Doug R. on Total Surrender and the 12 Steps as Exercises in Letting Go

There we go. Hi, my name is Doug Rowland. I am a grateful alcoholic. I'm grateful to be an alcoholic and grateful to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Got that out of the way. Sometimes I forget to ask. They just shut down the meeting while I'm getting to the good part. Thank you, Mike, for inviting me to do this. I love doing this. I know some people who give great talks and they don't like doing it. There was a woman named Marian Walleen who just gave such a spiritual talk. I mean, nobody would drink for miles around and not even know why, you know, how good her talk was. But she... But she hated doing it. And I'm just the opposite. I don't know if I'm a good speaker or not. And I couldn't care less. I'm the guy tonight. And I love doing it. I wanted to be the speaker at the first meeting I ever went to. They didn't ask me. I was a little drunk that night, but they didn't get around to asking me. But this is a fun thing for me to do. And it's an interesting time we live in. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My home group is a meeting that called the Winter's Attitude Adjustment meeting in North Hollywood, California. And we meet every day of the year always. And there's usually 80 to 100 people in that group. But now that we're in Zoom format, there's 110 to 150 every morning. And it's... And it's... And we're really fortunate. If you're new, you know, I have no idea what it's like to come to AA on a virtual format. If it's difficult or if it's convenient or what, you know, but I do know this. Five years from now, the people who got sober at this time are going to be saying to the new people, yeah, when I got sober, you couldn't even come to a meeting. You had to sit in your living room and get it on your iPad. You know how lucky you are, because that's what we always do. We always tell the new people, you know, we had a really hard, you know, the old timers when I got sober, it seemed like they were saying, oh, yeah, you guys got it easy. Now you only have 12 steps. We had 91. We had 91 steps from here. You know, oh, yeah, we had to sit in broken metal folding chairs that some other old timer would say, you had chairs? Oh, my God, we would have died for chairs. We had to sit on rocks. But I know when I got sober and I haven't had to have a drink of alcohol or any mind altering substance, thanks to a loving God and the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And and I've had eight incredible sponsors, not all at the same time, since June 7th of 1987. So if I don't drink for the next three weeks, I'll celebrate 33 years of sobriety. And that's kind of astounding to me. Norm Alpe used to say, he liked to say how long he was sober in case he ever get a pension program going in this thing. And when I was. When I was in 1990, when I was three years sober, I went to the first my first international conference of AA in Seattle, Washington. And I just loved it. All of that. All of that spirituality and knowledge and laughter and everything that AA is in Seattle. And so in 1995, they had it in San Diego, which is virtually in my. It's about. 100 miles from me. And so everybody in California was looking forward to that. But when I went to the San Diego 1995 International, I discovered something. I hadn't seen before. They had online meetings. And I had just gotten a computer and a computer, you know, where the early. Apple. Apple seven C's or something like that, or see ones or something. I don't know. They had to see in it. But they, you know, they they had real slow modems. And but people were getting online and going to meetings. And it was especially helpful to people in like in the Antarctic and places where we're prior to to the Internet. They had they had to write letters and they called them the loners. And. They had to write letters and they called them the loners. And they had to write letters and they called them the loners. And they had to write letters and they called them the loners. But in 1995, when I went to San Diego for the International and I met these people and they had special meetings and they called the modem to modem and they had an online interview. And so I got involved in that and got some numbers. And and when I got home, I joined this group called Lamp Lighters. It was an international meeting. That happened all over the world. There was about four or 500 members. And every day you would get emails. And every day you would get emails. And they downloaded kind of slowly because there'd be hundreds of emails. And the Internet was real slow in those days. But the lamp lighters. Was an online AA meeting and and they had several, like it was as if they had several rooms. They have one room would be a topic and one room would be on the step of that month and then somebody else would be leading an open discussion meeting. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. meeting. And so I just got fell I was already in love with meetings. But now I can go to meetings all day. So online meetings are nothing new to me. I've been doing that for what 25 years. And I recall once, there was a woman in in Tel Aviv, Israel, who got online with us. And she was sending these emails, her name was Ara. And she said, she had been sober on her own for a little while. But then she drank. And so she was happy to know about this online AA. And everybody was welcoming to her and giving her good advice about the steps and where she could get a book, a big book in Hebrew. And everybody was welcoming and loving to her. But she was on for, I don't know, week to 10 days. And then people were saying, you need to go to a face to face, they called it F2F. You need to go to an F2F meeting, Ara. And she'd said, I'm not comfortable being with people. I'm really comfortable with you people. You're you're loving to me, and you're helpful. And you're giving me the information I need. And people started saying, there's, there's nothing like touching. There's nothing like hugging with a group of people. And I said, I'm not comfortable being with people. I'm really comfortable being with people. And I said, I'm not comfortable being with people. I'm really comfortable being with people. I'm really comfortable being with people. I'm really comfortable being with people who are in your neighborhood that you can come to for help. If you feel like getting a drink, you can call them on the phone. Everybody was she was I don't know, I don't know. And this one guy said, Ara, there's no substitute for surrender. And I remember that, as if it jumps off the screen at me. There's no substitute for surrender. And that's, that's the truth. That's always been the truth. And I think that was the impetus that this young woman, Ara, needed to go to a meeting. And she found this meeting in a bomb shelter in Tel Aviv. And she got online the next day. And she said, I went to my first F2F meeting. And everybody was so happy for her. And she got sober, and she became active. We stayed in touch for years in that group. Finally, that group got to be so big. And so there were some people in there, they just got nasty. Sometimes alcoholics, especially if they have the anonymity of the keyboard, will just get mean. And I know some of them, I think, were sober. Some of them maybe weren't, I don't know. But the majority of the people in Lamplighters were great examples of Alcoholics Anonymous. And they had a lot of knowledge about AA history. And they had a lot of humor. And they had a lot of love. But it finally got so overwhelming. And they had a lot of humor. And they had a lot of love. And they had a lot of enthusiasm. And there are a lot oficheMon formula that gets people going. But what struck me was really awesome was the fact that we she reached out to other marry难 Syms, her daughter, 아닌енная Helen J Freitag, and once Bo finished , Julie Edmonton, and she told us that my mom wasuko, called her sister, and that she was mad. That's just funny, isn't it? That's really funny. And so there was I think, a bunch of our problems we got out of there. And let's see how we got to this really good before we met my sister whenlynnh � נ woh But it's just, you know, when you can get online and get on Facebook and talk to a bunch of people and our little email group kind of was swept to the side. But so what I'm saying is 2.1 online meetings are not new to me. And two, there's no substitute for surrender. And we surrender in so many different levels when I was new, I used to go to meetings with this friend of mine, Jerry W. And he was Japanese American. His parents came from Japan. And he said, I remember him saying one time, alcoholics are not given to surrender. It's not our default mechanism. We said, what I am, I picture myself, they say surrender. I picture myself as a Japanese general at the end of the war. And I said, well, I'm not a Japanese general. I'm a Japanese general. I'm a Japanese general. And I managed to get up there. I really don't know that printmaking at a various Sameer said, well, is there a certificate for I mean, you just gotta get up and get that?" It's so embarrassing to think about that. And you're talking to window.. You're talking about like If you look like this, then you should know to where I actually led a meeting when I was drunk. I wasn't very drunk, but it was a Thursday night meeting, and they only had about, oh, maybe 20 people that came to that Thursday evening meeting, and most of them came right about at 730 when the meeting started, and I got there early, and I never admitted being drunk. One of my first eight months in AA, I didn't have a home group. I didn't have a sponsor. I didn't read the book. I didn't take the steps, certainly. I didn't know what a tradition was. I didn't believe in God, and I was drinking every day, and except for that, I had a pretty good program. My whole program at that time was keep coming back. It's the only thing I did right for eight months, but the Pequima group, I was there early, and there was three other people there, and they had already led the meeting recently, so I wasn't telling anybody. I was drinking. I had this idea that if I went to a 530 meeting with over at 7, and then I got a half pint of whiskey and had a taco and onion rings, nobody could smell whiskey on me. Certainly, I didn't read that in any scientific literature. I just made it up. There's an Al-Anon speaker from the South Bay in California named Larcine, and she has a great saying. She says, information from nowhere. Lands here becomes fact, and that's what I was with my ... If I have a taco and onion rings, nobody can smell whiskey on me anyway, so I would go over to that, and I was taking chips too. I mean, I had four different sobriety dates in four different groups. I was short of surrender. I think I was considering surrender. I can't say for sure if I was actually considering it, but I went to this 730 meeting, and like I said, there's only a few of us there, so they asked me to lead the meeting. Of course, I had had a half pint of whiskey, so I wasn't drunk drunk. I was right where I like to be in that half pint buzz, but later on when I got sober, a lot of people at the Pecoyman group said, oh, here's Doug. He's the only one who's led a meeting drunk here, and I don't know if I'm the only one, but that's the only meeting I ever led when I was drunk, but there was a woman at the Pecoyman group, and not all of their meetings were small. They had about 21, 22 meetings a week, and on Sunday morning at 11 o'clock, they had a big participation meeting, and there was probably, I don't know, at least 100 people there that would come on Sunday morning, and this woman, Doris, some people called her the mother superior. She was sober. When I got sober, she was sober 27, 28 years, and she sort of was the mother hen of the Pecoyman group, but Doris, one of the things that she used to say is, with total surrender goes the obsession. With total surrender goes the obsession, and I liked that, and I was sober a while. Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you more about my surrender, but not now. Doris used to say that with total surrender goes the obsession, and everybody knew that was one of her phrases, and I said to her at one time, Doris, I feel like I've surrendered. I feel like I've totally surrendered. I really do, and my life is a miracle today as far as I'm concerned, but a shot of whiskey still sounds good to me, still looks good to me, and Doris said, uh-huh. Do you know the difference between looks good and obsession? And I realized what she was saying because I had lived through that obsession, and I didn't have that obsession anymore, so I don't know. I was totally surrendered at that point, although maybe not totally because I believe I'm more surrendered now over 30 years later, but there's so many levels of surrender for us. There's a surrender before we ever come to AA. I grew up in a family that there was no, not that there was no drinking. My dad used to say to me, you know, I enjoy a beer. I do. I enjoy a cold beer on a hot day, but the idea of drinking so much beer that it affects the way I walk and talk and drive a car is just insane. So, okay, that was his beer. My mother, we never knew if she was an alcoholic because she wouldn't drink. She wouldn't drink at all. She never drank at all, and I asked her one time, why don't you drink? And she said, I don't know, Doug. When I was, when I was young, I drank, you know, when my friends drank and I drank with them. And every time I drank, I got sick, stupid, and obnoxious. So I stopped. And I said, you, you, you've got to drink through that, mom. You know, the promised land lies beyond sick, stupid, and obnoxious. So, so my mother, great strong lady, but she didn't have the tenacity, to make it to Alcoholics Anonymous. And, and I had three sisters, and some of them drank. My sister Yvonne grew up in the church, and she, she moved to Wichita. She was active in her church, and I went to visit her when I was about five years sober. And I said, and I was going to meetings every day in Wichita. And I said, asked her, do you ever drink Yvonne? Because I never seen her take a drink. And she said, well, yeah, I'll have, I'll have a glass of wine at midnight on New Year's. And that amused me. So I had to make fun of her. Every year, every New Year's, you know, they call that pattern drinking. You better watch it. She said, and she got defensive. She's like, well, not every New Year's. Why would you skip a year? And she said, I, you know, I always mean to drink my wine, but it's New Year's. There's guns going off outside. The kids are running around. The dogs are barking. Sometimes I just forget. And I thought that's what they do. They forget to drink. I can't, it's a concept I'm not familiar with and can barely understand that there is such a thing. I, I, I, I, I, I don't know if God and Bill Wilson came to me in a dream and said, Doug, we think you're doing a good job here. We've decided you can have a glass of wine at midnight on New Year's. And then I was stupid enough to accept those terms. I know that I would not forget. I would not. I would be sharpening the corks through it. Thanksgiving dinner. You know what I'm saying? I'd be watching the Rose Bowl game, you know, on New Year's Day, going 365 days, man. You know, I mean, it's alcohol is not important to them. You've seen non non-alcoholic drink. They set their drink down and they don't remember where it is and they couldn't care less. You know, you want to go, are you going to drink this? They're not surrendered to alcohol. And I'll tell you, when I surrendered to alcohol, I was 18 years old and I had not ever had a drink. I didn't. Guys that drank in high school didn't make a. Look attractive. And like I said, there was virtually no drinking in my, in my home. So, but my friend Morris, who I guess he was my sexual sponsor, more said to me, if you want to get a home run with this girl, because we used to use these baseball terms, you know, first base and second base. Anyway, but a home run, obviously, he said, if you want to get a home run with this girl, you got to get her drunk. And that sounded like, you know, advice. So I went and stole the quarter Rainier Ale, which seemed like, it was a national beverage of garden growth, California, where I grew up. This was all the guys drink. I went and stole this quarter Rainier Ale. And this girl and I went and parked by the railroad tracks. We had parked there before, but this time I got my ammunition and I, and I still didn't care about drinking. I would have been happy to say here, drink this, let me know when you're ready, you know, but it's just, just seem rude. So, so I opened it and took a pool. And as I recall, I thought it tasted like carbonated dishwater, but I handed it to her and she drank some and pass it back. And we pass this bottle back and forth till we killed it. It took about five minutes. And gradually I started to feel this warmth, this thing, I guess it's what alcoholics feel that other people don't. I don't know. Maybe I was feeling the same thing that non-alcoholics feel, but whatever it was, this turned out to be the, my first alcohol buzz and the first time I ever had sex in front of a witness. So just changed my life. That, that was a moment of surrender that I remember to this day about, I'm going to do both of these things much as I can the rest of my life. And, and I went on to, I played guitar, started singing in clubs and stuff, and I got into rock and roll band and, and we were playing clubs in Hollywood and, and then I got hired to go on the road with a new Broadway musical called hair, which was about hippies. We were hip bunch of hippies singing and dancing 26 of us singing and dancing and singing songs about drugs and sex and, and getting loaded. And, and it was, and that was in Las Vegas. I got hired for the Las Vegas show, which lasted about six months. And then they closed that show. And then we went on the road. We toured the United States. And Canada for three and a half years. That as the first national tour of hair. And they gave me the lead role of burger, the obnoxious speed freak, sex crazed leader of the tribe. It was a stretch, but I could do it. And, and we had fun, man. It was fun traveling with all these hippies and we go places and people will come up on stage and say, listen, we own a bar about two blocks up the road. We want you guys to come and drink all night for free. Yeah. We'll be there. Somebody will come up. Hey man, you like, you like pot. You sent to me and Maui. Wow. Panama red, Acapulco gold. Give us this great dope for free. Cause we can sing and dance. I don't know. You like acid, oddly purple, Hayes, orange, sunshine, window page. Some girl would say, Oh my God, I love you. Take me. Okay. So with sex, drugs and rock and roll and travel around the country at union scale. I mean, that was a good job. Um, and I know I'm just mentioning some drugs. I know this is alcoholics anonymous. I, uh, my previous fund, Dick Martin was my sponsor until the day he died. Uh, and I know a lot of people in this group, uh, no EM. And, uh, uh, so, so I understand the difference between alcoholics, anonymous and drug program and alcoholics. And on this, it's not a drug program. Many of us alcoholics are also drug addicts. So I'll say this. If you apply the 12 steps of alcoholics, anonymous to your alcoholism, it does, it kicks your drug addicts ass. So, so I highly recommend that. Uh, but if I had known, you know, I didn't know what my life was going to go. I couldn't see around those corners. But if I had, I promise you the first time somebody said, try this, I would have said, uh, Oh, you know, I love to, but I'm going to be speaking in an AA meeting in 30 years. And I don't want to piss anybody off. So, uh, anyway, uh, I'm an alcoholic to the core. I stopped using drugs two years before I stopped drinking. I actually, I went to CA, uh, went to cocaine anonymous. My life was getting all out of control. And I went to cocaine anonymous to try to get shed of my cocaine habit. And they were very useful. And I went there for quite a while. Uh, and then somebody said to me, if you want some quality sobriety, you better give up that whiskey. And I thought outside issue, man, you know, it's like, uh, uh, and I, but on the way home, I'm thinking, you know, I don't know. Um, I don't know how, how he knew I was drinking. I don't know who could have told him. I, I brushed my teeth before I went to the meeting. I didn't know about, I didn't know about skin alcohol, but, uh, but, uh, I thought on the way home, I thought, uh, if, uh, if I want to be a good member of cocaine, anonymous, give up that whiskey. And your brain knows when it's time to quit. You got a, you got a little clock in your head that says when it's time to quit. And that clock went off. So I quit cocaine anonymous. And, uh, I just, uh, I didn't come to AA for quite a while. I had, but I was hurting myself. I, I fell off a four story building. And, uh, I skied off a cliff, uh, drunk. Cause I like the way I like to ski. I like to get on the list at 8 30 when they first opened it. And, uh, you know, the snow is all groomed and I get on the lifts and pin my gloves up here. And I, and I get my little, uh, cocaine vial and do a little cocaine. And then I get my whiskey flask and have a shot of that with the ski. And then I smoked my, enjoy the scenery all the way up with my windless pipe. And I get up to the top and have a hit from that boat, a bag, little white wine, get all relaxed. Now in truth, it might be a good idea for the first run. So you can relax. But if you do that every run for 20 or 30 runs, by the time that the sun's going down and the shadows are getting long and the snow is icing over, you're really in no condition to be involved in an athletic event. So what happened that day is, I skied off a cliff and it wasn't an accident. It was after the winter Olympics. I saw him go 170 meters. I thought 50 feet. How bad is that? So anyway, it was pretty bad because I went upside down and fell and broke my shoulder. And the ski patrol had to save me and I had to have my shoulder operated on. And then I told you, I fell off this four story building and that was like 54 feet. I fell straight down feet first, hit hard dirt. My knees buckled and kicked myself in the ass and broke my pelvis in two places and snapped the heel bone off my right foot. And ran it through my foot like a bowling ball and broke all those little foot. My foot looked like a tether ball with toes. But here's the good thing. See, God has been with me whether I was with him or not. This was the parking structure of St. Joseph's Hospital in Burbank. So my friend that was with me ran in the hospital and said, my friend just fell off your parking lot and it broke him. And he's easy to find. He's right there by the fire escape. So they came and got me, put me in the hospital. Now I had already been asked not to come to my daughter's house drunk anymore because I would go over to pick her up and her stepfather would say, Doug, you're drunk. I'm not letting Starshine get in the car with you. And that happened a couple of times. And I, you know, I was supposed to spend the weekend with my daughter. And I go to pick her up and her stepfather won't let me. And he's right. And I knew he was right. I just I meant to have a drink or two. I didn't mean for it to get out of hand. I was ashamed and embarrassed that I was drunk coming to pick up my child. And he says, Doug, you're drunk. Star's not coming with you. And please don't come over here drunk anymore. You're welcome in our home. Sober. Anytime. Don't come over drunk anymore. It's very hard on Star. He didn't say don't come over here drunk. You'll embarrass us in front of the neighbors. You'll you'll break our furniture. We're afraid you're going to fall in the pool and drown. He's protecting my only child from me. And he's clearly a better father than I am to her. And that was so painful to me. I couldn't stand it. And the pain was just. It just killed me. I have this kind of pain. That I felt would keep getting worse and worse and more painful. Every minute. All the time. I had to drink over that. I had to stop on the way home and get a pint of whiskey. And drink on it. And then the pain was gone. Just like that. So now. Back to the hospital where it fell off. The parking structure. I'm in the hospital. And the doctors are coming. my foot and trying to figure out how to put it back together. And this was an opportunity for me to surrender. Look, I've been asked not to come to my daughter's house. I skied off a cliff drunk. I fell off a four-story building drunk. I had to consider not drinking, but I didn't. In fact, I had friends bringing me in gifts into the hospital where I was in traction, and it never occurred to me to say to the doctors, you know, I know you're giving me Demerol and Percodan for the pain. I'm self-administering cocaine and Irish whiskey. Is that going to be a conflict? I didn't think about it, but if I had thought about it, I would have thought, hey, I'm in a hospital. It's not like they got to come find me somewhere. But I got out of there. It took me five months to learn to walk. And my friend Teddy, who was my fun drinking partner, we had a romantic reunion. We had a relationship for a while, but then we stopped that. But we still loved to get high together. And she was a lot of fun. And so we had a lot of fun together. But, you know, if you go drinking with Teddy, you might get in a fight with somebody, or you might get arrested. It's always a possibility with her. But it's worth it because she's so much fun. But when I was recuperating from that fall, it took me five months before I could walk without a crutch or a cane. And Teddy got sober. She came to AA and got a shot. And I was like, I'm going to go to the hospital. And I got sober. That was her surrender. And I don't know how much of it had to do with my falling off a building, or if it was just her time. But she surrendered to Alcoholics Anonymous. And she was still fun. But she turned into a lady. And within a couple of weeks, she did this transition into a lady who showed up when she said she was going to be somewhere. You could depend on her. A person. She was a woman. She was a woman. She was a woman. She was a woman. She was a woman. She was a woman. She was a woman. She was a woman. She was a woman. She was a woman. She was a woman. She was a woman. She was a woman. She was a woman. She was a woman. She's a woman. She's a woman. She was a woman. She was a woman. She's a woman. She's a woman. She's a woman. She's a woman. She's a woman. She's the woman. She's a woman. She's a woman. It was a talker. She was Marinzel Fox. Everyone's talking back. We were just Plugger Friday night iniren after how have I noodle her when she said, have you seen Ted? I'm gonna pay back $5. That was money that I put in. She was trigger, worse than a thing. Speaking in whole sentence. And if deal or what, you know, but it's no fun to talk to you. I'll tell you this, though. I like what's happening to you. And if alcohol ever interferes with my life, I probably will go to AA. And she just, her chin hit her chest. She's like, really, Doug? What would you call interference? Brain death? And I said, I see where you're going with this. But I don't think that accidents should count. You know, anybody fall off a four-story building is going to get bad hurt, drunk or sober. So you're getting alcoholism mixed up with gravity, honey. She's like, okay, whatever. I'm out of here. She takes off. But all that week, every time I had a little quiet moment, I would picture Teddy's face saying, what would you call interference, Doug? Brain death? And I started thinking about brain death. You know, the two accidents I just told you about and another three that I didn't mention could have easily ended in brain death if I had landed differently. And the next time might. There'll be a next time. I have no control over that. And another thing I got control over, I got no control over is how I land. Talk about powerless, you know. If I keep going, I'm going to get brain death. I'm going to get brain death. I'm going to get brain death. If I keep drinking, I'll have another accident. And what I don't have any control over is how I land. And brain death is on the table. It's available to me. And I started thinking about if I keep drinking, I could end up in a bed or a wheelchair, unable to feed myself or go to the bathroom by myself for the rest of my life and know it. And know it. And I can't think of a thing, scarier than that. Today, I can't think of anything scarier than that. It scared me so bad. I rushed right down to AA three years later. You know, I'm a little compulsive about some things, but recovery, not so much. You got to think about it, you know. But three years later, I finally surrendered to go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. That was the level of surrender. But it wasn't a surrender to stop drinking. I didn't want to stop drinking. I wanted to, you know, have a beer on a cold day. I mean, on a hot day, I wanted to have a glass of wine with dinner. I'll have the 12-ounce porterhouse, please, and a nice dry red, please, a Beaujolais or a Pinot Noir or maybe a Petit Syrah. What Petits do you have? You know what I'm saying? Research. Responsible adult beverage consumption. That's what I'm looking for. A sake with my sushi or a margarita with my enchilada. Or sometimes get a sip of whiskey and chug it down and have an inappropriate experience. But I was having more inappropriate experiences than appropriate ones. So when I first came to my first meeting, I wanted to see if whatever these 12 steps were, if there were three or four of them that I could apply to my seriously cutting down. Because I used to, you know, have power over alcohol. And I knew I didn't now. But I wanted you guys to help me get it back. That's what I came here for. And I went to my first meeting, and I didn't even, I didn't surrender enough to sit down in a chair. I sat, I stood against the wall back by the double doors, and another guy came in. We both looked like a couple of hippies, wandered into an AA meeting. We didn't know each other, but we're all sitting on, standing on either side of this double door. And I was sitting there, looking irritated. And people would come up and say, Hey, you're new. And I'd say, No, I'm not. Take a hike. And this guy came up and he said, You're new. And I said, I'm not new. And he said, Oh, I haven't seen you here before. What's your name? I said, Well, my name's Doug. And you haven't seen me here before, because I've never been here before. So mystery solved. Beat it. And he goes, Oh, that's what I mean, man. You're new. You've never been here before. That's new to us. Okay. All right. I'm new, like I've never been here before. But I'm not new, like a new member. Okay. I'm not I'm not here trying to stop drinking. I'm not drowning in a sea of alcohol. I'm just here to see what it is, man. I'm visiting. Okay. I'm auditing the class, pal. You know what I'm saying? I'm not a joiner. I just I'm a loner. I'm an outlaw. Okay. Desperado, man. A misfit. I'm a misfit. I never fit anywhere in my life. I didn't fit in school. I don't really fit in the workplace. I barely fit in my own damn family. I'm certainly not going to fit here in Alcoholics Anonymous, for Christ's sake. Oh, laugh, laugh. Isn't it good? We're not drinking. Hi, hi. I like drinking. You know, I see you people. Isn't it nice? We're not drinking. No, I like drinking. I like it very much. In fact, I drank on the way here. I don't know if that tells you anything. How about this? I absolutely intend to drink on the way home. So I'm pretty sure I'm not your target market. Why don't you go help somebody else? And you know what he did? He goes, I like you. You're going to fit right in, man. Thanks for choosing Dicob Tapes. If you enjoy this tape, you can order other titles from us. You can order other titles from us by calling 1-800-999-3381 or visit our website at www.dicob.com. Could I have been any more articulate about how I'm not going to fit in? But he was right, of course. He was absolutely right. You know, I fit in. And if somebody said that to me, what I told you, I just told you, I said to him, I'd say the same thing. Oh, yeah, you're one of us. Ooga booga, man, one of us. But I didn't understand. I didn't understand any of that at the time. And they started the meeting and they read stuff. And they said, we have a birthday tonight for Ruth for 18 years. And I thought, oh, that's cool. They celebrate people's birthdays. So I'm looking around for Ruth, some 18-year-old tiny-itie. And Ruth gets up and she's walking towards the front of the room. And Ruth is 50 if she's a day. So the first thing I thought was, damn. If she's 18, she should stop drinking tonight. But she didn't look bad. She looked great. She was dressed up and made up and coiffed. You know, she was 50. I figured that. I said, oh, okay, I get it. This is AA. They don't drink here. Ruth hasn't had a drink in 18 years, I'll bet. Oh, my God. I wonder if that's a national record. I never knew anybody that stopped drinking for 18 years. And so I said, happy birthday, Ruth. And Ruth, from the back of the room, I didn't know. I cued the choir. I didn't know you people sang here. 200 people start singing happy birthday in four different keys at the same time. It wasn't harmony. It was just bad singing. And I'm a musician, I told you. So I thought, oh, my God. Does anybody care about this besides me? And they keep singing, keep coming back. Oh, my God. I can't believe this. Ruth gets up and she says, my name's Ruth and I'm an alcoholic. And of course, everybody goes, hey, Ruth. Oh, God. This is like some level of lameness I never knew was available to me. And Ruth says, I want you to know that over these last 18 years of sobriety, I've attended a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous every single day. And I thought, what? I didn't know you could go to a meeting every day, let alone why would anybody do that for 18 years? And I looked over at this other cool guy who I find out now is not cool. He's a member. I don't know why he's standing at the back of the room. But maybe he's like the newcomer catcher commitment or something. But this guy, he comes over to me. He's got his hand out like we do, you know, in that sunbeam for Jesus smile. He goes. I take my hand in both hands and he says, yeah, I'll tell you what. You stay sober a year. We'll give you one in cakes. What? If I don't drink for a year, I get a cake? Oh, boy. The rewards from this program are enormous. I don't know if I can handle it. Because it seemed to me like if you don't drink for a year, they ought to give you a car. You know what I mean? And I was so shocked. I couldn't even make fun of him. I said, I'm not much of a pastry eater, pal. If I wanted a cake, I'd just, you know, stop at Safeway on the way home. I think they're like five bucks. Or I could not drink for a year. But another thing happened at that meeting. This secretary held up this book. She said, this is our big book. Alcoholics Anonymous. The basic text of our program. The only authority on AA. She said, if you're new tonight, please don't leave without this book. Another level of surrender. I thought, there's a book? I'll never have to go to another meeting as long as I live. They got a book. I'm going to steal that book. But then she screwed that up. She said, if you're new tonight and you're financially embarrassed, we understand that. We've been there. We want you to have the book. We'll make very liberal credit arrangements, including nothing down and nothing a week till you get back on your feet. Which sounds loving and generous. Unless you're going to steal the book. Now I got to stay to the end of the meeting. I got to go to her. I got to buy the book. It's a hardcover book. It's probably 20, 25 bucks. I don't care how much it is. 30 bucks. I don't care. If I got to write a bad check, I'm buying this book tonight. So you won't think I'm. I'm down and out, you know. So I go up to her to me. I said, can I buy one of your books? She goes, oh, the big book. Yeah. Yeah. The big book. How I've seen bigger. How much is it? She said it. So 465. Do you have it? $4.65. Yeah. Yeah. I have that. Here's a five. Keep the change. Use that change to help a drunk lady because I'm on my feet. Okay. So I get my book. And I go home. I stopped and got a bottle of whiskey on the way home. So I get home and I sit down with this book and I poured three fingers of whiskey. And I start to read this book. And I didn't know, like, I stayed up all night studying the big book. That didn't happen. I. I have the ability to look at the title of a chapter, any book, almost any book, and pretty much know everything in the chapter. You know, it's this gift that I have. And so. Like doctor's opinion. I don't need that. I've had doctor's opinions. Chapter one. Bill's story. Who cares? Chapter two. There's a solution. That's a sales pitch. Young man, there's a solution to your problem. The 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous will give you a life beyond your wildest drunken dreams. I'm sure that's what that is. Chapter three. More about alcoholism. I decided that's got to be the most boring piece of literature in the English language. So I'm already up to chapter four. We agnostic. And we agnostic. Got my. Got my attention. Because when I first came to AA, because my grandmother, the Pentecostal sober member, I mean, sober minister. Didn't like AA. So I thought there was no God here. And you don't have to be here five minutes a year. My higher power, power greater than yourself. Humbly as him with a capital H and all that stuff. A lot of God in here. I was irritated by it. But now I got this big book. The secretary had said was the only authority. It's got a whole chapter called We agnostic. Well, good. This is how the smart people stay sober without God. And of course, if you read that chapter, if you're new, let me warn you. It's a trick title. It should be called how we agnostic came to believe in a power greater than ourselves, which saved us from a seemingly hopeless state of mind. The body. But it won't fit at the top of the page. So anyway, I read this, but I read this chapter at least twice at night with a glass of whiskey between each one. And I somehow missed the first paragraph. It says if when you honestly want to, you find. Can't quit drinking entirely. Or once you start, you have little control over the amount you take, then you're probably an alcoholic. And if this be the case, you may be suffering from an illness, which only a spiritual experience will cause. You're. Anyway, I missed that. I like, yeah, yeah. Words of smart people stuff. But eventually, on the second reading, a sentence jumped off the page at me and said, we found that God does not make too hard terms on those who seek him. When I realized what that said, it kind of shocked me. I was very impressed. Because I consider myself. Somewhat knowledgeable about religions of the world, Western and Eastern. And really what I had was a drunken opinion of organized religion. But I never heard anybody say we don't think God makes hard terms. If anything, for instance, my grandmother's Pentecostal church did not say that. They said. According to me. You know, they call me. You know, we're very sure that God makes hard times on those who seek him. And I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that. Boy, you know, God will not even hear your prayers unless you're baptized and I don't mean sprinkled on the forehead. Back. Some Methodist. We're talking about total submission. Total submission. So that's why we've got to take a water. But right up here. Come on up, boy. We're going to soak you down. Pull you up. Washed in the blood of the lamb. Praise Jesus. Oh man. Somebody gets a boy. Cow. You know, I'm like, I'm 14. I am not getting wet in this room. I don't know. I don't know. My grandmother's a little bit. He thinks he wouldn't let him hurt me, but maybe she told him I touch myself. You know, I can just imagine the next day says, I'll tell you what, I'm going to miss that boy's guitar playing. But thank God he don't have to abuse itself no more. So I'm like, I told him I got brand new Levi's on straight to fit man. So I'm out of there. And and that wasn't the only. The only example. My girlfriend was Catholic. She was a Catholic. She had to go to Confucius confession, communion, confirmation, bunch of other cons to determine how many hail Mary's and our fathers would save her from the from the levels of sin. Because, you know, Catholics got levels of sin. They don't just have sin. Menial, menial, cardinal, mortal. Some of you don't have to do them. Just, you know, some of them, some of them, if you if you think of sin, you may burn in eternity for for a tradition. So I'm like, I don't know. That's too much. My friend Michael was an Orthodox Jew. He and his brother Sherm had to wear spit girls to school, which is, oh, there's a loving God for you. And then there were Buddhists and Hindus and Muslims. Oh, my. But here's AA saying we found that God doesn't make too hard terms on those who seek him. And that's preceded by a sentence that says you don't have to accept anyone's concept of God. What? You don't have a concept of God that you want to sell me? No, no. Find one of your own. That seems to be okay with the Creator. And that was interestingly enough, interesting enough that I went back to AA. And like I think I mentioned earlier, my first eight months in AA, I did everything wrong. You know, except keep coming back. And eventually I came home from a meeting. I had been going to AA for eight months. I had four different sobriety dates and four different groups. I just lied to everybody. But I came home from this meeting about 10 o'clock at night. And I, I laid on the floor and watched TV and drank whiskey till I passed out. And I woke up about three. And I crawled on my hands and knees to the bedroom, stood up to get undressed and fell on my knees. Excuse me. And I spilled whiskey all over the bed. I picked up that bottle. And there was still whiskey in the bottle. But most of it was in the bedspread. And I'm down on my knees sucking whiskey out of a bedspread when a voice in my head says, hey, man, that ain't right. You, you thirsty? There's whiskey in the bottle, man. I'm like, I'm not thirsty. I'm frugal. I'll waste my life. But I'm not letting whiskey evaporate in the bedspread overnight. And I looked at myself. I've been going to AA for eight months. And I haven't learned how to not suck whiskey out of a bedspread. And I did a dumb thing. I was out of ideas, felt lost and alone. And I said, God, if you're there, please help me. And over the next couple of weeks, just coincidence after coincidence, my neighborhood liquor store, there's somebody from AA behind the counter, a Mexican restaurant across from where I work. I started to go get a market, get lunch and have a margarita. The waitress is somebody I know from AA. I'm in the supermarket in the liquor department. And there's somebody from AA pushing a cart towards me. And this is happening every day. And finally, I'm on the way to work at 630 in the morning. And a guy from AA is driving towards me. And he saw me and I threw a bottle out the window. And he was, whoa. I thought, where the hell are these people coming from? It's like those stupid miracles they talk about in meetings. Oh, my God. I remembered I had been on my knees and said, God, if you're there, please help me. And I clearly had gotten the help I asked for. And I pulled the car over to the side of the road and I came to believe. That was a surrender that has affected my entire life over the next 33 years. And I don't. I started to say I didn't know if it was a surrender. I did. I did know if it was a surrender. It was a level of surrender that I had never made. I came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. And I made another surrender. I went to my home group and I told them I've been lying to you. My home group. It was a group that I wasn't a home group. It was a group that I went to more than I went to most groups. And I told them I've been lying to you for eight months. I've been drinking for eight months. Taking bogus chips. And I had this spiritual experience. This Bill Wilson white light experience. And I want you to know that I'm lying to you. People said, well, great, Doug, great. And then they went on sharing. And after the meeting, this guy, Sage, who was sober about three or four years, came up and said, thanks for being honest with me, man. Some of us knew you were drinking. I said, well, I didn't know if he did, but I'm done now. He said, I hope you are. I said, Sage, did you hear me? I had the major Bill Wilson white light experience. So I think he goes, yeah, I hope that works for you. Sage, are you listening at all? You know, I'm sorry about you and your educational variety, man. But I had like the real deal. And he goes, oh, my God, you come around here for eight months drinking, listening to what we said we did to get sober. And you finally try it. And now you think you're Bill Wilson. That white light you think you saw was your head coming up. Was your head coming out of your ass? So there's a level of surrender. And I started I got a sponsor and I started taking these steps. And every step is a is a level of surrender. It's funny. Sometimes you you see people say the principles of the steps. Now, the steps have principles. The big book says. But people will list the principles. Step one, honesty. Step two, hope. Step three, faith. Step four, courage. Step five, integrity. Six six, willingness. Step seven, humility. Step eight, love. Step nine, responsibility. Step 10, discipline. Step 11, awareness. And step 12, service. Now, I don't know where those come from. They're not in any literature of Alcoholics Anonymous. They're not a bad thing. But how can you say that? For instance. There's humility in step seven. Of course there is. Humbly asking God to remove our shortcomings. But is there no humility in coming to believe that a power greater than yourself can restore you to stand? Is there no integrity in doing a fifth step in sharing with yourself and God and another human being the exact natures of your wrongs? Is there no humility in asking God only to do the right thing? Only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry it out? That's the ultimate humility. And the same thing is true of hope and courage and honesty. And I don't, you know, I don't mean to put down or belittle people who say this. But believe me, this isn't any of our AA literature because Bill Wilson knew that all of these principles are in these 12 steps. There's no particular principle that belongs to any particular step. But every step, every step requires surrender. Every step requires surrender. And to me, the prayer that starts out my morning, I wake up in the morning and I roll right out of bed on my knees and I say, good morning, Father. Thank you for another day. Please let me see your will for me today. And give me the power to do it. And give me the power to carry it out. And I don't know if I always mean that, but I always say it and I usually mean it. And Thomas Merton said, I think the fact that I want to please you actually pleases you. So I don't know if I did a good talk on surrender. I had fun doing it. And I want to thank Mike for asking me to do it. It's all over now. And thank you for being with me.