Governor’s Pass Unfolds in Agnostic’s Palm – Billy N.

Hi, I'm Billy. I'm an alcoholic. Sick alcoholic. My sobriety date is January the 5th of 1990. My home group is the Design for Living Big Book Study on Sunday nights at 7 o'clock in Wall on the Shore. Right off of exit 98 on the parkway, so if you go there in the summer and you're on your way home, it's the perfect break from traffic. That's the worst time to be on the parkway. We tell people all the time, get off at 6.30. You could throw a baseball from the parkway to our meeting, come to the meeting, get back on the parkway. It's good to be here tonight, and it's good to be at this group. I'm always amazed when I'm... I'm glad that we didn't all say the set-aside prayer because I want to say, do we say my version at my home group, or do I say the version at the NYU Big Book Study group that I go to where I work in the city? I'm always amazed at how many versions there are of that prayer around, so I'm always glad when we don't have to say it together. But I want to say, I don't know who's new here. I don't know who has time. Obviously, I can only share my truth, my spiritual experience, and the journey that I've been on, and I'll be very honest and frank, and I hope, you know, if anything, I'll stir up somebody to want to talk tonight. I find myself... this could sound crazy. I don't know who in here might know a gentleman who's passed away now named Don P. He can get his tapes on the Internet. But I find myself having conversations with him a lot the last year. And some of those conversations, I find myself sending him e-mails and hitting the send button just so that I can clear the air because I've had, I would call, a spiritual struggle the last year of my sobriety. Not in my love for AA. Not in my love of the Big Book. I love them to death. Not in my humanness. I've accepted that as much as I would love to be rid of the fact that I'm human and the cause of my own troubles most of the time. Just that I almost have felt like sometimes an outsider in my own home group Big Book study. And those are the conversations that I have with Don. If you are new here tonight, the first two things I always... Well, the first thing I have to say, especially... Because I was reminded of it before this. I am sober by the grace of God and Outlawics Anonymous. But I owe my life first and foremost to the Worldwide Fellowship of Al-Anon Family Groups. And I try not to ever forget to say that. If my mom was not a member of that fellowship, you would probably have a different speaker tonight. My mom was busy fixing and managing and controlling my life for most of my teenage years. And interfering with the bottom. And that's the time that God had planned for me. And that fellowship was able to give my mother some tools, which if you talked to me 20-something years ago, I would have told you those tools seemed cruel and unusual. And they seemed barbaric. And they seemed cold-blooded. But I know today those tools saved my life. My mom, at 3 o'clock in the morning when she would get a phone call that started with, I have a collect call. I have a collect call from Billy. Did not have the power at 3 o'clock in the morning to say no to the question, will you accept the charges? There was a woman in Al-Anon who taught her how to call the phone company when nothing bad was going on. And tell the phone company that that house doesn't take collect calls anymore. That no matter who it is, no collect calls. There was a lady in Al-Anon who taught my mother that she could run my house like a restaurant. That it had hours. That if midnight was the time you were supposed to be home, it didn't matter. It didn't matter. It didn't matter. It didn't mean that you got in the house at 1 o'clock in the morning. It meant that the house closed at midnight and opened back up at a civilized time in the morning at 8 o'clock on Saturday and Sunday mornings. In the winter, I came to my first AA meeting when I was 15 years old on Long Island. I was in and out of AA for 8 years until I was 23. Those are drastic rules to live with because I'm like every other tough guy I've met in AA. I will say I'm not a mama's boy until I'm handcuffed to a chair. I'm not a mama's boy until I'm handcuffed to a chair with a guy typing in a typewriter right to my left or right. Back in those days in a form with a bunch of pieces of carbon. And I usually have ink on one of my hands. And that's when I call my mom. I don't call my mom on Mother's Day. I don't remember to get a card for Mother's Day. But if I'm handcuffed to a chair and... So my mom learned some of those tools. And, you know, the message I have for anyone that's new is the two things that I try to stress is you don't have to like AA. To be here. That's my first and foremost rule. I hated AA for a long time. And you don't have to believe in God to get busy in the big book. And that's my second thing that I try to stress because you're looking at someone who was an atheist. My sobriety date, I told you, was January the 5th, 1990. I was an atheist up until probably 1993. Almost 94. And I went to my first Joe and Charlie big book study in March of 93. I went and heard Joe H. speak on Long Island in 94. And I went through the big book again. And still with my fancy thing of index cards of amends, I still did not believe in God. I had opened my mind enough to believe that if other people believed, I believed they believed. And I started... I started to just not debate the absolute non-existence of God. But I was still very heavily agnostic. And I tell that because before I start talking anything about my drinking or about the rest of my recovery is that I hate when I run into people and they think that we have God in a box and that we know what God looks like and what your God should look like and how your God dresses and what gender your God is. And what language your God speaks. And when I hear terms like the big, big book, like somehow that the Bible is connected, I try to have a message of inclusion. That to me, the greatest gift of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, one of the things that broke my wall was that that book was written 1939, 1938. And it's so open and inclusive. At a time when the world was not as open and inclusive. And even for me, I've had to re-embrace many times the message in the big book that the big book, the reason I got active in the big book was not to become rigid or militant. I've gone through those phases. It's one of my favorite Don P. quotes, which is the great thing about somebody rigid or militant in Alcoholics Anonymous is that it's a clear sign of the world. It's a clear sign that they've had a spiritual experience. But the great thing about someone who remains rigid and militant is that it's a clear sign that they need another one. Like, I needed quite a few. If you would have seen me in 94, I was a member of a group called Alcoholics Only. We had the only way. The nights that we didn't go to that meeting, we went to other meetings to let people know that it was too bad. They would get an AA light. And not getting our message. And if they really wanted to get better, they would come to our group. So, I've found that that's not a very effective or useful way for me to work with other people. I don't seem to welcome people or draw people in with that attitude. You know, I almost, sometimes when I look at certain history shows on TV and I see people from certain political groups, religious groups, and I hear them talking, I'm like, oh my God, like, no wonder I'm so disappointed in myself. Like, I had that same kind of rigid message that who would want to come talk to me after a meeting? But I talk about not believing in God because I think there is a real, my experience has been that it's been hard for me to see the presence of God in my own life. Now, it's a lot easier. But at first, it was much easier to see it in other people's lives. There's no doubt about that. Today at work, when I got in, I got into the work very early and I was reading Bill W.'s testimony in front of the U.S. Senate in 1969. And I'm doing this traditions thing and I was looking for something in particular and I had never read that piece of historical information before his actual testimony and the questions to him and how all the reporters had only agreed to photograph him from the back and his last name is not, his last name is not used. But just, it really hit me as to what a miracle Alcoholics Anonymous is. And, you know, I always say that, you know, when I talk about AA history, you know, I'm very grateful for that day in 1908 when Carl Young was but, you know, an apprentice, a protege of Sigmund Freud and he came over with Sigmund Freud to Cambridge, to Massachusetts. Sigmund Freud was getting some kind of award and that's what he did. And that's what he did. And that's what he did. And that's what he did. And that's what he did. And that's what Carl Young met William James who wrote The Variety of Religious Experience. And it's funny, in that Senate testimony, why that's on my mind is Bill uses one of, there's a line in there that he uses that was William James' line to Dr. Young. Because up until that point, Dr. Young was very scientific. And here he was talking to a man who was talking about the power of God, the power of prayer, spiritual reorganization, and Dr. Young had, when he was standing there talking to William James, William James said, but this only happens, it's about, it happens as often as someone getting hit by lightning. And I love that saying because to me, that's what the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous is. To me, it is a handbook of how to get struck by lightning. It had never been done before, this often and this many. The recoveries of that type, they were all spread out. And then all of a sudden, our founders come up with a way that works for people like you and I. And they decide, well, we have to write this down. There is no need to not preserve this. And I sometimes need to remind myself that what I need to preserve is my big book and the black part of it. I have some nice fancy comments in the margins. I have different color highlighters. I have page... I have pages that are dog-eared. But I need to remind myself and my own ego that the most important part of my big book is the black print that's been there since 1939 that was obviously divinely inspired. And, you know, in 1994, I told you, I was as agnostic as can be. And I went to this Joe H. Big Book study and I went through the steps again, except I was still not a believer in God. And the reason I try, the reason I try to stress that is, is that if I had left AA at that point, I would have been jipping myself of so much. Because I witnessed some things as a result of being sober and Alcoholics Anonymous after going through the steps in the big book that I would have never witnessed if I was not in AA and not an active member in AA in all three sides of the triangle. And I want to tell you those four, four things because it was so profound on this. You know, I'm not sure if I would be your speaker tonight, but I went to the International Convention in 1995 in San Diego, a diehard agnostic still. And lots of feelings of inadequacy, disappointed in myself that, hey, do other people go through this work and they don't all of a sudden miraculously believe in God because I'm not getting it. And I was online. At the same time, I went to the San Diego Convention Center to go to the corrections meeting. Now, I had been an inmate sober in a New York correctional facility. And I was online at this meeting and there was a big black guy in front of me and we started talking. He had just been released from prison in Oklahoma a couple of months before. He had done a bunch of armed robberies. He was sober like 11 years or so now. And if you remember back then in time, I hate to date myself. You know, there was a time in my life when I couldn't wait to have 20 years. When I was like 25, I really wanted 20 years. It just sounded nice. I wanted 20 years. I am so fine with my 19 years today when I look back and date myself. But in 1995, I started talking to this guy and a couple of months before that convention, there was a bombing in Oklahoma City, a major one. And this fellow that I had met had asked his parole lawyer, if he could go to the International Convention of Alcoholics Anonymous in California. And his parole officer said, absolutely not. And every week when he would check in, he would ask him. And he said, absolutely not. And finally, he got so tired of him, he said, listen, there's only two people who can get you to San Diego. It's God or the governor. Like, other than that, like, you got to give it up. Well, his group members had written to the governor. And I remember being online with him there. And him reaching into his front pocket and taking out this folded up piece of paper, like, do I have my calendar? No, I have my calendar here. So I had a piece of paper, an 8 by 11 piece of paper, just like this, folded in quarters like mine. And I remember him unfolding it and in the right-hand corner, seeing the raised seal of the governor of Oklahoma. And his name rang a bell to me because he was all over the news during this time, the last couple of months. And it said, I forget the guy's name, but that he had permission to leave Oklahoma for 72 hours and attend the International Conference of Alcoholics Anonymous in San Diego, California, between these dates. And I really give credit as the first real major hit in my agnostic atheist armor as that particular moment. I had nothing left to argue with. By all sense, in my logical brain, the way my brain works, what he was telling me is not possible. And I am clear today that if I had not got started in the work with the big book, I'm not sure I would have been there as an active member of AA, and I'm not sure my mind would have already been open enough to accept what I saw. So I struggled with this the rest of the weekend because it started to really affect one of my deepest core beliefs, that there is no God. And, um, you know, I love, um, in fact, he's speaking in a couple of weeks, um, Sandy B is speaking in Barnegat, and his description of how he grew up with God is mine. And he states it so clearly, um, and I'm not, by no means do I mean to offend any religion, Christianity, anything. I myself am a Christian today, so it has nothing to do with it, but I want to make sure I'm not trying to offend anyone. But he says, like me, he has other family members, I have other family members, that have received comfort and faith from the religion that I was raised in and born into. I have siblings like that too. It didn't work that way for me. He describes being in the church he went to and looking up front and looking up and seeing a cross and saying to himself, well, if that's God's son and God really loved his son and that's where he wound up, I can't imagine that God would love his son. I can't imagine what happens to a guy like me. Like, I have Sandy's version of being an eight-year-old boy in that church. Like, that was my view. Well, if there really is a God, based on what I'm doing now, there's nothing good in store for me. But when I left San Diego, two weeks later I went to the Oxford group, which is on 84th Street in Central Park West. The old archivist of the General Service Office, Frank M., used to go to that group and I went there that night. I had seen Frank at a meeting, and he said, you should go that night. There's going to be a good speaker. And I showed up, and there was a very, very small, petite, elderly Jewish woman. She had a tattoo from the camp she was in across her forearm. She was very dignified and graceful. And at the international convention, they bring the flags in an alphabetical order. And she happened to be the flag bearer for Israel. And she told from the podium that night of being online behind Jack Murphy Stadium, with the flag bearers of Iraq and Iran and Jordan, and how they had all laid their flags down on the ground and hugged and cried. And I was like, God, if there is a God, He's really messing with me the last couple of weeks. Because I felt like I'd just witnessed something and heard something that was beyond human description for me. Like, in the real world, that just doesn't happen. Amen. And... And within the next two months after that meeting, I ran into my friend who I had lost touch with. He was going to Fordham Law, and he got drafted during Desert Storm. He got reactivated, his reserve unit. He was a military police officer, a Jewish-American, young and sober. And he told me how he was stationed in this Muslim country at a prisoner of war camp, and that one night a week, a Muslim member of Alcoholics Anonymous would pull down a street from his base, and he would walk down, get in the car, and this Muslim AA member would drive this Jewish-American soldier to an AA meeting. They would have their meeting, and then he would go home. And I just was like, God, what are you doing to me? Like, you're giving me too much to handle, and I'm losing. Like, I know when I'm losing a debate. I love to argue. Like, I am on the losing side now. And really, the final straw was not too much longer after that. I was at the 11 a.m. meeting at the General Service office. On Friday, and a lot of people come from around the world and around the country through that meeting when they're in New York. It's kind of like the Statue of Liberty. If you're from New York or New Jersey, you really don't go there, or the U.N. or places like that. Like the General Service office, I'm always amazed that the archives are there, and there's an 11 o'clock meeting, but most people I run into in AA have never been there. But I went to this meeting, and the corrections chair for Ireland was there. Now, my family is very Irish Catholic. My grandfather came here from Parker's prison. He was born on the Isle of Wight. He was let go with one choice, go to America or stay here for a long time. And that was back in the 1920s. And I'm Irish Catholic. My family has a definite opinion on what's happened in Ireland in the last 40 years, and how we think it should go. And I try to leave that podium outside, but I leave that opinion outside of the podium, but to let you know that I was raised with this. We were not allowed to watch. The Charles and Diana wedding as a kid, all that stuff, we just did not participate in. And so I was at this meeting, and they call the times in Ireland the Troubles, and there's only two sides in the Troubles, the Protestant and the Catholic. And so this corrections chair of Ireland told how that there's special prisons for the Troubles. Well, I knew that. And he said that none of the inmates from either religion ever cross into the other tiers. They are separated at all times. They eat separately. They live separately. And he said that no outside organizations are allowed into those prisons. And he said there's only one exception to those two things. The only place that Catholic and Protestant prisoners mix is in the Alcoholics Anonymous meeting held in that prison. And the only outside organization allowed in is Alcoholics Anonymous, not even the Red Cross. So those four things happened to me in a period of like four months. And although I don't have... I don't have the same God or belief in God that I had in 1995. I stand here today, somebody who still considers his connection with God the single most important thing in my life. As many times as I want to turn my back on God or anything like that, I know that it's the single most important thing in my life. But I know that getting active in the big book and being a member of AA put me in a spot where God had plans for me for my armor to be broken down. So if you don't believe in God, I really try to stress that. Now, when I came into AA at 15 years old, this is not the place I wanted to be. And you know, sometimes I hear, I'm not a person who says... I used to be the person who said, I'll never tell a drunk log from a podium. Well, I'll never tell a drunk log at a step meeting or a big book study. But if I'm at an open speaker meeting or a speaker's meeting, I'm going to talk about my drinking. A little bit, not all of it, but a little bit. But I've liked to drink since I can remember. That's, you know, my drinking story. You know, I mean, the fact of the matter is, I've heard somebody say it much better than me. By the time I was 12 years old, I was a good student, a good Boy Scout, a good kid to have on your baseball team, not a bad son, and not a bad brother. Not great, not the worst, but I did all those things. And I hated myself. And as I heard someone else say, a lot better than me, within a year of drinking, maybe six months, but within a year for sure, I was no longer a good brother, no longer a good son, no longer a good kid in school, no longer a good kid to have on your team, no longer a good altar boy, but for the first time in my life, I liked myself. And that's why when I hear people talk about consequences, I start to get worried, because my experience with working with people in AA is that consequences do not work with people like me. They've never worked for me. If you want to ask me if I like not drinking, I do. Do I love AA? I do. Am I addicted to the peace of mind and serenity and no drama in my life? Off the wall, off the charts, would I plead guilty to that? If I had known that this life was available to me, but at 13 years old and drinking, consequences were not going to stop me. You know, when I see a 13-year-old kid today, I realize how young it is. I know how young it is. And I can't give you the experience of somebody who is 60, and came to AA, or 40 and came to AA. I can only give you the experience of a young boy who came to AA. And my experience is that 13 years was long enough to feel the way I felt. 13 years was long enough to hate myself inside. 13 years was 13 years too long to have that pit in my stomach. And when I found a different way to live, where I all of a sudden could live with myself comfortable in my own skin, consequences were not in my vocabulary. Because it didn't matter what the consequences were. You know, I know today, it just took me a long time to find out that drinking is not my problem. Sobriety is my problem. I've always done fine with drinking. You know, even today I would tell you that I am a drinker's drinker. You know, even when I travel the world for work, and I'm out with people who drink, and I buy drinks with people, I just, I know a drinker's drinker from a mile away. And I know someone who's really not a drinker. I, you know, did I have consequences? Am I drinking? Of course. Too many to talk about from the podium. And too much of a blackout drinker to really recall every one of them. But I know without a shadow of a doubt that I'm horrible at sobriety. It is just not my natural state of being. Once I realized that there was another way to be, why would I want to be sober? I mean, that was really me at 13 years old. And when I wound up coming to AA, I kind of got tricked here in New York. Um, family court wanted me to come here. And I had a high school counselor. My mom, most of my life, was an untreated, stay-at-home Irish Catholic woman from Brooklyn. She didn't even drive, I think, until I was 10. You know? Everything, she talked in letters and street numbers. You know? The street was the gutter. She knew the numbers of the trains. She did not, she took her while we used to suburbia. My dad was a very highly decorated, deep-cover narcotics agent in the height of the 70s heroin, you know, run. It's funny, I was speaking in Florida at a convention. And, um, there's a famous drug dealer, um, named Nicky Barnes. Um, if you were alive back then, or if you were anywhere involved on either side of that trade. Um, but I was speaking at this convention, and this guy made a beeline for me after the meeting. And, um, he was in, Nicky Barnes' crew, and he's like, he knew, he could recognize, I looked like my dad, he knew exactly who I was. Uh, but my dad's, my dad's a lot in life, you know? He was very good at buying lots of heroin. And that's what he did. Um, he came home in a different car every night. Sometimes he came home in a New York telephone truck, the old yellow, uh, white and gray ones. Uh, sometimes he came home in a New York City subway, uh, um, like a worker vehicle. Sometimes he came home in a Corvette. Sometimes he came home in an Eldorado. Sometimes he came home in the old Buick Electra that was like 20 feet long. Everything was electric. But my dad was my absolute idol. He never went anywhere without a gun. Um, he had absolutely no respect. I mean, I love my dad to death. I buried him of this disease. And, and I, and I love him to death. But, I mean, he didn't teach me the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous growing up. Um, he had his own view on the world. And you, you pretty much were okay with his view or you were going to have a hard time growing up. And, uh, like I said, he carried a gun everywhere he went. I never remember being anywhere with my dad when he didn't have a gun. Um, and our family, we didn't snort it. We didn't smoke it. We didn't stick it in our arms. We drank. Like, that's what we do. It was made very clear from an early age. And it was very, very clear that there were us and them. And us did drugs and went to prison upstate. I'm sorry, them did drugs and went to prison upstate. Us, we either became New York City cops or firemen or union electricians or worked for Con Ed or drove trains to the Transit Authority and drank beer in the backyard and were members of the Emerald Society Bagpipe Band. Like, that's us and there was them. And, and it was, you know, really drilled into me. And drinking was never something that was considered bad. And, um, when my parents, when my parents got divorced, we were the first divorced family on the block, and I hated my mom with such venom. But I found out my natural tendency in life, even 19 years sober, is I kind of always root for the alcoholic. I seem to always be on the side of the alcoholic. Um, because I guess I understand or I relate, um, I identify. But, um, when I had to go to AA at 15 years old, a counselor had convinced me that maybe I would be able to understand my dad. That maybe if I understood my dad, um, I'd have a, able to deal with the family more. That my dad had told my mom that his sons, under no certain terms, could go to family counseling or to AA. Like, and his reason was that when we went through our back, now this is like, you know, I hear sometimes people say, I guess older people than me when they came to AA, that they wondered, are they going to drink at their daughter's wedding? Are they going to drink at their own wedding? Like, I've heard people worry about that. My dad, when I was 15 years old, was telling my mom, he won't pass the background check of the New York City Police Department if he goes to AA or it's on our health insurance that you're taking him to family counseling. So, my mom, though, I had to go to AA. The family court said I did. And, you know, when I showed up at AA at 15 years old, I was not dressed like I am tonight. You know, I mean, I just came from work today. I showed up at my first meeting on Long Island, I lived in a town called Kings Park. There used to be a really big psychiatric facility there. Most of my friends' parents were Irish and all worked there, the mom and dad. And when I went to the first meeting there, I was probably, I don't know exactly what I had on, but I'll tell you, the uniform of the day for me was black engineer boots, Levi dungarees or corduroys, a white thermal shirt, a black concert t-shirt like Iron Maiden or Ozzy or Black Sabbath on top of that. In the winter, I had a three-quarter length green olive drab army jacket with the Who Quadrophenia symbol painted on the back of it. And in the fall and the spring, I had a Levi dungaree jacket with an Ozzy oil painting on the back of it. Before I left the house every day, I would pull out the front belt buckle of my pants and I'd put my pack of Marlboro Reds down in my private area because I knew that cops were good at searching people, but my experience with teachers was that they had some boundaries and that they really, that I could hide more with teachers. And I was a little bit When I first came to AA dressed like that, my first, it was like a smoker's paradise AA in 1982. It was, you know, we joke about it now, but it really, if you, put it this way, I don't know how it was for an adult. If you were like me and most of the time, every time you lit up a cigarette, you got detention, suspended, or grounded. It was nice to be in a place where people just let me smoke my brains out as much as I wanted. No adult ever said to me, you're too long to smoke, too young. They just let me smoke. And, you know, AA was a scary place and I've come to realize that AA is a scary place for everybody that comes here today. It doesn't matter your age. For me, my dad taught me this is where the losers and quitters come. We don't go to AA. We drink. And I remember, you know, I always tell the anniversary story is that I've traveled a lot for work and for AA and I know that there are two tables in every meeting after the meeting in, any meeting you go to. There is the cool table and the uncool table. When I was 17 years old, a guy on Long Island told me, he said, Billy, you're a pretty nice kid but you might be too cool to get sober and that's too bad. Now, I didn't know what he meant then but I can tell you this. If you see me uncomfortable in an AA meeting and really uncomfortable, there's a chance that I'm probably looking at some young guy who is too young, too cool to get sober because I can recognize that I'm a little too young and a mile away. Because if the hot girl is outside, still smoking a cigarette while everyone else is listening to the preamble, I'm outside at 16 years old. That's just the truth and when I come in, I can't be quiet and quietly find a seat. I need to like high five or shake hands with everybody I know coming in, being distracting and get a seat and bother everyone. Like that's what I know. Thank God, there was no text messaging back then. I can't even imagine what I've been doing but that was me at 16 years old and I'm outside and the uncool table I would never sit at because those people read the big book and had sponsors and worst of all, it looked like their whole pathetic life was AA and that's what I was scared of the most. I was terrified of losing the life I was meant to live as a result of being stuck in Alcoholics Anonymous. I like the uncool table. I mean, I like the cool table. The cool table is interesting. Everyone says time doesn't matter but there's like a year between eight of us, you know? So we like to throw that one out a lot. You know, we like to throw out that that person's life doesn't have enough balance because they're too much involved with AA. I know today for me the word balance means something I like to do. AA is getting in the middle of it. Like that's balance for Billy. You know, golf, I don't get to golf enough, go to the gym enough, because AA is interfering. But I heard everyone talking about this anniversary night and I was fascinated by this thing that I'd never heard of before. And I went to this anniversary night and it was in a church like this except the basement. And in most church basements there's like that little cut out window in the corner, the serving window. And I remember they turned the lights down halfway and I remember this old woman, like she was like 35, 38 tops. You know, she got the cake. With the candles on it. And she walked out and everybody sung happy anniversary. And I'm like 16 years old there smoking my Marlboro with my baseball hat pulled down over my eyes with my chain with my wallet on it. I'm as cool as can be. And I'm thinking to myself, there is no, I'm like 25, 35, 45, 55, 60. If I'm lucky, 65, like there's no way for the next 40 years like I'm looking forward to the last Friday night of the month, anniversary night. Like, God had much bigger plans for a guy like me and this definitely was not it. And I've heard how everyone was talking about it. So, I struggled with that. And I was in and out. And I don't, you know, I don't like to say, I don't make fun of the slogans anymore I used to. I don't say don't do a 90 and 90 anymore because I know too many good big book people who found the big book as a result of doing a 90 and 90. I know that I have power. I've found a power. I've found a power over people, places and things. But, for a new person, people, places and things can be a chore. For me, always a downfall. And, you know, when I was 18 years old and graduated high school, I made a decision. And that decision was that I can't quit drinking during double header softball season. Like, that was my most intelligent thought that I could come up with after looking at my drinking. Like, I don't do well counting days during softball season. So I was on probation and it was August and I wanted to play in this one-pitch softball tournament on Long Island and I said to my girlfriend, and it's amazing to me the ability of the unemployable, out-of-control, disastrous alcoholic male to have a female in his life, but we somehow pull that off. And I said to her, she said to me, are you playing in the softball tournament? And I said no. And she said, no, you know, I'm going. That's where our friends are going. It's Labor Day weekend. Probation shows up at your house on Saturday morning asking you to take a breathalyzer. You don't have a driver's license. I've got to drive everywhere. You know, my parents don't even want me with you. Like, I'm going. And so, at that age, I would never have told you that I was jealous or insecure because I was way too cool. But I was jealous and insecure and I said, well, then I'm going. And that was the Friday of Labor Day weekend, 1984. I'm at five o'clock. I'm at five o'clock in the afternoon in that parking lot. Somebody packed, I still today can tell, a cooler that's been packed by a pro. You know, not the random pack a cooler job, but the person who goes to the real work to make sure that those beers are going to be as cold as possible for as long as possible. And, you know, I remember, I was 18. I looked down at that cooler. The bud bottles were so cold that the label was coming off and it was 90 degrees out and I took one of those beers. And three hours later, I'm in left field and I have a beer on the foul line because I can't possibly walk from left field to the dugout without a beer. I was chewing tobacco in my mouth. That night, I blew off my girlfriend, didn't even go out with her, went out with all the other guys drinking, wound up out in the Hamptons and got arrested at the boardie bar on that Sunday afternoon for disorderly conduct and spent the night in a Hamptons town jail. That's what my drinking was like. I could tell you a million of those stories, but that was what my drinking was like. And I would come in and out of AA and my dad's job kept me out of trouble for a long time. I flipped the car one time, I didn't get arrested. I left the car in an accident one time, I didn't get arrested. Got caught doing donuts on somebody's lawn that like nine years before when I was a kid, took my football because it got on their lawn. I don't know why I thought of that at coming home from a high school party, but it seemed like, Steve, I don't like you and you took my football when I was nine and I don't like you and it's a good time to do some donuts on your front lawn. I didn't, you know, I didn't get arrested for that. My dad's job enabled me for a good bit of time. And you know, I also want to make clear that I don't make light of drinking and driving because I, we have a tendency to laugh about things here and I understand why we laugh, but I also have been around long enough to know that there's a good many members of Alcoholics Anonymous who have either been injured by a drunken driver or had family members injured or friends injured or a family or friend taken by a drunken driver. And so I try not to make light of that. I try to be truthful that I never knew there was anything wrong with drinking and driving. Like, my dad, when he taught me how to drive, we pulled out of my house, we got to the deli, we traded seats, he said, go inside and get me two Schaefer Tallboys and two Robert Burns cigars and then he taught me how to drive. But I don't ever remember going to Schae Stadium or Yankee Stadium or the Nassau Coliseum or Madison Square Garden without my dad having a Traveler and a bunch of extras. And when I learned to drive, like, I know I run into other alcoholics, I dated myself, I'm a product of the 70s and 80s. I have friends that at 2 o'clock in the morning love to light up a joint, put on Pink Floyd the wall, sit on their parents' couch and end a good night. That has never been me. Now, sometimes I wish it would have been me. I have always been the guy that there's always something better going on where I'm not. And that wherever I am, I need to get someplace because I'm missing something. And I am fascinated now by people who use taxis and vans, but that's just not how I was raised. I get in my car and I go to where I need to go. And, you know, I got sober in 1990 and I had a baby. I had a really bad car accident and I went to, you know, I was incarcerated for that car accident. And that car accident does not make me an alcoholic. I'm clear on that. It's given me a lot of guilt and shame and remorse to deal with over time. But that's the last time I came into AA. And I'm always amazed. I went to my high school's 20th reunion lately, not too long ago, a couple of years ago. My fifth high school reunion I got thrown out of for five years. I was riding at the cocktail hour. I didn't even make it into the real party. My 10th high school reunion I didn't go to because I was too ashamed. My 20th high school reunion I'd like to tell you that because I live in the sunlight of the spirit and I've had a spiritual experience and I have experience with all 36 principals, that I just parked my car and walked in with my head held high. That's not the truth. I pulled into that valet. I couldn't get out of my car. I pulled to the end of the parking lot. I actually had tears in my eyes thinking, do I have the courage to walk in and face these people? They know what I've done. They know who I used to be. They know that my family basically had turned their back on me. Who wouldn't because of what the things I had done. But you know, I walked in there with my head held as high as I could, sober, what, 18, 17 years at the time. And I was thumbing through my high school yearbook, which, by the way, I don't even know where mine is. I wish I did. But I was too cool to care about things like that. But there was a section that said, I predict in 20 years that kids filled out. Now, I was probably too cool to fill it out. And you filled it out about other kids. And there was two in there for me. It said, one, St. John's Hospital will dedicate a wing to Billy N. And the other said, Billy N will break every bone and tear every muscle and ligament in his life. Now, I stood there reading that. I have no left kidney. I have no spleen. My ribs have been broken so many times because I don't know when to shut my mouth. I'm a blackout drinker who loses control of every muscle except for my mouth. And at 3 o'clock in the morning in an Irish bar, that's a dangerous combination. So I don't know how to be laying on the ground in the back of the Tipperary Inn when someone is kicking me in the ribs with steel-tipped boots and saying, I've had enough. I know how to get up and go back in the bar and say, hey, I'm not done, but I don't know how to say I've had enough. And I read this and I just sat there in amazement because when I first read that 20 years ago, I thought what they really said was I was the coolest kid in the class. Or if you were going to the next door town's fireman's fair, you wanted me with you if you were going to get into a fight. Or if you were going to a keg party, you wanted me. And so, you know, my journey in Alcoholics Anonymous has been interesting. You know, I spent a good part talking about God, but, you know, all the things I had learned as a young kid that I just didn't want to believe have been crushed. I wish I could say that they've been 50% proven wrong, but I have been proven wrong 100% by Alcoholics Anonymous. Number one, this thing about the more active you are in AA, the less of a life you'll have, my experience is the opposite. The more active I've been in AA, the more active a life I have outside AA. I still go to three or four meetings a week. I'm an active member of my home group. I've always had a commitment outside my home group. I've always gone to a couple of, I've always gone to a big book study meeting since 1993. I've always worked with new people. But in doing all that, I went back to school and finished school. I got a career that I love today. I sit on two boards for non-AA non-profits. I have a great life. I have a great wife. I have great friends. I have a great Friday night low dollar Texas Hold'em sober game. I mean, I have a life that like I shake my head at like it's so good. But it's so contrary to what I thought that the more I was active in AA, the less of a life I would have. And, you know, I was speaking the other day, you know, I can't take anyone through the steps from the podium. I can't. I can say a couple of things that maybe will catch someone's attention. I know that one of the gifts of good sponsorship is knowing when to tell a sponsor to do something and when not to. I also know my limits as a sponsor. But I also know I think the greatest asset in my life today is what I have personally witnessed in Alcoholics Anonymous. Not what I've read. Not what I've studied. But what I've witnessed. I've witnessed a lot of people who've left AA. And I was taught early on about these three groups of people in Alcoholics Anonymous. The first group who comes and never leaves. That's not me. But I meet people like that. The second group people like me who came here in and out in and out and now they're here. But there's a third group of people that never come back. We don't hear about them. And there's a fourth group of people who somehow try to not drink and not do this. But I know that the people that I've lost in my life the people who have drank again who've had horrible consequences I can tell you what didn't take them out of AA or make them cut down on AA. It was not divorces or bankruptcies or deaths in the family. In fact, my experience with alcoholics is that the worse life is going the more active they are in AA. That's when I see them more in an uncomfortable chair with a bad cup of coffee in their hand. But when life is good success has taken more of my friends out of Alcoholics Anonymous than anything else. It blows my mind. And I don't mean money. Money is such a however you define success personally family job paying your bills going back to school paying somebody back making amends like the very thing that gave us this life seems to be the first thing that some of our brains tell us we should cut back on. And the way it was explained to me is that someone took the time to take me through the big book with only one price. There was only one price of admission. If I was willing to have a man take the time to take me through the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous that my price of admission would never go away. And that admission would never go away. And the reason was to never turn my back on AA or an AA request to take someone else and to continue to take other people through the big book and to remain an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous regardless of good times or bad. I mean like I said I can't take you through the big book but I I love that line it was the end of a perfect day not a cloud on the horizon. You know I was at a I was at a Cold War at a non-AA recovery event not too long ago and I was on this panel of speakers and the guy next to me he had another piece of paper and he called it the trigger list and it's what they gave people who left his halfway house to make sure now I won't argue that the things aren't on that list maybe in 1993 when I was crazy militant I would have said I'm not going to that list is crazy I know today there's good practical advice to tell newcomers because they don't are not guided they're not grounded in these 12 spiritual principles yet and they might not have a connection with God so they need to take extra precaution but I mean if I really look at that list what am I going to put on it whatever you do when you leave here don't have a perfect day make sure that there's never no clouds on the horizon and no clouds in the sky like we can't warn people about having a great day which is why I love that line so much that my restless irritable and discontent is there no matter what untreated it just is you know the best definition of a heavy drinker compared to an alcoholic that I've ever heard lay person's terms without any medical terminology is heavy drinkers drink to go someplace alcoholics drink to go to leave someplace that makes sense to me drinkers heavy drinkers want to feel different than they do and then they can go back to their life whatever they do I need to leave where I am immediately how I feel that's and if you're leaving yourself rather than going somewhere there's a chance that you might suffer from the spiritual disease that we talk about of alcoholism which I finally was taught there is no medical solution for I mean I love the big Alcoholics Anonymous I'm fascinated with some of the history that I love when someone first showed me a first edition and showed me that Dr. Silkworth's name was not in it that for his name to be in it at that time would be heresy and how crazy that you know the rest of the medical community I'm so glad somebody taught me that and showed me that some non-alcoholics really went out on a limb for us that God put the right people in motion you know I am I buried my mother of this not this disease but of of cancer and I'm you know when I got that call for the first three years of my sobriety now I've been homeless in sobriety incarcerated I know what it's like to go into hotels in New York City and go upstairs and look for room service carts where people already ate the food and pushed it outside I don't like to dress like this and have my job today you know I went to the U.S. Open this summer I was walking through Penn Station I used to buy a two dollar ticket from Penn Station to Jamaica it was the cheapest ticket you could buy so the Long Island Railroad Police couldn't kick me out of the waiting area at night if I slept there I was walking through Penn Station with a couple people from work dressed like I am from the U.S. Open and it's funny they all know I don't drink but if I had stopped in the middle of Penn Station and said hey hold it see that seat over there I used to stay there like they wouldn't be able to handle that like their comprehension of the world and what God can do is so different from mine most of them there are some people who are outside of this program who are so much spiritually advanced but they can't understand they know I used to drink a lot that I don't drink today some of them know I'm in AA some of them don't some of them don't but it is amazing what this program has done for me and what my mother told me in 1999 she was in a hospice on Christmas Eve I went home that night to wrap the gifts I knew it was my mother's last gift ever from me and I was devastated the next morning I got up I got her wig her perfume her makeup Polaroid pictures of her cat her crazy Irish music on CD a little boom box and I went to her room I got two big Dunkin Donuts cups of coffee like I was bringing a tall boy for my mom I propped the bed up and jumped up in bed with her and we had a talk and she took you know she said a bunch of things and if you've ever dealt with anyone that's dying of cancer they hallucinate a lot so sometimes you have to check the false from the true but she said something she said what AA gave me Billy is your ability to get a quart of milk so I said mom tie that together for me like are you with me right now or are you did I lose you again and she said that when I was a teenager there was a time in her life when she needed something at night that she would rather do without than be at a store in town and get the worst question that anyone could ask her how are you kids how's Billy doing and she said she would rather do without and she said what AA gave her is that at a certain point in my sobriety she couldn't wait for somebody to ask that question she couldn't wait to tell them what Alcoholics Anonymous had done for her family and so my mother sums it up much better than I do so if you're new here and you hate AA if you you know all I can say is people in AA get sober people around AA get drunk I learned that a long time ago but you can't you can't be in AA and just watch other people get sober that doesn't get you sober there's going to come a time when you have to get active in a spiritual process that we have and maybe you're like me and you won't believe in God the first time you do the steps that doesn't mean they didn't work you know I've been taught that these are so powerful that even a bad attempt that you don't want to do will open your mind a little bit and my experience is I can't I came here a racist a bigot an anti-Semite homophobic my family did not you're not going to go down the borders tonight and find the Noonan Family Guide to Raising a Healthy Family God bless my mom and dad they did the best they could but um I came here very narrow and I thought that AA would take away my dreams and what I found in AA from people like Don and Tom I and other people like that is that I have the right to have what I want whatever dreams I want and if they were ever going to come true it's going to be as a result of going through the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and remaining an active member here that's where my dreams will come from and that I whatever I do I have to make sure that my number one job in life is to carry this message everything else is secondary everything else anything you know that my job for God is to be an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous and um you know I'm sure there's a lot of people in this room who've had people tell them that they're either a zealot or they're too active or whatever else you know I mean when I went to my grandmother's funeral my sponsor said to me what's the worst they're going to say to you sorry to hear you're not out there wrecking your life sorry to hear you're not locked up in the county jail anymore sorry to hear you're not getting pulled over for DWI all the time like I don't need you to do that I don't need that life anymore and if that means I have to take some talk from people who say maybe I'm a little bit too active you know what for me the trade off has been minimal and the gifts that I've been given are beyond this kid's wildest dreams I came here a broken 15 year old boy I stand here today a 43 year old man who's made more mistakes and bigger mistakes in sobriety than drinking but I've found that God put a program on this earth some 75 something years ago for people like me that my natural tendency is to do things that bring me shame and guilt and God put a program in my life when I can I can limit my actions I can have less and less amends I might have the usual suspects on my inventory I plead guilty to that and maybe sometimes the names change but the pattern is like I could just want to I don't even want to hear it from my sponsor I don't even want to hear it however I've been given a life that I would trade with nobody not one person and when I was 15 years old I either wanted to be the third baseman for the Yankees dating a supermodel or the heavy metal drummer for a band dating a porn star like my life and my view of life has completely changed so thanks for having me here tonight