Doug R. on Atheism in AA, Intellectualism, and the Big Book

My name is Doug Rowell and I am a grateful alcoholic. I'm grateful to be sober and I'm greatful to be here. Grateful for that warm introduction too. I didn't know that I was going to be roasted for an introduction. I like that. I really, I am grateful, I'm tickled to be here. I want to thank Jerilyn for inviting me to come up and speak. and I want to thank the committee because I love doing this. I love participating in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. I wanted to be the speaker at the first meeting I was ever at, you know. But I was a little drunk that night and I guess they thought I ought to wait and so here I am. God, everybody's been so wonderful. Gerilyn picked us up at the airport and we went out to Diane and arts for a nice dinner out there by the lake and and then Paula drove us up on a tour of Glacier Park yesterday but and we got one up there and in Susan baked a bunch of butterscotch brownies she said they were butterscotch brownie I got real hungry after I ate some of them but but she's an ally you know she doesn't want some so I don't know I wouldn't tell Maybe we're all going to be taking cakes together next year, but everybody's been just really nice. And Nancy and Mick came with us, and Mary Pearl was there too. And I really did ask Doc to put in that part about the shootout because it was cute, but I didn't want anybody thinking that I was hostile to Al-Anon. I'm not. Especially somebody like Mary Pearl, you know? I mean, she already was making jokes about me last night. And, you know, I figured, you knows, probably maybe she just doesn't like alcoholics or maybe it's me in particular, you now, but I don't know. Then I heard her story today and I found out, you kno, geez, I mean she was married to a drunk for a long time. Her mom, you known, threw her fish back. You know, she's up in Newfoundland when the hippies were happening. She was too late to be a hippie. I mean, God, you know, no wonder she's, I thought, you know, she got a right to be mad, damn it, you know, and then, and then sweet little Chimay, Chimane that did the Allotine speech, which I thought was great, great Chimene, and then, you know, Mary Pearl called her a slut. She's just mad at everybody, I guess. so i ain't about to shoot it out with her i i uh i love uh i love being here and um and i love being part of alcoholics anonymous uh i'll tell you when i went to my first meeting of alcoholix anonymous i didn't think i was going to fit i knew i wasn't going to sit i knew it wouldn't fit i never fit any place in my whole life and and so I you know I just knew I wasn't gonna fit in Alcoholics Anonymous I you know and the thing is what I've learned and I actually I'm not 11 years sober I and I didn't stand up with 11 years either I stood up with a 10 you know but Doc's just a little slow and so and I'm 10 I'll be 11 in a couple weeks but uh but I don't want to jinx my birthday cake but I when I came in I thought I wasn't gonna fit and I was sure I wouldn't because I didn't fit in place in my whole life and and you people weren't really like me and I thought I was an alcoholic I had a good reason to believe it because I drank a fifth of whiskey a day you know and but I figured I was kind of an intellectual you know and that kind of a kind of alone er you know I mean like an intellectual loner and a sort of a philosopher as well and then you take a philosophical brilliant And loner, you know, is drinking a fifth of whiskey a day and you look like an alcoholic. But this is the only place that I really fit in my whole life. So why would I think I was going to fit here? I met my wife here. Not here, not in Cowspill, but in Alcoholics Anonymous. I spent some time in AA before I got sober. And I'll tell you about that. But after I did get sober, my wife, Randy, had two and a half years of sobriety. And she saw me come in, so she waited until I had 21 days and took me home. And I don't know whose rule book that's in, but it seemed to work out for us. I heard about this thing they call the 13th step, and I was all in favor of it. and she was on my list too, you know, and I had this long list that I thought I was going to end up checking them all off, but just checked the one off and ended up, if I had known we were going to be together so long, I would have drunk longer maybe, but I would've just taken my time. But I think God said, you look, you might be some use around here, But not if you're chasing skirts all over the place. Someone's going to give you the best one right off the bat, and that's what happened with me. Which I don't know if that was fair or not, but it seems it worked out all right. And I learned a lot from Randy. She's taught me how to ask questions. You know, alcoholics don't like to ask question. You see, an alcoholic who asks a question, it sounds like you don't knoW something. if I say what's that you're going to think I don't know what that is so I just sit around and maybe it'll come up in conversation and I'll say I know that Nancy's boyfriend Mick and by the way if you haven't heard Nancy you're in for a treat tomorrow she gives a great talk she's a lot of fun and she's my neighbor we live about three blocks from each other you might have noticed on the program it says Doug R. from Tujunga and Nancy N. from Tujuga, and we're not a couple, we just live three blocks from each other. And you might think that's some kind of little AA community. It's not exactly. There's seven motorcycle bars and one AA meeting in Tujugua, and we just happen to live there. Anybody who's ever been in Tijuga probably went there to cop speed or PCP. That's the way that little community is. was telling you a Nancy's boyfriend Mick I started to say ask questions he asked questions I'm so impressed with it and he learns a lot of stuff you know that's question we went on that tour up to Glacier Park yesterday Mick was saying what's this and what's that what do they do with it you know I can't do that you know so I'm always glad to have Mick around so he'll ask the question tonight And I can say, yeah, I knew that. But Randy has taught me how to ask questions because we've been together, I guess, I don't know, a couple of years maybe, a year, somewhere between a year and two years and we were in bed one night and I had my leg over on her side of the bed and she said, she don't like that. She grabbed my leg like a log and threw it over, get over on your own side ofthe bed And I said, okay. And she said, geez, you sleep like Jim Parks. You know... And I'm laying over on my side of the bed, completely, and I'm working on this resentment, you know? It's like... Laying there thinking to myself, you know, I don't know any Jim Parks, I know a guy, Jim P., he's got seven years. She was around before I was. Maybe he was... I don't know, but... No, she would not with him. Oh, no. And I don' t think his name is Parks. It's Peterson or something like that. But I'm laying there. I'm just going crazy. She don't knoW what's going on over here on my side of the bed. Pretty soon I said, Excuse me, honey. Am I supposed to know who Jim Parks is and how he sleeps? and she started laughing at me and she says, Jim across the street I said, what? She said, you know, Jim across the streets, how he puts his truck so you can't park in front of him or behind him You sleep like Jim Parks it's good to ask questions we were watching television one night and two commercials came on in a row and the music was for both the commercials they were totally like dog food and cars and they were truly different but the music was the same tempo and the same key and after the commercials I said I wonder if whoever put those commercials together did that so that the beat and the key of the two commercial songs would be together. And she said, you're just terminally delighted, aren't you? And I am. I'm so delighted about everything. I'm still lucky to be here. Like a lot of you, I ought to be dead. And I didn't want this thing when I got here. I didn' t want it. I don't know what's good for me, you know. I'm like the kid that found the frog and picked it up and the frog said, I'm a talking frog. He said, cool. The frog said if you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful queen and I'll love you the rest of my life. The little boy says, cool, put it in his pocket and started walking and the fox says, hey! hey little boy says what said did you hear me he said yeah i'd rather have a talking frog you know i just i just never have known what's good for me and so when i came to aa i was an atheist because like i told you i'm an intellectual i was way too smart for god i almost wish i was a little dumber so i could be like you people because you always seem you know to be real happy and i wasn't that happy but i was just too smart to believe in god i was just my curse uh and somebody said to me one time what's the matter god made you too smart to believe him you know i said get out of here and you know so i didn't believe in god and i heard those 12 steps and uh they didn't seem like something that that applied to me really but i would i thought it was good for all you to practice and i could think of a lot of people who needed them too but but it really wasn't right for me and uh first meeting that I ever went to, I saw a woman take a cake for 18 years of sobriety and she said, I want you to know that over 18 years I have gone to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous every single day. I said, duh! You know, I'm kind of a quick study, you know. I might not have to go to a meeting every damn day for 18 years to get this thing because I'm sharp, you know. I can just sort of sift out the things that I really need that apply to me hit the road because I got places to go people to see things to do and and I heard another woman at that meeting say Alcoholics Anonymous is not a program of stopping drinking that got my attention I thought good you know but I have no intention of stopping drinking just want to come in here get a tune-up find out how you stay sober part of the time you know and don't drink so much and all that stuff and you know i know what she was saying today she didn't i don't know if she said it or i just didn't hear it but but you know the thing is alcoholics in there stopping drinking is about stopping drinking don't drink you know if uh my friend clint h likes to say if stopping drinking would do it we'd have one step stop you know that's it but what the program is about is about learning how to live happily and comfortably without drinking. It's a big job for an alcoholic, but I didn't know that. And then I saw all these people hugging and laughing, and this woman taking the cake and going to meetings every day for 18 years. Another one said not a program of stopping drinking, but it kind of got my attention. I liked it. People were laughing, and they seemed to be comfortable, And I knew they weren't drinking, and so I kept coming back. I didn't stop drinking. I thought about it, you know, and then I thought, you know what if it doesn't work? Let's say I actually stopped drinking. And see, by the way, I had tried not drinking, and I didn' t care for it. So I drank every day, and I was going to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, And I thought, you know, if I, like, stop drinking for 30 days and it doesn't work, I'll have wasted all that drinking time. And so I don't want to do that. But I did come up, after I'd been going to meetings for a while, I came up with an idea of how maybe I could, I had this idea of just, I like Bushmills Irish Whiskey. I drink whatever you are buying, but if I was buying and I had the money and I was drinking Bushmillos Irish Whisky, it's good stuff. You know, they've been making it for like 400 years or something. You know they really got it together. And I thought if I just, you know what I should do? I should just drink a half pint of whiskey a day because clearly an alcoholic couldn't do that because they're powerless over it. So if I drink a Half a Pint a Day that'll prove that I'm not an alcoholic. Just in case anybody's doing that Let me be the first one to let you in on something. There's nobody but an alcoholic that would drink a half pint of whiskey a day to prove that they're not an alcoholic. But I didn't know that. And then also, I'd lose count, you know? Sometimes I'd buy a half-pint on the way to work in the morning, and then it'd be half gone by the time I got to work. And I'd put it in the... Well, I'll sip on this throughout the day. I was a sipping alcoholic, you know, and I sipped half that bottle on the way to work. And I just think I'll just sip this and, you know, I come out at noon and sip the rest of it. And then I like, you know, that was my half pint, you know, a couple times I tried just going the rest of the day. That's kind of stupid, you know, from noon to midnight. And, you know, pretty soon it'd get to be like 1.30 in the morning if I made it that long and realize that if it's after, it's the next day anyway, you know, and the liquor stores in California close at 2 a.m., I don't know what time they close here, but I've been that lonely alcoholic running out of whiskey at 2.01, and I didn't want to do that, so I'd go down at 1.30 and buy the next day's whiskey, and then I'd drink that, and it was, I'd forget, you know, I just would, I loved that half pint buzz, I love to get a half pint of whiskey and drink it. Not sip it, I mean sip it but sip it until it's gone and get that half pint buzz and I could function on a half pint of whiskey and then it would kind of wear off and I'd have to do another one and pretty soon I was doing about three or four of them a day and losing track but going to meetings did cut down on my drinking because I never drank in a meeting and I was going to a meeting almost every day because I kind of wanted to get this thing you talked about this thing and and uh but you know like i said i didn't believe in god and it was all this god talk and higher power and people would say to me things like if you don't believe in God jump up in the air and try to stay there you know i know what gravity is um not gravity that i that i don't believe in and you know when they'd say nice things to me you know I mean sweet things uh yeah like Like, you know, I know you don't believe in God, but you believe that I believe in God. And I'd say, well, yeah, Bill, I, I knew you believed in God. And he'd say a, well try this tonight when you go home, get on your knees and just say, I'm talking to Bill's God. Hey Bill, you want, why don't you get out of my face? You know, uh, um, you now I'm just a little too bright for that. You know, I mean, see, I really don't mind you believing in God. I think it's a good thing for you, but I'm too smart. In fact, if you want to believe in Santa Claus, that's good. I don't have a problem with that, but I am not going to go sit on his goddamn lap. Get it? That was a peach. Bill is great, though. Bill never got mad at me for anything. I said, Bill said to me one time, a lady took a cake and Bill put his arm around me He said, you know, Doug, if you stay sober a year, we'll give you one of those cakes. I don't know if you noticed, but I'm cool, you know? I didn't want his damn cake right that moment even, you know? In fact, plus I'd seen people take cakes before. They don't get them. They cut them up and everybody gets some, you know? so for me to stay sober to not have one drink of alcohol for 365 days and then they give me a cake and split it up and everybody gets some didn't seem like a real big prize to me you know so I just kept drinking and going to meetings and I heard people say things see I was determined not to fit in Alcoholics Anonymous and I hear people say things that made me not fit with them people said I come from an alcoholic family a lot of people say that nay well I said shoot I don't come from an alcoholic family you know my dad drinks you know buys a six-pack drinks one puts five in the refrigerator I got nothing against refrigerators but I don't see why he I should get one and the refrigerator should get five you know that's the way my dad drink she's not an alcoholic my mother may be an alcoholic we don't know cuz she won't drink and it's hard to tell because I asked her one time how come you don't ever drink are you an alcoholic or something she said you know I might be she said because when I was younger I used to drink and then every time I did I got sick and stupid and obnoxious so I just quit yeah I said I said well you got a drink through that mom you know there's a promised land beyond six stupid knob noxious if I get sick stupid knob noxius that's not my problem that's your problem but my mom doesn't have the tenacity to make this program I I have two sisters one of them lives in Kansas and one of lives in Southern California, and Randy and I were visiting my sister that lives near me one time for dinner. There was five of us for dinner, and Yolanda made a—she knows we don't drink—and she made a pitcher of margaritas in the blender, and she set out three glasses and she poured these margarita, one, two, three, poured the rest right in sink this is the place I wasn't gonna fit I love it people go oh and that's a Randy night Randy I both went hey what would you pour that in the sink for said what do you care you're not gonna drink it you know and I said it's not about drinking it's about respect she can't understand that you know she got real defensive I don't know maybe I want to use the blender again you know Randy says it's a $40 item it wouldn't kill you to have two blenders but they don't understand that my sister in Kansas I went to visit her when I was about five years sober I drove to Kansas to make amends to my sister for I was a bad brother she thought when I once I got sober she sings in her church choir and and she knew this was a spiritual program and she thought maybe when I got sober that I you know get real nice or something and never been to a meeting poor baby and uh and she and so you know she'd write me letters and finally I wrote her a letter said look you know we're not ever gonna be friends you know We're brothers and sisters, and we got the same, and I love you. But she just hung with it. When I was five years sober, I thought, you know, I owe her an amends. And I drove back to Kansas, and it was a nice trip. In ten days, I went to 17 meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous across Arizona and New Mexico and Texas and Oklahoma and Kansas and came back, and then I got to stop at the Grand Canyon and see the Grand canyon, and I'd never seen it before, and I'll tell you, I got there about sunset, and if you want to talk about humility drive up to the sunset to the Grand Canyon well before I got to the Grand Canyon, I digress that's the name of my autobiography but before I get to the Grand Canyon actually I called Randy I was driving along the road and I saw this big canyon and I said that's the Grand canyon and it's not the touristy part either it's just a section of the Grand Canyon. I'm all by myself, and I went and set the camera up on my car and went and took a picture of myself by the Grand Canyon, and stopped at Yuba City, or Tuba City in Tuba city, and called Randy, and I said, boy, I just saw the Grand Canyon, went and put pictures of it and everything, standing there by myself. She said, where are you calling from? I said Tuba City. She says, you ain't got to the Grand Canyon yet. Well, excuse me, but I'm kind of smart. I know what I see. i'm five years sober in alcoholics anonymous and i think i know the grand canyon when i see it she said oh maybe you know maybe i'm this woman you know takes raft down the colorado river and she goes out in the desert all the time that's her thing the desert she pretty much knows the grand canon but i'm i'm there you know i said look you're sitting home looking at a map and i'm here you know I'm telling you i saw the grand canyon she said okay maybe i don't understand where you are so i got back in the car and drove about 45 minutes came to the Grand Canyon and you know why they call it the Grand Canyon it's big it's grand you know much bigger than that other Canyon I didn't know northern Arizona was a lace with all these all these canyons you know kind of biggest freeways you know I mean so they're big and anyway but it was beautiful I mean I got out of the car and walked out on lookout point and I had to watch the sun go down over Grand Canyon over this thing that, you know, there was a honeymoon couple there and they were just starting off their life and I was talking to them a little bit looking at this thing and how long did it take God to make this thing? Make me feel kind of insignificant. But the interesting thing was I felt humility at that moment like I was a little piece of God's universe. Little tiny piece, but a piece of it. Not a non-piece, a piece of this thing. And that's the first time I ever felt real humility, I think. I felt it again in San Diego at Jack Murphy Stadium when I held hands with 60,000 alcoholics and said the Lord's Prayer. It was twice in my life I felt humility. You know, I like it. I don't want to overdo it. But I was out there with this honeymoon couple, you know, and tears started coming, just me and this honeymoon couples and 150 Japanese tourists, you now. and it was a wonderful trip and I I had that trip because I went to make amends to my sister and and you know I just spent a couple of days with her I didn't give her any money I didnít get on my knees and say please forgive me it's been a couple days where they went to church with her saying with her and I you know went to some museum with her just spend a little time with him played with her kids and and I got to said something to Finn the Al-Anon chairman boy I'm sorry Linda I guess I should have given my sister some money or something but I said when I was visiting her see I've never she's two years younger than me i've never seen her take a drink in my life and i said well do you ever drink i mean she's a some kind of christian you know uh and i know it's not against chris all christian rules to drink it i said do you every like go out with your friends and have a cocktail or something and she said well yeah i'll have a glass of wine at midnight on new year's really you better watch it because they call that pattern drinking you know I could just take you like that you know and she said well I don't do it every New Year's why not why not and she He said, well, I always mean to, but sometimes the kids are making noise and there's guns going off outside and stuff. And I don't know, sometimes I just forget. See, my sister's not an alcoholic. Because if God and Bill Wilson came to me in a spiritual awakening and said, Doug, we decided it's okay for you to have a glass of wine at midnight on New Year's, and I was dumb enough to accept those terms, I wouldn't forget you know you know I'd be shopping wine in October I mean I'd be sharpening carc screws and setting up the glasses you know I'd be watching the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day going 364 days you know cause cause alcohol is very very important to me we were talking about earlier We got on the plane from Seattle. We flew up from L.A. to Seattle and got on the plane to Seattle, and they said we're serving, I don't know, they said a whole bunch of things they were serving, but among them was we're servicing beer from our microbrewery in Seattle. You know, and my little alcoholic kid goes, does that count? It's just a microbrewery. It's not, you know. I never tasted any microbrewers. I don't know. There's stuff that I never tasted a martini when I was drinking, and I never wanted one until I was two years sober and heard somebody get up at a podium and talk about the martini. Martinis come in those stupid little glasses. They're flat. If you shake them, all the stuff comes out of them. They put vermouth in the hard liquor, and then they drop an olive or you know, or an onion or some damn thing in there to take up room. Who wants one of those damn things? Until I joined AA. Never had a Zima. I don't know if Zima's good or not, but I want one. You know? Not fashionable at some meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous to talk about drugs but I used every drug I ever heard of except for the ones I've heard of since I got sober. Never tried ecstasy sounds like a good one though, don't it? Ice? I don't know. Anybody's offended by my talk of drugs I'll apologize because I didn't know when I was using them you know I thought it was all the same and if I had known and somebody said to me, try this. I would have said, no, I'm going to be talking at an AA meeting in 30 years. I don't want to piss anybody off. But so I didn't come from an alcoholic family and I heard people say that they started drinking when they were 9 or 10 years old. A lot of people said that. So I said, see, that's what's wrong. These people come from an alcoholic family and they started drinking too young because I never had a drink until I was 18. So, yeah, I was virtually a man. You know, I mean, I wasn't a man I was a grown-up you know, by the time I could vote and well, you couldn't vote at 18 then but you can now but you could die you know and they could send you over to you know to exotic lands and meet exotic people and kill them at 18 so I thought you know they started too young and they come from alcoholic families that's why I'm not a real alcoholic I figured I was an alcoholic but I wasn't the kind that had to stop drinking forever I was a different kind of alcoholic because you know the thing is I wouldn't even have started drinking at 18 my grandmother was a Pentecostal minister who had drank a lot I guess maybe she was an alcoholic but she quit when I was little kid I don't remember her drinking she found Jesus and she opened became a Pantecostal ministry she opened a Skid Row mission in San Pedro and she helped drunks to get sober same way we do you know really i mean with that they don't have the 12 steps but it was basically trust god clean house help others and she helps some drunks who get sober on jesus uh and and that used to work before aa that's about the only way there was to get get sober and with some kind of spiritual experience other than than the 12 Steps you know and it wasn't one drunk talking to another um but uh it just you know that kind of thing isn't very attractive to most alcoholics so a lot of us didn't get sober but I'd see these guys down at my grandmother's mission and they would be drunk and I'd talk to some of them and they were all these winos and they'd be sober sometimes and drunk sometimes and I talked to them and they Were bright guys, a lot of them. Some of them had been musicians in famous bands and they've been ship's captains and things like that and I thought, you know, I had plans. I wanted to be in show business. I want to do something with my life so I decided I just wouldn't drink and maybe I could become something and stay something and I wouldn't end up on Skid Row and I probably would not have started drinking, really. I told you, you know, my mom didn't drink and she was kind of opposed to drinking and so my friend Morris said to me he was like my sexual sponsor when I was in high school you know what I mean and he was a little more worldly than me and he said I had this girlfriend he said if you want to get home run with her because we used those baseball terms and I don't think they use those anymore but when I was in high school everything was baseball it was like, hey Billy got the second base last night well alright Billy, go on Billy I think I'm going to get the third base with this one it's funny, first base, second base, third base, home run and I can't remember where any of the bases are now it was real important at the time but it seems like there's not enough bases really doesn't it you know uh but you know i'm married i mean you're married it's like step up to the plate and slide home anyway so uh i don't mean i'd get tagged out for missing a base it just doesn't seem like there's enough basis about it i remember where home run was i remember home run and um and my friend morris said if you want to get a home run with this girl you're gonna have to get her drunk. Bing! Got my attention, so I went and got a quart of Rainier Ale. It was a national drink of Garden Grove where I grew up, and you know, if you haven't had it, don't worry about it. You know, it's like martinis and Zima. It kind of tastes like carbonated dishwater, and we went and parked by the railroad tracks, and we had done that a lot of times, but this time I got munition and opened this bottle of Rainier Ale and I would have been happy to say here drink this let me know when you're ready because it's fun night tonight but you know it just seemed rude so I opened it and I drank some and handed it to her and she drank some we split this bottle of Rainer Ale um you know and i mean i'm almost embarrassed to say this in a meeting of alcoholics anonymous because you people know what a drunk is uh and a half of a quart of rainier ale isn't going to do it unless it's your first one you know i had never tasted alcohol before and i i had that half a quarter rainier got a little buzz on you know felt good and uh i liked it i mean I didn't know was gonna like it I really liked it and and it also turned out it was the first time I ever had sex you know in front of a witness and so change my life you know just changed my life I walked that girl home that night said I'm gonna do both these things much as I can the rest of my life and I got a drank beer for a year and then I got a job working on an ambulance and in Santa Ana down Orange County California and had a driver named Vince who drank all the time and he was like a man he's like a big brother to me and why I admired this guy he could he could drink and go on calls save people's lives you know and I had some of you may have heard Vince talk he Vince why I think I think Tom's got one of his tapes over there um and he was uh he got got me introduced to a vodka which i didn't care for vodka because i got drunk and threw up all day and uh it's hard working on an ambulance kind of a bad hangover where you're throwing up allday but i saw that there was some magic in hard liquor so i switched to whiskey shortly after that and uh i met vince i ran into vince um jeez 25 years later 28 years later ran into vince and uh he uh he was a an aa speaker you know and i was real impressed with him found out that he was an alcoholic scared the hell out of me i was driving around code 3 with an alcoholic but uh he wasn't my sponsor for a while but then he kept having heart attacks i thought i'm killing this guy you know so uh so now we're were just friends, but I left that ambulance job and I went up to Hollywood to make my fame and fortune. I told you I was going to want to be in show business. And there was, I went to see, I was trying to sell songs. I was writing songs and trying to selling them around town and make a little bit of money here and there. And the show came to town called Hair. And it was all about hippies singing and dancing on the streets, you know, and sex, love, and rock and roll. And I said, man, this, I want to see it. And I said this is great. Man, I could do this. So I set up an audition to do this show and I was home playing my guitar practicing the two songs I was gonna sing cuz he told me to bring two songs you want to see hear you sing and see a dance and I thought if I've seen good enough maybe I won't have to dance because I don't know how to dance but uh and it's a dancing show you know but I think maybe I can wow them with my singing and I'll go in this so I was Home practicing with my guitar singing then I broke a string on my guitar just just like I did with Susan's guitar last night and I broke this string on my guitar and i thought you know hippies are like oh bad karma dude and uh so i went to my roommate's room he was also a guitarist and i i to see if he had the string and by some miracle the string that i needed was laying right on his dresser and i said thank you lee and i picked it up and right under it there was a little white capsule and i sat i wonder what this is nope and uh because we didn't have a pdr You know, you had to pretty much swallow test everything, you know. If somebody dies, you go, you don't eat the green stuff. But somebody would say, well, you Know, Mary ate that on an empty stomach. I had a sandwich, you Now, but that was a hippie. It was a wonderful time in Hollywood. But I went down to do my audition. About 45 minutes later, I got down to the theater to do My audition. And what it was in that little white capsule was something called THC, I love Alcoholics Anonymous it's a synthetic marijuana and it's nice little psychedelic so when I was 24 years old I got down to that theater and I parked my motorcycle and I walked in there and my hair was like over my shoulders and when I walked it just went like this and I had on these bell bottoms about this wide hip huggers and they swooshed when I walk And I had on no shirt. I just had this vest that had six layers of foot-long red, white, and blue leather fringe. And I was a walking wind chime, you know. And I went in there and had my music. And I gave it to the piano player. And the piano players started playing. Bop, bop, bom, bap, bopp. I said, wow, I feel good. And they said, okay, all right, this guy sings. And they say, sing another song. So I sang another song, and they're going, yeah. They said, well, we want to see you dance. And I said, hit it! You know, and the piano player started playing and I started moving and my hair was coming around, you know, it's like... Watching my hair move. And the fringe on this vest started swaying. It's like, pow! I'm going, I'm all over the stage watching this fringe and my hair, and I'm cascading and I hear somebody say Jesus, can he dance? So I got the job. They hired me to go to Las Vegas to play the lead role. It was a great role. It was this crazy guy that went out in the audience and would spare change people and sit on people in the audience and swing on a rope and sing these rock and roll songs the leader of the tribe you know and i got to play that part on the road and oh man it was it was a gas i played it in vegas for six months and then we took that show on the road and we toured for three years and we get to a town and we'd open usually on a tuesday night and wednesday morning they'd book us in some little tv show or radio show you know it's like hey good morning pittsburgh we have the cast of here with us this morning tune in after this you know uh it's m cincinnati guess what we got the kids from here with this today you know so they get us up early in the morning and drag us into these studios and the guys would interview us and I'd say, what's it like traveling with a psychedelic circus? And I'd go, psychedelic circus is good. It's cool. How do you like doing that nude scene? Well, it's beautiful. And I was the articulate one. But we toured and people would come up after the show and throw their arms around us in tears. You were beautiful, man. Here, have some pot, brother. You know, it's like, God, we love you, man! You were so wonderful! Take this acid, you know? I love you! Have me! You know? And so it was like sex, drugs, and rock and roll for three and a half years and got out of there. Now here's the funny thing about that is once I got sober, I heard a woman say, now I want to tell you something but the music of Alcoholics Anonymous. What you hear, what I say today, and what other people say from the podium, even what's in the big book are just words, and they can be real confusing, especially when you're new. And I call it the lyrics of Alcoholic Anonymous, and it's very important. One drunk talking to another, you know? We have to talk, but all we can talk with is words. And all the big books have in it is words, and you can misinterpret it. And so I want to stress, if you're knew, learn to listen for the music of Alcoholix Anonymous because there's a rhythm and a melody and a harmony that runs through this thing that when you hear it, you can understand the lyrics. The lyrics are okay, but they can be confusing when you're new. And I heard a woman, and people will misquote the book too. They don't mean to. I don't think anybody ever means to do that. They just make up stuff because they can't remember. There was a woman that got up to... But you don't know that when your new. You think everybody's got the damn thing memorized. A woman got up and said, And, you know, if our book says that our drinking was but a symptom of deeper underlying causes and conditions. Well, it does say that. It says exactly that. But then she went on to say, And if you don't find your deeper underlying cause and condition, you will drink again. And I see it took me eight months of going to Alcoholics Anonymous and lying. I used to take chips for bogus times. I'd get sobriety dates just because I liked the sound of the date. By the time I got sober, I had four different sobrieto dates at four different groups because sometimes they catch you and then you have to change your sobriete date, but only at that group, not at the other ones if they didn't smell you. Not recommending this as a program of recovery. It's just what I did, and most people that do that die, I think, but I was lucky in that way. Didn't have a higher power. I didn't take the steps. I was lying about my sobrieting. I was drinking every day. I was taking bogus chips. I didn't have any commitments, I didn�t have a real sobriety day. But other than that, you know, I had a pretty good program going and I started shining the spotlight over my drinking career and I thought what was my deeper underlying cause and condition? Because certainly when I told you about my family, I came from a loving, hardworking, humorous family, wonderful family. My parents lived for their kids, you couldn't ask for a better family. I mean, I didn't have a bad childhood. I had a great childhood. It was long. It was like 42 years, but I can't say it was bad. And so I thought, you know what? I don't know what it was. It Was Hair. Because I had this job as a professional hippie. I was traveling around with the psychedelic circus. I Was A Psychedelic Circus Clown. That Was My Job. These People Took advantage of me these capitalist pigs and uh sent me out there i thought i was having a good time but so did pinocchio at pleasure island you know i said it's just like i had my hair my ears and my tail you know just like pinocchio i called my sponsor i said jim i found it he said what'd you find now i said you know he talks that sponsors speak you know and i said my deeper underlying cause and condition and he said let's hear it i said hair he said doug if your hair a problem cut it off so I'm not talking about my hair Jim I'm talking about that show I was in remember that show I told you I was in oh yeah he said you told me you were loaded when you auditioned for that show yeah and he said let me tell you let me set you straight on this most people you know like non-alcoholic people most people when they go to interview for a job they really want won't take a drug they can't identify so I could see his point and you know it was you know I didn't want to argue with him but and I've like I said I'm sober almost 11 years and I've done several inventories and each inventory has taught me more about myself my relationship with with God with the universe with you but I can't really say that I ever found what I could call my deeper underlying cause and condition I drank for fun and you got out of hand you know I'm an alcoholic no deeper underlying causing condition I finally settled on trauma from circumcision you know I don't mean that I remember it or anything yeah I never had my mom throw fish back so you know but then I never tried to drown anybody either so you know some are sicker than others and so I you know I tell you I told you that I was an atheist when I came down colleagues anonymous and I just I didn't know what to do about that the longer I I came to AA, the more I realized that the people who are happy and comfortable in their sobriety are the people are talking about reliance on a higher power. The thing I didn't want to hear about, but they were happy and they were comfortable. They were having a ball and not drinking. And I was drinking every day and hiding it. And now it's getting more and more miserable and I don't know what to do about it. One night I was home alone and I was, I was drinking. I used to do that all the time. And, uh, I'd be home watching TV and with a fifth of whiskey and watching tv and pass out wake up about three in the morning and i had to get up at six to go to work and i get my bottle about half full and i crawled across my living room through the hallway into my bedroom i live by myself um so it wasn't pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization you know it's just the way i went to bed and uh because you can't fall off the floor you know I told you I was an intellectual you know figure that out and uh I crawled into my bedroom and I got up this one night and I started to take my clothes off and I had the bottle in my hand as I started taking my clothes up I'd lost my balance I don't know how that happened and uh fell across my bed and I spilled this whiskey all over my bed. And I picked the bottle up and there was about this much left and I set it down real quick on a table beside my bed and there was all this whiskey I spilled on the bed and so I grabbed the bedspread and I started sucking the whiskey out of it like this I wasn't thirsty I was done drinking and there Was Whiskey in the Bottle but you know I'm a frugal man by nature and I don't waste whiskey I'll waste my life, it's mine to waste but I ain't wasting no whiskey and I'm sucking the whiskey out of this bedspread and I thought I don't know if it was a moment of clarity or not but I thought, you know, this ain't right you know I never remember being at a cocktail party where somebody offered me a taffeta cocktail you know whiskey in the bottle It's whiskey in the bottle, and I'm sucking whiskey out of a bedspread. Shouldn't have been my bottom because I've done lots of worse things. I skied off a 20-foot cliff one time, not because it wasn't an accident. I thought I could do it. I was drunk and landed upside down and broke my shoulder and out of work for six weeks. As soon as I got back to work, I was partying with some people one night and we partied all night long and I started to get on my motorcycle and take this gal to the store to get something to cook for breakfast and on the way to the store, we thought it'd be great to have sex in the great outdoors because the sun was just coming up. It was a brisk April morning but we were in downtown Burbank which is kind of... It's not like Kalispell. There's people everywhere but we found a four-story building it was a four story parking structure and I started, we'd just drive up to the top and they're open on the top we'd have the whole top to ourselves but the gate was locked so we went up the fire escape not with the bike, of course, we just went up fire escape we got up in the door was locked so i thought i'd jump over the top and i made part of the jump uh i made the part where you got the wall but i didn't get the part about getting over the wall and so i just was watching this building go by you know thinking this is really going to hurt you know and it did you know i broke my pelvis in two places broke the heel off my right foot my foot looked like a little bowling ball you know with toes sticking out of it all different colors and stuff didn't break the skin just broke all the bones it's like a bomb went off in there a foot bomb and uh so i mean and that's worse that's worse than sucking whiskey out of a bedspread i mooned the bride's mother at a wedding one time drunk that's worse than sucking that well that i thought she was the groom's mother but uh but uh anyway i'm i'm sucking this whiskey out of this bedspread and i started to cry because it was like i sat outside of myself just for a minute sober and watched what i was doing and i just said what am i doing there's no difference between me and the guys in my grandmother's mission except for this bedspread and uh i don't know what to do about it i've been going to aa for eight months a lot of meetings i read the big book i read The Chapter to the Agnostics over and over and over looking how the other smart people stay sober without god and it ain't in there you know it's good stuff in there there's a part in there that says to to choose between an alcoholic death and the spiritual way of life is not an easy decision for many of us see alcoholics think like that you know get yourself a clipboard sometime go over here to stand outside the market and stop people when they're coming out excuse me I'm taking a survey would you rather die an alcoholic death to live a spiritual way of life see most people go what most people would go get in the long line you know only if anybody you know you found an alcoholic if one goes oh can I uh can I get back to you you know I mean spiritual way of life but alcoholic death you mean the one where you puff up and turn yellow and your eyes get all red and you choke to death on your own blood and vomit well after you lose everything of value in your life. Yeah, I mean, you know, most people don't want anything to do with that. They'll take that spiritual, what are you talking about, spiritual way of life? Well, you know, like parking one spot between the lines, you know, to use your turn signals when you change lanes, that kind of thing, you know. Yeah. No, I don't know. I have to think about it. But I've been going to AA for eight months and I didn't know what else to do. I didn't know any way to get sober. I wanted to get sober.I would have got sober sooner if you hadn't had to stop drinking to do it. And I didn' t know if I could stop drinking. I love whiskey. I love whiskey to this day. You can walk in a liquor store and see a bottle of Bushmills with the sunlight shining through that beautiful amber color, and a guy come up to me and say, Can I help you? And I say, Just a minute. In a minute you know but it's poison for me I'm allergic to alcohol what I did that night was I said God if you're there please help me I didn't believe in God anymore that minute than I did the minute before, the day before the week before, or the year before I just said it because I didn' t know what else to do I was absolutely desperate I said God if You're there please help and over the next I went to bed I didn''t have a white light experience I went to bed and the next morning I got up and I went to work and got my bottle on the way and I did all this stuff but you know something the next day I was a I went into my favorite liquor store and instead of there one of the three guys who would usually be behind the door there was a guy from AA behind the counter and he said I said what are you doing here and he says what are you doing in here and I want to a Mexican restaurant in the neighborhood I've never been in I started to order a margarita from the waitress but she was from AA, too. I was in the market in the liquor department reaching up for a fifth of whiskey off the counter and there's a woman from AA down at the other end pushing a cart. And I said, hi! Hey, one day at a time, keep it simple. Isn't it beautiful? And followed her around until she got in line with her cart and then I went back to the liquor department and there she was again. She forgot something. I couldn't get alcohol there. This was going on over and over and one day I was on the way to work and I had a half pint from the night before under my seat and I remembered that I had that and every day was going to be my first day of sobriety it had potential you know and so I stopped on the side of the road I thought I don't want to get caught with this open container I stopped and I reached down to toss it out the window and as I did a guy from AA drove by and you know he waved and I tossed an empty and, you know, I was embarrassed and I thought, what the hell's going on? Everywhere I go, it's like this guy's driving by at 6.30 in the morning as I'm throwing a whiskey bottle out and then there's a waitress in the Mexican restaurant there's this guy, a guy the night before that on Memorial Day I had been walking up to his liquor store to get a bottle of whiskey, just a half pint and he was walking towards me from the inside at sunset on Memorial Day as I reached for the door he looked me in the eye and stuck a key in the door and locked the door I don't know why he did that to this day but he shouldn't have he had a bad sense of business I'll tell you but I remembered that that moment I thought the woman in the market and the guy being the counter the liquor store that and all this stuff and I thought you know it's it's like it's those miracles that they talk about an AA Hey, it's there happening like a Gatling gun. And as soon as I had that thought, it was almost like I could hear God laughing. You know? And I remembered that I had been on my knees and said, God, if you're there, please help me. Now, I don't remember ever hearing anybody in an AA meeting say that they said, God, help me before that. I had to have because I went to meetings eight months and I've heard hundreds of alcoholics say that since then and that that was a turning point and we don't even have a step for that. I believe that I had my second step that moment when I realized it that I asked for God's help and God helped me in a way that I could understand because all my life all the things that I was taught to value integrity and honesty and love and honor and work ethic the thing that I've always valued the most in people is a sense of humor and I found a God with a sense of humor I'll tell you listening to the music of Alcoholics Anonymous when I did get sober, boy, I was listening. And I heard things that I didn't know. I heard in Chapter 5 that we read at most meetings that people would talk about honesty, rigorous honesty, and the ones that don't get sober are the ones that can't seem to be honest with themselves. They're constitutionally incapable of being honest. People with grave emotional and mental disorders, even they can stay sober if they have the capacity to stay honest. and I didn't know if I could be honest. I thought, man, if I can be honest, maybe I can get this thing. Maybe if Ican just never, ever tell a lie. And I'm here to tell you, with almost 11 years of sober, I lie. I mean to be rigorously honest, but Randy says to me, honey, does this dress make me look fat? I'm not about to say, You know, I think it's that Haagen-Dazs sweetheart. You know? You know. You know... I lie to waiters all the time. Because, you know, you go in a nice restaurant and a waiter will say, Would you like a cocktail before dinner? You know what I mean? I just lie. I say, No, thank you. You know because... I mean if I had to be rigorously honest I guess I'd say, You know I'd like a drink. a cocktail before dinner more than I'd like my next goddamn breath really you know but I got this disease you know it's kind of a you know mental obsession coupled with a physical allergy and there's like spiritual bankruptcy going on you know you don't want that your nice restaurant do you buddy you know so If you're new, listen to the music. Listen to the music because the music's there and you'll hear it. When I actually had a real 30 days in California, they give poker chips for different 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, 6 months, 9 months to keep people coming back so they can get their first year. I don't know if they do that here but they do it someplace and they do where I got sober. I had enough chips to open a casino but none of them meant anything. When I had a real 30 days, I went over to the Burbank group and I got my first honest 30-day chip when I had a real 30 Days. And I got up there. It was a Thursday night. They give chips and I was one of the first Doug alcoholic. They said, hey, Doug. And, and, and I get just as much applause when I was taking bogus chips. So they didn't know, but I knew, I knew and I felt clean and I thought God was with me. And when I went and sat down and people took six months and nine months and some people took cakes and then they had a coffee break and i started to go man i felt like part of alcoholics anonymous sober alcoholic and i decided to go get my coffee and a guy stopped me and he said hey man congratulations on that 30 days i said thanks and he says you know what the secret is and i said no no i don't and he just hang on just hang you've been doing it 30 days do it another 30 days just keep adding them together just hang little brother you know and i thought i can do that and i started to go get my coffee and there's this back slapping alcoholic over at bear bank group called jim b came up and he said son congratulations on that 30 days and i said thank you sir and he says you know what the secret is and i say yes sir hang on and he said no let go hang on and let go I said this isn't gonna be a lead pipe since is it because I hadn't learned to listen to the music but I learned you know and they're both right the guy who told me hang on is right keep coming back and And the guy, Jim B., had told me that, you know, let go is right. Let go and let God. But boy, it can be confusing when you're new until you start to hear that harmony, you know, and that melody and that rhythm. I'll tell you what I've learned in taking the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, that every step has a gift. There are gifts that the big book says you're going to get. There are big gifts that your sponsor will tell you you're gonna get. And there are giftsthat no one could predict. And when I was two years sober, I said to my dad, I owed my dad some money, and I knew I owed him. I had borrowed money for house rent and for my child support and just things over the years, and I always meant to pay him back and never got around to it. I figured I owed him two or three grand, and I was a couple of years sober, and I said to my dad, I owe you some money, andI want to pay you back. He said, I don't care about that money. That money doesn't mean anything to me. I'm just glad you're happy and sober, and you've got a good woman and a good life, and that's all I care about. I don' t need that money, and I said, no, this is one of those damn steps. You know, I got to do this. Do you know how much you owe me? And he said, no, I don't know, but I've got it in the computer. He didn't need it and didn't want it, but it's a lot of trouble to punch that delete button. So he sent me a bill for $7,200. And I called him. I said, did you put interest on it? Because that's all right. And he says, no I didn't put interest. i didn't even put legal and medical if you want to know the truth and uh um so i started sending him a check every friday every frurday i'd send him a cheque and sometimes it was only 20 or 30 bucks and sometimes there was a couple of hundred whatever i could afford i'd sent to my dad and because this is my dad this is not you know some bank somewhere i'd put a little note in with the check and uh sometimes it'd be a piece of notebook paper or stationery sometimes it just be a little posted and stuck on there and send them a note tell them you know a joke what i'm i'm doing this week anything and uh and after about three years he called me he said you know how much you owe me and i said no and he said 32 bucks as i hadn't been keeping track so i sent him a check for 32 bucks and he sent me a little close-up notice it was real cute and uh um and i called him and thanked him and he says thank you you know and uh he said you know what though i'm gonna miss those notes i said miss the notes if i had known that i would have just sent you the notes no i'll tell you what happened i used to go to dinner with my dad and he insisted on paying the check always i'm the father i'll pick up the check i'm gonna yeah it's mine it's on me and i let me get the check let me pay for dinner you know and i had to fight him for it sometimes i won but usually not you know after i got that debt paid off i didn't have any trouble letting my dad pick up a check uh and and the reason is because i was carrying a load i didn'T even know I was carrying. I had all this guilt about this money that I owed him. I didn't even know how much it was, if I'd ever be able to pay any of it back. But just let me pick up dinner for Christ's sake, you know? And when I got that debt paid off, I could let my dad be the dad like he wanted to do. I Didn't have to fight him for a check. My dad died a couple years ago and after he died, I was helping my mom go and we were clean. We were good. My dad loved me all the time. I just was carrying a lot of baggage around him and I went and helped my mom go through some of his stuff and I found in his file cabinet a file that said Doug on it and I said I was picked it up and it was all these notes you know that I had sent him it's like 150 notes and he had saved them all I I was touched I didn't know that and I said to my mother did you did you know about this and she said oh yeah he said Yeah, as a matter of fact, you know, I said to your dad one time, you know Doug sure loves you. And he said, well I know that. I got it in his own handwriting. You know, that's one of the gifts that my sponsor couldn't have told me that I was going to get and the big book didn't tell me. It's just my dad, you now, smiling at me from the grave and letting me know we were clean, you kno. And those gifts happen with every step, I believe. I want to thank you for saving my life for giving me a life like Randy says, I'm terminally delighted if you shared a laugh with us tonight you've heard the music of Alcoholics Anonymous thanks for letting me share