Go to the Man You Hate the Most Because He’s Got What You Need – Paul D.

I want to thank Chuck and the other members of the committee for inviting me to come talk. And Chuck said I could take an hour, so I'll take two or three if I could get by with it. They tell me they put the siren on at 10 o'clock, so I guess I'll have to quit at the end of the hour. Congratulations to people that took birthdays. I love birthdays, especially the guy who got 20 years. My good friend Paul, he says, as soon as you're 20 years, sober, then you're able to go get coffee without messing it up. And pretty much that's my story in Alcoholics Anonymous. Now that I got 25 years without a drink, I'm getting that old-timer wannabe status, you know. Another five years. I can join those ranks. I'm surprised listening to the outline speaker because I've been around Alcoholics Anonymous for 48 years without leaving it. And, uh ... First 23 years, I've proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Well, R.H. Anonymous would not work for real. And at that time, I thought that sobriety was a sexual transmitted disease. And when I got the AA for real, one of the first things my sponsor for real said to me was, Paul, are you sick? I said, I sure am. And he said, that's right. How sick are you? Well, I'm pretty sick. And he said, that's, and anybody sick enough to go out with somebody as sick as you are is too sick for you to be going out with. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've seen my life, you know. That's why my favorite serenity prayer is, God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things that I can't. And a sponsor that knows the deafness. The thing about getting a sponsor, if you're like me, you've got your sponsor that talks louder than you. That's why I needed them guys that yelled at me, you know. My sponsor, the one I got for real, I'd be walking to an AA meeting, and it would be raining, and I'm soaked to the skin. And he would come back, and that big cat rock. In the early 80s, all sober alcoholics had to get cat rocked. Yeah. That's how they knew if you were making it. I tell my babies when they get rid of the radar detectors, they're on their way to sobriety. You can always tell. So here come by on that big cat, and he'd honk his horn, and leave them. Because he wouldn't take anybody to a meeting. And I'd get into the meeting, and I'd be drenched, and he'd hand me a cup of coffee. He'd say, I can't take you to the meeting, but you know where they're at. I'll take you home. And it took me long, you know. But he's one of them retarded splats. He only had about three sentences he could ever say. So now shut up, dummy. It's in the book, dummy. Grab a pencil and paper, dummy. But that man saved my life, you know. I was about eight years sober before I'd answer you, and I believe that that called me dummy, you know. I thought that was my name, you know. And more important than me, alcoholics, and I'm a slut, and everybody in this room tonight, not for what you are, I become when I'm with you. I forgot to mention what I learned from the Alnott speakers. I didn't know Alnott had 13-step calls, you know. I thought that was something to read. So that helped out a lot. I went to my... Like I said, I went to my first AA meeting in 1958. I got sober for real in 1981, in May. I went to my first AA meeting at R.A. Benkica at the United States Marine Corps. All right. I was on my third schedule, and I just got arrested 22 times in 21 days. One day, I missed it. For two days, I got it twice. So they took, I guess, one of the beautiful things about the staffs, you know. I don't know if the staffs do anything for me or not. All I know for sure is Paul worked the staff, and the Port Vaughan Police Department had a spiritual awakening. So anyway, they reprimanded me into adult court. They sent me to the Manteo State Hospital. And first thing that happened was the doctor gave me a shot of paralbyhide, and that's ether and alcohol. Now, God might have made something better, and paralbyhide, but if God did make something better, he kept it for himself, I guarantee you. But when I took that little 10 cc's of paralbyhide, I'd become an old moose, which was the reason I drank, like Johnny Harris says so eloquently. Paul was a nothing for his wife. Today, I'm a man. Today, I'm glad to be here. And I'm glad to be alive. And I don't want to be dead no more. Ever. But I was a nothing. I was a mistake. And when they told me I was an alcoholic, my first thought was, thank God. That means it's not my fault. That means I can drink as much as I want to, you know. And I could hurt anybody I wanted to hurt. Do anything I wanted to do. And it wasn't Paul's fault. Because Paul was born an alcoholic. And then they sent me over to an AA meeting. And the first speaker got up there and says, if you want to stay sober, buy a big book. Buy a basic textbook. I walk all hearts and arms. So during halftime, I bought one. And then we got the next speaker that got up there. And he says, take what you're right. Put the rest out the window. But when guys tell you that, they forget to tell you that you're going out the window with it, you know. And at the end of the meeting, there's this, you know, you know, old lady. She must have been at least 30. And she come up to me and she said, young man. And I was 18 probably. Maybe 17. That time's kind of funny. So lucky that you got here in time. In time for what? Before you go through the things I went through. What did you do, lady? Well, I got so bad at my drinking that I burned my husband's birthday cake. And I knew I had to get help and quit drinking. Right then and there, I knew there were no alcoholics and alcoholics anonymous. I spent the next 23 years, three years proving it. I grew up for a year. I had three AA meetings each and every day that wasn't blocked up in a booby hatch. I had a bunch of party dates every day, but I made my three meetings. The last year, I could no longer go an hour and a half for an AA meeting. So halfway through the meeting, three meetings a day, I'd go back and think about it. I'd take my three fingers that wasn't me so I could stay for the last half of that meeting. So meetings were not my answer. But I knew on my mind, somehow, someway, if I got the right smartsuit, or if I got the right girl, or if I got the right talent, would the cops win pick on me? Everything would be all right. And I'd quit drinking. But it kept getting worse. And worse. I'm not going to go on a big drunk road, but I'll tell you a couple of things. Our book tells us that having suffering from the same disease will not hold us together. What holds us together is we've got a common solution, one that we can absolutely agree on and join. And that is to be a part of our life. And that is to be a part of our life. And by a harmonious action. There's only one A.A. program. Some people say, I got no fashion program. There's only one A.A. program. Either you're doing A.A., or you're not doing. And to me, and I couldn't stand it, so I decided to kill myself in Orange County. So all the girls and boys of my generation, they had a question for me, condition. somewhere in the early 60s. And I took some poison stuff and I injected it into my arm. And they sent me to a hospital and they ended up charging me with a thrombin. Because back in them days, having a hypodermic needle was a thrombin. So they took me to court and let me go on into court. And with a .54 .5 chain, they didn't have them playing with the leg irons like they got today. But they had me wrapped in them chains. And the reason they did was the last time I was in that court, flying gray apes were coming at me. And I was throwing the chairs to keep them gray apes away. Turned out it wasn't really a flying gray ape. It was a judge. So this judge had the option of either accepting my plea or pleading not guilty. I was always pleading not guilty. There was only one time that I ever pleaded guilty and that was in Long Beach. And I woke up on the cell and I was on the floor and there was that biggest cop you ever saw in your life. And he was laughing. And I said, what am I charged with? And he said, murder one. So I laid there until they got me up in front of the judge thinking I was arrested for murder one. And they ran after the charge and I was drunk and disorderly. And I was so relieved and flabbergasted without thinking I just said guilty. But that was the only time I ever pleaded not guilty. So he said, take the kid over to a county jail. I told the Orange County Marshals to take me over to a county jail for lunch. And he would render his verdict where to accept my plea or take it to a county jail. And I pleaded not guilty due to insanity. So they marched me across the street, opened up the door of the county jail, Orange County Jail. And the deputy chef threw his hands up in the air and said, I'm not going to take that kid as a prisoner in that jail. That was the first jail I ever got 86ed. Later on, I got 86ed out of the Orange County Jail. And they took Charles Mattson in that jail and they went and took me. You talk about resentments. How could they take Charlie and not take a nice guy like me? But the reason they went and took me in that county jail and every time I took a drink he blew, I'd become almost... Anyway, there were times if I could have got one more drink in me before I got arrested or passed out, I would have been a solid one-drink squad. And when that boo started to read my system and I started having to face who I was, mistaken or nothing, I would break the mattress on fire. And I'd stick my head down in that mattress. As I do, that would get me to the hospital. And they shot him with it. Morphine stops you at almost as good as it moves. Almost not quite. That's why he went and took me. That was back around 1962 or 3. The judge accepted my not guilty due to insanity and I became an institutional vice. There were 45 state and federal looming bans. If he would have seen me for court, I would have still been institutionalized. But I would have been in the legal system. Like Norm Alfie used to say, it's a matter of seconds and inches sometimes. I'm sure grateful now that I spent my time in the hospitals rather than in the prisons. So I needed Alcoholics Anonymous at that time. Needed it desperately. But Alcoholics Anonymous is not for those that need it. And I don't know if you know much about the disease, but alcoholism is a progressive disease. And 10 years later, my disease had progressed to a point that it started to get a little bad. And I wanted Alcoholics Anonymous pretty desperately. And I was in Sawtelle Veterans Hospital. And I got a lawyer make the doctor let me go to AA means. That's how bad I wanted Alcoholics Anonymous. The doctor said I could go to AA means on condition I weren't in a straight jacket. Now some of you have never been to an AA means on a straight jacket. And you feel it's an opportunity and you don't want to miss. So if you come out and see me after a meeting, I'll tell you a shortcut to accomplish it. But see, Alcoholics Anonymous is not for those that need it. Alcoholics Anonymous is not for those that want it. And I continued to drink. And I knew if I could just get one time. We found a woman sick enough to go out with me. And we got, I got 19 months settled. And I had a plan to have a baby. Because I'd get a baby and it'd be something that loved me. But no stranger attached. So right after the baby was born, this relationship kind of went down the way. So I had to leave the house. And I was 19 months sober. And I decided to kill myself. So I took and was in a little shack I had rented. And I turned the gas on. And I put towels and sheets in all of the cracks. And then I got one of them brain storms. Well, as long as you're gonna die, you might as well go out with some booze. So I shut the gas off. And I went down and bought two bottles. I don't remember now if they're fresh or quite. But they're two big bottles. And I pretty much drank them. And then I, while I was drinking them, I had turned the gas back on. And the doctor told me the next day that I had drank so much booze so fast, I'd become comatose. And I wasn't breathing deep enough to breathe the gas in. And that saved my life. So booze saved my life that day. And they had me in the San Diego Veterans Hospital. All these guys from AA were coming. And you know the kind, if you don't know them, look at Roger. They got them big grins. They talk about them big grins, you know, in Chapter 3. God, I hated them grins when they got us. And they, everybody that carried their message to me always had that big grin. And so anyway, they took me to a big book study. And at that meeting, there were two guys arguing about what the big book said. So I grabbed the text book and I said, you're both wrong. And I showed them where they were both wrong. And I turned away from them. And I had the most god-awful feeling I ever had in my life. Because I knew what the big book said. And they didn't. But they had a year of sobriety. And I didn't. So Alcoholics Anonymous is not for those that need it. It's not for those that want it. And it's not for those that understand it. And I continued to drink. I met Chet Chandler and I was still, I was still trying to treat alcoholism as a sexual transmitted disease. I was getting all these women sponsors, you know. And I got drunk about five times in one week. And my sponsor says, I'm not going to sponsor you anymore. If you don't go talk to Chet Chandler. So she took me over to Laguna Beach. And I got to hear Chet Chandler talk. She took me, she grabbed me and pulled me out the way where I was after the meeting. And right in front of him she said, well what did you think of him? And I looked up at Chet and I said, you are so dumb. You don't realize how miserable you are. And during them first 23 years I went out many times. And I'd come back and I would be sober an hour, six hours. And I would tell them guys for 20, 25 hours, 20, 25 years, what was wrong with their program. And how they could improve Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous is not for those that need it. It's not for those that want it. It's not for those that understand it. And it's not for those that talk about it. I work at the treatment center that I spent 40 years. I called up Dan and he stayed in the hospital. I asked them if they would let me apply for a job out there. And they said, well, we'll go and check your records and we'll call you back and let you know. So they called me back and they said, Paul, you can come out and file an application to go to work. If you go back to Drake, and you still will not be able to come as a patient. So they'd let me go work at Damage, but they wouldn't take me back as a patient. So there was nowhere else to go but A.A. Man's. And you talk about their screwing feelings. You go to A.A. Man's with a head full of and a belly full of booze. I had no understanding of alcohol. There was no doubt in my mind I was an alcoholic. But I had no idea what alcoholism was. But one of the things that showed I was an alcoholic was you take a first person. He goes out and he drinks. And he wakes up in the morning and he's got such an awful hangover. And he's afraid he's going to die. I'm an alcoholic. I'm my type. I wake up with that same hangover. And I'm afraid to death I'm not going to die. I'm not afraid of death. Alcoholics are my type. They're afraid to live. Alcoholics are not much to not shame Paul's life. Alcoholics, and I'm escaped Paul's life for the very first time. And the other person goes into a new town. And I was in the carnival business and circus business for years. And they go into a new town. And they find a place to stay. And they go find a place to eat. And they go find a place to drink. And then they would make friends. But I would come into a new town and I had new town every ten days to two weeks. First thing I did was I'd go to the bail bondsman. Establish a line of credit just in case. And then I would go to the bar. So people told me that I was probably an alcoholic. And if you see flying gray apes and pull that big ape leg and spiders off your stomach, you know, and the blood's washing and coming up in the room and coming up to here, you're probably an alcoholic. But I still don't know what an alcoholic is. There's two stories that demonstrate to me what an alcoholic is. And the first one, let me get a little of that gas here, was walking down a four lane highway. And he walked across the street and there was a sign in this saloon going out of business all you can drink for a dollar. And he looks at that sign. That can't be true. And he looks again. And he says, all you can drink for a dollar. Well, I'm going to go check it out. I know that's not true. And so he runs across the street and the buses are piling into the tracks and the cars are squeaking. And he goes through them four lanes and he grabs that door and he pulls it so hard, open it, comes off the hinges. And he gets up to the counter and he says, barking and barking. That sign. That's right, son. All you can drink for a dollar. You don't really mean it. Oh, we do. All you can drink for a dollar. You sure? All you can drink for a dollar. Give me two dollars, Will. Now, when I'm drinking, that's the kind of drunk I am. See, now, when I'm sober, before I pick up this book and follow directions, it's like the earth person. There's people when they go in a room and they get hit over the head with a hammer and the guy drags them out of the room. Next day, they don't go back in that room. But I go back in the room. I get hit over the head with a hammer. Get dragged out. Next day, I go back in that room. I get hit over the head with a hammer. Get dragged back out. Next day, I go back in that room and the guy with the hammer ain't there. So, I go looking for him. Back in the 80s, they didn't have that kind of thing. They didn't have that kind of thing. So, in the 80s, they didn't have those simple tests for your alcoholism, you know. But today, we got that new simple test, you know. All you got to do is go out and buy a parrot. And if you spend all winter teaching that parrot to talk, then you're an alcoholic. If you spend all winter teaching that parrot to talk, then you're an alcoholic. If you spend all winter teaching that parrot to listen, then you're an alcoholic. Rig the box, Roger. Rig the box. Rig the box, Roger. Rig the box, Roger. So, you can see I blog here. There's only one question you got to ask yourself. Am I now or have I not got to ask myself what I should be doing in my life? I don't know. I don't know what I should be doing in my life. I don't know how much I want to do. I don't know how to live this life. If I don't want to live this life I have something But I knew there was a God someplace pregging on me because there's no way anybody could suffer the way I suffered if God wasn't pregging on me. And he got all the women on the West Coast to help him and that made me become one of them. And I just couldn't take it anymore. So I'm getting ready to put that needle into my arm. And just before I did that, I crossed my mind. What if Clarence... Clarence... Clarence Snyder, old Scully, and you died for no reason. And then I remembered something that Clarence said the year before. I mean, not a year, ten years before. It was kicking me out of an AA meeting and then... Midnight Mission. Because I was drunk. You can go to the AA when you're drunk, but you can't go to the Mission of Drunks. So I got kicked out of it. And as he was kicking me out of that meeting, he said, if you're having trouble with the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, go to the guy you hate the most because he's... got the most of what you mean. And I knew who that guy was. I used to go to the AA meetings and I'd check the parking lot for his car. And if his car was in that parking lot, I'd go across town to a different meeting. One of the greatest spiritual experiences of my life was when I found out they were checking the parking lot for my car. And I said, Nick, will you help me? And he had that big grin. And that big, big grin even got bigger. And he says, I've been waiting for you. And he said, I'll help you. I'll help you on one condition. And you know what I was getting ready to tell him, don't you? But before I could say it to him, he stopped me cold. And he said, what I tell you to do is going to be right. Because it's going to come from the basic textbook of alcoholics and non-muslims. I didn't know it at the time. I made his first surrender. And I said, okay. It was years before I knew that's what I did. But I had surrendered to the big block of alcoholics. It's worked so well that I... I still do it today. And he told me if I read that book every day for at least 15 minutes, I would never drink again. And in the last 25 years, I read that book every day more than once. And I have 40 books in my car. I have other kind of big book there is. You know. Big ones for old ones. First edition. All kinds. And I went to a doctor. And the doctor called an ambulance. And she won't let me go out of the car and get my big book. So I ended up in the hospital without a big book, you know. I got a new doctor, too, back in the day. But he says, we're going to take it word for word. We're going to take three weeks and do it. And we're not going to leave anything out of the first 83 pages. And we're not going to put nothing in. And the first 83 pages, for those of you that have read this text book, know it's the first 89 half steps. And I said, well, I suppose it don't work. And he says, well, if it don't work, you still got that needle. And you can go kill yourself. And then he took me to chapter five, that the most important part of that part of the book. It says, if you want, what will you have? And they're willing to go to any lengths to get it. He said, now, Paul, they're not talking about you, people you meet in meetings. They're not talking about me. They're talking about the 40 people I left that book. And if you want what them 40 people had, then you got to do what them 40 people did. So he sent me to work reading the book, and I had to highlight every time there was a promise. And every promise in that book has got a condition. And I highlighted the promise in yellow, and the condition was yellow. So I said, yeah, I like the bronze you wrote. It was a 돌�見 colors. I said, man, this mic is mostOOMIthkeenoronge. Any challenge over there, I said, can you do a person changed? And he sat me up and gave me a drawing of the king. I said, it's kind of awesome to see how many promises I'm getting. And Keith, he said, he hasn't expected it. He hasn't expected that. And King, he hasn't. He apparently doesn't think it's going to take long. He said that you're getting more than that. We didn't get enough. He said something. He says, do you want them times? And I says, I sure do. And he says, then you've got to do what they did. And he made me read the doctor's opinion, chapter 2, and chapter 3 after page 35, ten times. And then he met with me and read it to me because he didn't trust me to read the black parts. And I had some things. The most important thing I found out was drinking does not cause alcoholism. And as long as I thought drinking caused alcoholism, I didn't have a prayer to get what you people got. But alcoholism causes drinking. I had finally come to find out in sobriety that I was perverse over alcohol when I was sober. And that's why I went back to drinking. I found out in sobriety my life was immeasurable. Sober. Not when I was drinking, sober. Drinking was my sobriety. Solution. Until the side effects of the medicine become as bad as the original disease. And step two was pretty easy for me because my sponsor says that there's not that someplace. I'm in pretty big trouble. And I said, yeah. He said, you already proved what you can do. So if you're all there is, you might as well take that. I didn't need them. And we read ten times the rest of chapter three where it talked about the alcohol of drinking. And now my mind was as abnormal as my body. And that tells me I had to believe that. And I did. And there's a question in there that said, God's going to be everything or he's going to be nothing. What is your answer to me? What's your choice? And there's the only place except when it comes to denominations and religions. I, uh, what gives me a choice? And I told him everything. So we went on to step three. And there's step three after reading it ten times. He read it to me. I found I met the first requirement. The first requirement is. The first requirement is. The first requirement is. I got to be convinced that any life for a non-self could hardly be a success. And I knew if there was a God in any place, there's no way he could do any worse with my life than I had already did. And there's a possibility he might even do better. And my sponsor was one of them guys that says, You don't have to do anything. You don't have to believe in God to take steps free. There's only two things you've got to know about God in order to take steps free. He can't do no worse than you've been doing if there isn't God. And the second thing is that God's name is not spelled P-A-U-L. The big book says first I have to quit playing God. It tells me how. Why? Because it don't work. I tried so hard. I tried everything I heard in the A.V. I tried every cockamamie and away at staying sober there was. From electric shock treatment to being put to sleep for weeks so I might be angry when I woke up. And then everything was supposed to be all right. I tried everything but this. And that takes place. This book says, Though my decision was a vile or a crucial step that would have no permanent effect, rest for all that once by a strenuous effort to face and be rid of the things that blocked me. All them things that made me do what I didn't want to do. All them things that kept me from doing what I did want to do. So we made five risks. Resentments. And he put a call in there that says, Paul, it shouldn't have Paul dead instead, lets Paul God do the next stuff. Same thing with fears and with sacks and with shortcomings and with the people I hurt. And I went up on a hill and I told that guy my entire life story and when we got done he handed me that will of that verse. And I told him I could do it. and leave that rest of resentments. So put some of those resentments out. So in case you change, you can't keep them. So in case you change your mind and you want a little drinking pool, you can still go back and drink. And I'm pushing them resentments. Or if you want to drink, you did the same thing with the feet and with the sex. I'm pushing them away. He says, Father, I'm going to give you one more chance. Take out some of them character deeds. If you change your mind and you want to drink, you can do it. And I'm pushing them character deeds. Want any of them? I want to go back on that floor. Tell everybody, for God to remove all these things. What are we asking this stuff, seven, for God to remove? Everything we found in the first five steps. You know? So, we got on. And we asked God to remove character defects. He did one of three things with each and every one of them. He eradicated lifetime habits that had never come back in over 25 years. Some of them, he says his guys make them. And I'd have to go back if I get them and make them man. And the third thing he did was nothing. Except he took away the guilt. I know my wife. I thought he was not guilty. Coming down off that hill, he handed me and said, that's your hardest demand. Make it now. We stopped at the first phone booth. And I made it. And I was no longer a mistake. I was a great man. I knew God didn't make a mistake when he made me. He had become entirely ready. Only one time I know of. And that's in the half hour after taking that fifth step. And if you really want to benefit, you'll do step seven and eight. Six, seven, and eight. Right there. In that half hour. It was the longest year we wait for us willing we are. And so, we had to go back and rework them steps. We did according to the book the first of the day I live. I got like that. Continue to watch for these things and ask God when they crop up. At night, I look at everybody I met through the day and see how I measure up to the four absolutes in my 12-step inventory. Absolute love. Absolute purity. Absolute non-selfishness. Absolute honesty. And this is where I fall short. When I ask God to correct these things, I get more of the goodies each and every day. I was told I'd never be able to work, never be able to go to school, never be able to be in a relationship. Well, over two years ago, my AA wife at 21 years died of success. She was 23 years sober and we had been married for 21 years. She's waiting for me up in heaven now. I personally know I don't like these long-distance relationships. But in order to cope with that, I am testified by my AA wife and I kind of become a dual purpose. On the one hand, my mother's got all the answers doing that. And on the other hand, I'm going to more meetings, reading a book half hour a day instead of 15 minutes a day, talking to more people on the phone, praying more. And it's just like being a brand new come. I change groups. There's three things you need in order to be sober. One is a sponsor. Two, one, one is a sobriety date and one's a home group. And for your home group to work, you've got to have the best home group in the world. And it's funny how over a million alcoholics tomorrow have the best home group but they don't. It's all right for you to have a better one because yours is the best for you. So I love you. I love you today. And my program, I've done more in the last two years. When my wife first died, God sent me 14 wet drops in a three-month period. I always keep one or two wet drops so I have for 25 years. My sponsor said, when them times come, work with the wet ones because it's going to save your life. And when them times come, it's too late to go with it for a wet one. So you better have one or two hanging around, you know. And I've done that. But when she died, I got 14 wet ones in a one, in a one, three-month period. God's been so good to me. And the people of the alcoholics and the Amish have put me in that bosom in the last almost two years in January. And it's taught me how to live without my wife. And I love you so much. And I see each and every guy in here. And some of you are pretty hard to look at, you know. But I don't see you as you are. I see you as you become. If you pick up this book and you work the 12 steps of alcoholics and none of it. And the other two textbooks we got are A.A. Comes of Age that gives us 12 traditions. And then I only works in A.A. but works in a group of people. And then the 12 constant, man. So I got 36 principles. It's terrible. And I don't want to be dead no more. And I don't want to be drunk no more. And it don't matter if it's a wet drug or a dry drug. They both hurt too much for me to pretend. So when all else fails, you'll pick up these three books and you too can have a brand new life. God bless you each and every one. But God already did that. Because you're in an alcoholic synonymous meeting. And if you're an alcoholic that's filled with syphilis, remember things could be a lot worse. You could be in an alimony.