Ego Reduction as a Lifelong Requirement — Rory M.

Welcome to the Sheffield Sunday As Bill Sees It meeting. This is a main share meeting, and today it is with great pleasure and much gratitude that we welcome Rory M. from Las Vegas, who's come to share for about 40 minutes, after which we will open up for general sharing or if you'd like to ask a question. Thank you, Rory. It is wonderful to have you here, and the floor is yours. Thank you guys for having me. My name is Rory McShane. I'm alcoholic. Like, I'm sober since June 5th, 2010. I have a home group, the Connect the Dots group in Las Vegas, Nevada. And we have a – in our group, before someone speaks, we really like to be a supportive group and stuff like that. And we say to each other, don't embarrass the home group. So I'm going to do my best today to not embarrass my home group because I have an amazing family. I have service commitment. I have sponsor, Bob D. He knows he's my sponsor. You could argue Bob is painfully aware. He's my sponsor, and I sponsor a lot of men in Alcoholics Anonymous. I hope you guys can hear me okay. I'm from and live in Las Vegas, Nevada. However, I'm currently at the Best Western Hotel in Roseville, California. My son's out here for a karate tournament, and I was speaking over in Marin last night. So if we start to lose some internet connectivity here or some audio. I'll do the interpretive dance portion of my talk and we'll get through this thing together. You know, I was flipping around as Bill sees it, trying to think about what to read. And, you know, anything that talks about ego reduction, I kind of have a natural like, you know—I don't want to hear about ego redemption. That's not something that's interesting to me. I want to take a hope maybe or promises, but ego reduction is not something that uh that that sits with me naturally but god do i need it i um you know carl young at one point said if it wasn't for the ego we wouldn't even need alcoholics anonymous and i think there might be some truth to that you know once i know that i have this physical allergy right once i know that once i start drinking i can't stop and i and i know that um you know when i stop i can stay stopped and my only solution to do that is through is through it is through a spiritual power greater than myself why do i need alcoholics anonymous and my sponsor likes to say and i think this is true that there's a magical moment in alcoholics right and that moment happens normally right after i get sober and that's that moment of complete willingness that i don't want to die and i'll do anything that you ask me to do you know my first position in alcoholix anonymous was butt man i i picked up the cigarette butts on the ground, on the floor, the parking lot after the Friday night meeting. And had you told me that my first position was gonna be naked floor cleaner with a toothbrush, I would have happily done it if you told мне that that's what I needed to do, right? And I'm sorry to give everyone that visual, especially those of you in America because it's really early over here. So sorry for starting off your morning that way. But the problem is, is because when I'm newly sober, I'm obviously alcoholic, right, I'm, you know, and I feel alcoholic and I know that I'm going to die. But the problem is, is my life starts to put itself back together. You know, once I get that, once i get that first job, I'm just a little bit less alcoholic with a job, right? And then when you get that apartment, even a little Bit less alcoholic, and then you get the girlfriend, right now you got a job a girlfriend an apartment, I mean, you're maybe 50% alcoholic at that point, right, but then you buy a house. And the problem is, is the more and more my life begins to come together as a result of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, the less and less I feel like I need this, right? Because the ego, that soft voice is always working on me to pull me away from here slowly. And I think that everything we do in Alcoholics Anonymous—the sponsorship, the fellowship, the H&I commitments, the detox commitments—what it's all designed to do is it's designed to keep me as close as it can to that moment of surrender. And I can never repeat that moment of surrender, but through a consistent and persistent commitment to the actions of Alcoholics Anonymous, I can stay in the zip code of that moment, right? I can say in the area of that movement of surrender and and that's truthfully, I think that that moment surrender is what prevents a lot of us from getting sober, that moment of ego reduction at depth. And it almost did that for me, you know, my, my sobriety dates, June the 5th of 2010. And I, I hated my first month in Alcoholics Anonymous. I mean, I, it just, it was seemed awful. And, um, you Know, I mean I remember going to meetings and, uh, you know, cause when you're new, everyone's so flipping grateful for everything and they're all smiley and they'RE happy to see each other like you guys were this morning. And you know I'm just sitting there not trying to try to not shake the coffee out of my hand and bum a cigarette off somebody and catch a glimpse of the new girl. And, you know, I and you guys keep talking about God and how last week you lived under a bridge, but now through the golden stairs of AA, your vice president of the bank. And,you know, you're like, I just want to punch those guys, you know, and and and everyone's talking about how much they love AA and AA is the center of their lives. And and, you know, they go to a meeting every day and on the weekends they go to the AA potluck and, you know, then they go to the, take the meeting into the treatment center and, and I'm just sitting there thinking, what a bunch of losers, man. Clearly these guys have nothing to do. Driving away from those meetings thinking like, man, these guys must be the most boring people on the face of the world. Their whole life is AA. What a bunch OF losers. as i'm driving to go live in my mother's basement in my truck that doesn't have brakes on it right i'm judging you know with my with my pack of basic cigarettes which are in the united states the cheapest they're probably not anymore but at the time they were like a dollar 99 a pack the cheapest cigarette you can buy um i don't even think it was tobacco in those cigarettes i think it's like little wood shavings or something and um and so so this ego is telling me that even though I'm, you know, there's a saying alcoholics are the only people who can from lying down in the gutter somehow also look down on you at the same time. Right. And that's me. I'm the guy who's living in mom's basement and I've got no job and I'm absolutely out of options, but I don't want to do what you guys are doing because, you know, I know better. Right. And, um, you Know, and, and I'll tell you what happened, man. I was, I, so I'm sober about a month. I'm going to a ton of AA meetings. I'M hating alcoholics anonymous and I'm, and I'm starting to identify out of here. IM thinking, you KNOW, whatever you guys have must not be what's wrong with me. Right? Because I'M going to your flibbing meetings. I'm not drinking, you know, and, uh, you guys are talking about how happy and grateful and wonderful everything is. And I just want to punch you, right? I'm Not, I'm NOT feeling the love. So, excuse me. Um, so what happens is I I'm sober just under a month cause it would have been, um, uh for around 4th of July time here in the U S and, and you know that's a big holiday out here and barbecues and picnics and a lot of AA groups have, you Know, we'll host a host of a cookout and a speaker and things. So so this one group has a has a cookout, the Fourth of July cookout. And I go to the cookout and, you know, there's a you know everybody's eating hamburgers and hot dogs and and and I'm there and there's a speaker at the cook out like there is this afternoon. And I hated every word the speaker had to say. So if you're sitting there today feeling that way, much love to you. You know, you're you're represented. And and and this girl, she asks me if I want to leave the cookouts. With her. Right. And when a girl asks you if you want to do anything and you look like me, the answer is yes. Okay? That's a pretty simple question, right? So we leave the cookout and we go meet up with her friends and her friends are drinking Budweiser lime beers and they're eating Oxycontins. And now I've got this war going on inside my body because you know how it is when you really, really want to drink but you don't want to drinks because you told everybody in AA now, right, I've told mom I'm in AA. Can I move back into the basement, you know? And, you Know, I've told dad I'm in AA. Hey, can I stay on your couch? So mom lets me move back in the basement and, you Know, i've told the guy i'm doing some work for I'm In a so so I don't want to drink but I really Want to drink like when you go to the grocery Store and you're just there to get a bag of crisps And you know some some bread but you can't take Your eyes off the liquor aisle, right? So i've got that going on and these guys are Taking these drinks and I don'T want to Drink but I'M watching them like a cat watches you eat a tuna fish sandwich I mean I'm just you know I'm locked in you know and um and and I knew in that moment that if something didn't change I wasn't going to stay here in Alcoholics Anonymous very long it wasn't gonna work for me and it was and and Alcoholics Anonymous when I came to AlcoholicsAnonymous it wasnít my first time trying to get sober I went to my first treatment center at 16 years old I did the most important thing you can do at your first treatment center i got a treatment center girlfriend and um i was i was speaking in a meeting in california last night there were a bunch of people there with their treatment center girlfriends and it was great i was like you guys can be the ones who make it man true love and uh you know uh and then i tried to get sober in a church uh for a while and and i knew in that moment that if that if something didn't change quickly this this aa thing was going to be just like that, you know? And I'd heard people around the rooms talk about stuff like sponsorship. Get a sponsor. Who's your sponsor? And there's a lot of problems with sponsor for me, right? Sponsors don't understand true love. That's one of the issues, right, when you try to explain to that sponsor that our hearts connected and our eyes met just as she was getting in the van to go to the detox center you know they don't they don' t believe even that and the other problem with sponsor and i've i've studied this in 14 and a half years is sponsor sounds just a little bit too much like parole officer for me to be very interested in it you know and um so but but as you know god or fate or the universe or whatever you however you want to ascribe it um i was um i Was standing outside a meeting on duca gloucester street in Annapolis, Maryland the next night. And you know, I don't want to be there and I'm mean mugging, you know mean mugging everybody smoking my cigarette. And this guy comes up to me his name was Kelson B's but he's passed on now and and he asked me said do you have a home group? No, I don' t have a service position. No, I d'nt have a sponsor. And he said well what are you doing man and I said buddy I'm just trying not to drink and go to meetings. I'm trying not to drink and go to meetings. And, uh, and he didn't tell me, you know, he, he would love me till I could love myself. And he didn'T tell me to keep coming back and to work it. So I'm worth it and work it and, you Know, whatever else it is now, he leaned back, he took a drag of a parliament cigarette and he said, you're going to die, bro. And I was pissed off. How dare you talk to me that way? You know, I'm the most important person in the room. Haven't you been listening. Right. And and I was ready to fight him outside the meeting. You know, I was young and tough back then. I'm fat and bald now. I don't have that much fighting left in my life before cardiac arrest. But, you know, he so I'm pissed off. And he's like, you'll calm down. Why don't you come down to this diner with us? And they took me down to Rip's restaurant in Bowie, Maryland, and and they opened the book with me. And. And I see I had already conceded kind of the first part of step one, that when I started drinking, I couldn't stop. And I had plenty of experience to show that. I had money. I was going to have a couple of beers with my piece. You know, it never, you know, if I said I was gonna have two, I never hit two because right around one and a half, I realized what a stupid number two is. Right. And if I set, I was gona, you know, I w gonna be home for sure by 10 o'clock, right around nine 15, I realize that 10 o clock is really an unreasonable time. And you know, that's just that's just too early. But what I didn't have was that was the second piece of step one, the piece that says that when I honestly want to, I cannot stay stopped. And I can't stay stopped because my problem starts when I stop drinking. My problem is, is that when i stop drinking, it's like i'm it's like i'M under water, and i'M holding my breath. And i can hold my breath for a minute or two minutes, or maybe even three minutes because i've promised mom this time i'm gonna stop when i was 17 years old i caught this assault charge and and i begged my mother to put the lawyer on her credit card and uh and i swore mom if you do this i'm never going to screw up like this again i promise you and i remember the morning of the court date and my mother had just had a surgery and so she had to come into the courtroom in crutches and and she's got tears in her eyes because she's there at her 17 year old son's assault hearing. And, um, and I had so much shame and so much guilt and, and because of the circumstances that were involved, it involved another student at my school. So I couldn't go to high school for a period of time. And you know, my mother's on the phone with her sisters and her sisters are talking about, Oh, my daughter just made the honor list. And my, my, uh, sorry, my daughter Just made the soccer team or, and my daughter just got into the band and my mom's like oh when rory's assault trial is finished he's going to get to go back to high school soon right that's the good news that's coming out of my branch of the family and and i've got all this shame and all this guilt and i'm promising mom it's never ever going to happen again and i mean that you can hook me up to a lie detector test when i promise it's Never Going to Happen Again and I'd pass the lie detector task but the problem is is that after a couple weeks over that knot in my clancy used to talk about it the knot in my gut is so tight. The voice in my head is so loud that I can't possibly not drink again, and that voice will talk me into drinking again. That voice at three o'clock in the morning that says they're going to fire you tomorrow. She's probably cheating on you. Remember that stupid thing you said in the third grade? Let's think about that for a little bit, right? So what happens is I become so uncomfortable sober that I have to take a drink again. And what these guys were able to explain to me by going to page 52 in our book the misery the depression the trouble making a living trouble and personal relationships i'm sure nobody in the uk has trouble in personal relationships but here on here on our side of the pond it's pretty big you know if a guy's calling me at two o'clock in the morning it's all about what she did wrong it's not he's not mad at the at the at his boss for you know cutting his lunch break so so what these guys explained to me was that my real problem is what happens when i don't drink and they gave me what i believe the most important thing a sponsor can give a sponsee or at least at least in the early years they gave me a hopeless case of the first step there was no hope in step one it was if you drink you won't be able to stop and if you don't drinking and don't do this program you're going to drink again you have no choice in that matter. And, and, and that was exactly what I needed. So what these guys told me is, is that if I was willing to surrender to it, if I were willing to set aside all of my ideas in the third step, you know, some people call that the surrender step. I don't know if it is or not, but it's interesting. Some people call it the surrender step. And on the top of page 63 in our book, it offers us the third step contract, right? And what the third-step contract says is if we keep close to God and perform his work well, he will provide what we need, right. And there's no exceptions to that. It's a very clear delineation. If I keep closetoGod and I perform hisworkwell, he'll provide what I need. and and and i've heard that described as the terms of surrender right i used to sponsor this guy he was he was a recon marine and uh really really tough guy and he was one of the first guys into uh into kuwait during the first gulf war and i was talking to him one time and he was telling me some stories about when he was over there and and I asked him you know uh you know when the iraqi army surrendered uh i said what would have happened if they surrendered but you found them hiding a you know a weapon a gun or a knife or something in their in their uniform in their boot and he said we would have shot him and i said really you wouldn't give him a a second chance or a warning or a trial or anything like that and he says no he said get he said the rules of war say that that that would not be a legal surrender that a surrender is to lay down all of your weapons and do whatever you're told. And I said, well, why would anyone do that? And he said, he kind of chuckled and he said because if they didn't, they were going to die, right? And I think that's the sender that I have on page 63. I don't know that Alcoholics Anonymous is going to work when I get here. I do not know that this thing is going to work. And the truth is I did not believe it was going to work either. When I looked up on the wall and I see these steps and God and God and admit, you know, you know, admit my wrongs and make amends. I mean, I thought they were the stupidest thing I'd ever seen. You know, I mean I've got real problems. I've got, I've gotten nowhere to live problems. I've gotta, I got no money problems. I got legal problems. Lord knows I got girlfriend problems, right? And you guys are telling me about how God and inventory and amends and picking up cigarette butts is going to fix this? Like it felt like an insult to my intellectual integrity and, you know, it was later pointed out that I am not intellectual And I have no integrity. Right. So that wasn't that much of a you know, if you guys haven't been able to grasp that already, you know. And so what I'm surrendering to is I'm surrendered to the fact that I'm going to do whatever I'm told and if I'm in the because the alternative is I'M GOING TO DIE. Right. And and I don't know there was something that happened that I was willing to get on board with that for the first time in my life. I've, I was willing to take actions that I didn't believe in because I saw that they worked in other people. Those guys, those, those guys, they took me out to the, uh, all the men in that home group went out tothe beach at the Atlantic ocean every summer and they tookme with them about maybe a week after I joined their group and, um, and I couldn't afford to go. You know, I didn'T, you know,I was six weeks sober, five weeks sober. I DIDN'T have any money for any kind of going to the beach or anything like this, but they took me with them. They said, just be at the parking lot and you'll sleep on the couch and we'll ride you out there and we will figure it out. And they took me with them. And while I was out there, what happened was is I saw God. I saw god through you. And even today that's how I most experience god. I go to a lot of meetings because I experience god through you more than anything else. And I saw the effects of Alcoholics Anonymous. I sawthe effects of a god of a program that didn't even believe in because I, because I knew these people drank like me. And more importantly than that, they drank like мне. I knew that they felt like me when they weren't drinking, but they were out there and we're throwing the football on the beach and we'RE going to meetings. We'RE going to eat at restaurants and WE'RE swimming in the ocean and everyone's laughing and having a good time. And these guys are talking about having lives. They're talking about getting promotions at work. And two of the guys were starting a business together and they're talking about having kids. And I mean, having kids the right way where you like plan on it, Not the way I have kids where someone calls you and says, I'm pregnant. And you say, who's this? And that kind of deal. So these guys are talking about putting their lives together. And I'm amazed. See, I saw the effect of God before I saw God. God for me is a lot like gravity. I've never seen gravity. I barely graduated from high school. I can't explain to you how gravity works. but i know if i were to take the best western coffee cup and even though i cannot see gravity right and and and for me that was how alcoholics anonymous worked i could see the effect of alcoholics synonymous even though I couldn't explain to you how it worked and and so this process for the first time in my life created this willingness to do something that I didn't believe in because somebody else said to do it and ultimately what it talks about at the bottom of that page what i believe is is that i don't think that bill's spiritual experience was was the was the white light or his awakening i don'T THINK HIS SPIRITUAL AWAKENING WAS THE WHITE LIGHT MOMENT HE HAD IN THE ROOM WHEN THE WIND BLEW THROUGH THE ROOM BECAUSE IF YOU READ WILLIAM JAMES VARIETIES OF THE SPIRitUAL EXPERIENCE WHICH WAS ONE OF THE BOOKS THAT HEAVILY CONTRIBUTED TO THE BIG BOOK ONE OFTHE THINGS THAT WILLIAM JAMES NOTED HE NOTED TWO things in his, in varieties of the spiritual experience. He'd interviewed hundreds of people that had spiritual awakenings, right? And, um, or spiritual experiences. And he noticed, and he noted two common factors among them. The first common factor was no one ever seemed to have these spiritual experiences while they were doing well, right. No one went out to Las Vegas, hit the mega millions jackpot, married a show girl, and then said, now I'd like to find God too. Right. That was never the case. It was always at the bottom, always when there was no other hope, when there Was No Other Way to Turn, I Guess I'll Try God. But the second thing that James noted in Varieties of the Religious Experience is he noticed that the vast majority of people who had these experiences over a period of time went back to the same behavior and the same lifestyle they did before, that over a периod of time the spiritual experience eroded and there was not permanent transformation. And that's me, right? i'm the guy who who went to the church and said i was going to totally give myself to the god and all this if it would keep me from drinking and it might have lasted three months right and if we look around the rooms of alcoholics anonymous how many people do we know and how many People have we seen who at one time were great members of alcoholix anonymous and they were and they were doing the deal and they Were going through the steps and and they and they slowly over a period of time walked out of alcoholic synonymous and went back out i think that Bill's spiritual awakening was the next morning when he talks to William Silkworth and he says to William silkworth I have to be told I have to be allowed to talk to and help these patients that is the only thing that's going to keep me alive I think the spiritual awakening is the moment the first moment in which I realize my very survival my very life depends on the constant thought of others and how I can meet their needs you know Clancy put it put it better than anyone else. I think, you know, he said very simply when this idiot is thinking about that idiot, I can't be thinking about this idiot. Right. And that's and that's really all it comes down to. I remember going to my first sponsor and telling him I was it might have been a guy he sponsored, but I'm having this conversation and maybe three months sober and I tell him I'm depressed. Right? I'm very depressed. And he just gets this sour look on his face depressed i'm depressed you're depressed your life is depressing you live in your mother's basement and you bum cigarettes off people and and and he and as a result of that conversation somehow it became my job every friday night to drive from you know to drive up to baltimore maryland pick up the guys at the helping up mission and drive them back to the home group and then turn around and bring them back zu the mission and if i could afford it i had to stop on the way and buy them McDonald's cheeseburgers. And, um, just to, if we have any newcomers on the meeting word to the wise, if you want to avoid service work, you can't be too honest with your sponsor. Okay. You gotta, you gotta really moderate what you tell them if you wanna avoid doing too much in AA. So, so I'm dropping these guys off at the mission and I'm buying them cheeseburgners and, you know, and, um. And they get out of my car and they go in the facility and I'm driving to my apartment and I have this feeling. See, every time I would get a little period of sobriety and then I would drink again, right around that second drink, I would have this, this, this feeling of like I was finally coming up for air, right? Like the, like the knot in the pit of my gut was just starting to unwind. Like somebody took a screwdriver and screwed open the steam valve on my brain and the pressure was just being let out. And when those guys would get out of my car at the mission, I noticed that I had that same feeling. That the spring in my gut would just unwind just a little bit and I could breathe easier again. See, Alcoholics Anonymous creates slowly what alcohol creates quickly, I believe. But my ego has to be reduced enough to do it because I have to be willing to take direction to do that. Because my mind never thinks that's the answer. I've never once in 14 and a half years of sobriety had a situation going on in business or in my relationship or with my children and thought, you know what the answer is? The answer is to go to the detox tonight. But inevitably, I think it always is. You know, when I was six years sober, I had been dating a gal and she had gotten pregnant and had our son and she relapsed on opiates. And I started to engage in a custody battle for my son and my life's not going well at this point. I relocated back to the state that they lived in, and I had to leave the best job I'd ever had at that time. And I'm totally broke because I'm spending all my money on this custody battle. And I couldn't even afford an apartment. I was staying, you know, I'd had some decent apartments before that. And I's staying with a buddy of mine in AA at his house because I couldn'T afford an apartment. I'm driving around Las Vegas in a car that didn't even have air conditioning. I mean, you know, I don't know if you know Vegas, but it gets to about 115 in the summer and everything in my life is going wrong. And I'm doing everything I can just to get custody of this kid so he could grow up in a sober environment. And there was a day where I'd gotten served some papers in that Eagle deal where it looked like for a time I wasn't going to be able to have custody of my son. And I get these papers and I start coming unglued and I'm sitting in my car and I's crying and I punching the steering wheel. and I'm just like, I can't, I can't handle this. This is too much. And, and everything in me wants to go home and think about it. Right. But let's see, I'd made a commitment to pick up these three guys at the, at the Salvation Army that day and take them to a meeting at the KCB club. And luckily my feet have been trained here in Alcoholics Anonymous. And so I go down to the Salvation army and I pick up these guys at The Deal and they get into my car and the one guy is really struggling and he starts getting emotional he'd just gotten out of prison and i asked him what was wrong and he had said he didn't think he was going to be able to see his daughter again he hadn't seen her in some years and i start talking to him about that and and little by slowly the knot in my gut starts to unwind and the volume in my head and the volum of those emotions start to turn down and the beauty of alcoholics anonymous is that through a consistent and persistent commitment to those sort of actions it's eight years later and and and both of both me and that guy we both have sole custody of those children today see that's the beauty and the problem my ego tells me that i know what i need my ego tell me that I that I know what what is best for my own life in chapter five there's a there's a part that talks about I'm a victim of the delusion that I can rest satisfaction and happiness out of life if only I manage well right and as a result of leaving that job in that deal I started a business and by the time I was I guess I started the business when I was seven years sober and bythe time Iwas nine years over that business had started to become wildly successful and And I'm making more money than only I've ever made in my life. Anyone in my family has ever made. And, you know, that business was featured in Inc. Magazine twice. It was one of the fastest growing businesses and privately held businesses in America. And we won a bunch of awards in our industry and all this stuff. And I am getting all the stuff, all the cash and prizes. And I buy this big house outside of Austin, Texas with a swimming pool and the whole deal and a bunch of new vehicles and all the stuff. And what's happening is I'm slowly walking away from Alcoholics Anonymous over a several year period of time. And it's never like I stood up and said, you know, I don't need AA anymore. I would have told you I loved AA just as much. But very slowly, I went from a guy who went to a meeting every day to maybe a meeting a week to a meeting every other week to a meeting once a month from a guy who called his sponsor a few times a week, to a guy who called a sponsor, you know, once a week to every other day. To once a week. To once every six months. You know? And little by slowly what's happening is that because my ego is telling me as soon as I get this business deal finished, I'm really going to get back into AA. As soon as i get this one next thing done, I am really going to get back into AA And, you know, if you've ever been out to the water and you've had an experience maybe with sailboats or something and you take a boat up to the dock and you can – you take that boat right up next to the deck. And if you don't tie the boat to the doc after five minutes, you won't – you probably won't notice a difference. But after an hour, you'll see that boat and it's 500 feet away from the dock because little by slowly, one inch at a time, it's just drifting. It's just shifting. It's juste drifting. And see what the reality is, is that my ego selfishness and self-centeredness is the root of my problem. And little by slowly, my ego wants to drift me out of Alcoholics Anonymous. And that's what it was doing in that process. And it was doing it with a good motive. Had you asked me at that time, I would have my son was going to the best private school in Austin. I would have told you I want my I want my kid to have every opportunity available to him. That's why I'm doing this. So behind a good motive, my ego is drifting me out of Alcoholics Anonymous a little bit at a time. And all the while my external life is getting better and I'm getting all the money and all the property and all The Prestige. And I'll tell you what, when but inside it's dying. And i'll tell You what? When when you feel like crap and your life looks like crap, it kind of makes sense, right? It's like I feel like Crap. Well, you live in your mother's basement and your truck doesn't have brakes so that you know that kind of you get it. But when you Feel like crap and you have all the things that you thought would make you happy and in my in my experience anyways it was it was much more difficult and as a reality at over a decade sober i ended up sitting in a closet with a mossberg shotgun in my mouth crying and i hope no one has to have that experience but for me it was a demonstration that there is absolutely nothing more powerful than the disease of alcoholism everything every cash every prizes there's absolutely nothing that that can stand in the way of alcoholism and that and and that the delusion that i can rest satisfaction and happiness out of life if only i manage well it was smashed and as a result of that circumstance and and the gentleman that had sponsored me for seven years passed on i i asked my current sponsor to sponsor me bob d and um and um i remember i i was it was it wasn't right it was a couple of weeks after my sponsor had passed, and I ended up at his house in Las Vegas at a book study. And he had known my previous sponsor, Charlie, and he had come up to me and asked who was, you know, had expressed his condolences and asked кто was going to sponsor me now that Charlie had passed on. And I tell him some nonsense about how I'm going to interview people for the honor of sponsoring me or something like that. And he chuckled and was like, well, a guy like you doesn't do well without a sponsor very long and starts to strut away. And in that moment, I, I know, no, come back, come back, and I said those words that I've said here a handful of times. And, and God, every time I say him, I regret him. I'll do anything you ask if you'll sponsor me. And he, and he agreed. And unfortunately he took that. I'll Do Anything You Ask seriously. Like I didn't, you know, I didn'T mean it that seriously, but he took it very seriously. and and and as a process of in that process what happened is is i think what the job of a sponsor is ego reduction at depth and i and i had a situation where i um i owed the internal revenue service the tax authority here in america you know several hundred thousand dollars and this isn't in the big book by the way but if you spend far more money than you make over a considerable period of time, you will end up in debt. So that's just – if your wife or husband asks you what did you learn at AA today, dear? You can say, well, I learned if you spend far more money than you make, you end up indebted. And my sponsor wouldn't let me take a payment plan. He asked me if I could afford to pay it all right now and I said, yeah, sure, if I want to eat cat food when i retire and uh he said great pay it all right now and call me back in 10 minutes when it's done and uh you know he's and there's moments you know you picked the wrong sponsor you know and that's one of them and um but he's but he'S ONE OF THOSE YOU KNOW CRAZY PSYCHOTIC AA GUYS WHO BELIEVES THAT MY SPIRITUAL CONDITION IS THE ABSOLUTE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN MY LIFE AND IT COMES ABOVE ANYTHING ELSE AND THAT THE INSTRUCTIONS IN OUR BOOK ARE NOT NEGOTIABLE AND AS A RESULT OF DOING that i got free of i got free of all of that fear and i got three of the fear that i would have had to carry for years if i'd done a payment plan that that i wasn't going to be able to make it and they were going to put a lien on my house or something like that and alcoholics anonymous is the absolute center of my life today because that ego that tries to pull me away from here and tries to reassert control it just is alive and well as it ever was. And I need to take, I do more Alcoholics Anonymous today than anybody. Barry is on from Austin, Texas. You guys got to get Barry to speak. He's an absolute soldier of AA. I was going to say I do More AA than anybody I know, but I can't say that because Barry's here. But, you know, I, I don't know. I don' t know. I do a lot of AlcoholicsAnonymous because I'm a guy who needs a lot of AlcoholicAnonymous to keep me in the zip code of surrendered. there's a there's that line in how it works right how it works is the most read and least understood part of alcoholics anonymous right you know a lot of us a lot of us the only time we ever meditate is when someone's reading how it works you know we we we kind of zone out right when it gets to rarely have we seen and you know we come back and write it god couldn't what if he were sought and it's like where'd that three minutes go right but there's there's a part of how it works that says they are not at fault they seem to have been born that way they either could they could not or they would not completely give themselves to this way of life and the problem that I have 14 and a half years later is that when my life is on fire when I burn into the ground and I've blown it up again I will completely give myself to this simple way of Life but when my Life alcoholism I believe is the only disease that I've ever heard of that will use my own mind my own brain against me but When my life has come back together a little bit through the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, all of a sudden I'm not as willing to completely give myself to this simple program because that little voice in my head will say, AA is important, Rory, but you got to make some money first. You can't be fat, bald and broke. Why don't you skip AA tonight and why don't your focus on some money? And I'll say, thank you, nice voice. I appreciate that. Right. And the problem is, is that there's this this constant grinding ego that wants to pull me away from AA. And that's why I do everything I do. And that's Why I have the sponsor that I do and I have, I have that I have the perfect sponsor for me, man, I have a sponsor, you know, I could I could hit the lottery and tell him, Oh, my God, Bob, what a great day, I just won a million dollars. And he would say, Huh, will you be at your detox commitment tonight? And it's and similarly, I can say, Bob I've had the worst day ever. And my business has fallen apart. And I can't make the mortgage payment and his response would be, will you be at your detox commitment tonight? Because that's what keeps me here. And that's what keeps us together. That's what keeps me with you all. I get to speak some AA and that's a cool deal. I got up to join you all this morning and I was speaking in California last night and it's a lot of fun. But that's not my AA program. What my AA program is, if you come to Las Vegas, Nevada on a Wednesday night and go down to the Skid row detox. You'll find me there outside about 15 minutes early. And, um, if you call me at two o'clock in the morning and you're sober, I'll answer my phone because guys did that for me because I was, when I was in that closet with the gun in my mouth, somebody picked up the phone. So if you can't, my rule is my rule before you drink, you can call me 24 hours a day after you drink. I'm strictly a 9am to 9pm operation. And um, because in the fifth tradition, it says that the primary purpose of a group of Alcoholics Anonymous is to carry the message to the next alcoholic. And I'm a member of a Group of Alcoholic Anonymous, so I believe that my primary purpose in life is to Carry the Message to the Next Alcoholic. And that is the only thing that I've ever found that is a power that is greater than my ego that can keep me here. you know it's funny I've been in AA for a long time and I'd never heard the poem the stand by the door poem right and for whatever reason somebody read it I don't know a few weeks ago at a meeting and I had never heard it before and I was really taken by it and and I've heard it four or five times since then and today my life is about standing by the door today my life is about, is about the next alcoholic, because that is the awakening. The awakening is, is that if my, if the purpose of my life is to serve me, I'll die. But if my PR, but if the purpose of your life is not to serve you, then I get to live and Alcoholics Anonymous has given me a life beyond my wildest dreams. You know, uh, I'm, I've shut up with this. Clancy used to talk about the boat, right? He used to say that in AlcoholicsAnonymous, we pull a drowning man into an invisible boat and we tell him to row. And once he starts to row, the boat appears. But the problem is, is that if I stop rowing, theboat disappears and I fall back into the water and I think the boat was never real in the first place. I'm here this morning. I am here with you all because I have to keep rowing or the boat will disappear. Thank you all for letting me share. I love you.