Eighteen Years of Psychotherapy Is Showing Up at a Gunfight with a Knife Once a Week – Scott R.

He's our main speaker, Scott R. from Van Nuys. My name's Scott Rudman. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, everybody. I'd like to thank you all for asking me to come talk tonight. It's an absolute pleasure to be here. I've always loved this meeting any time I've been here. It's always a pleasure. Always a pleasure. I'd like to welcome the new people to Alcoholics Anonymous and tell you I'm having a great life. And if you're new, I'm sure that just thrills the shit out of you. I'm sure you just thrilled for me. And I know that because when I was new, I'd listen to the people talk about the new house and the new family and the car, and I'd think, you know, maybe you'll go home tonight and maybe your house will blow up. Maybe you'll blow up. And then we'll see how spiritual you are next week. Welcome. I'd like to welcome, if you're a drug addict, I'd like to welcome you to AA. If you're a dope fiend, which is somehow worse than any of us, I'd like to... Welcome you to Alcoholics Anonymous. And just suggest that you catch alcoholism. You can have anything else you want. I'd like to welcome the new exotic, brand new group that I'm so excited about, the Tweakers. And just, yeah, usually two guys go, We love you, we love you. I understand AA is forming a group. We're trying to develop a common language with the Tweakers and send a group of people to talk to them. Catch alcoholism. We'd love to give it to you. You can have anything else you want. You can be the Bigfoot of dope addicts. You can be a dope Goliath, a dope juggernaut. You can be a tweaking dope Goliath bunny. You can be anything you want. Just catch the dreaded alcoholism. We have a book about alcoholism written by alcoholics. We don't have a book about those other things. And I'm not putting you down and I'm not knocking you. This is not a criticism. I'm just inviting you to Alcoholics Anonymous because I almost never do. I almost never joined because I almost never caught it. I almost never caught alcoholism. And my experience is the people who don't catch it tend to die from it. And the people who catch it get well. I just came from an incredible day with my beautiful wife and my beautiful son and talking to my other kid on the phone. And 13 years and 10 months ago when I came here, I had this tiny, disgusting, pathetic little life filled with crushed people and dashed hopes and dreams. I was a crippled, crushed-up person. Cut off from the society of other people. Cut out from the mainstream. My children were diagnosed as functionally retarded. They could barely read or write. Their small motor skills were screwed up from being scared all the time. There wasn't even anything medically wrong with them. And my wife had become completely insane from prolonged exposure to me. And it was a pleasure, a pleasure to drive down here tonight and be with you people. I love you. I really owe you my life. If you're bored, welcome to AA. I like to tell you my favorite story about being bored in AA. If you're new and you're bored, you're sitting around there and it's boring. This friend of mine named Jeff D. used to go to my old home group and he was a couple weeks old where he was brand new and he was at a meeting. He was shifting around in his seat and his sponsor said, what's the matter? Jeff said, I'm bored. And his sponsor said, well, you know why you're bored. Jeff said, no. His sponsor said, you're bored because you're boring. That's why you're bored. And it was like an acid moment for him. You know, he went, wow, wow. It flipped him out. You know, it freaked him out. What a cool thing to say to a newcomer, right? He could hardly wait until a newcomer told him that they were bored. 13 years later, he's 13 years sober. He's back in our home group, the old North Hollywood group. He's with this young lady who was new and she was shifting around in her seat. And he said, what's the matter? She said, I'm bored. He said, well, you know why you're bored. She said, yeah, because I'm with you. Oh, I can get cold in AA, I'm telling you. I had a terrible journey to Alcoholics Anonymous. I was brought up in the Bronx in New York City. Yeah. Witness protection program here. Brooklyn. Just like the Bronx, except different. And all my people were from Brooklyn. My aunt. My aunt. My aunt. My aunt. My aunt. My aunt. My aunt. My aunt. My aunt. My aunt. My aunt. My aunt. My aunt. My aunt. My aunt. She was one of the top ten welterweights of the world. He was owned by the Purple Gang, which my grandmother felt were the Boy Scouts. And he was a real major mind. I was not an alcoholic when I got here, okay? For a bunch of reasons. Number one, I'm Jewish and Jews don't drink. Because it might dull the pain. And, you know, you don't want that to happen, you know? You don't want to squander any agony opportunities. You don't want to squander any opportunity. In addition to the Judaism, I could not possibly have been an alcoholic because I had been in psychotherapy for 18 years by the time I got here. I was going to be dead, but I was going to understand it. But I wasn't alcoholic. I didn't become alcoholic until I started attending the meetings and I started getting infected with alcoholism in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. It enters through the ear. The infection enters through the ear and starts infecting the individual alcoholic and then they spread the alcoholism to those around them. And at first, I only developed a mild case of the dreaded alcoholism and now I have a horrible, fatal case of it. My uncle was such a moron. He was fighting in Atlanta, Georgia and was concerned about anti-Semitism, so he changed his name. His name was Izzy Redman. He changed his name to Izzy Goldberg so that no one would know that he was Jewish. He was a cagey fellow. My family was not... My wife never believed me about alcoholism. She never believed me about alcoholism. My mom threw an engagement party for us and my aunt came and wore her wig backwards and it had a bun on it. It was not a mistake. It was a look she was going after. If you got anything for free in my family, it meant it was stolen. And I had an uncle who was a welder who used to get free bales of steel wool. And his wife, my Aunt Rose, took a decorating course and made throw pillows and filled all the throw pillows with the free steel wool. After a while, that stuff works its way through on you. So when you were at their house, if you looked at the room, everybody was moving a little bit. Everybody, you know, the whole room was like a living, breathing, pulsing organism. These are my people. This is my genetic pool. This is not the kind of stuff you go down and brag to the bartender about. More lies. And there was mental and physical abuse and chronic institutionalization and suicide attempts, a lot of insanity and a lot of violence and craziness. And my family did not have one single solitary thing to do with making me an alcoholic. I'm not saying I didn't get hurt. I got hurt. I got hurt plenty. And I'm not saying I didn't have to do anything about that. I said they didn't make me a drunk. If they had made me a drunk, the 18 years of psychotherapy would have worked. If they had made me a drunk, then I could go to therapy, I could work out my phobia, I could work out my family problems, and I wouldn't have to go to parties anymore and say, oh, no heroin for me, I'll have a Perrier. I wouldn't have to do that. I could just be like the normal people. But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how much therapy I take. And you know, if you're new, that might be really confusing to you because you might come from a terrible place and you might have been terribly injured. I'm not telling you it ain't so. I'm not telling you you're not from a bad place. I'm not telling you you haven't been hurt. I'm telling you that in me, you can't make a drunk like me. You can't make a drunk like that. Not a drunk. Not an alcoholic. I love reasons to drink. I collect them. They're my favorite things in the whole world. I have a friend named Larry. First time he ever read our book, he read the first page of the fourth chapter, which contains a sentence which says, facing an alcoholic death or a spiritual life is not always an easy decision to make. It's a tough one. Dying to pool in my own urine, spiritual life. Very, very tough. And the first time he ever saw that sentence, he said to himself, well, how bad an alcoholic life are we talking about here? How bad an alcoholic... How bad an alcoholic death are we talking about here? That's not a normal response to that sentence. That's not a normal idea. How bad an alcoholic death are we talking about here? My favorite reason to drink I've ever heard in my life came from a guy a couple years ago. I was sponsoring this guy for about 15 minutes. And he... He... He... He lived with his wife. He was a male prostitute and he had a gay lover. And he called me to tell me that he drank. And I said, oh, why? He said, without missing the beat, he said, I caught my wife cheating on me. You can't make that up. You cannot make that up. And I will tell you why. I completely understand that. I understand that that was a product of one of two things. That was either, boom, a pull. Just boom. He had to come up with something. It was an occasional hunch. It was her inspiration. It was just a gem. Pop. He had to do it. It came out. It was beautiful. It was either that, that, you know, at the moment, or that was the product of weeks in the rat's maze. Weeks on the hamster wheel. Weeks of cutting and pasting reality. Of turning the whole world, just turning the whole world so the slots can just fall in. I know it. I know. I know. I've got a wife. I know. I know I'm a hooker with a beeper. I know I've got a gay lover, but the bitch cheated on me. I'm out of here. I know exactly what that's like because I have turned the whole world to make it okay because nothing can stand in between me and a drink. Nothing. Not my wife. Not my kids. Not my lover. Not my dreams. Not my personal feelings. You know, sometimes I can walk into a meeting of AA and not even hear a passing reference. I need to guard the big book or the steps, and I get very confused. If I'm at a meeting and all I hear about is issues and boundaries, I get very, very confused. You see, issues and boundaries are fine, but you have to not drink. You have to not drink. If you don't drink, you'll have an issue and a boundary. I guarantee it. But you've got to not drink. The not drinking part's a moose. If it was not for the not drinking part, we'd be a much bigger organization. I guarantee it. But that damn not drinking thing, it screws a lot of people up. If you're new and you're wondering when you're going to get in touch with your feelings, stay sober. They'll get in touch with you. I guarantee it. If I have a bizarre physical reaction to alcohol that makes it impossible for me to control and enjoy or moderate once I begin, I'm a member of a very specific group of people who have a physical allergy that are cut off from the pack. Only alcoholics experience it. If you're special and a drug addict, try some control. It's called crack smoking. Just fill your mouth up with crack smoke, say I'm not in the mood today, and blow it out. That hurts a lot of newcomers. Just thinking, don't waste that shit, man. Don't do it. You can feed anybody on the planet heroin every day, and they will become medically addicted to heroin. It's just a chemical medical fact. You can feed anybody on the planet alcohol every day. Only the alcoholics become addicted to it. Now, it does take a certain stick-to-itiveness and fortitude to commit to, taking enough heroin to become addicted, but that's another day and another meeting, probably. If you have this weird physical reaction that only this specific group of people have, and it's coupled with some fascinating thinking, the kind of thinking I just described, and that thinking keeps driving you to take a drink that you then cannot stop taking because of this physical allergy, what happened to me then is I developed this cancer of the soul, this spiritual sickness, that ate me up from the inside and left me hollow and insane and alone. Now, if you have that, and you're trying to treat that with psychotherapy, it's like showing up at a gunfight with a knife once a week. I'm not putting therapy down. I think therapy is great stuff. It says on page 133 of our book, if you need a doctor, go get one. I use therapy in my life today, but as a treatment for alcoholism, it never worked. So it was very confusing for me because I was doing good work, working therapy, and dying from alcoholism. In addition to the psychotherapy, what I started doing as a young man was I drank until I didn't want to be a drunk. I overcame my alcohol problem with marijuana. I'd like to welcome all the pot smokers here tonight. You remember Wow, right? Wow. And right after Wow, usually came, what? What? Wow, what, wow, what, wow, what, wow, what? Watch your pot smokers like watching a dog try to run on linoleum. There's a lot of activity, but no movement. They can't get a claw in the rug. They cannot get their shit moving forward at all. I overcame my marijuana problem with pills. I was victorious over pills with cocaine. Cocaine is an excellent drug. It's particularly good for sex if you enjoy sex from the Neolithic period. I was victorious over that goddamn cocaine with heroin. Heroin's a very dark, complicated, artistic drug. Then you cross a line and become a vomiting pig. It's just a little hop, skip, and a jump. And then I drank until I didn't want to be a drunk, and I drank throughout. And I managed to not even to start catching alcoholism until I was 33, near to dead from it, and my family was destroyed by it. I was in my early 20s, and my father had a massive stroke, and I showed up at the hospital loaded on dope. And I couldn't be there for my pop, for my mom or my brother, and I just collapsed. I collapsed as a son and a man. I never felt like a man anyway. My whole life, I stood next to guys 10 years younger than me and said, I wonder what it's like to be a grown-up. It's a crappy way to live. A crappy way to live. You're never in your life. You're always a dollar short and a day late. You'll be a grown-up if, when. You're always on the brink of having a life. And my father was lost to me. I mean, I just couldn't think about him. I couldn't look at pictures of him. I couldn't talk about him. And I knew what the problem was. I knew what it was that night, and I knew how to solve it. The problem was hypodermic needles and heroin, and I swore I'd never put a needle in my arm again, and I didn't. And as long as I didn't, I was okay. Shortly after that, I was acting in a Broadway play in New York, and a new usherette with long brown hair walked in, and I took one look at this woman. I didn't even say hello to her. I walked back into the dressing room, stood up on a chair, and announced to the male members of this cast that if anybody talked to the new usherette with long brown hair, I'd break all the bones in their hands and feet. And I just kissed her goodbye tonight to come down here. So, we formed a quick suicide pact, which continued for eight years until it started to turn into a marriage. It was an eight-year-long suicide pact. I'm kind of long for those kinds of things. And at first, we just had a great time. I was acting on Broadway. We were living in one of the biggest, most exciting cities in the universe. You know, the world was at our feet. We didn't know we had alcoholism. And, um... Our son, our older son, Micah, was born, and we were surrounded by friends and family. We had a ton of phone calls. And two years and nine months later, when Jesse was born, there were no phone calls, no flowers, nobody at the hospital. We were completely isolated by the disease of alcoholism in just two years and nine months. And it wasn't because people didn't love us. It just hurt too much to be around us. The ice around our heart had become so thick, we just had repelled everybody. And Jesse had to go up to neonatal intensive care because he had a heart problem. And I couldn't come down to the hospital to help my wife. This doctor called me that night and said, Mr. Redman, your wife's in big trouble. I said, I can't find anybody to watch my two-year-old son. And this doctor said, I'll give you my name and number of my husband. You can take him to my house. I never even met this doctor before. I mean, what an incredibly generous thing to do, especially for a doctor, you know? And I said, no. I think if I had accepted her generosity, I would have had to take a whole lot of money. I would have had to take a whole lot of money. I would have had to take a whole lot of money. I mean, this is a horrible look. Like, how did this happen? What? How did this happen? How did we wind up here? I mean, this is when you're supposed to be in the middle of your community. This is exactly when it's supposed to happen. And we were absolutely alone. And Nancy and I had just become insane, insane together. We had become so insane that a guy lent us his car and we sold his car. I will never forget this guy's voice on the phone as long as I live. He said, you sold my car? I went, that's like house-sitting for someone and they come back and you're an escrow, you know? And we were proud of it. It was the end of the month. We didn't have the rent. Big duh. And I looked into my wife's eyes and I said, Fran, I'm sick of borrowing money and being irresponsible. Let's do the right thing. Let's sell the car. And she looked into my eyes with tears in her eyes and said, let's do. Now I understand that. I understand how I was able to sell the car for the same exact reason that I used to get excited when I was told that I needed dental surgery. Dental surgery. Oh, dental surgery. That's an uninterrupted source of narcotics for a period of time. Normal people don't get excited about dental surgery. There's heads going up. I'm down in here. You don't get that at the Lions Club. Normal people, I'm going, oh, dental surgery. Oh, no. Oh, no. And I'll tell you why I get excited about dental surgery for the same reason that I was able to borrow a car and sell it. I leave out the middle. I go from announcement of dental surgery to painkiller. I leave out the surgery. I leave out the sutures, the scalp, and the blood, and the pain. I just go, boom, boom. Beginning end. I go from, let's do the right thing, pay the rent. I leave out Grand Theft Auto. I leave out the whole thing. I leave out the felony. I leave out forging the name on the pink slip. I leave out the whole damn thing. If you're new, welcome to the middle. We're really big on the middle. More good news for you, I'm sure. This is where we wound up. This is where we wound up. This is where we wound up. This is where we wound up. One day in the Redmond home, I went to the doctor. He said, Mr. Redmond, you have high blood pressure. You have to lose weight. I said, I would like to do that, but I drink alcohol and smoke marijuana before I go to bed every night, so I will not be able to. He said, why don't I prescribe some medication for you? I said, what a country. He prescribed chloral hydrate for me. Wow. Wow. Obviously, he drove with a lot of family. He drove with a lot of family. What chloral hydrate is, is knockout drops. It's a Mickey. That's what it is. I love my knockout drops. Love, love, love, love, love them. Nancy's coming home. She comes home. I'm taking handfuls of knockout drops and slamming my arms into the hallway so I can keep myself awake to enjoy my knockout drop because you don't want to fall out and waste a completely good knockout drop. I'm taking more and more of these slamming body parts in the world to stay awake and conscious to enjoy my Mickey. And then eventually I just short-circuit and seize and keel over. So now I'm becoming incontinent like the rest of the 30-year-old men in America because I got too much Mickey in me I can't wake up to go to the bathroom. This is a good morning in a Redmond home. One night I got up and wet the wall. And everyone was excited. He's headed towards the bathroom. He wet the wall. It's progress, not perfection, right? We got some movement going on. It was like a Wheaties morning that day. My son Micah came to me when I was, when he was five years old and he said, Dad, is there anything such as God? And I looked into the eyes of my five-year-old perfect baby boy and I told him, No, there's not. And I swear to you, I thought I was telling him the right deal. I thought I was giving him the unfettered existential truth. I thought I was saving him some skin that he wouldn't have to be played by like those saps and suckers out there. And I lied to him. And worse than lying to him, what I basically told a five-year-old kid was, You know when it's dark at night, you're scared? You're all alone? Tough, because that's all there is. I mean, that's really what I was telling him. I don't think there's a more abusive thing you can do to a child. That's the condition that we came to AA and on April 20th, 1985, I crossed the line that I swore I would never cross again. I put a needle in my arm and that was the thing that I didn't do that made everything okay, no matter how bad things got. And I called my therapist of record that day. I told him what I had done in my 18th year of psychotherapy and he said, and he said to me, there's absolutely nothing that can be done for you. I said, what? I'm like looking at the phone going, what? He said, I can't help you. The only thing I can suggest is you attend a meeting of Narcotics Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous, or we have you institutionalized. Now, what an incredibly, I think remarkably humble thing for that doctor to do. He could have said, come on up and let's talk about it. I pretty much covered all the material. In the 18 years of psychotherapy. Unless I had left out an alien abduction, I think we had pretty much covered everything. Why I went to that AA meeting instead of the mental institution, I don't know, because on most other days I would have gone to the mental institution. Anything. Anything except for Alcoholics Anonymous. I went to that AA meeting and I couldn't tell you why. I walked into that AA meeting and I could not believe it. This was, this was beyond me. This was beyond lame. This was lamer than church, lamer than synagogue. This was some plateau of lameness I never even imagined was available to me. Alcoholics Anonymous. I couldn't believe it. And everything was a miracle. Miracle, miracle, miracle. This is a miracle. I'm a miracle. This furniture and coffee are miracles too. And they get right up in your face and talk this endless unsolicited AA crap to you. You know, it's, you know the guy. It's usually a guy with one tooth with a cavity in it, all right? You know, kind of buckled large enough to serve a whole fish on. Do I want what you've got? No. No. But thanks for spitting on me. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Clem. How's Martha? Do I bring my own bib overalls next week or am I issued a pair? I couldn't believe it. I couldn't. My skin, my skin crawled now when I think of it. And the only, I heard a guy, I heard a guy, I'm sorry. The only reason that I can imagine that I came back because I hated it was that I was out of plans. And if you're new here, I pray for you. I pray for you that you're out of plans. If you're new here and you have a plan, it's probably a beaut. Don't use your plan. Call one of us after the meeting and tell us your plan. We want to know the plan. Now, my favorite newcomer plan that I've ever heard and the most utilized newcomer plan that I'm familiar with is the one more dope deal to set myself up financially for sobriety plan. Cheer at a lemon grove. Half the room looks at their feet. Closer you get to the border, the more they don't want to hear that one, man. I'll tell you. Cause it's such a bad idea. Wanted to be comfortable and work the steps, that's all. And I guess I was out of plans and I kept coming back to the Alcoholics Anonymous Temple of Doom. I mean, I couldn't believe it. Man, I stuck around six months and enjoyed the gift of Step None. You know the gift of Step None? Nothing. And I was getting it. I was getting it big time. Nothing. Nothing. Doing nothing and receiving in kind. Nothing. And I knew I was going to drink. I'd seen the AA drill hundreds of times. People came in, did the work, changed. People came in, didn't do the work, didn't change, got sick, got sicker, got to the podium, shared their gift with us and shared their ass right out of the door. Or stayed here and became columns of human sewage and sexual predators, although I judge no man. Cause I'm just too spiritually developed, I guess. And I knew I was going to drink and my wife had reached out to me, Alan, on family groups and my children had become a little less frightened. The AA was rearing its head in my house despite me and I asked a guy to sponsor me. And he was a great guy. And he spent a lot of time with me for fun and for free. And he made sure I'd done some reading in the big book. And he invited me to his apartment and read Chapter 5 to me and took me through the first two steps. We read Step 3 together and said a prayer together. And then he went back and he gave me instructions on how to do a fourth step from the big book of AA. I took three months and went back and read my eminentals and did Step 6 and 7 for the first time. And then I had to sit down and write up my eight-step list. The best reading of Step 8 I've ever heard, I heard at my old home group many years ago. I think I was a couple years sober. It was the best reading I've ever heard of Step 8. And I've never seen this guy. I've never seen him before this night and I've never seen him since. And I've never forgotten him. His name was Nino. He had a heavy New York accent and he had never read Chapter 5 before. And he was in front of this men's group reading Chapter 5 for the first time. He had hospital plastic on his wrist and he got up to Step 8 and he read, Made a list of all his weird harms and became willing to make amends to them all. Jesus Christ! And he looked out into the room as if to say, Have you seen this? Do you know what's in here? It was so pure. It was the purest rendering of the step I've ever heard. And it, in fact, was exactly the way I felt when I first saw the step. No, not those people. I would not have taken that much money if I knew I had to give it back. Right? No way. Not the car. When I called that guy to make amends, his voice was exactly the same. He said, You're paying me back? It's like he was frozen on that end of the phone all that time. I had to put my wife and my kids and my dad on my list and I had to not be on my 8-step list. And again, if you put yourself on it, I don't knock it. I got plenty of guys I sponsor and I don't tell anybody who the hell would I be to tell anybody what should be on their amends list or how to make amends. If somebody had done that with me, I'd be much poorer today because I had to put my pop down there and I didn't know what I was going to do. I couldn't go to the grave and talk to him and I couldn't do that stuff. I just couldn't. And my sponsor said, I don't know. Do your job in AA and see what happens. Just see what happens. I don't know what I was going to do about Let's see. I'll sit down with Nancy and I'll say, Gee, honey, tell me about this eight-year journey to Hades. Okay. What the hell was I going to do? I didn't know. And my sponsor just said, Do your job. Do your job in AA and see what happens. And I started doing my job. I started doing a lot of lame crap. Lame, lame. Showing up at flag football. Coaching Little League. Lame, lame, lame, lame, lame. My wife and I had to stop working on our marriage. My idea of having working on a relationship is to talk to you until you change your mind. That's the Scott Redman couples workshop right there. You got the whole thing. Talk to you until your eyes roll back in your head and you keel over and on the way down you go, Oh, okay. I don't know how to be honest. I don't even know how to clean the house. Because somewhere in the back of my head I think a certain amount of housework should equal a certain amount of sex. But there should be like conversion tables on the back of cleaning products of housework for sex. So I'm not even cleaning the house to live in a clean house like a grown man. I'm cleaning off my own footage, honey. And she's going, Good. Why should I feel like a grown man? I haven't been acting like one. I started cleaning the house for God. Mind shatteringly lame. I mean, clean the house. I wish you told me that my first day. If this works out for you, you'll clean the house for God. I'm not even clean the house for God. Oh, my God. Wow. But that's what I had to start doing. Because I don't know how to clean the house and I don't like to. But I can't do it for the reasons that I was doing it. I had to start showing up at Little League games, you know. And the first game I went to, my wife shows up at the game and takes one look over at the stands and falls down laughing because there's everybody in the first day stands and there's me alone in the sun pissed off, psychotic. I'm here. I'm doing my job. I'm here. I'm here. I'm making amends. I'm here. Going up and down two hat sizes in the sun, right? The kids are thrilled to see me. Mr. Edmund's going to blow up. Look at him. I'm telling you. It took a couple of years for the voices to diminish in volume and number for me to just go and sit down and be in the stands. Just to be in the stands and sit at my sobriety station and be there. Both of my sons have received 13 appropriate birthday gifts on the day of their birth. On the day of their birthday for 13 years. Before that, they had not received one appropriate gift on the day of their birthday. Either they received birthday gifts on the day of their birthday that were not appropriate or things they didn't want or, you know, the only person who would take my check, you know, like they get drywall, you know, because, you know, drywall and a potted palm, you know, because it's the only place I could write a bad check, you know, and it would be the day after. Drywall, the day after your birthday. Pretty stunning. Thank you. So because I've exercised this muscle for 13 years, for 13 years I've given them the right thing on the right day, I don't feel guilty anymore. I don't. And when I see birthdays and when I see that stuff going on, I'm not filled with self-seeking and self-centered and selfish thoughts. I'm thrilled. It pleases me. So I just want to tell you if you've got whatever black hole you're coming in here with, because of the inventory process and because of the positive actions it's led me to, I don't feel that stuff anymore. I heard people talking about their brain in the third person as if it was some unwanted alien dashing around their house planning their death. I said, gee, that's how I feel right now. Got anything else? And the big book of A.A. doesn't say that you're going to have to live like your head's out to get you. The big book of A.A. says the complete opposite. The big book of A.A. not once in the first 164 pages says that there's a big book that would say the road gets narrower. All it talks about is life getting bigger, more inclusive. So just come join us on the broad highway and become part of the great reality, the great idea. Help join us on the final line of life. Help to pack things into the mainstream of life. It talks about the occasional hunch or inspiration finally becoming a working part of my mind. It talks about in step 10 the alcohol problem being removed. I won't even be cocky. It'll be gone. Insanity being restored. It doesn't talk about those things in that way. It talks about living free. It talks about living free with a big sexy juicy life right here right now. And that's what I want. And that's what I'm getting. So I finally got my sobriety station at those baseball games and I was there the day that my son Jesse received what I believe to be probably the greatest single compliment a human being can get. And he was intentionally walked. And if you're not a fan that means they're scared of you and they want to get to the weenie behind you. And he didn't want to be a geek and jump up and down so he just put his bat down trotted up the first baseline and he turned to me because I'm at my sobriety station and he just shot me just that much stuff just a little bit it's the old man you don't want to be lame don't spoil him. Trotted up to first base and I could have missed the whole thing I could have missed the whole thing and I'm not telling you that Jesse got intentionally walked because I'm sober I'm telling you that I was at my sobriety station because I'm sober and I've been with enough guys who were drunk on their kid's birthday again and I tell them about the day that my kid got intentionally walked and I didn't hear about it I was there I was at my sobriety station and about five years into my sobriety my wife and I realized we had released each other so thoroughly we had lost each other and we were we really had to make some very strong concerted attempts at rediscovering each other and really getting re-involved in each other's lives and I realized I was terrified of her I realized that when I heard her car coming up the driveway I was looking around the house making sure it was clean making sure the white TV show was on for the kids you know and I realized after some inventory work that that's like living with active alcoholism living in that kind of fear and I realized I couldn't live that way anymore I couldn't live that scared and that guilty and that ashamed of what I'm really not sure and we had to start talking about it and it was just great and eventually we started praying together and it was such a help for us because we started going to therapy and things weren't getting better because we were doing good work in therapy but we had no way to take the tools that we were developing in therapy and bringing them outside into our lives until we asked the power that runs the universe to help us and then one more time it stopped being the straight line of me to the therapist and started becoming the line that includes God the triangle that holds Alcoholics Anonymous together that holds me together I've done a lot of talking in AA and sometimes I have difficulty with it if this really starts making me uncomfortable I'll stop doing it I don't think speaking in Alcoholics Anonymous traveling to meetings and stuff like that I don't think it keeps me sober for ten minutes I think the only thing that keeps me sober is the alchemy that takes place that when I sit down with another drunk and do for him what that guy did for me that day if this is keeping me sober I'm screwed because you guys might stop asking me then what will I do I'll become a circuit drinker and you know it's a weird thing because sometimes you talk in a room and some people won't be having a good time sometimes people will get up and walk out sometimes I hate particularly when people drink while I'm talking so it pisses me off and the thing I have to always remember is that I'm not my intention as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous is to share the message of AA as it's expressed in the seventh chapter of the big book because it's the only thing that has been compelling or useful to me in my life nothing else has ever ever stopped me from doing anything and I know that that's why you're here tonight I know that's why a great many of you are here tonight and I'm sure that there are some others of you who are here for other reasons and that's fine too you know but I'm not the good news is we have no rules and the bad news is we have no rules you know AA is a perfect spiritual message being delivered by imperfect people and in the last few years of my sobriety the stuff that I've had to grapple with the stuff most difficult for me has been this work that my wife and I have been doing trying to bring our higher power into play in our marriage and my professional life which has been extremely difficult and painful for me at times and it has been a great gift for me in terms of my spiritual growth I had about a year of sobriety I was had a ghost writing job for 20th Century Fox and I was sort of becoming a spiritual Goliath at this point and I was being considered to direct situation comedy in L.A. and I thought at this point if I had gotten that job directing the sitcom that it really would benefit the guys I sponsor because they'd see me prospering and that would be good for them they'd see AA really works I didn't get the job and I almost drank my brain blew up and I went to my sponsor and I told him and he said well I guess you have the show business God I said what? he said well what keeps you sober? I said God keeps me sober he said so God keeps you sober and you didn't get a show business job and you almost almost drank so I guess you have the show business God and he has abandoned you utterly now when I came in AA I heard people talking about God getting them relationships God getting them jobs God getting people parking spaces no not the parking space God not the parking space God you know what if you don't get a space? and if you have a parking space God and he gives you a space pass it on I'm sorry I said I had to sit down and write the inventory I was resentful at myself for almost drinking and I was resentful at the company for not giving me the job and my sponsor said you know when you do six and seven on this inventory you better talk to him about what you're going to have to do to stay sober and I did I realized I had to get a God big enough so that a lot of stuff got to happen in his world and I didn't get to drink and when I did you know humbly ask him to remove these shortcomings humbly isn't take him if you can big guy humbly isn't take him you rotten sick humbly isn't take him you rotten sick humbly is I've had it can you help me I can't bear this anymore can you please do this for me I'm willing to be changed I can't change I'm willing to be changed please change me and when I draw close to him he reveals himself to me and this is the process I use to draw close to him I said I'll do anything I'll do anything for a living just keep me sober and within three months I was working as a cook on a catering truck and I looked up to God and I said I did not mean this I didn't we we had a grotesque misunderstanding I did not mean this so now when they make a TV show or a movie they hire a caterer to follow the company around you're on a vehicle on a movie set it's good dough it's team suit dough it's a good job but I'm Scott Redman the first movie that I catered the executive producer in Star was a guy who I had worked with in the business and he stuck his head on the truck that morning and he said can I have a burrito Scott and I turned around and I said what's happening babe he said is this your truck I said no but it's my spatula I got home and I called my sponsor and I said yeah we're getting a gift now yeah it's beautiful he said sounds like you've got a resentment I said what are we going to workshops for this it's just amazing I'm an example of Scott for working on a kitchen truck it affects my self esteem pocketbook ambition personal relations and sex a five bagger for sure with him it's no big deal it's just the source of all spiritual disease the great destroyer of all alcoholics it'll cut you off from the sunlight of the spirit drag your ass out and kill you dead but don't be alarmed don't be I'm going to die I'm going to die because you see I don't dislike things I re-experience I'm going to die my sense of injustice and self-pity to an extent where it literally eats my brain and my heart and blackens everything good in my life there is no room left for me in my own life I throw myself out into the gutter and I die and I know because I have been driven by a hundred forms of fear self-delusion self-seeking self-pity driven isn't nudged or influenced driven implies under the lash of enslavery too and I know that it's it owned me lock, stock, and barrel so what am I going to ask God to take away? the burrito? the guy? the truck? what am I asking God to take away? the guy was a sweet guy he wasn't mean to me he just knew me that was bad enough blue skies what is it in me? what toxic crap? what poison in me? if God were to move right now touch me on the head with a magic wand if it was just gone would the resentment be gone? I'm ashamed I'm impatient things aren't moving along I'm ungrateful I'm working I'm not doing anything I'm not doing anything I'm not doing anything I'm not making money I'm a mind reader thank you Dion I need no psychic hotline I'm an alcoholic and you know when we're mind reading because that vein pumps like a garden hose on our forehead I'm a people pleaser I have false pride that's the list I had to take to him and I worked this ten step man I worked it until my hand fell off I showed up to that job and tried to give them a dime for their nickel every day and I wound up serving people who had been my assistant directors and stage managers actors who I had been directed I'd come back to my home group every week with a new tale of humiliation and the guys were just laughing their asses off and I got to help some people who thought they had fallen from a height in AA you know they hadn't reached what I considered to be the top rank here which is child of God and I had a friend named Paul who felt he had fallen from a height who I got to help and he used to say this prayer he'd say father I'm willing to do anything for a living just keep me sober but please don't let it be as bad as what you did to Scott I was so glad to help him out and I cooked for about three years and I started becoming a spiritual Goliath you know by that time and I got an overture was made to me by a company named Ketchum Public Relations in New York about a big time writing job this comedy writing job and I thought that after all the adversity I'd faced and overcome that this would be good for the men that I sponsor because they had seen me suffer and now they would see me prosper thusly and I had to do a videotape for these guys and I went nuts my brain blew up before I even found out about the job I went mad I had to surrender it I did the inventory and I got God involved and I was okay and a couple weeks after that I got a call from Ketchum that I did not get the job and then I got a call from my catering company asking me to cater some commercials up in Lake Arrowhead and I hopped in the truck and got up to Arrowhead and grabbed the call sheet which gives all the information about the commercials and I saw that the commercials were for Ketchum Public Relations I'm feeding them now now I'm feeding them I looked down at the end of the truck there's a guy videotaping me I said what are you doing he said oh we're taping the making of the commercial he's taping my humiliation he's going to go to New York with the tape and show it to the guys and they're going to go is that Scott Redman with the meatloaf guy huh I got home and I called my sponsor and I said yeah we're getting a gift now yeah it's a miracle it's a miracle miracle miracle miracle and he said I guess God had enough writers and he needed a few cooks today and then he said you know you told God you wanted to work for Ketchum and you forgot to tell him what you wanted to do as long as he's having a good time what you coming in with I just I wish you the best I uh I just I don't know what it's going to take for you to catch alcoholism the news is our our problem mainly rests in our mind and the bad news is our problem mainly rests in our mind I told you that I told my son Micah there was no God and my first year of sobriety a guy who I sponsored named Roland used to call our house every night and he'd leave a message on my machine he'd say Scott it's Roley I love you goodnight he'd hang up five years later when I was six years sober Roland came to Micah came to me and told me that when he was a little boy he couldn't fall asleep until Roland called and when he heard me say I love you goodnight I love you goodnight and when he heard Roland's voice on the machine he knew it was okay to go to sleep and I think a lot of nights he was just so scared he'd stay up until he passed out and that's what happens in the AA if you let us come get you I told him I try to rip God out of his life and you guys came through the back door you came over the answering machine you tucked him in every night I still sponsor this guy and my son Micah who's now 20 has this powerful relationship with him the good news is our problem mainly rests in our mind there's no text that I know of about recovery from a fatal illness that contains the sentence we absolutely insist on enjoying life there's no book about cholera that says cholera's a hoot you'll love cholera you'll meet other people with cholera it's fabulous you'll meet people who just caught cholera it doesn't get any better than that and I don't know of any other recovery from a fatal illness that actually leaves the sufferer in better condition than they were in before they caught the disease I don't know any other recovery disease that can lay claim to that the bad news is our problem mainly rests in our mind a couple years ago I was I met a guy at a meeting and I went home and he called me and he talked to me for an hour I said uh-huh four times so he'd know I wasn't dead and he described to me that he had been stalking several women and he had a restraining order taken out against him but he's two weeks sober it's all different now and at the end of the hour he said to me gee I feel alone I said what do you mean you feel alone I hardly even know you I just listened to you for an hour without interrupting you what do you mean you feel alone he said I mean I don't have a woman I said to him what exactly would you be bringing to a relationship right now besides stalking skills what are you bringing to the party today two weeks into remission from leukemia and not having dating problems they're not alcoholics are because this this horrible disease gets so trivialized you know you're going to hear some really dopey things about alcoholism if you're new my favorite is don't you think you use a crutch yeah if you're diabetic are you still using that insulin crutch then you're going to show some backbone and you'll hear weird stuff that's not in the big book that works for some people some people you hear weird stuff you hear weird stuff alcoholics don't like change I just don't like change I don't like when I love change I like I don't not like change because I'm an alcoholic they say alcohol is a perfectionist I'm a pig I'm a perfectionist I like the people who deal with me to be perfectionist I want my wife to be a perfectionist you know I want those caretakers so I mean it works for some people but it doesn't I've never heard anything that has pissed me off in AA that I have found in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous ever my wife is walking through our room some years ago and she heard me I was talking to a new guy and she heard me saying to the phone let's say the aliens are coming she stopped short she didn't want to miss a second of this I said look I am not telling you the aliens are not coming that's an outside interest I have no opinion on that I only have one question to ask you why have they come for you? why have they traversed the universe for your sorry ass? you live in North Hollywood you have no life why have they come for you? don't you think they'll call a cop or somebody plus he's sleeping with the bible on his chest to ward them off they're going to traverse the universe walk into his room and go oh no the bible let's go home years ago I was sharing a story at a meeting and the guy in the story walked into the room and I'm watching the guy as I'm telling the story and he went like this I saw the horrible memory slide into his head if you're new and the aliens are coming for you welcome to LA welcome home thanks for having me down guys