Financial Sobriety and the V-Graph of His Life – Paul O.

what's going on here I'm confused my name is Paul and I'm a full-blown alcoholic welcome I'm impressed with how many of you are still here but I'm impressed with the being with a group of the hardcore alcoholics these are these are the real sickos that the ones that need all the help they can get and you're still here like me and as Karen says that you need me and I was thinking Not as much as I need you, kiddo. She also mentioned wetting her pants, which of course was a little embarrassing to me. But I've heard a lot of sad... I may not be the world's worst alcoholic, but i'm the alcoholic with the world's worst bashful bladder i have had a bashful bladder all my life and uh if you don't know what that is i could never describe it to you and if you do know i don't need to describe it just it makes it difficult when you can't go if anybody else is anywhere near and to be a there's nothing worse than being a beer drinking alcoholic with a bashful bladder and I just want you to know that I'm really grateful for to AA for what it has done for my bladder I walked in there this morning and I walked right up there and I just went like one of the big boys I'd keep coming back to AA even if it wasn't keeping me sober just for what it's done for my bladder hasn't helped my capacity any my capacity for AA coffee is no better than it was for beer and booze the capacity is no better but my aim has improved tremendously as she said Hasn't this been a great convention, a great roundup? This has been so good that I feel I can't possibly do anything to screw it up at this late date. So I'm just going to relax and be myself. In fact, somebody said to me, do you get nervous? Do you still get nervous when you get up to talk? And I said, well, not really. I say the third step prayer and a serenity prayer and a seven-step prayer every morning before I get up and then Max and I say that along with some prayer and meditation at breakfast every morning and then several times during the day if I'm going to do something at all unusual I say God I offer myself and this situation to you to do with as you wish and when I'm gonna talk I say I offer this occasion to you to do it as you want wish and I would like to have it go real well and have say a lot of profundities and it would just be great but if it's your will that you want me to make a complete ass of myself in front of all these people if that's the way you want to get your jollies today well at least one of us will have a good time and and so that's but we'll see what mood he's in today, I hope. I'm happy to be here for many reasons, including the fact that I love AA. I love this way of life. It's the best life I've ever known. My relationship with Max is much better than it's ever been. my relationship with people with my higher power with all the people that live in my head it's all so much better than it ever was I thoroughly enjoy and I thoroughly enjoy sobriety anybody's sobriery especially my own and I just love this way of life I love being an alcoholic that's what I was trying to say I love it I think it's great I think being an alcoholic I love being an alcoholic. And actually, if it bothers you to have me say that, that's too damn bad, I guess. If you don't understand it, talk to your sponsor. If your sponsor doesn't understand, get a new sponsor. It's surprising that I like being an alcohoic as much as I do considering the fact that I wasn't an alcoholic when I came here. Ha ha ha yourself. It's a serious thing to come here as a non-alcoholic and I caught the disease here. I wasn'T an alcoholic until I got here. In fact, speaking of being an alcoholic, A lot of people can't figure out how they became alcoholic, and they're quite concerned about that. Actually, with me, Max, my spouse, she had a lot of alcoholism in her family, and there was none in my family. And as Max and I were growing up together and involved with each other, My family was very concerned that I was dating or going with the Gansline girl because they were afraid that if we ever got married, I might turn out to be an alcoholic. And by God, they were right. Some people think they inherited alcoholism. I'm an alcoholic by marriage. I was never meant to be an alcoholic. It never occurred to me to be an alcoholic, it never came up at all, it was just the last thing I ever thought of being an alcoholic no school counselor ever said what about being an alcoholic, they have a lot of fun, you want to be an alcoholic? I don't even look like an alcoholic except sometimes when I'm drinking well I had drinking problems but it was just because I mixed the wrong drinks or I drank too much or with the people thought I might have a drinking problem so I always had to be very careful how much I drink and where I drank and so we were talking Beverly, Buddy and Kay and Janie were talking this morning and they were talking about not drinking during Lent and I did that but that's only because I was a good Catholic boy and you're supposed to give something up during Lent so I gave up alcohol during LENT but then I realized that if you count the number of days you don't count Sundays because Sundays don't account and I thought well Sunday really is the weekend so weekends don't counts and the next day I thought well that's kind of silly the hell with that you know it's changed my mind i did the same thing a lot of times i wake up in the morning and i think oh my god i did it again i did this again i i don't remember coming to bed i don' t remember i lost track of when i was drinking to relax and when i was drinking, to pass out and when I was drinking the blackout and uh i wake up in the morning i think god i i did i did again this is no good this is is no good i'm not handling this well i'm this is no good i've got to quit i quit i could i'm not going to drink anymore i just i quit that's enough that's enough of this and i go shave close one eye to shave so you know you can cut yourself with an electric razor if you fall asleep while you're shaving keep one eye shut and shave and get off and go to work and work, and I'd be thinking, boy, I'm sure glad I quit. I should have done this a long time ago. That's nicer to not drink. I'm glad I don't drink anymore. I'm good. I'm happy that I quit, and that's just, this is, I love sobriety. I'm not going to drink anymore, and somehow, I go home that night, and I think, well, a six-pack and half quart wouldn't hurt, and the next thing I know, it'd be the next morning. i think my god i did it again and it wasn't it wasn'T that i thought about it and changed my mind it was just one part of my brain said we quit and another part said well screw that you know and and the two parts didn't even communicate with each other i tried different things with the to quit drinking um went through that business of I drank at home and we had a bar and we put folding doors on it so you could close it up so it didn't look like a bar when priests and nuns and non-drinking friends came by. And I decided not to, I wasn't going to drink anymore, so I thought I'll lock myself out of the bar. ha ha ha you think I'm not serious I went down to a hardware store and I bought a brass colored lock so it would match the wood and a hasp that's called a hasps that hinge is put on there and I put it about that far from the floor didn't want it too obvious I didn't people saying how come your bar is locked I put down by before they wouldn't see it and I did the obvious thing with the key I gave it to Max so we could fight over it every night and we'd have our little argument and she'd finally get the key and so we could have one drink she decided to get one drink well I have to listen real carefully as to where she was getting the key from because once she had her drink and got sleepy like she's supposed to then I'd go and find the key and I could find it and she would hide it and she found better places to hide it finally she could hide it and i couldn't find it so i decided i've just seen movies where they would uh have you ever seen a movie where they ever picked a lock or tried to pick a lock and failed they never failed in the movies it's always it's easy in the movies you take a little piece of metal and bent and you pick the lock and walk in so i've seen it many times i thought i thought I could do that so i got a bobby pin and i put a hook on the end of the bobby pin and lay there on the floor and I'd pick and pick and pick and then I'd bend it a little different and I would pick and kick and pick this lock and finally I think whose god damn bar is this anyway and I ripped the lock off but then I put the lock back on you couldn't put it on with putty putty looks it shows up too much you get plastic wood that matches the wood but you have to give it about six weeks to dry and put it under but even so you can put it on and rip it off so many times that doesn't work then I decided to do the ultimate sacrifice the ultimate sacrifice I'm sorry I know you deserve a drink and common courtesy and social gracious all means you should have a drink when you come when you come to our house you're just not going to have any drink I'm sorry but we're just not going to have liquor in this house we just don't we don't drink so you can't drink here sorry about that which meant I had to get rid of all the liquor so I put it in a box big box big box and I took it across the street to my well at that time he was my closest friend but that's you know the only person I ever talked to about my drinking problem, which I took it across the street and I gave it all to him. And I said, you keep this. You keep this here. I'm getting in some trouble at the hospital because they think I'm drinking too much. You keep it. You keep what he did. You keep his hair and don't give it back to me under any circumstances until I ask for it. Yeah, yeah. And you know what he dead? He started having parties with my booze. I could tell it was my booze so I had to take it back and bring it all back then I was left with only one thing I knew to do with it then to get rid of it I had a drink it up and had a lot of creme de ment green creme de ment but I was very conscientious about quitting drinking so I drank it all up I had so much green cream de ment that I vomited green and had green bowel movements for weeks on end. A lot of green cream de ment. And I got fat on green cream de ment I was very conscientious very sincere about all this I ended up I ended up in the nut ward that's where I ended up I ended up in the nut ward of the hospital I was on the staff of that was embarrassing and ha ha ha yourself it was a funny place they had a real thing about leather belts really big deal about leather belts, it was part of the program we had to make leather belts In fact, I don't think you could possibly get out of there until you'd made a leather belt or something useful like an ashtray or something. They nag, nag, nag about it. They try to tell me that my life would be improved if I learned how to make a leatherbelt. I said, I've got a wall. I've Got a Whole Wall with licenses and certificates and diplomas and papers to prove that I've been educated way beyond my level of intelligence and I don't see how my life would be improved in any way for me to learn how to make leather belts I didn't understand the philosophy and besides, I didn'T understand the instructions that wasn't my fault that was the fault of that dumb occupational therapist I've always had the theory that if you don't understand a thing well enough, you can explain it to me so that I understand it and you don'T understand it as well as you're supposed to. And she'd explained it tome four times and I wasn't going to embarrass her by asking her another time. I sat there and I remember sitting there commiserating with myself about the series of mistakes and misdiagnoses and poor medical management and bad breaks and lousy marriage all these things that went wrong that a nice guy like me ended up in a place like that and while I was thinking about that this dumb psychiatrist who couldn't see that my problems were strictly marital walked up behind me and asked if if I would be willing to talk to a man from Alcoholics Anonymous and I thought God almighty don't I have enough problems of my own without trying to help some drunk from AA but I could tell by the look on his face that he thought it was a good idea and I don't know if you know that or not but happiness on a nutwork is having a happy psychiatrist so I was willing to go to any length to make him happy and so I said yes and in no time at all this clown comes galloping into the room yelling my name is Frank and I'm an alcoholic ha ha ha I felt sorry for him here he is meeting a perfect stranger and the only thing he can think to say about himself is he's an alcoholic you know I was much more impressed when I found out he was an attorney and and a loud voice Scotty had a loud voice and i hear he told this story and i don't remember anything about his story except he said it in a loud voice loud voice and he was talking about us drunks and us alcoholics and alcoholics anonymous and i kept thinking my god man why don't you lower your voice these these people all think i'm a nut why don'T we just leave it at that you know and when i know how the only thing i remember about his story is I know how he ended it was loud and it ended with him saying well that's my story I'm going to a meeting tonight would you like to go along and I said well hell no I won't like it but I'll go because I figured he'd go back and squeal to that dumb psychiatrist and he would have I guess so we went off to the meeting and I have no idea what meeting we were at I've heard people give wonderful talks about their first meeting but I don't remember where we went or who talked or who led or who read or anything was that but I know that it that meeting had a profound effect it had a profound effect on the psychiatrist because now he now he really paid a lot of attention to me he wanted to know how often they had meetings what other kind of meetings should they have what's this about a book what's this about steps when are you going to meeting again all the I thought my god I've got me an alcoholic psychiatrist he's ashamed to go so he's sending me yeah so I went to all the meetings I could I want to get all the brownie points I could to get out of that dump and finally did so and got out got my discharge button had no intention of going back why would I go back it wasn't an alcoholic but the problem was that Max that she liked the meetings and of course once I found out she liked The Meetings if she didn't act right I'd tell her I wasn't going to go to AA anymore and will you Al-Anon stop giggling I said we weren't going to do that and in fact what she did was she got in the she couldn't drive the freeway but she got in the car and she drove the free way all the way down we went from we lived in Anaheim went to meet some Laguna Beach so we wouldn't run to anybody we knew which is about 45 minutes away now we know everybody that comes to Laguna Beach so they won't run into anybody they know. And she got in and she drives the freeway and goes to the meeting by herself. And I don't know if you've ever tried that or not. Have you ever tried sitting at home on a Saturday night drinking while your partner is off laughing it up at an AA meeting? I found it boring. And I had to go back to the AA meetings to find out what the alcoholics were laughing about. And I found out they laugh at anything. They laugh at nothing. And I sat there and it took me seven months of listening to them laughing and not knowing what they're laughing about and one night I found myself laughing with them and I haven't had a drink since. And to me, the laughter has been a very therapeutic, a very spiritual part of my recovery. In fact, I'm convinced that my higher power laughs every time he hears alcoholics or Al-Anon's laugh, even if he doesn't understand the joke. Very much a part of the program. And that's how I turned out into an alcoholic. took me, I've never had a slip that seems like too hard a way to go I don't I had enough trouble the first time I wouldn't have tried to do it a second time I found it much easier to just keep on drinking and going to meetings but by getting exposed to the alcoholics for seven months I caught the disease and that's why I'm convinced it's a virus it goes in through your ears you know in fact if any of you are here this morning and you're not really really, really alcoholic you have to be very careful what you listen to if you hear something and you think my god I didn't do that but I did I felt like that when I did what I did you're supposed to I might be boom just like that you're an alcoholic once you suspect it it's already too late I mean and you won't get any sympathy here you know you turn to somebody and say you know I think I might be an alcoholic they say oh that's another one hold up your hand you think they got a prize for every new member or something like that and they tell you it's a progressive disease and it really is it's contagious disease and it's progressive because when I first got it when I was when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I when I Just a little bit. Almost a heavy social drinker. But I was a little bit alcoholic, but I wasn't a drunkard and I wasn'T a wino and I wasn'T the lush and I certainly wasn'T the skid row bum. And I was very careful about that. In fact, he had a men's stag group and you go around the room and they'd say I'm Joe and I'm an alcoholic. I'm Pete and I'M an alcoholic and come to Jack and Jack would say my name is Jack and I' m a drunk. oh how disgusting you may be a drunk but I'm an alcoholic but the trouble was that because I was an alcoholic even a mild alcoholic I had to keep coming to meetings in order to stay sober and the more I kept coming to meetings I kept the more I kept getting exposed and so I'm a much more alcoholic today than I was when I first became alcoholic. When they talk about being a progressive disease, they're not kidding. I mean, it progresses in sobriety just as much as it does in real life. And I'm much more alcoholic today. Much more alcoholic. Even even have a mild drug problem. I know we don't talk about drugs at AA meetings, but but I never became addicted or anything like that I mean it was no addicts addicts use dirty needles and they they don't even know what something is what's that give me some of that I'll squirt it in see what happens you know I never used anything but the purest of drugs that I had very carefully stolen from my patients. And they never got addicted to pills because you can't get addicted to pill unless you abuse the pill. Ask any doctor how his patients get addicted to pills and he'll tell you, well, none of his patients ever get addicted. But he'll also tell you that you can't get addicted to pills until you abuse them. You have to abuse the pill. It's never that the pill abuses the patient, it's always that the patient abused the pill I don't even know how to abuse a pill How do you abuse a bill? You throw it up against the wall? You know, you stomp on it, you know Verbally abuse it You dirty rotten little pill I never abused a pill in my life they were just little tiny pills little bitty things just to look at them you knew they were very mild I was always very careful with my pills even careful where I carried them I mean, you can't put them in your shirt pocket because if you bend over they fall out. I used to put them over with my change and people would say, you got change for a dollar? I'd say, oh yeah, and I'd go like that. They'd say oh, you carry second all around in the daytime. So I'd put them over here with my keys and they'd go on the parking lot and then take the keys out of my pocket and the Quaalude run down the street you know and the damn thing would always run faster than I could run and I didn't dare step on it Or I'd abuse it, you know. I heard of a guy abusing Demerol the other day. Abusing Demmerol, he was squirting it in the muscle. And I thought, my God. Demerol is a beautiful potent narcotic drug it needs to be treated with respect you always squirt that in the vein for God's sake I could never use Dilaudid or morphine because you had to practice medicine with one hand you had to keep rubbing your nose with the other one made my nose itch just thinking about it it also used to make me vomit unpredictably patients never got used to that Anyhow, when I came to AA, I felt like a failure in everything. I felt Like a failure in all departments of my life. Even when things went well, I thought, well, any good doctor could have done that. And when they went bad and poorly, I felt it was all my fault and the marriage was down, everything was a mess and I got to AA and I was ashamed to be here in fact I kept coming to meetings during those seven months thinking that I was nice of me as a social thing to add my support to you people who were lifting yourselves by your boot straps and I And I enjoyed the positive, the success stories and felt I was kind of participating by being a part of watching you do that. Which shows how much humility I basically have. But there's one point about that though is I was coming to help you. and I ended up getting sober and I still try to hold on to that idea what can I add rather than what can I add to the program rather than just what can I get out of it but finally when I became an alcoholic I thought surely in this thing where I have thought it's the bottom of the social barrel. Certainly I ought to at least be able to succeed in this. And I set out to become a success in AA. I didn't talk to anybody else about it, but I just said, I'm going to be a successful member of AA. That was the goal I set for me, to become a successful member of AAA. And over the years, I've kind of changed what I think successful member of AA means, but in general, not in general but I've never known a successful member of AA who drinks or takes chemicals so that was my basic goal and I've wanted to be a success in AA all along in fact when I came in they talked a lot about stick with the winners stick withthe winners I thought well, if I want to bea winner I better stick withthewinners I better know what one is I remember asking Chuck C who was sober about 110 years or so and I said what's a winner and I was surprised that he had to think for a minute before he answered me and then he said well I guess you have to die sober to be a winner you haveto die sober and I thought die sober that doesn't sound very appealing to me I'd always planned on being a saint and I was made a big deal out of becoming a saint in fact I got a hold of the book Lives of the Saints to pick out different ones I was going to get the one that was going be my role model and I Was picking out various saints that I was gonna use as a role model so I could become a saint and then I found out that the final requirement for being a Saint was you had to be dead for 300 years and I thought well screw that I lost my sainthood right there getting accolades after I'm dead has never appealed to me and so I decided I was going to be a successful member of AA and I set out to do that and do the things that I needed to do one of the things I find as I said earlier in AA we just don't drink it's just to make a big deal out if we don't drink. We don't drink no matter what happens. In fact, we don'T drink no matter what doesn't happen. We don'T drink when we're happy. We don' drink when we're sad. We just don't drink. In fact we're kind of noted for not drinking. And I haven't had a drink even when I deserve to drink. I haven't had a drink I haven'T even had an occasional social drink I just haven'T had anything to drink it's the longest I've ever gone without a drink in fact I don'T think I'd be standing here with 28 years of sobriety if I'd had even an occasional drink I think that not drinking has had a lot to do with my survival. But there seemed to be so much more to the program than just not drinking. I've had, one of the things I've done, in fact, when I'm done in Texas, I'm indebted to some people in Texas. Somebody out here had put up pages of questions and discussion to set a group up to study the first 164 pages of the book and to do the steps when you come to them. It's not a step study, it's a step do-it. And I got some of those mimeograph pages and there were pages missing, questions missing, typos and all that and I converted it into a pamphlet and I distribute the pamphlets free to anybody that wants it and then wants to make a group and wants to study the first 364 pages of the book and do the Steps and to then make a donation if they want to or the group to make a donation but the point is that being involved in fact I've printed 17,000 of them so far but in being involved in that I have redone all the steps to the best of my ability on an average it turns out not by plan but an average of every five years and every time I've done that I've moved to a new plateau a new level in my sobriety and many times it's come up where somebody's really in distress not drinking but really all screwed up and I suggest they redo all the steps and they always it seems like they respond just the same as I have it's worked out very well what I thought it seemed like the most common thing is somebody's really depressed and I said I identify with that I love being depressed depression has a lot of redeeming social value to it it narrows life down so much all those problems disappear and it just comes right down to this me really simplifies life for myself I have a hard time distinguishing between depression and self-pity but I love being depressed in fact I heard something the other day I didn't hear something I have it on good authority that however you feel when you kill yourself that's how you're going to feel all through eternity so don't kill yourself on a bad day wait for a real good day that may be the best practical advice you'll get out of this whole talk but one of the things I don't have any problems as a result of drinking because they don't drink doesn't mean I don' t have problems I have lots of problems but the only problems I determine whether or not I have a problem I didn't know that but I alone decide whether or Not I have A problem it doesn't matter what you think it's what I think and I alone determine the size of my problem and I find that problems are very fickle they're very fickLE you have to give them all your attention stay right with them focus on them watch them they tell you if you think about this hard enough you'll think of the answer now keep thinking about it and then anything I think about it makes it grow my mind is a tremendous energy factory and it puts the energy out in a laser beam or a powerful search light in fact they can go through the dark and be searching around oh that's an interesting problem you've got there could I borrow it you know and your problem becomes my problem and I can just watch it grow just watch me watch it growth but what happens to me is somebody that I sponsor or I know we give out a phone number we live in the 714 area and the number is 240-3940 and somebody will call me with what they think is a problem and they think it's a big problem, it's just a little chicken problem but you can't say that you've got to say you have to listen there you have do active listening you have active listening, that's the latest thing active listening that means you ask questions oh and then what did you do and how did you feel about that oh and then what happened after that oh tell me more what else and you keep asking them questions until neither one of you can stand it anymore and then you give them the answer what's the answer pick a number from 1 to 12 and say work that step if it's the wrong number it doesn't matter they'll find that out and then they'll come back later and say oh I had the most wonderful conversation with him let you pick that number what is it four or five and they don't want to call back but you don't wanna work with people who don't call back anyhow which reminds me one of the most common things I find among people I'm working with is that they will they'll say to me somebody asked me to be their sponsor and I'll say well what did you say they said I said no I don't know enough about sponsorship and I said what the hell are you talking about I mean what do you want to do you want a job you want to go to sponsor school the way you learn how to be a sponsor is you sponsor people you don't have to go to school to learn how to go to AA you just come and do it and I said sponsoring is easy I mean mainly what you do is you listen to people you don't have to be profound you don' t have to know a lot of real clever answers you just listen to the people they'll ask you if they ask you a question you say yes or you say no and if they're just talking about something and they maybe they're calling from cloud nine they're real happy and you you have to say something so you say really yeah yes no really and if you don't you don' t want to say really too often and they're really high you can always say wow really no yes no really wow and then if you want to be sound profound if they ask if they asked a question and you don''t or if you haven''t been paying attention of what they've been saying. You can always say, whatever. It's my sponsor's favorite word. He says, whatever, and if he feels real talkative, he'll say, well, whatever you know. I remember, I don't know what Tim brings this up, but I remember I thought a sponsor was somebody that would listen to my problems of how difficult it is to live with Max now that I'm not drinking. if I couldn't drink over it and somebody needed to know how difficult it is and I would call him up to tell him and I must have called him on a bad day or something because I'd hardly gotten started at all and he interrupted me and he said why don't you put it out of your mind a couple of days and see what happens and I said Jack Jack a couple de days I'll forget all about it you can't ignore problems that's like I say somebody calls me on the phone they're talking by the time I go back to my problem it's gone or it's melted down problems are fickle if you don't stick right with them they'll leave they'll go find somebody that will give them the attention they deserve by God when I have a problem I get to I turn it over to the committee in my head and that's the worst thing I can do with it because they love to work on problems I don't know how you're I don' t know how you think but I think by somebody talking to me they're talking I mean I was going to say if I'm awake I hear the talking but if I'm asleep they're still talking I mean they talk and talk and talk this is all time talk and talk and talk talk and talk in fact at night I'll lie down I'll be tired I'll lay down my body my body when I lie down go to sleep my brain will say no let's lie here and talk about it for a while you know or even in the three four o'clock in the morning you know they'll say hey wake up we need to talk to you we've had an emergency meeting you know that situation you thought you handled so well today it wasn't like that at all I mean they're really ticked off at you wait a morning you'll find out and I think I don't want to listen to that stuff and I'll roll over and go back to sleep and just as I'm about to lose consciousness I'll think boy I'm sure glad I'm not thinking about that anymore and then the voice in my head oh I'm glad you're still awake you know let's spend the rest of the night lying here making lists of stupid things you have done you know not a good time to take a fourth step in fact that's one of the biggest things in my recovery is getting learning to get along well with all those people in my head there's a whole bunch of them up there and uh i've had had the they have two sides of every question up there in fact it's that's what even now i'm talking to you i'm trying to talk make some kind of sense and have some orderly progression and one of them out there will make a suggestion of something i'll talk about and before i can get to it another one will suggest something else that i'll tell about and and before and then the next thing is a third one will have another thing and pretty soon they're fighting back and forth among themselves as to what I should be talking about and it's very distracting for me to talk to you and have them chattering away back there fighting at then I think shut up up there you know and they all shut up and I can't think of anything to say I think one of the greatest discoveries of my recovery is that I find that I have a choice of who I listen to up there. There's one of them up there that his answer to any situation, whether it's a happy occasion, sad occasion, crowded occasion, lonely or hot or cold or whatever, funeral, wedding, anything, whatever, it's always the same. Let's have a drink. And every time he took a drink, we all got drunk. But it used to sound like an order from God or something. Now I say, well, thank you for participating. Now if you sit down, we'll call on somebody else. He's not the only one with impractical suggestions. I mean, God, a lot of the stuff they suggest is illegal and lewd. I'm glad you don't have to listen to what I have to listening to. On and on. But I don't, I don' t have to follow everything. that's a very important thing for me to know I don't have to follow those suggestions in fact my relationship for instance with Max is my relationship with Max does not depend on what she does my relationship with Max depends on who in my head I listen to who is talking about what Max does there's a guy up there he really doesn't care that much for Max he doesn't and and and he's been watching her as long as long as I've known her he's seen her he's just been watching her and telling me what she's doing. Did you notice the tone of voice in which she was just speaking to you? Does that woman know who she's talking to? What kind of a man would put up with that kind of crap? But there's another one up there just as obsessed with Max. I've been watching all the time. and he thinks she's just terrific he thinks she has a great sense of humor he thinks she has a very spiritual program he thinks it's great the way she's been so involved in Al-Anon he likes to remind me that she kept going to meetings both Al-Alanon and AA before I got sober and he tells me all kinds of great things about her and it's just and my relationship with Max depends as I said not on Max it depends on which of those two people I listen to and I have a choice you don't have a choice if you don' t know you have a choice this makes a big difference to me as to who I listen to and I had to be very careful of that somebody said early in the program AA stands for altered attitudes AA stands for altered attitudes And my life always was, my attitude always was based on what was happening in my life as interpreted by the guy up there who sees the bad in everything. In fact, the law of appreciation says that there's good and bad in every person, place, thing, situation, institution or whatever. It's both good and Bad. on people there's nobody I've never met anybody and they're so good that there isn't some bad in them and I've never met anyone so bad that there is no whole lot of good in them my life depends on what I look at do I look to the good and watch it get gooder or do I focus on the bad and watch you get better that's a choice My attitude depends on which of those choices I make. And my life depends on that, because if I have a good attitude, my life changes to fit my attitude instead of the way it used to be where my attitude was a reflection of what was going on. It's like somebody said, it's hard to have a bad day with a good one. It's hard not to have good day with bad attitude. And it's harder to have bad day with good attitude. and attitudes don't cost anything so you might as well choose a good one and it's been an important part of my recovery Father Barney used to come down from the Washington area and put on retreats for AAs and Al-Anons until he died I have no idea what he's been doing since, but he liked to break sobriety down into different categories. In fact, he said sobrietry was like a baseball diamond. That first base was physical sobriety. Second base was mental sobriery. Third base was emotional sobrietry. And home plate was spiritual sobrieting. And I liked that. I thought, I like that. In fact, I'd like to add marital sobrieto, financial sobriete. But I like breaking it down into segments. Just like taking life a day at a time, I liked breaking sobriety down into pieces. It seems to me that in fact I wonder, well how did I get to first base because I didn't ask for that really and there must have been some spiritual quality to that. Somebody pointed out the obvious. They said you can't get to first place without starting at home plate. I see the steps as on that diamond that the first step is right after we get physical sobriety and the second step came to believe that power of greater self could restore us to sanity was right at the second base mental sobriery and I see the rest of the steps on the rest of that diamond and I see us as spending our entire time in recovery on that diamond and always in motion we are either moving further and further into spiritual sobriety or we are consciously or more likely unconsciously drifting back you don't stand still is it getting better or getting getting worse i uh i like that concept i I was told early in sobriety that I have a disease and it's following me and it'll always be there and I have no way of knowing how far behind me it is but I know if I stop, stand still long enough or move back in that direction it'll catch me and then I'll know where it is I'd rather just stay ahead of it than not know how far back I like to do plenty to stay away from that. I have a disease which says I react abnormally to the drug alcohol. I can't take one drink without getting drunk. And I know that if I took a drink and didn't get drunk, I'd know I could drink and not get drunk so I'd drink until I got drunk. And that's not so... You know, if that's all there was to it, I'd just not drink. but more important than the fact that I would get drunk if I drank is the fact that I of myself can't keep from taking a drink so I need the steps I need sponsorships I need a book and I need my higher power I have a great relationship with my higher powerful today he and I are good friends and what brought my mind to it but I we're talking about this morning we were talking about love and I remember in the program I've never liked the idea of keeping saying to somebody I love you, I love who somehow that didn't but I was asking different people in a program what love meant to them I remember Don G. saying that love was an active concern for another person's welfare an active concern and in fact I remember one night calling up Chuck say and I said what's your definition of love and he almost yelled at me he says it's the same thing at 11 o'clock in the morning is that 11 o clock at night and I did yeah but what is it he says this action bang and he hung up And I was like, God, what a crabby old fool he is. But somebody said, love is making the other person feel important. Love is making another person feel importante. I thought, gee, I like that. I like That. Because we do that in AA. We make the newcomer feel important because they are important, but we make them feel important, and we make each other feel important We treat each other as if they were important because they are important because our sobriety depends on them and that. So I thought, I like that, I Like that. And they talk about taking the program home. And Elsa, I don't know why that reminds me, but Elsa C. used to say that when you have two programs, AA and Al-Anon, it's like two railroad tracks, separately but together, going in the same direction. With all those meetings as ties, holding them together. But anyhow... What was I talking about? I wasn't listening, were you? No? Talking about love, thank you. Taking the program home. Somebody was listening. Let's give them a hand. taking the program home and I thought I could do that with Max I could make Max feel important and I though Max likes to wake up well that's not true Max hates to wake up but when she wakes up she likes to wake up to a hot cup of coffee now that's not quite true either she doesn't like hot hot coffee and she hates cold hot coffee but she likes hot coffee with two ice cubes that haven't quite melded yet it's important that they haven't melded because if they haven't melted then she doesn't know if you put them in there and then she has to call me did you put the ice cubes in this coffee so she likes two ice tubes with a couple of you but two ice cubes that haven't quite milled it yet and I get up I getup before Max does the whole world gets up before Max and I take care of our two Alla dogs Lily and Sabrina now i go into my computer and i write a letter to god i do automatic writing dear god here we go again let's see what you can do with this one and i can write as fast as i can don't worry about grammar don't worried about spelling nobody's going to read it anyway and don't think about just keep writing and i do if i have a problem and i'd do that very commonly very very very commonly the answer will come to me before i'm through writing or maybe later that day or i'll awaken with the answer the next morning i get a lot of answers just by automatic writing but basically what i tell them you you make happen today whatever you want to have happen you have come into my life whoever you want have come in to my life today you have them say whatever you wanted to have them stay and you haven't do whatever you're wanting to do and whatever happens today and whoever comes into my life and whatever they say and do i'll know that's your will for me this day now you go have a good day and if you have a good day I'll have a good day and I'll pedal and you steer and for God's sake watch where you're going I don't like some of the places we've been and then it's about time for Maxie to wake up and so I go to make her coffee and she doesn't like brewed coffee and she says she doesn' t like coffee as a matter of fact but she likes the caffeine she said she must become a drug addict she likes a cup of coffee but she doesn''t like the taste of coffee so you don't brew the coffee you take the coffee out of a hot water dispenser a water dispensor is they have a thicket over here a handle over here and a spigot and it dispenses hot water at just the right temperature for putting two ice cubes in it you have to hire a man to install it there's a tank underneath the sink and a thickets over here you have drill a hole about that big in the stainless steel sink that replaces the perfectly good white porcelain sink that was there. You put about three-quarters teaspoonful of Yuban instant coffee in the bottom of a cup and you put a lot of cream aura, powdered cream, lots of that. A whole tablespoon for that one. And you put it in and then you run the water in the thing and you keep turning it like this, swishing it like that to mix it up. You don't use the spoon because then it'll be wet if she wants another cup. You swish it around. You have to swish around because she doesn't like it if it cakes at the bottom. And you have to be careful not to swash it too hard or it'll go over the edges and it'll get down on the bottom of the bottle and the cup will be wet. Or you don't want to fill it too full either because you're going to have to leave space to drop the two ice cubes in. And you don' t plunk them in. you have to slide them in so it doesn't touch any of the sides of things. And after you get the ice cubes in then you have to get the whipped cream out and you put whipped cream on top of that and then you sprinkle a little cinnamon on the top of it and then you walk the coffee into the darkened bedroom and be very careful where you walk because it's painful in your bare feet to walk on high-heeled shoes that are laying there. And you get up to the bedside stand, and you don't look for a bare spot. You just look for an elevated spot. And you want to be really careful walking along the side of the bed because those glossy magazines are real slippery. and you set the coffee down and you don't cheat now you just walk out of the room and hope she wakes up before the ice cubes melt now all of that is the easy part the hard part is you don' t dare hope she will appreciate it Because if you expect any appreciation, it's not love, it is barter. Choksi always said, love is for free and for fun, expecting nothing in return. It's just for free, and for a fun, and expecting nothing, and return. Pretty harsh rule, it seemed to me, but you can't expect her to appreciate it. Max is very cooperative, she never appreciates it. I'll teach her to pick on me when she talks like she did yesterday let me obviously I'm having so much fun up here I may stay all day doing this that is one of the stupidest things you've done in a long time a flawed and alcoholic at a podium no but the point is that my I'm impressed with the fact that the change in my life when I accepted the fact that I was a mild alcoholic in fact I was looking at somebody showing me a computer program where you put data in the computer with this program and it makes a graph out of it makes a pie graph or bar graph really a dramatic program and I thought if I had a giant computer and all the facts and put it in the story of my life or my life in that computer what kind of a graph would it make and I decided it would make a giant V a giant V that my life started way, way over there and it's going to end way, away, way, over there but from where it started until July 31st 1967 it was on a downhill course now it wasn't a straight line down it was up and down just enough ups to keep me confused but it kept coming down until I ended up in the nut ward of the hospital I was on a staff of. And that wasn't bad enough. I had to go to AA. And after seven months of AA, I accepted the fact that I, through some cosmic error or got somebody else's disease by mistake, or somehow I was a mild alcoholic. And my life since that point has been getting better and better and better and it's better than it's ever been and as far as I can tell there's no limit to how high that can go yeah the only limit is how high that can be how high I can go is how long I can stay around doing the things I'm doing that's keeping on an upward course again it's not a straight line up it's up and down up and up but even when it's down there are a lot of things I can do to get it to go back up and even if I don't do anything to get to go back up it's going to go back up like Winnie Eddy used to say, the Bible says, and it came to pass. The Bible doesn't say, and It came to stay. But it's going to get better. And as long as I keep doing the things I'm doing. And I like that. But what amazes me is that one act of acceptance. I accepted that one reality of my life. and as I see it the more I resisted that reality of my life the worse it got and the more I accept it the better it gets to me it's like the power of acceptance the tremendous power of acceptance in fact I get to thinking about what's non-acceptance what would be the word for I'm not going to accept that. To me, the only thing I can think of is non-acceptance means like bitching, whining, complaining, resenting, victim role, all negative things. In fact, it seems to me like the most ultimate of non- acceptance would be suicide. I'll show you, I'll kill me. to me the only sensible choice seems to be to accept life and watch things get better rather than to watch them get worse acceptance isn't a perfect answer because it's so impermanent I can be totally accepting one minute at a meeting and be totally non-accepting on the freeway half hour later and also it's not transferable I can really accept this but not that by God but it really changed the course of my life I often wonder what life would be like if I accepted without seeking approval that's the problem I always have I'm not going to accept that because I don't approve of it In fact, I think that's the answer to my dilemma with alcoholism. I didn't approve of me being an alcoholic. I didn' t approve of my being an alcohoic, therefore I wouldn't accept it. Finally, I was forced, through circumstances, to accept it, in spite of the fact that I didn' T approve of it. Now, today, I approve of i. Approval followed acceptance rather than preceding it. and it seems to be that way with so much of life God, I sound like I'm getting so profound I may levitate here at any minute again, that acceptance also helps me with my business of attitude I like an attitude of optimistic acceptance in fact, I think that's what's going to happen my guess is that when we die I've always been told that when we die have a pre-admission interview with St. Peter and he asks whether you've been good or bad I don't think they'd tell us that if it weren't true but I've never met anybody that's been there I think my theory is that if we do have a free admission interview with St.-Peter before we get in he's not going to ask have you been good are bad he already knows that he knows i haven't been i think what he's going to ask is what was your predominant mood down there and if you think mood mood what do you want me to say guilty no no no he says i know you've been told that we're very obsessed with guilt up here but we're really not. What we are obsessed with is what your predominant mood is. This is a place, as you know, of happiness, peace, and joy. Disgruntled, unhappy, resentful, victimized, whiny people we have a special place for them as a matter of fact you're standing right over the trap door with that in mind what was your predominant mood down there my theory is we're supposed to enjoy life whether we like it or not thank you all very much Thank you for watching.