what my body was doing when my brain didn't stay there to record it. I don't know how to figure that out anyhow. So anyway, I... I ended up in a nut ward. That's what I... I ended up in a nut ward at a hospital I was on the staff of. The more I lost control, the more I fought for control. I was trying to control everything, everybody, every situation in my life. And... I was just trying to control everything. I thought if I... I... I live in two worlds. The world inside my skin and the outside world. And I thought if I could control enough for the outside, I'd feel okay on the inside. And it was... And it would have worked if Max hadn't kept screwing it up. You know? You know? And I... And I felt... She had my wife who'd drink, too, for God's sake. And I love the definition of an alcoholic. An alcoholic is a person who drinks to solve problems created by drinking. You know? Creating the problems, and they were driving me to drink. And I ended up in a nut ward at this hospital. Again, trying for control. I spent my time there in a nut ward making lists and orders and directions. Max had been working in the office. I allowed her to work in the office for 20 years because she had done such a good job of working my way through medical school. I let her stay on in the office. And I was making lists of orders and directions and things for her to do to keep the world running while I was locked up in a nut ward. And today, I admit, that's kind of crazy. But not nearly as crazy as her coming back every day for a new list. In that dumb nut ward, they had this theory that the quality of my life would be improved if I would learn how to make leather belts. I just could not see that, that in any way my life would be improved by the fact that I would know how to make leather belts. I just couldn't understand it. And besides, I couldn't understand the instructions. Which was the fault of the occupational therapist because I've always had the theory that if you don't understand something well enough you can explain it to me. So if I understand it, then you don't really understand it all that well. And so I wouldn't make their darn leather belts. It is strange, though, that once I went to a few of these, A&A meetings, I went back to that hospital and I'll tell you, I made the most beautiful pair of moccasins you've ever seen. Really, I'm sorry, I can't show them to you up there. A pair of moccasins and a half a wallet. Absolutely delightful moccasins. In fact, when I got out of the hospital, I used to wear them every chance I got. I'd get home, I'd take off my tie and my shoes and put on my moccasins, wear them around the house, go out and get gas. Whenever they wear out a little bit, I'd repair the tongs and all this other stuff. And they not only wore good and felt good, but they lasted, seven years it took before those moccasins wore out to the point where I couldn't repair them anymore. And for my seventh A&A birthday, my dear Al-Anon wife had my moccasins bronze. And I just love them. As long as I remember where they came from, I won't have to go back and make another one. I'll have another pair, you know. And not nearly as comfortable anymore. And I spent my time in that nut ward figuring out my plans. You know, when you're in charge of your life that way, you have to take all the blame, you get all the credit for everything good that happens, but you have to take all the blame for everything bad that happens. And I remember sitting there, listing, mentally listing the things that had gone wrong, and the mistakes and misunderstandings and all the things that happened that a nice guy like me ended up in a place like that. And this stupid psychiatrist who couldn't really, I couldn't convince that Max was the father, he walked up behind me and said, would I be willing to talk to a man from AA? And I thought, God almighty. Don't I have enough problems of my own without trying to help some drunk from AA? But I could tell by the look in his eye that it was a good idea. When you're on a nut ward, happiness on a nut ward is having a happy psychiatrist. And I was willing to go to any lengths to make him happy, and I said yes, and he said yes, and in no time at all, I was whisked off to an AA meeting, and I didn't really belong there. I did very soon say, my name is Paul, and I'm an alpha. Oh, isn't that wonderful? Everybody thought that was just so terrific, and I thought that, and I said, God, I'd have said I was a chimpanzee if I would have turned you on, you know. Whatever the hell, you know. These simple folks, you know. I'll go along with this silliness. And I heard a lot of dumb things, really stupid things. I remember some guy said, stood at the podium, a big husky guy, and he stood up there, and he says, for me to drink is to die. And I said, oh my God, you know. Oh my God, these people will go to any lengths to frighten you into joining this thing, you know. Here I was, I'd had pancreatitis once, convulsions twice, I thought I was dying of a brain tumor, I thought I was passing the nut ward, and I thought you were trying to frighten me, you know. And then one day somebody said, I was judging me by my intelligence, I was judging me by my intentions, and the world was judging me by my actions. And I was very sorry he said that, you know. As I'll tell you, I am one of the best intentioned people you'll ever find. I'll match my intentions with any of you. I didn't mind. I set all my intentions aside and just looked at my actions, and God, I was a drunken father, a drunken husband, a drunken neighbor, a drunken citizen. A drunken doctor, for God's sake. I had never intended to do that. I had never intended. I had the feeling that if I could hold off admitting that, it would somehow keep it from being true. And actually all it did was keep me from being able to do anything about it, as long as I held it, kept from admitting it. There was also about that time that somebody said, they said to themselves, they said, I'd rather be in AA by mistake than out there by mistake. And it was about this time that I was making my list of things that you had done that I hadn't done that theoretically, when it got long enough, it would prove that you were alcoholic but I wasn't. And I also had a list of things that were wrong with AA. Too much smoke, too much swearing, too much this, too much whatever. And I was, I was making those two lists. I was very busy. To this day, nobody's come and asked me for my list either. And I, to this day, I am thrilled to listen to drunk-alongs. You know, when you talk about being in AA, being out there by mistake, I'm fascinated, I'm really fascinated by what alcohol does to people like us, both AA and Al-Anon. I'm really fascinated by what that drug does to people like us and makes us think we're doing it by our own choice. Lost a wife and kids? Oh, what the hell, I didn't like them much anyway. Give me another drink, you know? We, there seems to be no price that we're not willing to pay. Appears to be, but that's our disease. I'm really fascinated by that. Fascinated by, this is the most fascinating disease I've ever studied. And I've studied a lot of them. You want to know anything about Tsutsukumuchi fever? Or Kwashiorkor? I can tell you about a disease I haven't even seen, but this is the most fascinating one I've ever been involved in. And, and what does it cost to be in AA? What does it cost to stay sober? It's the cost of doing these steps. I feel like people, who try to stay sober on really good intentions. They do, say, I see a lot of people who, are trying to stay sober on just the meetings. And it is possible to stay sober on just the meetings. Right up to the time when you get drunk. When it's easy, in good intentions, it's easy to have the first three steps just be good intentions. No action involved. Unless you do it like Paul was talking about last night. You really take the third step. Which is group vision. I've taken the third step both with my sponsor, with my group, with several groups. I've written letters to God to tell him that I've done it. I even got the papers for a, limited partnership. And I've declared him the general partner and me the limited partner. I write him terms to the partner. I have to be sure he understands. You know. It's like you're driving fast in heavy traffic and you get tired driving and somebody says, just let go and let God. It's hard to let go unless you're pretty sure he's going to grab the wheel when you let go, you know. In fact, somebody said something about, how come you're moving so much like you've been doing the last five years? I don't know. I took the third step and completely lost control. And completely lost control of my life, you know. It's like I heard Don Gee once say, he says, he hasn't made a single mistake since he took the third step. Hasn't made a single mistake since he took the third step. His higher power has done some really stupid things. Anyway, after seven months of these, coming to these meetings, I decided not only to, I didn't decide, I actually did, not only admit that I was alpha-like, but I accepted the fact that even though I hadn't been meant to be an alpha-like, somehow I'd gotten somebody's disease by mistake, at least the mild version of it, and I was able to say to God, okay, God, I've got it, now what are we going to do about it? And when I accepted, I said it's okay. It's okay. And now we're going to move on with this thing. There's only two kinds, there's two kinds of people. There's people who drink and people who don't drink. People who drink, there's only two kinds. There are people, there are social drinkers and there are alcoholics. And the alcoholics, there's two kinds. There's practicing alcoholics and recovering alcoholics. So if I'm going to be an alpha-like, I've already been a practicing one, I'd rather try being a recovering one. And if I'm going to be an alpha-like, I'd rather be the right kind. And I decided that I wanted to make it in this program. And all I did was start running around talking to people. People have been sober longer than I have. How do you work this program? How do you stay sober? What do you do? And I talked to people who weren't making it, and I'd ask them the same question. And I'd do the things the winners do and not do the things that the people who weren't winners were doing. And I would act as if I were in order to become. I used to pretend to be something I wasn't in order to fool you. But now I began to act as if the person I wanted to be in order to become that person. I found that depression was always one of my favorite moves. If I'm enthusiastic, I tend to become enthusiastic. If I try to act loving, I tend to become enthusiastic. I tend to become loving. If I act spiritual and do the things that spiritual people do, I tend to become spiritual. So I can control my life a lot by just acting as if I were the person I want to become. And that's basically what I've been doing in AA, doing the things that the winners do in order to be a winner. And it's really, I find it very simple. Acceptance, I think that's the basis of acceptance. What did I accept when I accepted my alcoholism? As I see it, I accepted the challenge. Instead of denying that that's what the truth was, I accepted the truth, that's what I am, and now what are we going to do about it? When I accepted the challenge of living in the answer instead of living in the problem. I think life asks us at every moment of every day, it's constantly asking the question, are you a victim or are you a hero in your own life story? What role do you play? What role do you want? Victim or hero? My reaction usually is, wait, I want to know why. You tell me why it's this way and then I'll tell you which role I want. And I find that when I'm asking the question why, I'm sitting in the victim role. I've already made a choice by asking that question. And I need to move on into the hero role in my own life and if I ever need to know the answer to the question, why, it comes to me retrospectively and intuitively when I'm not looking for it. Why is a bad question for me. Anyway, I need to, I find staying sober real easy. I mean, for me to not drink is just real easy. It's real easy for me to not drink. It's been dramatic. AA has been very dramatic in helping me abruptly with my drinking problem. I wish it had been that dramatic in helping me, dramatic in helping me with my thinking problem. My problems today are thinking problems. If I think I have a problem, I have a problem. I've never thought I had a problem and been wrong. The nice part about it is that if I think it's a big problem, it's a big problem. If I think it's a little problem, it's a little problem. I alone decide the size of my problem. Nobody else makes that decision. Nobody else makes that decision for me today. I determine the size of my problems. If I think it's big, it's big. I have very few problems that are little. I specialize in only big problems. Same way with resentments. I only bother with the justifiable ones. Mine are justifiable. Max's are frivolous. But I can take any. I have a funny mind. It's a very powerful mind with a lot of energy. And it puts power or energy into whatever I think about. And I can take any problem and just... I can take the smallest problem. I can take... I can take a non-problem. Well, you can see that's no problem. But if you think about it a minute, it could be. In fact, look at it a minute. It is kind of a problem. And sometimes I'm thinking, geez, you know, it's a good thing I'm looking at this. You know, by God, everybody else is missing this. Yeah. Yeah. And it's this big thing, and you try to talk to other people about it, and they say, oh, don't think about it. And you look over there, and there it is. And you look over there, and there it is. I can't not think about it. I can't have a problem and not be obsessed with it. And I... My sponsor is Jack In. He's a nice guy. A terrific guy. A wonderful guy. He's got a terrific program. Walk, Talk, and Talk. He has this really stupid expression. He says, well, whatever. Well, whatever. You know. Maybe that's it. Well... When Jack's life is really all screwed up, and everything's falling apart, and he has no job, no money, and his ex-wife is demanding double alimony, and everything's going terrible, then he can say, well, whatever. Well, whatever. I think, jeez, that's terrific. But when I've got this thing, and he gives me that well, what other crap, you know. I remember, um... I've always... My good intentions. I've always had the best of intentions for me and the things I was going to do. I was really going to straighten the world out and do a lot of wonderful stuff. Except for the fact that certain things were wrong, like I had the wrong parents. And... I was born in the wrong town. And maybe the wrong century. Maybe the wrong planet. I don't know. And I had the wrong wife. And Max didn't act right. And I would always want to explain those things to people. And Jack was the good one to listen to. And I would call Jack up, and I'd tell him what Max did. Let me tell you what you did today. And let me tell you what's going on now. I remember this one day I called up, and I must have called him on a bad day or something. And I don't know. And I hardly even got started, and he interrupted me. And he said, Well, why don't you just put it out of your mind for a couple of days and see what happens? And I said, A couple of... Jack, in a couple of days, I'll forget all about it. Yeah. Problems... Problems need a lot of care. They're like... Problems are like a delicate plant. They need a lot of care. A lot of nurture, a lot of water, a lot of fertilizer. A lot of fertilizer, yeah. You have to really care for your problems. The... Have you ever had a problem that was so delicate and such a work of art that you couldn't leave it long enough to go to a meeting? Oh, no, I'm not going to Maine tonight. I have to stay home and babysit this problem. I have to think my way out of it, you know. Can't act my way out. I got to think my way out. As a matter of fact, that's what happens with me. I'll have this big problem, can't get rid of it, and then finally the phone will ring. And it'll be somebody I'm sponsoring with some really stupid little problem. Have you ever noticed what silly things people get upset about? Yeah. It's a really dumb thing, you know. And here you are with your problem, and they got this dumb thing, and you can't just say... You can't give them a quick answer. You can't get a quick answer. Do you know why? They're liable to go around AA and talk about you. That's why... Or worse than that, they're liable to change sponsors and then stay sober, you know. And... So you have to do active listening. You have to... Oh, you did? Oh, how awful. Oh, how did you feel about that? Oh, tell me more. And then when you're all through, when they can't... They feel actively listened to, then you give them the answer. What's the answer? The answer is... Take a number from 1 to 12, and work that step in a... They go work that step, and they come back and say, Ooh, wasn't he wonderful? Yeah. I've had people refuse to be somebody's sponsor. I said, What'd you do that for, you dummy? They said, Well, I didn't know the program. Hell, all you need is the numbers from 1 to 12. You don't... In fact, you don't know what else to do. If you think up something creative, I've done that. I tell somebody, Do that. And then, if it works, give me a call and let me know. I'll try it myself. Anyway, by the time you get through with all that, you... You get back to your problem that may be wielded away to the point where you just can't even bring it up. Bring it back, you know. You gotta stay with them. I shouldn't have said that... I shouldn't have said, My name is Paul, and I'm an alcoholic. I should have said, My name is Paul, and we are alcoholics. I'm not alone up here. I got... I... My head's a very busy place. I'm not even schizophrenic. Man, two, two person... That'd be easy. Hell, I got a couple of daughters. I got personalities I haven't even met yet. My head... And... You know, all these... All we talk about something, something run by a committee is not very well run. My life has been run by this big committee, and nobody told me I was supposed to be chairman, you know. Nobody said I was supposed to be... keep this thing organized and that. I didn't know that. It's just, whoever talked about us, that's what we did. And this one loud voice, no matter what happened, he says, Well, I'm gonna have a drink. And we all march off and have a drink, you know. And... Today, when he says, I'm gonna have a drink, we say, Well, we could start a health soccer a little while and we'll see what we do, you know. There's a meeting going on all the time. My job is to provide the coffee and a place to hold the meeting, you know. I don't know how you think, but I think in, in voices, voices. Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, Well, any night I want to lie down and go to sleep, my head is saying, no, no, no, let's lay here and talk about it a while. Hey, wake me up and say, hey, wake up, we want to talk to you. You know that thing that you thought you handled so well today? Didn't go like that at all. They're really ticked off at you. Just wait until morning. And until morning, we're going to lay here and ask you questions that have no answers. I think one of the things was that the only way I knew this, I felt I had to silence those voices. I didn't know that I was able to organize them and be a chairman. I thought I had to silence them. That was the only answer I knew. And the only way I knew to silence them was with drugs, with chemicals. Way back in pharmacy school, I found that I would go to school all day, work in the family drug store all evening. Study till morning. Midnight, one, two o'clock. Go to bed and be half awake and half asleep. And everything I'd study would be running through my head. And in the morning, I'd be both tired and stupid. I found out that at the end of the study period, I could drink a cup of beer, shut in the bed, sleep real fast, and wake up smart. And I got honored grades in pharmacy school, medical school, and so on. But with that first beer to solve a living problem, which is what sleep is, sleeping is a living problem, with that first beer to solve that problem, I entered the world of better living. And it worked. It worked. It always worked. But what it did is it worked for a shorter and shorter period of time, so it had to be repeated more often. It always had side effects that made me use some other drug to counteract the side effects, and it took more and more to do it, so that it was a progressive thing, going through all the drugs I used. So basically, alcohol in the pills and the funeral. colleagues, they took just a minute. Like a good idea at the time, I guess. Makes my nose itch when I think of the morphine. And I hesitate to mention them at all. But I mentioned it at a meeting the other day, and my mind went blank for 60 seconds. But I find that when I silence those voices, they're not all bad by any means. None of them are bad. Even the ones that have the suggestions are not practical. They really are on my side. They mean to be helping me. And most of all, that's where I hear God's voice. It's among those voices in my head and the voices in AA. So I can't drown out the voices in my head, and I can't avoid the voices in AA. And just as in AA, there's a lot of chatter, but you pick out, you have to pick out God's voice through the message as you hear it. And I say, I need to, I'd like to stay alert just to do that. Alert to what's going on in here and what's going on out there. And I, that's where I get my, God comes to me in spiritual thoughts, in spiritual ideas, spiritual comfort. In fact, I feel... I mean, I have all these different personalities. I have the one that doesn't like math. So I'm always saying, did you see what she just said? Are you going to put up with that? What kind of a man would... And there's another one who thinks she's absolutely fantastic. Isn't she beautiful? There's one that says, doesn't she have a terrific sense of humor? Isn't she terrific to live with? I have all those personalities. I have one that says, that's afraid all the time. Don't try that. Just put it in their mind. Don't let them think you are terrible. And one of my other people, she says, you know, she's not that good at practicing. She says, you're not that good in teaching. She has no heart. She's not on her own. So I say, not bad. And then I talk to that person, and I say, well, there's that you'll you'll blow it now i'll laugh at you no what is this don't do that don't try that play it safe and there's another one i hear now today that says man you can do as long as you're sober you can do anything you want as long as you're sober you and you have this program around you you can go anywhere and face anybody doing anything under any circumstances and nobody can do you no harm in any way because the only way it can help you is to make you take a drink and with this program nobody can make you think of it you might be afraid of anything you can do anything you want look at all these personalities many of them and in the very center in the very center of these personalities there's a center of calm to the center of calm it's the i'm aware of it and when i awaken in the middle of the night and all the world's asleep and that's where god is i don't have to go anywhere to find him in fact if i go there to find him he won't be there unless i take him with me inside and i can clearly feel that that's where he is that he's hidden the last place we look for and if he's there for me then he's there for you and we're one of the real pleasures of life today is to communicate from the center of calm within me to the center of calm in another alcoholic and to communicate may be just what you're doing just to listen it's much more to of listening to communicating than talking which i hadn't been aware of i always thought that no matter what max said i needed to respond to it tell her whether it was right or not or whether i agreed or not and i find that's not true most of us need to be listened to if you notice how the silence here you're listening to me and it really doesn't matter a whole lot what i say i know it doesn't matter what i say so that you sit and listen just as a tendency no matter what's going on up here to listen is to love and you are loving me into sobriety and you are loving me into sobriety and you are loving me into sobriety and i in turn and taking whatever risks there is to talk to you so that i am giving to you and you're giving to me and we're keeping each other sober and that seems to be and i don't know i didn't even make such a big deal out of it except that i wish i could just carry that to all my relationships out there so they're jerky people you know the people who are doing things that i don't like you know i wish i could have a loving listening relationship with i wish i could treat everybody i meet the way i see you treat newcomers i think it's really fabulous i've never heard anybody bargain with a newcomer well yeah i'll take you to a meeting but you got to promise to get sober yeah i'm tired of people who don't make it around here i want somebody who's going to stay sober and go to convention and tell them i'm their sponsor none of that this is um one of the things that's helped me about is that uh i had a a childhood concept of god that i picked up from i got from my parents and from the people who trained me and that didn't keep me sober and i uh used to be praying as drunk you ever saw uh and so i finally decided he was talking to the darn fool he doesn't ask you anyway and so i gave that up maybe five six years before i found myself against my better judgment sitting in an a a meeting and today being sober in this program i have found that i can have my own concept of god and god is i don't have to call god if i don't i call him higher power and call me anything i want and i have a very comfortable relationship with a higher power of my choosing i guess of my creation in that sense uh he's a real good friend as i often say he writes to work with me every day except on the days when he forgets and i tell him what a good job he's been doing somehow grateful i am i tell him he's doing a good job just keep on doing what he's doing because he's doing so well and i say you you steer and i'll pedal and for god's sake watch where you're going because i'm sick of some of the places we've been and in fact he and i get along so well i used to give him a long list of things to do i give him a long listening and prioritize this first this next this night and things to not let happen and that was prioritized too for god's sake don't let that happen you know and today i don't give him those lists so he got a lot of extra a lot of free time and he doesn't use it all that well so i lend them out i lend him out rent free to people that don't have a higher power or who have a higher power they're not getting along well with and uh i tell them you go ahead and use my fire you don't have to even ask me just go ahead tell them i sent you and go ahead and try them out see if he doesn't work for you like he does for me and uh it seems to work out right when i know a lot of people are thinking that's kind of dumb that's kind of that's that would never work that's stupid uh and you know you're right if you decide that's stupid and therefore no use doing it and don't do it it won't work it only works for people that do it it's kind of like if i had a gave you a book of uh blank checks and i said there's a million dollars in this checking account uh just go ahead and write yourself some checks on it and you'd laugh and think well that's the dumbest thing i've heard and you didn't write any check if you didn't write any checks you wouldn't get any money you're right but if you wrote a check and it cashed it and you wrote another check the more checks you wrote the more they cashed the more you'd come to believe and um so feel free to use my higher power anytime you want uh and you the thing i find interesting i think i find interesting about uh having my god within a center of calm within me is that it's just it just happened it isn't important whether that's true or not it's exactly where god is or what god is but if there is no god then when i'm talking to my higher power i'm talking to myself but it still works just as well it's the concept that creates the miracle in fact i find it interesting that we we are miracle makers we don't actually work the miracle but it's it interests me the things that we can do that can cause the miracle to happen just a phone call this is the right actually smile uh reaching out at the right time that somebody can be just just i'm amazed at the power of this movie that's what i'm trying to say somebody drunk every day for 30 years to come say a from the first drink again this is terrific i remember uh story of a girl who was a very successful vice president of the company During the drinking time, she had been a street walker. She met a, had a date, she was waiting for a date in the bar, and he was late. She finally came in and hurried in, and he said, I'm sorry to be late, and he apologized for being late. He says, but I really need to apologize to you because I'm an alcoholic, and I got to get back to AA, and I got to get back right now. I'm going there now. Do you want to come along? And she said, she thought, well, what the hell? And she finished her drink, put on her long white glove, went off to the AA meeting, and never had another drink. It's a powerful thing. It's a powerful thing they're playing with. And I find it, there are many things in the book I find really interesting that one, the thing that strikes me that says, our past becomes our most prized possession. Isn't that amazing? Yeah. Isn't that amazing? The thing we're the most ashamed of becomes our most prized possession. There's a line in the book, twice, that says, we cease fighting everything and everybody. We cease fighting everything and everybody. It's in two places, and one of them's in Italian, so they must have meant to stress it. And I think that's another form of acceptance. We accept rather than fight. I think there are three phases to that acceptance. Let me go back to that for a minute. I admitted I was an alcoholic, then I accepted it, and I haven't had a drink since I accepted it. Today, I thoroughly approve of it. But approval is not necessarily a part of acceptance. It's entirely possible to accept life on life's terms without approving of it. And if we're going to approve, that can come later. I admitted I was an alcoholic, then I accepted it. Today, I thoroughly approve of it. But I want to close on the fact that there's a line in the book that I find really fascinating. You wouldn't think it had anything to do with anything else. It says, we absolutely insist, we absolutely insist on enjoying life. We absolutely insist on enjoying life. And I've always been told that when we die, that before we die, we're going to die. And I've always been told that when we die, we're going to die. And I've always been told that when we die, we're going to die. And I've always been told that when we die, we're going to die. And I've always been told that when we die, we're going to die. I've always been told that before we get into heaven, there'll be a pre-admission interview with God. And he would ask us, have you been good or have you been bad? And based on what you say, that's where you go. Life is one final crapshoot. And I've been told that all my life, and I knew they wouldn't tell us that if it weren't true. But on the other hand, I'd never met anybody who's been there and had their interview. And so I have a right to have my own opinion and my higher power says it differently. And I… And I think when we get there, if there is an interview, I don't think that God is going to say, have you been good or have you been bad? I think he's going to say, I've been working like the devil. I've been working very hard trying to make you happy down there. I've really been wanting you to enjoy it. He said, now, did you enjoy it down there? And you say, well, if you'd only told me, God, you know. Well, he'll say, no, no, never mind, Dad. He says, no, I've been working day and night. I've even given you the AA program, the Al-Anon program, the whole thing. I've given you everything you needed, even though I didn't give you anything you wanted. I gave you everything you needed to enjoy it down there. Tell me the truth. Did you enjoy it? And if you say, well, not really, God. You'd probably say, well, if you didn't like it down there, you probably won't like it up here. So you can go down there. The moral of the story is you better enjoy life whether you like it or not. I said I was an alcoholic, and I don't even know what an alcoholic is. But I'm sure not. I'm not proud to be an alcoholic, but I'm sure as hell not ashamed of it. I don't know that I had anything to do with me being alcoholic. You might say, well, I drank too much. I don't accept that necessarily. I don't know that I became alcoholic by drinking too much. I think maybe I drank too much because I was alcoholic. I heard that alcoholics have a tendency to do that. And I'm neither proud nor ashamed of the fact that I'm an alcoholic. But, my God, I am proud, proud, proud indeed. Very proud to be a sober member of Alcoholics' Song. Thank you very much.