Fr K. – The Cunning Baffling Power of Church Wine – 2005

I am very proud to give to you our speaker tonight from Sterling, Oklahoma, Larry Kaye. There is a town in England that had a wisdom that most of us in the United States lack. And they foresaw 50 years ago that we were going to have severe environmental problems. And they had an all-day town meeting and instantly saw the combustion engine as the main cause of all their problems. It would pollute the air and everything else, and they banned it. That was instant. And from that day to this, no car, no bus, no cycle, nothing with a combustion engine has been allowed in that town. Even tourists can't drive through. The biggest part of the day was settling on how they were going to get around there. And they debated the pros and cons of every other possible means. And they decided to use the transportation. At the end of the day, exhausted, they settled on the means for 50 years that they've used, and they use it right today. And that is, they settled on the donkey. This was going to be the way people would get from one place to another. And of course, transportation for all of us is a real important part of living. We've got ourselves to get from place to place and a lot of burdens. So any mode of transportation, once settled on, becomes real important to a town. So if you ever visit there, you'll see the road. You'll see that because of the importance of the donkey, everybody has their own. If you look carefully enough, you really get up close and look, you'll see that every old man has his own ass. Every old lady has her own ass. Young gals have asses. I don't know if you've noticed them. Young guys have asses. Now, because this is the only thing they've got, people are always pushing their ass and pushing their ass. And if you drive your ass too hard, it's going to break. It's going to break down on you. Now think about life without an ass. I don't know if you've ever stopped and considered it, but it's exceptionally unpleasant. So you borrow somebody else's ass. In your whole life, has anybody else's ass ever moved fast enough for you? So you try to encourage them to move a little faster. Now people don't like to have their ass kicked in public. This leads to a lot of fights. Because they need it so much, there's a lot of peddling ass in the town. It's just going on all the time. Young gals are the same. A young gal will park her ass where it doesn't belong, and the local cop has to come along and pinch it. Once a year, everybody parades their ass in public. And they pick the best looking ass in town. Now I don't know if you've ever been into asses, but there really is a difference to them. They come in a wide variety of shapes and everything else. And once they've picked the best looking ass, politicians are the same everywhere you find a local mayor kissing ass for votes. Sunday morning, everybody hauls their ass off and they go to church. In the middle of the Sunday morning, that leads to the story I'm sharing with you, right in the middle of the Catholic Mass, an earthquake hit the town. And everybody ran out of the church to save their ass. Except for the priest. He had tied his ass to a tree on the side of the church. And those windows were broken. And he hoped just to jump through the window and land on his ass. What he didn't know is that's exactly where the main hole of the earthquake was. And he fell in it by mistake. Proving that even a priest cannot tell his ass from a hole in the ground. I'm Larry Kowalski. I'm an alcoholic. I also do happen to be a Catholic priest who cannot tell his ass from a hole in the ground. Being Polish probably helps. I'm not dressed like one, I don't look like one, and I don't act like one. But I am one. I run three mission parishes in Oklahoma. I'm a little bit nervous because I plan to share a little bit lighter than I normally do. And I hope at the same time to cover the bases of the real important things I'd like to share from my heart to yours. But this is New Year's Eve. And there's something in the big book and the family afterward that I particularly enjoy. It says, we aren't a glum lot. If newcomers could see no joy or fun in our existence, they wouldn't want it. We absolutely insist on enjoying life. And then a little bit down further it says, So we think cheerfulness and laughter make for usefulness. We are sure God wants us to be happy, joyous, and free. Most of us have New Year's Eve memories of pain. Some people are brand new facing their first New Year's Eve. We really don't belong here. A group of alcoholics who are sober, gathering together to stay sober, and to try to be happy and to dance on New Year's Eve, really doesn't make sense medically, and it doesn't make sense in the history of mankind, and it doesn't make sense in our own histories. And yet we want to be joyful at the same time. And so what I plan to do this evening is walk through the steps. And I'm going to go lightly through them. And as I go through them, I'm going to look at them as I continue to need them in my continuing sobriety, for the most part. And try to introduce them in a variety of different ways, starting off with something that's humorous for each of the steps. And the first step really for me is, I couldn't tell my ass from a hologram. And for me this really means, it's the second part of the first step, I couldn't manage my own life. I could not put in my life trying my best what I needed to be at peace with myself. And I tried my best. When I came into this program, I had had 12 years of college, almost all of it straight A's. And that's no bragging, because I couldn't run my own life. And that's really important for me to see. I've picked up a lot of wisdom in this program. I've had the pleasure of listening to countless fifth steps. I really can't tell you how many. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. And I've seen patterns, and I've learned a lot. And I can really listen to you and help you and start seeing patterns in your life. And one of the most interesting things in the world comes when I started sponsoring. I watched the people I sponsor running full steam off a cliff, shouting, Isn't the view grand? And you ought to reach over and grab the little SOBs by the collar right before they dangle off. And haul them back. And it fascinated me to see my own sponsor running full steam off a cliff. And I see his sponsor just grab them by the collar at the last moment. And there he's saying, Isn't the view grand? And I wonder, why am I the only person who doesn't do this? And all of a sudden, you know, I feel a tug on my collar. I can't run my own life. And I really mean that. Now, we differ as alcoholics. But I belong to the group that more Al-Anons can identify with. The group of alcoholics who feel we don't have a right to exist. I feel guilty for being. I don't have to do things to feel guilty. I can feel guilty just for being. And so, tomorrow is a constant anxiety. Yesterday is a complete guilt. Because if you don't have a right, it's like I stand on the middle of the ocean. There are a lot of you who just feel you have a right to be. You can stand on firm ground. But those of us who don't feel this way. It's like standing on the ocean because I don't have a right to exist. I'm guilty for everything I've done. And how can I face the future with any kind of confidence? Because I don't have a right to even be here. I can't concede. So I've got to be perfect just to breathe. With less guilt. I didn't feel a part of my own family. I was born in a loving family. But I just didn't fit inside their circle. I was a nomad in my own family. I didn't have my own room. Through a real weird series of circumstances, I've really not fit anywhere for the whole first part of my life. I lived outside a Polish ghetto and I went to school in the ghetto. There was nobody my age in the neighborhood. I was forced to pal around with a three or four year old older brother who really convinced me that I was physically ugly. And I've carried deep feelings of ugliness and couldn't picture my own face until I was 11 years sober. When I was at a conference like this and somebody was singing the Our Father and for the first time, 45, 46, 47 years old, I'm 48 right now, years old, I pictured my face. And it was one of the most powerful things I've ever seen. It was one of the most powerful things in my life. Because of the love I felt and the fellowship, at that brief moment, I didn't feel so ugly that my mind rejected my looks. And it's a strong set of feelings with me. I grew up then feeling ugly, feeling guilty. At the age of 14, I really, at the age of 16, I was sure that I would spend the last days of my life permanently committed in a mental hospital. Because normal people didn't have the feelings I have and do the things I do again and again and again. They didn't live that way. And I really don't think I was wrong without this program. And I hadn't started drinking or drugging yet. I just didn't belong anywhere. And I found alcohol and I used drugs as a backup. And they worked in different ways. Alcohol was a bridge to the world. When I took a drink, I didn't feel ugly. Now, my feelings were so deep, I didn't feel good looking. But I felt like there was an electric glow inside me that would make you want me around. Not attractive, but glowing. And I didn't feel guilty. It was this same glow. You would want me with you. And the crazy thoughts went. And alcohol honestly not only changed me, it changed my perception of you. I felt that I was on an island. And this is a good example. And you were there. And the whole world was having a picnic. And I was by myself. And I was afraid to make the leap. And you didn't want me. Now, when I took a drink, you didn't want me. When I took a drink, you opened your arms. And I saw this the last time I shared, for the first time ever. The first group in my entire life that right down to today I honestly felt a part of was a group that I started drinking with when I was 18 years old in a bar. I wasn't an outsider hanging on on the fringe of that group without them really accepting me. I was accepted by that group. And when I took a drink, I bridged to you. Drugs operated in my life and in the lives of many people in a slightly different way to handle the same problem. When I did my drugs, and they were back up for me, my drug of choice is very clearly alcohol. When I did my drugs, it was okay to be alone on my island by myself. And I would do drugs in public. But I didn't want to talk about it. But I didn't want to talk to people. I didn't want to associate with people. I pulled into a me and it was okay to be me. So they had different effects. Incidentally, I have an Al-Anon personality and three or four years sober, my Al-Anonism exploded. And my solution to the same basic problems from my Al-Anonism is to bring somebody on my island with me who will stay with me. Now when I'm sick, the only person who's going to stay with me is someone even sicker. And I've got to keep them dependent on me. I've got to keep them sick. And I built some very unhealthy relationships that way until 11, 12 years sober I started really seeing where health comes from. Three different solutions from the programs we have here. I'm also a compulsive overeater. God willing, if I can make it to January 24th without a snack, it'll be 10 years that I've been abstinent in the OA program through that program. And it's just a fabulous thing. I went from a 31 waste to a 36 waste in four months. Same kind of thing. A lot of pain in here. I just stuff it with food. The one thing though that OA does, it just makes you feel that the rest of the world hates you all the more. I could eat a peanut and I would feel like the Goodyear blimp. And just felt you hated me more and so I would need more food to stuff myself because of the hatred you have. And it's just a real snowball. Alcohol stopped working. I drank and I felt ugly. I drank and I felt guilty. I drank and I felt crazy. I got drunk, but I wasn't working where it was needed. The drunkenness was okay, but it wasn't doing the things here. And at that point it started tearing down the bridges. And I started retreating. I drank in the world originally and I ended up drinking alone. I blacked out all the time. I had the shakes. I stole every cent that was in the poor fund of the first Catholic church I was for three years. I lied. I cheated. I steal. I didn't steal the money for alcohol or drugs. I had constant guaranteed supplies. Much of the money I stole was to take care of some of the deep sexual problems I had had. And again, it's just a different extension of alcoholism. Think about it. Cancer keeps a person from working first, keeps a person from taking care of their family responsibilities second, keeps a person from taking care of their own hygiene third, and the person gets nothing but sympathy because of it. Alcoholism, another terminal disease, keeps a person from working first. It keeps a person from taking care of their family responsibilities second, keeps a person from taking care of their personal hygiene third, and the person gets nothing but sympathy because of it. We get nothing but shame from ourselves and from the world. We have a disease that's really heavy. We have a disease. And I had that disease and it affected every area of my life. It affected when I was drinking and when I wasn't drinking. Those things ran through my mind. Now, I stopped drinking. And please hear this if you're new. You take the alcohol out of the life of the alcoholic, you leave the alcoholism. Alcohol was not my problem. It was when I came here because I had lost control. Alcohol for most of my life was the only solution to my problem that ever worked. And those of you who are only Al-Anon may never understand that. We're not hurting when we're drugged. We're hurting when we're not drugged. And simply getting your son or your daughter off drugs or off alcohol may not be doing them a favor. I know somebody who six years sober put a shotgun in his mouth and blew his head off because he couldn't live with his alcoholism. He had no solution for it. The first step by itself just leaves me in pain. There's got to be an answer. There was a bishop who had absolutely no memory for names. And he was invited to give a lot of testimonials at a dinner for a priest of his who had been made a bishop. And he's wondering, how am I going to handle all the names of the people I've got to introduce? And somebody said, it'll be real simple. Write them all on your lapel. So he figures that's pretty good. I'll do that. So he starts off and he says, it gives me, it's a real honor for me to be here. At this testimonial dinner for Bishop John Murphy, who served me so well as secretary along with Monsignors Duffy and Dewey in the service of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I like that because I've got to believe in a power and I don't have to know the name of the power. I really don't have to be able to name the power that's working for me. I came here with a problem and the problem is alcoholism. It was intensified by alcohol. When the alcohol was taken out, the alcoholism remained. And the alcoholism continues to remain in my life. And I personally believe the longer we're sober, the more desperate we need the second step. Because when I was one year sober, I honestly felt by my fifth birthday I wasn't going to have any faults anymore. A guy five years sober told me how he had a fight with his wife and threw a salt shaker at her and I couldn't believe it. That can't happen five years sober. Believe you me, it sure as hell can. Twelve and thirteen years sober, you ought to see the pouts I can get into. I believe in constantly updating my inventory. Every two years I start with the last fourth step I've done right from that day to the present and go share it. And I've just finished the last update. Normally I looked at all the major areas of my life. This year the inventory ran itself. And I believe when I start doing something to let God direct. And the inventory just went into relationships and it opened my eyes. I haven't been able to relate. I had a very sick mother. My father stepped out of the picture. I haven't been able to relate with a father and mother. My brother was so cruel he controlled my sister. My choices as a child growing up were to be with my brother and my mother. To be with my brother and my sister and get pain. Or to be alone. And living alone, lonely, lonely as it was, was less painful than being with other people. And I still prefer to be that way. My natural instinct is to run home, pull the shades down, close the door and stay there. And fortunately I've seen somebody in my family who's living that exact pattern right now. And I was able to see one of the most shriveled people that I've met in my life. So I know what's waiting me if I take the safe route. But now I'm 48 years old and I don't know how to relate at all. My early relationships were all my people. I called friends, I just discovered in the last three months when I looked at relationships. My early friends through college were hero worship people. I would look at people who had what I didn't have. They were athletic. I didn't consider them ugly. They had charm. They had stud value. I never considered myself having any sex appeal at all. About five years ago I started snow skiing. One of the things back in those days that I most loved is when a guy put on those heavy boots and walked around the ski house. If you've ever been skiing, everybody looks like John Wayne. You can't be non-macho in those heavy boots. And then about last year or two years ago they came out with these light boots and I was walking again. It was comfortable but I lost my stud. I just have got brand new, much more expensive boots that are heavy. And let me tell you, you meet me in the Warman house and you're going to meet a stud. And I'm going to strut and I'm going to like it. Because it does something that I don't feel I could do. I would pick people who had these qualities. And I thought they were my friends. I was just worshipping people above me. And anybody who liked me I wouldn't even look at. They were nothings. I had a little set of about three or four groupies who tried to get my friendship in high school. And I just ran them right off. And people have just always overlooked me. So I'm 13 years sober, 48 years old and I don't know how to form a relationship. A relationship for me is I'm in my little castle. I see you. There's something about you I like. I let the drawbridge down. I come running over. I touch you. I go running back to Sterling, Oklahoma. Pull the drawbridge up and I call that a relationship. And that isn't. Now am I going to be stuck this way? And the second step is a challenge. It doesn't deal with sobriety. It deals with so much more. It starts with sobriety. But it offers sanity. And sanity is wholeness. And the second step is a challenge for me to believe that there's a power out there. That there's a power in here. That's going to enable me someday to be whole as a person. Now for me, since my God is love, that means I'm going to be able to love everything that I am. And I need to believe that. I need to believe that at some time in my existence it isn't going to just stay this way. And the sooner I believe that and the stronger I hope, and don't give in and lower my sights, I think the sooner that day is going to come along. There were some new students in medical school. First day. And they were getting introduced to everything. And they were being told that they were going to have to be very observant, notice everything, do everything, and carry everything with them. And that a lot of them weren't going to be here. And there was a lot of demands going to be placed upon them. And he said, for example, We have here a little vial of urine. And you're just going to have to become familiar with it. Notice I dip my finger in it and lick it. Now I'm going to pass this through the whole class. You all got to do the same. And they couldn't believe it. And he said, I'm serious. And he started passing the glass around. And they started dipping their fingers and gagging. And people would run out and retch. And you know, it was always a holy mess. When the vial finished going through the whole class, he said, you've learned your first lesson. I told you to be observant. I dipped my index finger and licked my middle finger. You didn't. There was a millionaire who was one of the worst cruds life has ever seen. Never did anything good in his life except one day walking down the streets of Phoenix, this poor, poor, poor bum was so desperate, he grabbed onto the millionaire's legs and wouldn't let him go. Until finally the guy reached in his pocket, found the diamond, threw it to the bum, and then walked in. The millionaire died, went up to the pearly gates, and Peter checked the book, and it's red, red, red over this side. Gave a dime to a bum. Scratches has said, no, wait a second, I don't know how to handle this. And he goes in and says, Lord, we got this. He's a real rat, one of the worst we've ever had up here. Did nothing good in his whole life, but except one day he gave a bum a dime. What should we do? The Lord said, simple. Give him back his dime and tell him to go to hell. It takes actions. The third step for me deals with actions and following directions. Made a decision to turn my life and my will over to the care of God. My third step has nothing to do with what I feel, nothing to do with what I think. My third step deals with my having a sponsor who is God's power brought into my life. As a priest, I really didn't think that. I didn't think that. I didn't believe in God when I came here. You don't steal every cent in the poor fund and believe in God at all. I was praying and getting drunk all the time. I didn't have a God, and so it was easier for me to find a God. And I prefer to sponsor atheists and agnostics. I shudder when a Catholic or a Christian comes to me because they're going to bring all that damn baggage, and the second they start experiencing a God, they're going to try to force God into the molds that he didn't have. You're not going to let him show himself or herself. They're going to try to force God right into what he's doing. They're going to try to force God right into where he doesn't really fit very often. Anyway, God's power came to me through the program, through a sponsor, and still does. The third step deals with my going to my sponsor and doing everything he tells me. It doesn't make any difference why I do it. If right now this building erupted in flames right in the middle, and you're over in a corner, it doesn't make any difference why you take the steps to the door through the flames. Whether it's fear, bravery, saving someone else, if you take the steps, you take the steps, and when you reach the door, you're there. I did the fourth and fifth steps so I could brag about them the first time in my AA talks. I did exactly what the book said, and I got exactly the promises on page 75 of the big book. Motives are absolutely unimportant here. I have done, in 13 years, every single thing I have been told to do, I still have an incomplete list from the last 10 years. I have done every single thing my sponsor has told me to do. I have not done it fast. I have not done it willingly. I have done it to prove them wrong. I have been mad when it worked the way he said it would. But I have done it. Motives aren't important. He walked up to me. He has a phrase. He said, Larry, I would like to offer something for your serious consideration. That means I'm going to get a free shoe up the butt. I want you to go home and write your relationship with one of the clubs in Oklahoma City. You've got a problem there. Come see me, and it's going to work out. I knew what the problem was. I knew exactly. I wasn't going to see anything. I started writing. Something came out after five pages that I didn't know. I got angry. I went to see him, and I thought it was all over. I shared with him, and I didn't know where I was coming from at all. He pointed out how I didn't have the problem with the club. I had a problem with a very strong woman who, for me, was a mirror of my mother. And I was just getting out a lot of the hatred for the pain I picked up from my mother in the house. I was just getting out a lot of the hatred for the pain I picked up from my mother in the house. I could never have seen that on my own. I went down to see him three or four months ago to do the update. And I hated myself that badly. I couldn't tell you. I was sure he was going to throw me out of his house. And I'm halfway through the inventory, and he stopped me. He says, Do you realize in 13 years, this is the first time you've ever seen a woman who's been so angry? And I said, No. I'm not angry. I'm just angry. I'm just angry. I'm just angry. I'm just angry. I'm just angry. I'm just angry. I'm just angry. I'm just angry. I'm just angry. I'm just angry. I'm just angry. I'm just angry. I'm just angry. I'm just angry. I said, Do you realize the first time you've ever come to me with an inventory, when you are not taking at all anybody else's inventory? And if he hadn't pointed that out, I never would have seen it. That is such growth. My first inventory had a Resentment List fifty-two pages long. My second inventory, two years drunk, it was down to about eighteen pages. Eight years sober, it was down to twelve pages. And people would get upset. And I saw remarkable progress here. Three or four months ago, I didn't have any resentment at all. I was looking totally inwardly, and for the first time I could see where I myself was at. That's just such a crucial thing and flows with the program. The fourth step deals with inventories. John and Lisa were very good at taking each other's inventories, and they had had this huge fight. He thought he would get revenge, and he went down to this cemetery to buy a plot. He went out to a monument maker and had a monument carved for him and for her. He put Lisa in it and carved her epitaph. Here lies Lisa, frigid as always. She heard about it, went down and saw the stone, and just got livid. He went down to see the monument carver. He came back the next day and carved, Here Lies John, rigid at last. now the fourth step does not deal with taking other people's inventories the fourth step deals with taking our own inventory and this society lady went to see this doctor and she says doctor i have this awful problem i pass gas very frequently thank god it makes no sound or has no odor can you help me he says i sure can take these pills and be back in a week week later there she is the doctor says how's it going she says doctor it's worse i'm passing gases frequently it now has a terrible odor still doesn't make any sound the doctor says now that we got your sinuses cleared it's time to start working on your hearing okay you i walked through i that's good it's a good joke for the fourth step i walked through life passing gas i thought made no sound and had no odor and it has taken a hell of a lot of inventories for me to see i'm just going to go through life What my inventory... You all like that one, huh? Where did we get to the dirty ones? It took a lot of inventories for me to grow. My first inventory just looked at what happened. Two years later, I update and I start seeing I relate with women in a very strange way. They fall into two groups. Some of them I don't consider at all, and others I'm just scared crapless of. Two years later, those that I don't consider are the cuddlers, because I can manipulate those. I've just got that good, sad, innocent look. The ones that scare me are the very, very strong domineering women who remind me of my mother. The next inventory told me that a strange phrase came out, and I've learned never, never cross out something that's writing. It's just there. What I wrote was, I'm afraid they're going to swallow me back into the womb. I'm really afraid somehow or other that these kind of women are going to cut me off from life. The next inventory went further and showed me that I have a problem of hating all authority, not just women authority, female authority, male authority. A week ago, I realized, to this day, I have never had a healthy relationship with any woman authority figure. I would not, could not. Maybe. I still don't think I'm there. I don't think I could take a woman therapist in any area. I remember going on a retreat seven years sober, and there would be two priests and a nun as spiritual directors. And we were told they were going to assign who we would go to. And I just wrote in and said, if it's the nun, I'll walk around, I'll walk off and leave. Now, the reason for that, please don't feel hurt. My mother, in her own sicknesses, if we went to her and bared anything, you'd get sympathy. But the next time she got angry and hatred would flash out at us, she would dig back. And she would go back into the personal things you told her and use them to hurt you deeply. And so, in a relationship, relationships, I saw that my relationship, inventories, my relationships were in shambles. But see, I was resenting so strongly that I saw the mess you did. And I could blame my shambled relationships on how screwed up you were. Only when I had worked through all that anger, and I don't blame, there's nothing wrong from my taking other people's inventories, because that's where I was at. It was getting the anger out so I could start seeing myself. And because I've done this for 12, 13 years, finally, I came to one inventory where I wasn't blaming anybody on earth for anything in my life. And for the first time, I had a look at those shambled relationships and take full credit for it. It takes a long, slow time, and I know there's a lot more growth. I keep thinking I've seen the big things. And it's astounding, every two years, when I look at just the last two years, I learn far more about my whole life, than I've learned up to that day. And it's a constant, never-ending thing that I've got to continue to learn in my sobriety. This, uh, now I'm Polish. So please, if you're Polish, don't take any personal offense. I feel free to tell Polack jokes. I enjoy them as long as people are telling them in humor. This, uh, Polack gal came home and she says, uh, Dad, I've got to get married. I'm pregnant. And he said, are you sure it's yours? Now that's a fifth step that wasn't listened to and believed. Three priests died. And they all went to heaven. And there was Father John. And, uh, Saint Peter says, John, one of the best priests we've ever had. He lived an exemplary life on earth. For your reward, you're going to get a brand new, I'll just stick with General Motors cars, so if any of you have any other dealerships, please don't feel hurt. You're going to get a brand new Cadillac every year for the rest of eternity to drive around. The next one was Father Walt. And Father Walt comes up and says, uh, Saint Peter says, well, you know, you had a few escapades down there. But all in all, you were a pretty good priest. And the last years of your life were really good. So you're going to get a one-year-old Buick every year. A new one-year-old Buick. And you can drive that around in eternity. And then comes up Father Larry. And he says, well, you hanky-panky, you stowed, you lied, you cheated, you drugged, you did everything. But you repented right before you died. So you can have a 15-year-old Chevrolet to drive around every year all through eternity. The next year, you're going to get a Buick. And the next year, Mike and Walt are just having a great time. There they pass. Good old Larry. And he's happy as anything. And they flag him down. And they say, how come you're so happy driving around this old Chevy? And Larry says, I just saw the Pope and he's on roller skates. Now, if you read the 12 and 12, that's one of the benefits of the Fifth Step. find out that other people have done the same thing and sometimes worse. Clancy says, if they made a flag for us, it would be, but you don't understand, I'm different. And boy, I lived that. I'm different and you don't want me. And nobody else is like me. And those are the feelings I have. And they start building up inside me. Because I hated me, I hid everything I was from you, and I lived a camouflage. If you asked me to describe who and what I was, it was like one of those Hollywood streets where it's just a front and you walk through the door and there's nothing there, except behind that plush little street with all the nice-looking homes, when you walk through the door, you found a manure heap. And I, at one point, turned to friends to distract me from the emptiness of me. And as people started getting close, I didn't feel better. I felt worse because I could buffalo them from a distance. But when they got close, they were going to break through all those defenses and they were going to see everything about me that I just couldn't stand and everything I was doing. And if I'm going to be free and if I'm going to accept myself, I absolutely have to have the ability to take everything I am and just offer it to you and show it. To take it to one person, and then I can have the ability to reach into my past and tell you anything. I'm not telling you much. You're not hearing the X-rated version of my story. I told that twice from a podium under very strict circumstances when the people needed to hear it. You're not hearing the R-rated version of my story. I can share either of those stories with you. I'm not telling you much. I'm not telling you that. The only thing that really matters is that I can share with you the things that for 28 years of my life I never breathed to anybody. I can share with any single person that has a need. And I did this once in a relatively small Oklahoma town. I think it was in Montana. I think it was in Montana. I think it was in Montana. I think it was in 50,000 people, with a drug addict who had had some real, real woman who had really gone down into the gutter, and she couldn't live with where she was. And I went down into the gutter, and I matched her depth for depth, and told her that God had enabled me, through the programs of Alcoholics Anonymous and NA, to be at peace with myself. She didn't stay straight. She twisted off in a month. And about three months later, somebody comes up to me and dumps all this garbage right back on me, and listed the names of three real, prominent, good couples in the parish that the story had come through. I had about a 20-second panic, and I had about a minute, huge hate, and then I just relaxed. God doesn't guarantee that what I do in this program is going to stay secret. He guarantees that he will take care of me, and if anybody ever hears it, I'll be able to grow in peace. And I never had a moment's disturbance from that one on. I am open. I am as open as the date of my last, up to the date of my last fifth step. Anything that happened before that time, I am free to show you. By telling one person about it, I receive the freedom and the ability to share it with anyone and everyone who has a need. I can be myself. I don't have to be who you want me to be. I can be who I am. Now, for somebody who hated himself, for somebody who feels a guilt to be, that's just got to be a freedom that is just extraordinary. There was an Al-Anon, this is a local joke, anyway, I heard it from Gavin up in Oklahoma, so at least it comes in this area, who took the blame for every drunk her husband ever had, and she decided if she could just give him one good day, he wouldn't get drunk. So she's going to give him breakfast in bed and just got the whole day mapped out. So real gently she gets up, puts some delicate lights on in the room, some quiet music and shakes him. What do you want? I'd like to give you breakfast in bed if you don't mind. Okay. What would you like, honey? Coffee hot, orange juice cold, bacon crisp, bread warm, two eggs, one fried, one scrambled. You got it? Well, sure, honey. Tip, tip, tip, tip, tip. Fifteen minutes later, tip, tip, tip, tip, tip. The little tray comes down. See, honey, there's your coffee. It's steaming. It's hot. The orange juice glass is frosted and it's cold. Look at the butter melt on the toast. It's warm. You can see how crisp the bacon is. There's your eggs, one fried, one scrambled. He looked down and he slammed his fist. He says, you scrambled the wrong goddamn egg. I like that because the sixth step says entirely ready to have God remove the defects. That dude, and I identify with that. When I want to be mad, I am going to be mad. And there is Jesus Christ. Christ could not please me when I want to be mad. I mean that. I mean, it's in me. It's there and it's going to stay and I've got to get it out. But the sixth step challenges me to be ready not to work on my own defects. It doesn't deal with Larry removing. It deals with God removing. Now, as I told you, my God is a God of love. That means love removes my defects. The seventh step has a prayer. And it says, a defect is anything that keeps me from being useful to God or others. Not what I don't like. I don't like about myself. Now, if I'm going to be useful to God, I have to be able to accept what I am. I have a God of love. How does love remove defects? By loving. It took me a while to see that you don't accept me by traits. You don't see most of us schizo ourselves. I stand up here and I think you really ought to be accept the fact that I can really throw a lot of time into the AA program. I'm sponsoring about 20 people. Now, my standard for sponsorship is they're all supposed to call me once a week at a set time at least. And so Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday evenings, I get calls at 9.30, 10, 10.30, and 11 o'clock. I get up at 5 in the morning. I need a lot of sleep. And I'm going. And I hear fifth steps once or twice a week. And there's a lot of other things happening. I make my own four meetings. And, of course, if you're sponsoring 20 people, you've got two or so going crazy all the time. So there's lots of other calls coming through. I'll tell you that. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not going to. You know, I don't want you to know that at times I've been into heavy sex fantasies. And when people I've called have told me their problems, I've just pretended to listen. I'll tell you about the fact that I am really generous. And I'm a sweater nut. It's tied up with the skiing. I've got a collection of sweaters you don't believe. Once a year, I go through and I just weed out all my sweaters. I get the first one. Charity gets the second. I get the third. And fourth. Charity gets the fifth. I get the sixth, seventh, and eighth. Charity gets the ninth. I'll tell you that. I don't want to tell you I'm still charging things to the church. That I shouldn't. Sometimes big things. My sponsor really helped me see that when I update at this time. And I go through this. I come to you with traits. And you can like some and not like others. You don't do that. You deal with people. You accept me. You might think I do some strong, dumb things. But you accept me. And you're God's love made visible. And that helped me see God deals with people, not with traits. He doesn't deal with past events. Liking some of my past and rejecting others. He loves me in the now. And the sixth step is my just trying to end that splitting of myself into many parts. This is one of the most fabulous things for an experience for me in the whole program. Since I saw it about five years ago. The fifth, sixth step is just being Larry. And just being me. And that's all. And trying to stand as a simple person in God's love. And when I do this, defects go. I don't need them then. If I'm willing to be loved, defects go. I was. Five years sober. Had a hundred miles to drive. I don't often tell this story because it's just so different. But if you want to see the power of God's love and how not working on defects but letting God do it is the neatest way. I was smoking three packs of cigarettes a day. Pulled a cigarette out to light it. And I heard God speak. I've only heard him speak twice in my life. I'd come down for an AA celebration and I was thanking God. And the words I heard, and I don't hear them with my ears. But those, lots of people have heard things like this in the program. You know what I'm talking about. What I heard was, You don't have to smoke now. I've never had a cigarette since. I've go through no nicotine withdrawal. I don't smell smoke. It's like I've never smoked in my life. And I was already in OA so I didn't put a pound of weight on. Now to prove I'm an alcoholic, three months later it occurred to me, If it's this easy to quit, why don't you go back to smoking for a while? Because you can quit anytime you want. That's alcoholic thinking. I knew that if I picked up a cigarette I'd be smoking the rest of my life. It's been eight years now without a cigarette. God can do it when he wants to. Defects get pushed out when love comes in. If I can let love, a love for me in my heart, I don't need my defects. This is the end of side one. Please turn cassette over now and continue to listen on side two. Do not fast forward. This very, very elderly woman went to see a doctor. And she just wasn't feeling good. And she says, Doctor, I'm just not feeling right all of a sudden. And he says, Well, wait a moment. And she says, Can you help me? And he says, Yeah. He stops her and he looks with his little looker. And he gets tweezers and he pulls it out. He says, Ma'am, did you realize you had a rectal suppository in your ear? She says, Thank God. He says, No, I said you had a rectal suppository in your ear. She says, Yeah, I know. That means I know where my hearing aid is. The seven step deals with humbly asking someone, God, to remove our defects. And they are all interconnected. And you end up finding things that have been lost in some of the strangest places. I certainly have. My first three years I thought the defects were the defects everybody considers. It may be a real S.O.B. Years three through nine, my defects were the things that made me a nice guy. The last four years it's occurred to me, I don't know what my defects are. And I'm going to give you an example. Take the sexual problems that periodically still erupt in my life. They can be, now the seven step says, I pray that you now remove from me everything that keeps me from being effective to you and others. Because I have problems that stay in my sobriety, people come to me that I sponsor and they're locked in problems. And I don't do what a lot of clergymen that I know do. Who have no problem. They don't understand it. They just tell the people to walk away from it. I can listen with love and understand and know that I'm caught in the same way and I don't judge. I accept and share. When my problems help make me more loving as a sponsor and in listening to fifth steps, are they a defect? Not by the definition of the seven step prayer. Take that same pattern, I gave you the background for this. And I'm in, you know, I'm off in something sexual and somebody calls it a sponsor. Right? I'm a sponsor and I have no time for it. Then it's a real defect. It depends upon how it's working in my life. And I honestly believe that when I allow God's love so strongly in my heart that whatever you come to me with, I'm going to be open, loving and accepting the way AA is. Every defect is going to be gone because I won't need them. But until that point, God keeps me from having, see if I got everything I wanted, my head would be bigger than the Goodyear blimp. Right? I couldn't live with me, let alone anyone else. So I need these. Now the seventh step for me, let's just let me say this, is going to my sponsor. Everything I've humbly asked God to remove, I still have. Everything I have humbly gone, remember I told you I got a chain of command. I didn't find God. I found a sponsor, then AA, and then God. And that's the chain of command that still works. If I humbly go to my sponsor and say I need help with something, and I do what he tells me, by the day, I'm going to be able to do it. It's lessened or removed from my life. That's how my defects really go, the way God wants them to go. Mr. Jones had a pain and he felt a lump. And he worried. He went to see a doctor. And the doctor ran some tests and said, come back in a week and I'll give you the results. And he was really worried that it was going to be really bad. So a week later, the doctor starts his office hours at 9. And at 8 o'clock, Jones is in the office. And in that week, the doctor's got a new nurse. And on a 10, she's a 13. I mean, she is. There's saliva coming down Jones' mouth. And at 9 o'clock, the nurse comes in and says, the office is full by now. Jones, the doctor will see you now. Jones walks on by, just watching them shake. There they go. Sits down. The nurse leaves. The doctor comes in. Sits behind his desk. I got good news and I got bad news. Which do you want? Jones says, well, give me the bad news first. The doctor says, you have a tumor. It's malignant. It's inoperable. It's untreatable. It will be very painful. And you'll be dead in three months. And he's wiped down. He says, well, what's the good news? And the doctor says, did you see my nurse? And Jones says, yeah. The doctor says, I'm screwing her. And she says, well, I'm not going to kill you. I'm going to kill you. There's somebody down there as sick as I was. You see, I hurt that badly. I couldn't be concerned with your feelings. I really couldn't. And it isn't until I have handled my defects through 1 through 7 that I can sit down and start looking at the fact that you might have feelings. And I want to show you where I think this is most needed. I'm going to switch from me and I'm going to go to you because I've been hurt this way. I told you how ugly I felt. Well, first let me go to some conference speakers. I listen to tapes of speakers who will make remarks about they wake up in bed with a woman who's so ugly. Or some gals will talk or somebody else will talk about describing some feature. I don't know if you've ever felt ugly, but I've never listened to a speaker make a joke about somebody looking unpleasant when I haven't hurt. I told you I spent 46 years hating everything that I felt I looked like. And I see nothing funny in touching anything that might be sensitive to any of you. Somebody I sponsor was just hurt this past week when somebody walked up and said, You're putting on weight. It really hurt him. You know, honestly, because I told you I'm a compulsive overeater, I know this. By the time you notice my pants don't fit as well, please believe my pants have given the same message to me. . . there's this last comment I come across in my lecture. I say this in front of people who are losing hair or aging. . Let me tell you why this is so deadly in our fellowships of Al-Anon and AA. My defenses are more down when I walk into a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous than they are anywhere else in the Earth. And a comment of yours can get through my defenses before I can get them back up and you can hurt me badly. the meeting field were feeling real good on a Saturday morning. And some, I can only call her a bitch, was nice enough to say at the meeting, we're going around during the meeting, her comment was, I thought my hair looked bad until Larry walked in. I don't need to hear things like that. I really don't. And if the eighth step is a point where I start becoming sensitive to your feelings, then I want to support you. And let me turn that around the other way. When I felt ugly, the one thing, I didn't have a car to drive around until I was about 23 years old. I bicycled a lot for exercise. And I have always been neat below the waist, good-looking legs, and looked real good in shorts. I've aged the last year, so there's some age signs there, but they still don't look that bad. About three years ago, four or five years ago, I was at a meeting in Oklahoma City in shorts, and this good, sharp gal that I really liked walked up. She says, Larry, we've known each other about five years by this time. She said, and all of a sudden, all the time I've known you, I've never seen you look sexier. She made my night. And I learned the value of an honest compliment. And I will try, when I got it together, at every meeting, to find somebody. And if you look hard enough at anybody, you can find something you can pay a sincere compliment about. Your eyes are happier, I like your smile, nice shoes, nice dress. And I've learned the difference. When I can become sensitive to your feelings, to really being delicate, and how crucial this is in sponsorship, to know where people are. Because I've heard people badly trying to help them in sponsoring. These two golfers were out on the links, and off in the distance, a funeral procession passed, and the one golfer stopped and took his hat off until the whole funeral party stopped. And the other guy says, that was really nice of you. And the guy says, it's the least I could do. I was married to her for 30 years. Now I can see that with golfing, I mean with skiing, I can't see it with golfing. This one to me ties up to the ninth step. Because I have seen alcoholics think they were making amends. It's the least I could do. I was married to her for 30 years, when they weren't making amends at all. I take one example that happened to me. I co-signed a note for some gal, and she stuck me for five payments. And I didn't have the money. And I bitched her out. I got out after the first two. And she cried, and I said, cut your damn tears. I'm not bitching you out for not having the money. I'm bitching you out for not calling me. So I could try to get the money on hand. May she made a payment, missed the next three. After I had to come up with the money, a week later we meet at an AA conference, and she comes running up and says, oh Larry, I want to make amends to you. That was about 10 years ago. I still haven't seen a cent. I don't think she made amends at all. You know, I think she bought the piece of her mind at the cost of my wallet. My sponsor said something that was the most important thing at that time. But to that point he ever told me, because I was hurt, and he says, same thing happened to him. And he says, and I want to tell you something. It wasn't the principal. It was the money that counted. And that told me the book says we want our head in the sky, but our feet on the ground. And boy, you know, money is where my feet can be sometimes. And that stung badly. And that was the beginning of my problem. And that was a good thing for me to see. And she didn't make amends. I'm only now really learning 13 years sober as I become aware of you as people. What real amends are, it's an attempt to relate one person to another. I personally think the most important amends I've had to make are amends to the dead. And there's a variety of ways to make them through a letter, through a visit to the grave, through prayerful imagination. And part of this includes telling the dead person off for all the pain I've ever had. Part of it includes asking forgiveness for everything I've done wrong. And probably the biggest. Part is giving the dead person permission to be dead. I did that with my dad. I stood at his grave and didn't feel anything 20 years old when he was killed in a mine accident. I carry my father from the day I went to his grave. I carry his personal love with me wherever I go. Ten years sober, I had a high school kid that I had taught drink some vodka in my home, get into a car and get into a head-on collision because he had a fight with his girl. And I went down and identified the body. And on the way down the hospital, I wanted to kill him. I had such great guilt and I made amends to him. But I still. I still carry guilt. And I had to give him permission to be dead before the memory could be freed for me. And it's a real important thing. The relationship one person to another was healed. This woman had a very bad cold and she was going into a restaurant. So she thought she would provide for herself and she put two hankies down there. And quickly in the restaurant she used one. And about halfway through the meal, it was kind of a little bit, she really had, it was a little bit unpleasant to you so she decided to go for the other one. And she's. Reaching in and she can't find it. She. She's really digging around in there. She looks up and like a lot of people are looking at her. And she gets real stammering. She says, well, I was sure I had two when I came in. Sometimes I just have to keep constant taking constant check. Make sure it's all there all the time. The 10 step continue to take personal inventory. I have seen people. Get on the program, work the program well and go back to drinking. And that tells me that alcoholism stays. And it's always there and I have to keep ever alert. I have to force myself to see my good. I've got to balance the ledger. I tend to see no good in me at all. So it's more important for me to write the good first. Then to look at the things that are unpleasant and very, very slowly as I do this new insights are constantly coming into my life. I have seen people get on the program, work the program well and go back to drinking. And that tells me that alcoholism stays. And that tells me that alcoholism stays. They don't happen often. They don't happen always. Somebody said they stopped inventorying because they were writing the same old thing. And I said, you want God to give you new faults all the time so you got variety. Doesn't make any sense. Certainly I'm going to write the same old thing. But I just do what the program tells me. I look at the ledger and I write it down. I do mine in writing. I do one six nights a week. No one I sponsor is allowed to do it seven nights because I think we can just get fanatic. I do one six nights a week. No one I sponsor is allowed to do it seven nights because I think we can just get fanatic. My night off is Friday. It's my favorite night of the week. All of us most look forward to the night we don't have to write. I've been writing for 10 years now and it gets worse. The steps of this program are like hemorrhoid surgery. Hear this. Someone help me. If you forget and remember nothing else, maybe this will help you. I was about a year and a half sober and a guy came down with about 18 years. And he said, if anybody tells you they like working the steps, they're either lying or they don't know what they're doing. Because according to the 12 and 12, every step goes against our nature. And is designed to bring more humility into our life. And to be humble is not a natural instinct. So we cannot like doing the steps. They are exactly like hemorrhoid surgery for me. They're a pain in the ass to go through. The only reason for enduring that pain in the ass is because the pain of not doing it is worse than the pain of doing it. And if you undergo the experience of the temporary pain in the ass of the surgery, down the line you get relief. And that's exactly what I do. I start thinking around noon of reasons why today I don't have to do an inventory. And at about 10 o'clock at night I pull the damn tablet out, start cursing in right away. That's all I do. I don't care about the motives. It just works for me. The 11th step is a little difficult. I don't have a good joke for it, but it's a story that has helped me. Bob Earl, I think, uses this a lot. About the man who was so bitter, he says, I don't believe in prayer. God doesn't answer prayers. I was hopelessly lost in a blizzard in Alaska. And I prayed to God and he didn't do a damn thing. And the guy he was talking to says, well, how'd you get out of the blizzard? He said, right after I prayed, an Eskimo showed up with a dog sled and drove me to safety. And that's real important. God has his own ways in his own directions. Years ago, I haven't heard this one in AA for a long time. I don't know if I can fully tell it, but I enjoy it because it makes a point also. This guy fell off a cliff. And as he was going down, he caught the last branch and he was just dangling there. And he started screaming, help, help, help. Is anybody there? And suddenly this big voice comes. I'm here. Who are you? I'm God. Help me. Help me. I will. You will? Just let go. The guy's dangling and he thinks a moment. Is anybody else up there? I'm not much on prayer because I don't know what to ask for. The most important prayers for me are getting the anger out of my system so that God's peace can come in. If I'm mad at God, I tell him off. I scream. I curse at him. And I don't think that upsets God as long as the motive is I've got to get the anger out. Because if I've got it, if I'm stuffing it, I can't know peace. So I take it to God. I tell him how crappy it is. How lousy things are. How many things are going. Meditation is the big thing for me and it's listening to God. I don't have time to talk on this but I think meditation, the second half of the 11th step, I think is the most underworked part of our whole program. And to me the rest of the program is like building a house and the meditation is like moving inside. And I see so many people who are doing all of the work and getting none of the benefits. It's like a constant foreplay with never any intercourse. We're missing the best part. Meditation is experiencing God's love. And it's in the experience of that love that I find the answer to my alcoholism. Every single thing. My defects go when I'm experiencing that love. I like myself. I love myself. I accept myself. And that love can flow through me to touch you in other ways. There's a variety of techniques. I just don't have the time. But let me just say that's where it's at. More than any place else. I meditated today. It was the most important thing I had to do. Yesterday. I had the most selfish funerals I've ever had to perform. I got up in the morning. I had a lot of things to do. I forgot a fifth step. My memory is really going. I've got some kind of a problem there. And this gal had called. And the funeral was at 1. And the step was supposed to start at 10. We moved it up to 8. I got up at 5. And about like a half hour before she came I had a lot of things I had to do. And the most important thing for the people at the funeral and for her was I had to meditate. Because if I don't have love I've got nothing to give you. And if I've got love, my smile is going to give you an experience. And the only way I get love inside is by listening to God love me. It starts with you but you're not enough. You were the instrument but you can't keep me sober. No human power can really take care of my alcoholism. God could and would if he were sought. And I've got to seek him. And that's just not asking. If God is love then I've got to let God love me. Not just ask. I've got to let him love me. And it's in meditation I experience the love. These two people had years and years and years together in AA. Great friends. Thirty years. And finally the one guy gets terminally ill. And the other guy says, Hey Joe. When you get up to the pearly gates, if there's any way you can come back, come back and tell me if they've got AA up there. I really would like to know. And Joe says, Okay Sam, I will. Joe dies and about a week after his death, Sam has this dream and Joe appears to him. And Sam in the dream says, Well Joe, do they have AA up there? And Sam says, Wait a second. I've got some good news for you and some bad news. The good news is that they've got AA. The bad news is you're talking tomorrow night. . Carrying the message rounds it all out. Now our guideline says I'm supposed to tell you what it was like, what happened, and what it's like now. I blacked out all the time. I hope I've given you enough to identify I'm an alcoholic. I've never controlled my drinking from the first drink. I didn't like the taste. I drank for the effect. The drugs were a backup, so I didn't do some of the things like, well, I did redo them, but the alcohol is so cunning. I never thought I took a morning drink. I was drinking a wine glass filled of wine every time I did morning mass. And for 12 years in the program, I mean, well, not a wine glass. I was an iced tea glass filled with wine. I'd have when I did the morning mass for 12 years in the program. I honestly thought I never took a morning drink. And it wasn't because I was so spiritual back then that I thought the wine was just all church wine. It wasn't that at all. It's just cunning, baffling, powerful. I just didn't see it. But I've got to tell you, so I hope you can identify enough with the alcoholism. What happened? I've shared. I do try to work these steps. I make four meetings a week. I'm committed. I believe in committed meetings. My meetings are a Saturday morning, Sunday night, Monday night, and a Tuesday night in a to remind me that drugs are my backup. And they're probably the back door back in the morning. I'm not going to be drinking. I'm going to be drinking. Because I could convince myself a little bit easier that a little bit of that, those house plants or a little bit of that stuff to take care of the nervous stomach. That won't hurt. The doctor prescribed it after all. I've got to remember that my program, my alcoholism is an inability to face life. The program is a set of tools to help me walk through life as I am. Through the pain. I've had a lot of pain. I've had depressions. And I've had a lot, a lot, a lot of joy and happiness. What it's like now. I've told you about the relationship problems. I've told you some of the sex problems come in. My money still isn't that good. Let me tell you about the other thing. I really can't believe this inventory of not taking anybody else's inventory. The peace that's in my life. What I saw in that inventory is just astounding me. It's been continuing. There's two or three people that being in the program a while, I have difficulties with who are in the program. And I ran into a little bit of confrontations with two of them since the inventory. And instantly I would look at them as human beings, wipe away any part they had in this and just look at what I was doing wrong. Now for a guy who has a resentment list 52 pages long, that can't happen. But it does happen through the strength of this program. The program has just got to be for me the single most important thing in my life. I started off with joy. I'll end with a story and it'll be a Bible story. It'll tie together I think with what I shared. Some of you don't believe the Bible at all. I'm not going to use it as a Bible story at all. I'm not claiming any special credibility for the story. It just has a good point to it. Some of you stop and some of us go further in reading the Bible. And this will be from the part that just those who are Christian normally read. Because it's a Christmas story. The light of the world, the light of the darkness, was sought by a group of people. We call them Magi. People don't understand the most important things about the Magi are they're pagans. They don't belong to God's people. They don't believe in God at all. They come searching for the light. And they leave everything they know. They leave the familiar and they come into a strange land. And they don't know where they're going. And they're just trying to follow the light. And they come to the people who know. The religious leaders, the experts in Jerusalem. And they say, where can we find the light? And this is real important because the religious leaders tell them exactly where to go. And the pagans take the steps to where the answer is found. And the religious leaders stay in Jerusalem with their knowledge of the steps. Now I'm not criticizing church people with this. I told you I'm not reading this out of the Bible. I'm taking it as an AA story. Let those of you who have some time hear this. It's so easy with a certain amount of time to confuse the knowledge of the program with the program I have to work myself. Certainly I can tell the people I sponsor what they must do. I can tell them the steps to take. And I watch them take the steps. And I watch their lives change. But unless today I am actively taking those steps. Then I'm back in the darkness of Jerusalem. Rather than the light of Bethlehem. And the light of Bethlehem for me is a light that takes a stable. And it continues to look like a stable. And makes it a temple. I can look in the mirror and I can look just like a stable. But if I look with the eyes of God, if I look with your loving eyes at myself. I'm a living temple of God. Thank you so very much. Thank you.