Handle Your Feelings or They’ll Handle You – Joseph M.

I don't know how I'm going to die. I used to tell people that I was gonna die a white lung. I've inhaled so much chalk dust over the years. I also might wind up electrocuting myself. I'll tell you one thing, I am thrilled, deeply thrilled to be back in Texas. I love it here. I remember the very first time I ever came It was in Longview. I landed in Shreveport, and as we drove over the border into this magnificent state, I became well aware that the heart of the Texan is as big as his state, and I have jumped into a lot of hearts here. Thank you for having me. Ladies and gentlemen, I would begin tonight by giving you a tiny little insight into the heart of the alcoholic. A therapist at a treatment center was walking down one of the corridors and saw an alcoholic patient on his hands and knees with his ear up against the wall. And he thought it slightly strange but said nothing and went on his way. Three hours later, the fellow's still there. Hands and knees with his year up against the wall two hours after that. He's still here. Still there. So the therapist thought, well, there must be something on the other side of this wall. He got down on his hands and knee and put his ear up against the wall 20 minutes later, his back is starting to kill him And he looks at the alcoholic and says, I don't hear a thing. And the alcoholic says, neither do I. It's been that way all day. I was down in Atlanta with Dr. Hunter in December and heard a magnificent story from a pilot from one of our commercial airlines. You'd be astounded at how many pilots there are in AA. You'd be terrified if you knew about it before they got there. Anyways, he told this magnificent story of a football game being played by the animals of Africa. The rhinoceros team was playing the zebra's team. So the zebra lost the talk and kicked off and the old uh or the rhinoceros lost and kicked off the zebra grabbed the ball started upfield got tackled at the three yard line and at the end of three downs he had gotten nowhere and had a punt well of course being a zebra is pretty good kicker he put it into the opposite end zone that old rhino grabbed it and started upfield no no finesse no class no broken field running he just barreled straight ahead knocked over 11 opponents and scored and that's the way the game went uh half time it's 56 to nothing favor the rhino so they come out for the second half and the zebra kicked off the old rhino grabbed it again in the end zone got out to about the six yard line he went down as though somebody had shot him with an elephant gun and it took him a little while to get up well meanwhile everybody on the zebra's team said who hit him he tackled their rhino and a tiny little voice from down the ground said i did and they looked down and there's a helmet about the size of a half dollar. So they lifted the helmet, and under it is a centipede. They said, you tackled the rhino? He said, yes, no problem. They said well where in the world were you during the first half? And the centipedes said, putting my shoes on. you gotta get ready now I'll tell you a true story some years ago an acquaintance of mine a recovered alcoholic doctor was sharing an incident that had happened to him in his home several years before he was a long time sober and he lived in his home with his wife and his wife's mother. The children were all grown, married and gone. And one evening he and his bride got into one of these marvelous family hassles that happened every now and then. You know how they begin. Who left the cap off the toothpaste and it took off from there? And they were having a wonderful old screamer. They were yelling at each other and so on. And the mother-in-law entered the room and answered the argument. and she began to recall to him everything that he had ever said or done to her daughter during the drinking years and as this went on both he and his wife were shocked and then they were appalled at the vehemence of her anger and at how accurate her memory was. They had long since all but forgotten some of the things they had certainly resolved all of them the mother-in-law kept at it she was recalling entire weekend whole conversations word for word that had happened years ago and this went on and on and she was approaching hysteria her voice got louder it got shriller and this went along for about an hour the two of them just stood there with their mouths open listening to him and she wound up almost hoarse and she screamed this out at the end she said besides all that i hate you and he said the only thing you could hear in the room was the three of them breathing and he looked at his mother-in-law and he said this i am so sorry to hear that because i love you he disarmed her completely she burst into sobs and cried for as long as she had yelled. And he said from that moment on, he and she began to develop a very lovely relationship they enjoyed at the moment of his telling them. Ladies and gentlemen, if I may, I would like this evening to just make a few comments about human emotions. I live with a family, as perhaps many of you know. I've been with Tommy and May Abraham for almost ten years. may handles everything i do and i remember some years about five years ago saying to her i'd love to do a talk about sobriety you hear enough about alcoholism let's talk about the healing the good part the recovery and she said that's nice and the emotions and one time i said i'd like to do this and i said well i'm not going to do it love to deal with a film on gratitude we talk about it in aa so much she said and the emotion and every time I'd open my mouth she'd stick the emotions in there and one day we had words about it how am I going to get emotions in all these things and they sat me down one day said let me tell you something father it's one thing to get sober it's another thing to handle your hatred and your anger and your hostility it's not a thing if you are the foul man or woman of an alcoholic to bury your anger your hostility, your hatred, all those magnificent feelings that every one of us has. But before I begin, I'd like to make some opening remarks. Number one, I am not a professional psychologist. Now, that has advantages and disadvantages. I do not know all there is to know about emotions. Nobody does. Nobody does! I don't have a technical knowledge of much. I know as much about emotions as any one of us who has ever gone through college has been given in general courses. I'll tell you this, I know what I've learned from people like you through the years. And the big advantage is that you won't hear any technical language. I just don't know any. I just Don't Know Any. The man who saved my life made one of the most profound statements about human emotion i have ever heard in my life he said emotions are what we have the most of and know the least about i think he was right second thing is this every single one of us in this auditorium is going to die feeling guilty about our feelings and i'd like to say right now that feelings are neither moral nor immoral they're there what is a human emotion i believe that a human emotion is a response to a stimulus flip a switch lights go on flip a switch lights go out strike me or stroke me praise me or insult me i will feel i will respond to that i have no control over that and yet i feel guilty about some of my feelings See if you hear yourself in any of these comments. I didn't love my mother as much as I should have. I didn'T love my father as much as I SHOULD have. I hated so-and-so. I always loved one child more than the others and didn'T dare let my feelings come out or I tried to hide it. Have you ever in your life felt this? God I wish he would just die and leave us alone just die and then you could crucify yourself for even daring to think such a thought and I thought those thoughts and if you hold a membership card to the human race you probably thought a few of them too what am I responsible for not the feeling that's a response to a stimulus bring me a picture I see make noise I will hear bring a rose I will smell food I taste hit me soothe me I will feel something there's no control over that I am responsible morally responsible for the subsequent action someone I dislike enters the room I have feelings of hostility that doesn't mean I'm a saint or a sinner someone I love walks in the room I have feeling of affection there's not there's more moral good about that than hostility produces is moral badness. A feeling is an immediate response to a stimulus. Now, cultivating a feeling like that woman did, I am responsible for that. Someone I dislike enters the room, I feel hostile. But if I punch him in the nose, I'm responsible for the punch, not the feeling. It's the subsequent action and that is what I have to pay attention to. My thesis for tonight, ladies and gentlemen, is a very simple thing. We'll get to it in a second. That incident from The Doctor's Life showed one person reacting with hate and another reacting with love in a given situation. Now, I believe, and I think that this is, it's one of the devices that the textbook writers use, all human emotions somehow can come under both of these headings, the love feelings and the hate feelings. Under love, think of tolerance, compassion, sympathy, forgiveness, joy. Under the hate feelings think of everything you can think of negative, intolerance, a lack of sympathy, antipathy, sadness, depression, anger, fear, depression, all of those so-called negative things. This group we call positive, good, constructive. Over here we call these bad not necessarily morally bad, just bad in the sense of negative or destructive. And my point tonight is this. I'm not going to overemphasize the love feelings, but let's look at these so-called negative, bad, destructive feelings. My thesis is simplicity itself. Handle them, or they'll handle you. And I have a responsibility to handle my own feelings. Ladies and gentlemen, no one else makes me happy or makes me unhappy. I am responsible for me. And this is why so many of us cop out. I drink because my wife divorced me, I just heard. I'm unhappy because of my job. I determine basically whether I am a happy or an unhappy person. Now, why do we call these things good, constructive, positive? Why do we call these things negative, bad, destructive? Simply because all of these love feelings not only produce, but they reflect an inner happiness. And these things are called negative because they produce and reflect an inter-unhappiness. Depressed, angry, sad, hateful people are unhappy and lovers are happy. Why? Why? Simplest reason on earth. you and I are built for love and love has an object outside of self I love you every one of these feelings these love feelings picture them as coming out from the word love like spokes from the hub of a wheel I am tolerant toward your shortcomings I forgive you your offenses against me I am compassionate with compassion to suffer with I'm compassionate toward your misery I am sympathetic Why really have the professionals robbed us of that word and stuffed empathy down our throats? Sympathy is a lovely virtue. It's a good thing. It means to suffer with. I take on your pain, and I weep with you. Every single one of these feelings looks toward someone else. They are all other-centered. Now listen to the negative feelings. Anger, grief, sadness, depression, intolerance. They produce unhappiness because they're self-centered. They are completely self-centred. We're born to die, right? People die by the tens of thousands every single day somewhere on this planet. Doesn't mean anything to me one way or another. Until I lose someone. And I'm not really concerned about the death. Why did God take this child? She was only six. Well, that little child that was taken at the age of six has spared a whole lot of misery on this earth She's with the God who created her. She's where she belongs. Why am I upset? Because of my grief. I'm not condemning that. It's kind of normal. Kind of normal, but the emphasis is on me and my pain. I'm saying that people, places, things, and occurrences can't affect me. I'd be stupid to presume that. You can contribute to my happiness and you can contribute to my unhappiness. But when the final curtain is run down, I am responsible for me. I am. They use this example. It rains. One man's happy and one man is sad. Why? The happy man has been praying for it and it comes the farmer who needs rain. The sad man wanted to play golf and can't. Ladies and gentlemen, rain is rain. What's the difference between the two men? The attitude towards the rain. I personally prefer this example. I'm walking down the street and I see a friend approach me. I speak to him and he walks up, and without a word, he smacks my face. Now, I'm going to cry. And I'll experience all kinds of feelings. Number one is surprise. Good heavens, he hit me! I will be very sad. My friend hit me. And I will get angry. He hit me, and I'll weep. Every single one of those reactions is perfectly normal. Something would be wrong with me if I didn't have them. Something would go wrong with you if you lost a child and didn't weep. My point is this. If I'm weeping because I got slapped, if I'm crying 20 years from now, that's not my friend's fault. It's mine. It's like kids run away. I'll never forget this. A priest from Manhattan. You've heard of him, Father Bruce Ritter. Takes runaways in. Fights off the pimps at the door. Takes these little teeny kids in. He said every now and then they'll find out where the kids are from. They'll call home. The parents say don't send them back. We'll call the police. Thirteen years old, abandoned. Absolutely abandoned. Some kids can rise above that and become doctors, lawyers, Indian chiefs. Other kids use it as a cop-out to jump into drugs. The only thing you can say to a kid is, so your parents don't love you. That's unfortunate, but it is a fact. Now, you can either handle that or it'll handle you. It depends on what you want to let it do to you. Ladies and gentlemen, the sad part about these negative feelings is that a lot of them occur and the feelings are justified because the things did happen. Here's a wife who can say, that man did get drunk and beat on me for 15 years. these things did happen and I hate them well ultimately I am responsible for me and I think it should be in the minds of all of you parents and lovers and brides and bridegrooms to be you will not make another person happy or unhappy you can contribute but how many of you have set out to make a man happy in marriage or to make a woman happy in marriage and find out after 15 years the whole thing is a disaster an absolute disaster you've tried you've done this you've given that and so on and somebody winds up completely neurotic and so forth how many of you have died for your children and they wind up in ways that you wish they hadn't and your question is always where did I go wrong I should have made him happy No, no, no. I am responsible for me and you are responsible for you. Bill Wilson's famous question that brought AA into being holds the clue to all of human nature. He said, I wonder if I might not get sober by trying to help another drunk. Ladies and gentlemen, fulfillment occurs as a result of commitment to others. Lovers are happy people. Haters are unhappy. Now all this is lovely and it's theoretical and it's classroom stuff. Now let's get down to it. Think of somebody in your life, let's say a parent or perhaps a grandparent, if you can remember back when you were a little bitty kid. Someone, even in your light today, whom you absolutely adore. You just love them. You love it when they come to visit. You're sad when they leave. You love to just be in their presence. You love the way they talk. You love hearing them talk. You just love to be near some people. There are other people you like to leave when they come around. Why? Now, you don't need a Ph.D. for this. I think that the answer is so simple. You know why you like some people and don't like others? You like some People? Hold on to your dentures. This is profound. You like Some People because they're nice. They're nice! We like nice people. And we don't like some people because they're not nice. What makes somebody nice and what makes somebody not nice? Ladies and gentlemen, it's so simple. Nice people are other-centered. They care about you. Remember your grandmother when you were a little bit of a boy or girl and you went to visit her? Hi, honey, how are you? What have you been doing? Mind if that's a pretty dress you were wearing? What did you get for your birthday? You, you, you. Other-centered people are nice and we love to be around them. And listen to these. You know, the sad sex. I, I, me, my, my my, I our, my I Shut up! Oh! You ever met people who are most miserable when they have nothing to be miserable about? They're tongue-tied. They don't know what to say. They don' t know what to say I know people who dwell on grief Now ladies and gentlemen I'm not condemning her but I can remember when I was a little fellow right next door to our house. We lived in a row house, one of the famous row houses in Baltimore. And I used to run errands for the lady next door. Both she and her husband are long dead now as are my mother and dad. Mrs. Hampshire had two children, a boy and a girl. And the girl, Kay, married when she was about 30. She was a tubercular. And this was long before the miracle drug era. And Kay married and only had a few very happy months of married life. I remember it was in the summer. And Kay and her husband walked down their steps next to us, and I could see them going by. They were going up to the movies three blocks up on 36th Street. And two minutes later, he came running up the street holding her in his arms. She had begun to hemorrhage, and within a matter of days she was dead. Now Mrs. Hampshire and Mr. Hampshire, and her brother, all and her husbands, their grief was normal and natural. Until the day she died, my next-door neighbor, on her own birthday and every Christmas would give herself a present. She would wrap it up and so on and write a little card from her deceased daughter, Kay. Now I'm not condemning her for that. I'm just saying that's what she did. But she kept that grief alive. She wouldn't let it go. And it cast a shadow over her relationship with her husband and her son and everybody else. All she could talk about... She would come next door to my mother and say, look at the pretty scarf Kay gave me. It was as if Kay were not dead at all. Look at the pretty scarf Kay gave me for Christmas. She was allowing that feeling which she hung to herself to control her. Now, that was just grief. Suppose I do that with anger, with jealousy, with hatred and with hostility. Handle them or they'll handle you. Let me give you two cases. For four years of my life, I was privileged to be chaplain of the first order of black nuns in the United States. They were based right near our college and we priests served as their chaplains. At every mother house you have nuns who are there studying, you have little novices who are learning and entering convent life and you have the old nuns who are preparing to die. Their work is done and they're worn out. There was one nun there, Sister Georgiana. Blind, bad heart arthritic and diabetic those four things were for starters they were for starters I used to love to go up the infirmary after breakfast in the morning just because it was you could always tell where Sister Georgiana was she whistled and she always had a joke the world's worst but she always had a joke she was a happy woman please you think of the person in your life that you love to be around examine the life it's full of pain it's filled with a whole lot of heartache and yet there has my own mother we could always tell where she was she hummed my mother hummed whatever she's doing the wash getting suffered my mother humming we always knew where she looked there was another nun there after how she was she told you you ever met them hi there Henry how are you I wish I hadn't said that, because out it comes, you know. And it always began with this, always. I didn't sleep too well last night. And I always wanted to scream, who cares? I don't care. Hey, look, if I ever ask you how you are, don't tell me how you slept last night, I just don't care. We're in the midst of inflation and economic recession and you didn't sleep well? i just don't want to hear that she would go through a whole litany of woe and after about eight minutes i'd be way down the carter turn in the corner she's telling me about her arthritic elbows we don't like to be around people like that nobody likes self-centered people we just don t we just dont i don't wanna hear i i me me my my mine i don t wanna hear that neither do you. It's like an ingrate. No one can stand an ingrade, even a five-year-old. Give a five year old a present and if he doesn't say thank you, say a little twerp. And it may not be his fault because he may not have been educated or trained to do that. We despise ingratitude. We dispise it. And we hate self-centeredness. We just hate it. My mother, God bless her, said one of the strongest things she ever said in her life, you know, if you even in a joking way paid herself a compliment she used to always say self praise stinks and it does it does it does nobody likes self centered people now before we get into how do we handle these things one question quiz are you nice can you answer just a minute Do people like to be around you? Do people like to be around you? Or are you a loner and it's the fault of everybody else? I am responsible for me. Now, are you a nice person? You can find out very quickly. You can find out very quickly. I shake your hand, you shake mine. How do you do? How are you? There are three things about me that are going to indicate you what kind of person i am i don't mean judging one's moral character i'm not talking about that and there are three things about you then let me know what kind of a person you are looks talk and action appearance how important is it it's not overly important but it plays its role uh i once heard a fellow say well i mean your appearance doesn't make any difference it doesn't make any different what you're wearing it's the person inside yeah but the person in fact determines what he's going to look like forget all the philosophical stuff what I'm trying to say is this if you look like a slob chances are we were just talking about appearance tonight about appearance on the part of counselors and professional people I think it's important would you pay any attention to a man in a business suit directing traffic he better have a cop suit on right alright what you do, your actions and your speech. Primarily your speech, it gives you away. You want to know what kind of a person you are? Have someone tape you for one day. And then listen. You know, have them pick a day out that you're unaware of. And you will hear, my friends, you will here whether you're an I-person or a you-person. just for fun can you think about today are you a different person at home from what you are when you leave the house is there a front for other people do you remember what you sounded like today if you deal with the public I remember one time May and I went over to a local store we took a vacuum cleaner to get a new cord put on it and the lady behind the counter her business is to deal with people She must have eaten 19 nasty pills for breakfast. You ever seen people look like they're sorry, they're glad? She looked that way, she looked thatway. It's rather crude, but it's very accurate. She looked like she could smell it, but not quite located. If you want to, you can find out exactly the kind of a person you are. Just listen to what comes out of your mouth. Are you an I, I, me, me gripe, gripe... person? Or are you genuinely interested in other people? And once you come to that answer, you'll find out why folks like to be around you or why they don't like to being around you. Some of the most attractive people on earth would never win a beauty contest. They're just lovers. now please how can I change if I'm not one can I take my own angers and hostilities and griefs and sadnesses and intolerance can I change them around yes there are three agencies at my disposal God others and self now God you know it absolutely astounds me that therapists who try to get sick people well they call themselves scientists and I'm not denying that the word science comes from a latin word f-c-i-o shio means to know and all science is a body of knowledge in any given area all knowledge the human mind is made to grasp truth ultimately truth itself god or whatever label you want to put on it and it stuns me that so-called scientists aren't ultimately reaching toward god and using him as a base of all healing but Nonetheless, what role does God play in human existence? Ladies and gentlemen, we hear so much talk of the miraculous. The miraculous is extraordinary. I have a right to pray for it. I do not have aright to expect it. Well, if your faith is deep, you can move mountains. I can see God up there saying, well, they want me to toss hills around for it, just... It is my personal passionate belief along with hundreds of millions of other people the role that God plays in human existence is he gives us the strength to do what needs to be done. Every now and then he tosses a miracle in. For example, when this is over tonight you could pray that he walked you back to your home And you could keep praying for that. But I don't believe he will do that. I believe he wants you to drive the way you came. And I believe that's perfectly normal and reasonable of him to expect that. I'm dead serious about this, I'm not joking, even though it sounds kind of corny and ridiculous. I do believe this. If I were to pray tonight to the good Lord to make me a physician by 9 a.m. in the morning, He could. I have no doubt of that. He could? I just don't believe he would. I really don't. And I believe it would be stupid and foolish for me to pray for that. Dear God, please make me a physician. Fine. Go to med school. What else? This is... Isn't that right? Fine. I've heard people say, oh dear God, remove this hatred from my heart. You remove it. It's in your heart, not mine. Dear God, you make me more patient. Do you know how God handles the alcoholism of the alcoholic? He gives the alcoholic the strength to not drink. Then he gives him the means to exercise that strength, the 12 steps. Guess who does the steps? The alcoholic. How does God remove these negative things from my life? In step seven, we humbly ask him to remove our shortcomings, all of this garbage over here. How does he do it? He gives us the strength and then the opportunities to exercise it. It's up to you. I always say this at meetings. Some guy comes in and says, oh, what a day I had. I had a flat going to work and while I'm looking up a gas station somebody plowed my car and totaled it I was late getting in I had to fight with the boss, he fired me I was light getting home and the wife and I had an awful fight burned dinner and I cut myself shaving and scalded myself in the shower boy do I need a meeting tonight what a horrible horrible day some old pro in the back of the room says sounds to me like God gave you about 22 opportunities to grow and you blew every one of them. Now, does it make any sense for me to ask God to remove my shortcomings? Yes! It also makes sense to me to know how he's going to do it. He's going the give me the strength to do what needs to be done and I've got to do. So what do I get from God? Strength. Now ladies and gentlemen and I'm dead serious about this. If you depend just on human strength or your own emotional maturity to get over hatred resulting from the fact that maybe your husband was guilty of incest with your 12-year-old, it's going to take a little bit more. Now, you may like this and you may not like this, but we need the grace of God to function. And if you don't believe, make believe. You better start someplace. and if you have no God-borrowed mind he's been helping me for a pretty good long time but I think you need strength that is other than human just reach out and ask for it whether you believe or not just reach in Ed, it'll come see he can function without our understanding of it number two is human help this is all important please listen to this, please one of the deepest convictions that I have in AA is the utter absolute necessity of having a sponsor and any man or woman in AA says well I don't really have one I've been sober 104 years I just use the group as my sponsor if that's the type of living that you are satisfied for yourself be my guest you know what happens when you bring a problem to a group you're going to get a minimum of a half dozen answers and guess which one you're gonna pick now I'm gonna ask you a question what do you think of yourself what do I think of myself what are you worth now I'll tell you what I'm worth I'm worth the best and if you ain't got to get out of my way I'm still fine somebody does that you know the principle I operate under since I got sober margarine covers the bread but it ain't butter and I like butter what kind of a life do you want to live what kind what kind of a light do you wanna live now here is another principle of human psychology that you very rarely hear especially from those who teach it no one is judged in his own case I need you I need you, that's the way I'm built we depend on the TV for the news, we depend on shopping centers for clothing we depend upon supermarkets for food I need you, set the first lesson that the battered alcoholic learns when he enters AA I need, I am helpless and then when we get well we learn one of the most magnificent facts of human nature. You need me. Ladies and gentlemen, just supposing I were self-sufficient and I had all my answers. Supposing you were self- sufficient and had all of your answers. I would not need you and you wouldn't need me and then where would any of us be? God built us to need each other. You know who the world's worst patients are? Doctors. Ask a doctor who's tried to treat a fellow doctor. You don't know who the world's worst guides are those who have no guidance of their own case in point i remember giving the guidelines one afternoon at a hospital it was one of these seminars like perhaps you had today and i did the guidelines after it was over a young female counselor age 26 came up to me in tears she said oh i just want to thank you you have re-motivated me to stick with my job i was going to quit. I said, why? She said, burnout, I guess. I said, who's your counselor? She stared at me. She obviously had no guidance in her own life but was insisting to other human beings that they needed her. I wouldn't send a sick cat to such a person. I think the most educated man on earth is one like Dr. Silkworth who when he was asked by Bill wilson i wonder if i might not get sober by trying to help another drunk he just spoke the truth he said i don't know i don t have all the answers but since nothing beats a trial but a failure why don t you try brilliant man brilliant man he knew what he didn t know i need you and you need me now my friends this has nothing to do with alcoholism if you are a human being if you are a parent, if you're trying to keep all your stinking problems to yourself because you're too damn proud to let anyone know you've got them, you're welcome to your trouble because you just asked for it. Now, anyone in this room who does not have a single person to whom he can go for help and guidance is already in deeply serious living trouble. Ladies and gentlemen, you know the church I belong to? Even the Pope, by law, has a confessor. no man is judged in his own case no one and if you have no one that you can go to in whose judgment you trust you've already got problems Ali at Chasen Point there's a dear friend of mine this family I just love him I've known him for years and he's Italian and she learned to be tremendous cook tremendous cook and I've eaten a lot of pasta in their home. In fact, I have often said that my idea of a happy death is to perish in a vat of spaghetti. But... I got a call from this man one Sunday afternoon and he was very obviously disturbed. He said, could I come down and see you? I said, sure. So he came down and he told me this tale of woe something that happened in their family. He has a son And this boy now is a scientist with NASA. He dreamed of that all his life, and that's what he is. Now, this man is just kind of an ideal husband. Good family man, never looked at anyone else. Has worked for Westinghouse all his wife. Has one hobby, he shoots. He's a target shooter. And his vacation once a year, he goes up the mountains with a few cronies and hunts. He's done that for 30 years. He taught this boy to shoot, target shoot. And one afternoon, the son and a buddy were coming home from the shooting range and they were passing by the Baltimore City dumps and they saw all these rats roaming around in the garbage. They got out of their cars, they had their rifles with them, .2 rifles, started flanking. Well, of course, somebody heard the gun fire and it was within city limits and sure enough, a police car pulled up and took them in for discharging firearms within city limit. Well, they called his home and the mother just absolutely went crazy and called the husband at work and he went on down and brought them home and boy he was absolutely furious our name is now on a police blotter you're nothing but a common criminal and he punished that boy pretty severely didn't lay a hand on him but uh he no car till like this happened in january right after christmas couldn't use the car till june couldn't go out except the church on sunday in school couldn't no dates no i mean it was it was pretty tough nigh about april that house was just like a bomb ready to explode and this sunday afternoon that he called me he and the son got in an argument at the dinner table and uh words led to more words and the father slapped the son in the face well that had never happened in that home and poor wife she just she just almost went crazy and this man said i here's what he said to me please listen to this it's important he said father i love you dearly he said you know that but he saidyou'll never know what it cost me to make that telephone call i said why he said i'm father of my family and i figure i should be able to handle all of this problem i said mario you're a fool but come on down so he presented this case to me now please listen to this because it's deathly important if you get someone in your life to guide your life either follow directions or leave them alone don't waste their time don't use them as a griping board please he came down and he went through all of this and I asked him one question I said why did you come to me turn he spluttered I said why did you come to me he said I need your help I said alright Mario I'm going to give you my help if you don't follow it don't come back and he looked at me i said you have done me a great honor i hope you haven't just come to sound off and ease the tension that was in your home this afternoon i said now you have asked for my advice and i do i really do have some to give you and i think it's accurate and i thing it's good but i expect you to follow it or don't ask for it anymore so very reluctantly see he didn't know what he was letting himself in for because He didn't know what I was going to say. He said, all right. I said, now I'm going to ask you a question. Do you think that your punishments were too harsh? I do. I said and I'll tell you why. I said Mario, you gave them in the heat of emotion. If you had waited one 24 hour segment of your life you could have been rational about it. Your son knows he knew he made a mistake because from the day you taught him to pick a gun up he knew it was illegal to shoot in the city. It was a simple act of carelessness. He knew he made a mistake, and he knew he ought to pay for it somehow. He also knows that you dumped it on him. I said, do you feel it was too much? He said, yes. I said tell him and lift it. He said I can't, he'll lose respect for me. I said Mario, that boy has already lost respect for you. He made a mistakes and acknowledged it. He loves you, you're his father. He also know's, he's at an age now, he about 17 then. I said he know's that you are as fallible and as subject to human error as he is. And I said, he knows you made a mistake. You know you made the mistake. He knows that you know it. He just waits for you to say so. So I went back and did. And there was a difference in my health. Don't waste your sponsor's time. Either follow directions or just shut up and go your way. Most people do not want advice. They want a sounding board or they want backing. i've had many a couple come to me and i knew it was a lost cause because i knew neither one of them would listen to me listen to the way they don't say this is the problem what's the answer he presents a problem and implies now i'm right you know it and i know it and he says straighten her out it's a lost Cause the Lost Cause you're not going to get anywhere with somebody like that you cannot get anywhere with somebody like that can't be done follow direction I would like now to show you from real life what has happened in the lives of some people that I know some who followed the advice and some who didn't very important I landed here in Texas a couple years ago and I went to a city where I was asked to give a talk and as it was over a man came up to me His eyes were brimming with tears. And I understand that he has lived that way for most of his adult life, sad and depressed. And as soon as he came near me, everybody in that group, I could see the embarrassment on their faces. I could feel that they wanted to step in between and stop him, but he didn't. He told me he was very depressed, suffered from depression. And as long as he started talking, I knew that this was technical depression. I said, look, hold it right there. I can't help you. I said I went through a period of it myself but please, get professional help. And a man looked at me and said, Father, I've been going to a psychiatrist for six years. I just don't do what he tells me. And I looked at that man and I didn't know what to do. I didn'T know what TO DO. I was in New England and a woman came up to me after a talk I had given and she started to talk about her husband. She was about 55. She hadn't smiled in years. you could see her face was just carved out of stone now this is the result of taking martyrdom and hugging it to yourself she said my husband's 55 he's a very brilliant engineer and i know that when he drinks he must just beat her down intellectually just beat heard down and beat her down and uh he doesn't admit he has a problem i said why don't you go to al-anon and get help for yourself whether he ever stops drinking she said he uh he just keeps drinking uh he reasons circles around me he has my son convinced that he's all right i said you go to alanine she said even my son he doesn't want to believe anything's wrong with his father i said why don't you go to alanin she said he doesn'T listen to me when i speak I said to her please please you get help for yourself ladies and gentlemen to this day she hasn't heard me she didn't hear what I said I wonder how many of you use therapy sessions just as gripe sessions how many how many of you are today saying the same gripe that you said five years ago. Follow directions. Some of them are tough, but if you don't follow them, don't waste people's time. You know Bill Wilson's greatest gift to humanity wasn't the 12 steps. They've been around for centuries. But when he wrote them the way he did, his gigantic contribution to humanity was he numbered them. when all else fails follow directions one goes before two you don't need a master's degree to grasp that be careful when you ask for advice to make up your mind you're going to follow it or go to somebody else just go to someone else fella climbed the highest mountain in his country and at 6pm when he reached the top he was so elated he threw his arms out of course he lost his grip and fell and he's flying down the side of a mountain and he looks out of the corner of his eye and he sees a branch and he grabs it and there we rip his arm off and he sangling there and when he opened his eyes he took a reading there was no exit no exit nothing up or down either side nothing he was in a pickle the need was very pressing so he looked up into the vast expanse of blue and said anybody up there and the voice came back immediately he said yes Henry this is the Lord if you want out of that fix you're in follow these simple instructions number one let go of the branch anybody else up there he wasn't about to do that he wasn'T about to do that at all And be very careful what you ask for if you pray to God. You're liable to get it. There's an old lady, she was about 92, and all her life she wanted to get a singing telegram. All her life. 92, there's a knock at the front door, she opens it up, there was a kid from Western Union. She says, I've got a telegram for you. She said, oh, wonderful, would you sing it? And he said, not this one, lady. Oh, please. All my life I've wanted one. This is the first telegram I ever got. I know I'm never going to get another one. Please sing it. And he said, lady, I can't sing this one. Oh, please. She slipped him $100. He said, okay, lady. Da-dum-ba-dumb-bum-bum. Your sister Rose is dead. Now, the tough part. I know a woman who went to a psychiatrist for some help in living. She's a recovered alcoholic and she gained a great deal from this man because he was common sense. You know, the man who saved my life made a comment about psychiatrists. He said there's no such thing as a mediocre psychiatrist. They either know exactly what they're doing or they need help themselves. I'm really drunk. This man knew exactly what he was doing. he said you your husband does not support you in your sobriety which happens a lot of times with female alcoholics whose husbands don't care about Al-Anon that's your problem he drinks at home and he has drinking friends in she said yes he said didn't you tell me that he's quite a drinker himself she said yeah he said you're asking a man with no legs to carry you she said oh now please listen to this because every woman or man married to an alcoholic has been subjected at one time or another to this she came one afternoon for a visit in tears he said your husband used filthy language yes he called you a whore she said yes he said are you one she said of course not please listen please does his calling you one make you one? She said, of course not. He said, would you then be so disturbed if he called you anything else? I said, sure. She said no. He says, he has a problem, hasn't he? You nag your husband to stay home. Yes. Why? Well, she said, I would like my children to have a father. he said wouldn't it be nice if he wanted to stay home she said that's I keep asking for that she said yes but suppose you got what you were nagging for and he stayed home because you nag and he stayed home angry and resentful and everything else what would you have gained by the way you know what a resentment is sentire is a latin word which means exactly what it sounds like to send s-e-m-t-i-r-e to feel we have five feelers sight, smell, taste, hearing and touch now somebody insults you and you feel tomorrow morning you go over it again you are resenting you are resenting re-feeling and that's called building mountains out of molehills and most of us are experts at that and this is what happens to people who are called filthy names and who are insulted and who are hurt it's virtually impossible without the grace of God and his strength to handle it So I would suggest that you pray, first of all. How do you get the strength of God? Ask and you'll receive. That's the important word in that quote because asking means that I am acknowledging that you've got what I don't and I'm asking, help me. Because, and you know, it's only fitting, ladies and gentlemen, that the one who made the human heart is the one whose heart is the most powerful. The one who understands it best. And there are times when he's the only one to go to for strength. So you've got the strength, you've just got the human guide to 70 mil. He said, all right, you nag and you haven't got what you're nagging for. She said, that's right and it's driving me crazy and I resent it. Listen to the following dialogue, it's brilliant. Does nagging work? She said no. He said don't nag. She said oh. if it doesn't work don't do it she learned to dedicate her life to others she's a happy woman she would love to have a husband who loves her and is devoted it is not that it's infinitely better now than it was but she's not dwelling on what isn't she's no longer she's now dwelling on what is now me is the third agency God gives the strength others give the guidance what do I do all the work. God grant me the courage to change the things I can change with serenity to accept what I can't change. What can't I change? You. I cannot change you. I cannot changed the day of the week. I cannot change my age or height, my weight. I may have a little influence over there. I cannot change a whole lot of things but above all I cannot change other humans I can change me I can get rid of the nasty stinking lousy things that separate me from being able to love you that's what I can and if I pray long enough and hard enough he's liable to give me the wisdom to know the difference between those two I must do all the work God gives the strength the alcoholic does the steps God gives the strength I have to work on my negative emotions but I'm the one who does it And I do it by plotting away at it. I'll never forget one time a woman asked me, she said, there's a guy in my group that I absolutely have no use for. I do not like the man. And yet every meeting when he shows up, I say, hi, how are you? How's the wife? How's his children? She said, am I being a phony? I said, no, you're being an adult. You're treating another person as you would want to be treated yourself. You are hiding your sinking emotion. A good guide is one you go to. You know all this modern philosophy of the therapist who say, let it all hang out. You know who lets it all hang out? Little three-year-old brats. That's things. That's the me generated. You know, do your own thing. If I did my own thing, I'd be in jail in about eight minutes. So would you. A person with half an ounce of brain goes to his counselor, his guide, his sponsor, and lets it go. It'll all hang up there. One of the most brilliant statements I've ever heard in my life came from a man it was in an AA meeting I do not remember all he said obviously as many years ago I remember the impression he created but I remember this line verbatim I have found in AA a place where I can properly ventilate my anger what a statement you do not let it all hang out and hurt bystanders with the venom of your own steam and hatred you go to your your guide you go to your director every single spiritual writer on earth has always recommended spiritual direction we all need spiritual direction and this is why one who leaves his own spiritual life without guidance is liable to walk into a spiritual wall it's it's so crazy you go to your own sponsor and let it all hang out where your anger can dissipate so harmlessly in the air and then he can take what you've spoken about and turn it constructively for you to use instead of allowing it to use you. Now, before I wind up, we've just about come to the end of this thing. You want to know what you got out of tonight's talk so far? How many of you were sitting there maybe with a husband or wife and oh boy, I hope he heard that one. Oh, God, if my mother were only here tonight, would she get an earful? Boy, I hope she got a load of that. Well, I'll find out. I'll see if she was listening in the days that go by. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I'm doing that. I know a lot of people that I would like to see square away for my benefit. As long as I hear what I need to hear. and straighten out what I need to straighten out. God grant me the serenity to accept what I can't change and the courage to change what I think. Now, can it be done? I don't care how big your cross and I don' t care how heavy your cross somebody's always got one bigger and heavier than you but I'll tell you something about your cross it's the one that God wants you to have. My mother had a magnificent expression God fits the back for the burden don't envy other people well, I mean if I had her troubles as I could breathe through this veil of tears. Paul, did you ever hear that wonderful story about the fellow who was dissatisfied with the cross God gave him? And after a big breakfast one morning he went up to heaven, knocked on the door and our Lord answered. He said, Could I see you for a minute? Our Lord says, Certainly. He said I'd like to exchange I don't mean to be impudent or anything but could I exchange this cross for another one? Our Lord said, Certainly. Come on over to the cross warehouse and take your pick. So they went over to warehouse Donner must have been hundreds of thousands of crosses. And he tried them on all day. About quarter after one, they're getting hungry. They stopped for a hamburger with onions. About quarter to two, they went back and he tried on crosses. And just toward the end of the day, just before closing time, he found one. There were only about a half dozen left. He picked one up. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. It was heavy enough that he knew he was carrying something. You know, all the others. Too big, too little, too flat, too slim, too long, too short. You know? Too whatever. and this one was heavy enough he knew he was carrying something it was sharp enough he knew there was pain enough in it it was long enough and short enough that he could do his work and not have it impede him and so on and it was perfect he said could I have this one our Lord said certainly I told you that this morning he said no exchanges you're not going to ask for it no I gave him my word as he started out the door he said Lord I don't know how to thank you oh he said this is great our Lord says you're welcome Henry the one you came in with can you carry yours with the strength of God the advice of others and your own footwork sure I would like to share with you an incident in the life of a POW in the Vietnam War a friend of mine his name is Colonel Bobby Bagley and the last I saw him was in San Antonio we had breakfast together he spent seven years of his life at the infamous Hanoi Hilton he and all other POWs who coped and came back and got with their careers again have one thing in common that it almost shines out it glares they do not hate they just don't hate I asked Colonel Don Whitman over in London three summers ago this coming summer. I said, I've been saying that to audiences all over the place. Is that true? He said, absolutely, Father. He said hatred would have wiped us out. We couldn't tolerate it and we wouldn't let our fellow prisoners become haters. Hatred destroys the hater. Hatred destroyers are the ones who destroy the people. Hatred is what destroys the haters. So you can continue to hate and wipe yourself out or you can square away. About three weeks ago, I was privileged to speak at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. And after talk was over, I gave a talk on prevention for the midshipmen. And there were two officers, a commander and a captain. The captain's name was Bob and the commander's name was John. And John said, Bob and I gave up drinking for six years. I said, oh? He said, yes, we were in prison in Hanoi at the time. They had served six years of their lives over there with Bobby Bagney and that whole bunch. And I looked at Bob, the captain. He's very slim, very tall, strikingly handsome, got the face of an 18-year-old, but his hair is gray and his mustache is gray. I said, Bob, do you mind talking about it now? He said, I really don't, Father. He said I never bring it up because it's done fast. It happened, so what? I said you know you spent six years. I don't think I could have taken six hours of it. And he said immediately, he said you weren't there. He said Father, you weren' t there. he said if they had told me I'd have taken it I wouldn't have believed it but he said you take what you take by the way come summer I hope to do a film for youngsters just called Values and I mentioned that to them as the evening wore on and John said to me he said, you know Father when you are stripped of everything and the only thing on this earth that you own is your underwear he said you better have a grab bag of values to dip into if you want to survive to such basic truth I'll tell you about Bobby he was shot down he was a fighter pilot and he landed badly and was captured by some native Viet Cong and they beat him and they held him for the military and when the military came they marched him back to Hanoi and at every village they beat them and when he arrived at the prison his jaw was shattered he still has a pronounced underbite both arms were useless and his back was broken in two places American dentistry learned a great deal of these men in seven years how they took care of their own dental and medical needs he said father I was reduced to being an animal screaming for relief from the torture those men were tortured and bad yet one Colonel Ken Kleener down here in San Antonio looks at the picture of hell he went through one solid week of torture all of those who were there said he should not be alive to look at him you wouldn't think he ever had a bad day in his life but they don't hate one pow was asked what would you do if you saw one of your torturers on a street in america without hesitation so i'd probably say hello anyway bobby was tortured and fallen he said I came to my present relationship with God through the creatures that he allowed me to have for company in myself. The bugs, the vermin. Living things. Then he made a statement that was rather surprising. He said Father, I had a beautiful relationship with a mother rat. He said You know most people believe rats are dirty. But he said this lady was blind and she was lame. She had only three legs but she raised three children and I learned how to live from her. He said, never once did she give in to self-pity or martyrdom or resentment. She didn't eat her babies. She fed them and he said, I used to watch her grope her way blindly out of that cell on her three legs looking for food to feed them. So he said I took to sharing my food with that family two little bowls of rice per day about a big spoonful twice a day about once a month I got a spoonful of fish in it and he said you know on the days that they tortured him and threw him back in his cell he said waiting on the floor would be my little bowl of swill he said never once did the rat go near it and she wouldn't allow her babies to go near until he had retrieved what was edible and then he shared with them so I said you know father even in prison things change the babies grew up and they left and so did she he said I was devastated the dearest friend that I ever had on this earth was gone and then he made probably the most profound statement I have ever heard from human lips he said father do you know how much God loved me when that rat became pregnant again she came back to my cell to have her new babies the next time you're griping and someone tells you to count your blessings, why don't you count them? Nothing is too great that God's strength and the advice of others in my own work can't handle. I just... In one way, please don't mistake what I'm saying, but in one way I don't care what your grades are. I've got a few aches and pains of my own. But God, don't kill the rest of the world with your griping. If you want to gripe, go to a closet. And if you have to listen to yourself, find out how long you continue to gribe. And just as it is nauseating to you, it's about 80 times that nauseating for other people. Life is too short. Life is so short to live with martyrdom. That same colonel over in Turkey was going from the base around to Istanbul with some dependent families were going over to shop and they were griping at how dirty the streets were and he hit the roof. He said, you lift your eyes one quarter of an inch and you'll see the tops of beautiful tall cypress trees and blue skies. Now what are you choosing to look at? You've got a choice. You can either choose to look in the mirror or you can choose to look it's built the choice is yours. Now you're responsible for yourself and you can chose to be happy or unhappy. entirely up to you I'm a happy man I really am and it is people like you that have made me that way you see almost two, three nights a week I am privileged to do what I'm doing at this moment and all I have to do is look into faces like yours to know that it's all worthwhile Austin Ripley made another statement about human emotions he said this the tongue finds itself completely mute and silent when it is faced with the impossible task of expressing the simplest feelings of the heart. How do I say I love you and convey to you what it means to me? So it's like always whenever I want to say something profound I have to take somebody else's word. roger whittaker is coming to baltimore for one night on the 13th of may and i'm going to be in maine and i give my arm to hear him because what i feel at this moment and i feel it more and more as i get older and older and are expressed magnificently in the words of that marvelous song of farewell that only he can sing for you are beautiful and i have loved you dearly more dearly than the spoken word himself thank you so much for being with me