He Was Born on Third Base and Thought He Hit a Triple – Jerry E.

My name is Jerry, and I am an alcoholic. Hi, Jerry. I tell you what, I'm delighted to even have ten of you here this afternoon. I guess I need to tell you my sobriety date first, don't I? My sobriery date is January the 17th, 1977. And that was, as my story unfolds, you'll understand that that was the day that the gift was given to me, the gift of physical sobriety for which I did absolutely nothing to deserve. And I will tell you about that as we go through this thing. And there's a purpose to my sharing that part of my story, but I'll get there in a minute. And I don't know if there's any way that those of us who get to come here as speakers can ever let you all know the deep, deep appreciation we have for you. I mean, from the time you first asked until we got here, the courtesies and the kindness and the thoughtfulness that is given to us is beyond description. And Harlan and I ran into one another last summer, almost a year ago now. And we talked about this. And then Jim Osborne, he and I began to hook up. Yesterday they sent two of the most delightful people I have ever met. In fact, either one of them should be up here talking because I listened to their stories on the way in. And they're fabulous. Is Paula around here? Paula and Sid two absolutely beautiful people and I just absolutely love them the committee and all the work that they go through and then of course I'm blessed in the fact that Jane started off this morning and set a marvelous tone didn't she yeah let's give her another hand Truth be known, I could just as easily have asked Janie to come up here and just keep on going. She was terrific. Oh, I'm a little like Janie in the sense that I'm not sure whether I'm meditating or my mind is just totally blank. I'm Not Sure Yeah, but we'll figure that out in a moment. I can't understand what you guys are doing on the front row. I really don't. What are you doing sitting up this close? One guy is a committee member. He has to. Oh, this is terrific. I have brought some friends with me that came out with me. Katie from Frisco, Colorado, just an absolute jewel. And Johnny and Kathy from Georgia. Yeah. John's nuts. Kathy is an absolute Georgia peach. And any of those folks could be up here where I am. So we are very fortunate anytime someone asks, and I really do thank you. You know that the idea of being grateful, when it's transposed to the word gratitude, is gratitude is gratefulness in action. And so that's what I'm doing here this afternoon. And for that, I do thank You. I never know exactly what it is we're going to talk about if you stay sober for 29 years a couple of things happen number one, you begin to have an awful lot of experiences from which you can draw and you never know which ones you're goingto talk about and yet the other thing that happens after 29 years of sobriety is you get old And then an unusual thing happened to me here this weekend, and I didn't know this was going to take place. I'm a graduate cum laude of a number of hospitals and nut wards and what have you. And every time I went into one, they put one of these little plastic armbands on. And I thought I was through with paper slippers and these little classic armband. and go to hell here I am I got another one on I do congratulate your round up here it is the 24th annual round up and isn't that a remarkable thing 24 years yeah, congratulate yourself my wife Gail and I went back to our room after listening to Janie this morning and we got back and we had a beautiful bouquet of flowers and a nice card. And like I say, the kindness and the thoughtfulness and the courtesy just never end. I promised three ladies right outside this back door that I would remember them because they are out there working while we're in here, but they can't hear. And that's Shelly, Desiree, and Laura. They're out there selling sweatshirts and doing a bang-up job. Let me just start off and let you know that I, by the way, my little home group temporarily is in the town of Cooperstown, North Dakota. Now, I'm from Manhattan, Kansas. Yeah, way to go, North Dakota. I live in a little town of 150. I work in a town of 150, and I drive 35 miles to go to a meeting where there's four of us. But that community has 900 and a pizza place. So it's ideal for an AA group. On a good night, there's three of us, and on a so-so night, there's two of us and that's just the way it is. One of the things, though, that I have enjoyed by being up there this winter. By the way, some of you know Tom I out of North Carolina. Tom I wanted to know what I had done to piss off the big guy and get punished by having to go to North Dakota during the middle of the winter. I said, I still don't know yet. But anyway, we're up there, and I'm going to these meetings. and I tell you what, if you want to see some local color, get out into these little meetings out in these little towns. They have a problem out there in these little towns with what's called constant slippers. You know, people come in, they stay six months and they go back out again. And then they come in and maybe they stay sober for a year and then they go out again and then go back again. And you know that's not that uncommon That's not that uncommon in AA What you all have here which is such a strong strong group of folks carrying the message regarding the program of recovery is uncommon and I just can't tell you how nice it is to be a part of that. We have folks who will tape all of these meetings and that's what these are. These are just big AA meetings. Each time we get together, you know, it's just a big AA meeting. And they tape these and then sometime later down the road, these tapes end up, we don't know where. My friend John out here sent a tape off one time to some guys in London. Seven or eight, I don't know, many, many years went by and they finally said, hey, whatever it is you and John do over there, we've got to know more about that. And so So some of us ended up going over there to London. And all they wanted to know was just what this is all about. I'm a product of part of AA that was flooded around in, actually it wasn't flooded, it was kind of floating around into places of nowhere during the 80s when we tried to find out the truth about our inner child. Many of us were looking for the road less traveled. And we were trying to get in touch with something. I don't know. We were relationship experts, and we all had our program. Don't you love it, our program? She works a nice little program. Oh, he's got a great program. Blah, blah, blah. Everybody's got their little program." Some of you have heard of Clancy Eye out in California, and I heard a guy that was being sponsored by Clancy, and he went to Clancy one day, this guy's name was Paul, and Paul went to CLANCY one day and he said to CLANCY, he said, CLANCy, my program doesn't work. You don't want to ever tell an old-timer that your program doesn' t work. Because he'll say, of course not, you goombah, your program has never worked. And what I want to talk to you about today is about our program, the program, my experience with the program of recovery as it's laid out in our big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. You see, I believe that I was born an alcoholic. I really don't have much confusion on that. Now, I can't prove it, but it's what I believe, and as much as I am up here right now, I get to express that. And if you guys like it, fine. If you don't, well, that's okay too. I'll still love you and we'll have a grand time this weekend. I was born with a mind that didn't work right and a body that wouldn't die. Well, and it talks about that in the first forward to the first edition to the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. It just puts it a little bit, I think Jeannie used the term quaint, that New England quaintness that Bill wrote with when he said, We at Alcoholics Anonymous are over 100 men and women who have recovered, isn't that a beautiful word, have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. I have a mind that doesn't work right and a body that won't die no matter what I do to it. Toward the tail end of my drinking career, I was absorbing all the booze I could get into my system daily, which was always more than a quart of bourbon. And I am a fellow who found out that Valium, along with that, a few Percocets, black, not black, the yellow nebutols, all those things. It's a form of chemical experimentation or better living through chemistry. We've all got our cute little names for it. But people walk by them. I had people in my family, they would come over and they'd see me doing that And they knew that I'd probably by 7.30 or 8 in the evening had been drinking all day long and consumed probably a quart, quart and a half of bourbon. And then they'd see me, you know, fondling these little pills and putting them in my mouth. And they'd say things like, Jerry, if you keep that up, you're going to kill yourself. And I said, no, I won't. You know what I really thought? That's what I'm articulating is, no I won'T. What I'm thinking in my head is, who cares? Who cares? I'm a fellow that finally reached a point in his drinking career where oblivion sounded like the very best option. And that's the folks that I'm talking to today. When life just absolutely looks so intolerable, that one more day is just beyond what your little psyche can handle. That's who we talk to today, I grew up in this little town in Kansas. I didn't drink. I'm not a good circuit speaker because I didn' t start drinking when I was 15 or 16 years old. I didn''t have my first drink until I was 27 years old, by the time I was 28 years old I was president of a bank. I can never complain that I haven' t had my fair share of breaks in life. I'm a guy who got to start at the top and work his way down. You ever hear the expression, he was born on third base and thought he hit a triple? Yeah, that's me. And Janie was talking about it a little bit this morning. Jane, I hope you'll forgive me if I call you Janie. Let me tell you where that comes from. So, I have been in AA for 29 years. I hope I can get through this without losing it. I have come to care for you so very much that I give you all my own little pet name. And it just means that I love you. Don't I, Katie? So that's what I do. Born and raised in this little town. Went along fine. Had a drink. Decided that, you know, I really was ready for something more than this little small town in Kansas. Went down to Oklahoma City. Hit the fast track down there. and it wasn't long until I was out close to the Capitol building in Oklahoma City and having lunches in a place called the Governor's Club. And the Governor'S Club was a place in those days now with cell phones. This story won't sound like much to you, but I'm going to share this story with you back many years ago, 35 years ago or so, long before they had cell phones, and we would eat at this place called The Governor'S club and when a fellow at the table would have a phone call, the maitre d' would come over and have a phone on this little tray, and he would say, telephone call Mr. Jack, and he'd take it out and he'D plug it into the wall and you'd take your phone call there at the table. And I remember sitting there at The Table with these important folks. Now, you understand, I wasn't important. I really wasn't. Now, that's not false humility. I really was not important. I just happened to get invited to these lunches. But I thought I had arrived. I mean, you talk about a guy who has no sense of proportion. and I'm just alone because I've got a boss that likes me, and he's trying to introduce me through a way of living that's going to— what he's really trying to do is try and knock some of the hayseedness off of this little guy from this little Wilson County, Kansas, because I'm now in a pretty good-sized community, and he'S trying to groom me to take over this business. And, of course, I'M too arrogant and alcoholic, really, to know what'S going on. But anyway, I'm sitting there and I think I've arrived. I think i've arrived, I can remember that still. I began to have to go to events that were preceded by a cocktail hour. Oh boy. Cocktail still has a nice ring to this day. And I was such an awkward kid socially and in all other respects. I always knew that if I said something I'd look as weird as I felt. See, I've never fit in anywhere. I don't care what the trappings are to be there, and it's with a great effort that I expend on trying to look good because I've ever thought about being good. My whole purpose in life is just to look Good. Isn't that what we do? I learned that, gosh, nearly 20 years sober. My son came to me one day, and he had been through an event in high school athletics, And my son is a great athlete, and he's also a great kid. He's a bright light in every room that he walks into. But anyway, he is not what you'd call graceful, but he is a Great Person. And he walked into me one day and he was telling me this experience. And he said, well, you know, Dad, I know I didn't look very good there, but, boy, I sure performed well. And he says, after all, substance over form, isn't that right? Substance over form. Isn't that Right? Substance? So, no, that's not right. Aren't we goofy? I've always thought form was a whole lot more important than substance. Anyway, I start drinking. A few years go by. And I don't know how it happened, but it just reached the point where I needed to drink more and more. Happy Hour was great. I was talking to Janie earlier, and she mentioned it this morning when she talked. I have said over, oh gosh, I don't know, just hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times, you want to go have a drink. For those of you who are grammatically challenged, A, we are good, aren't we, Janie? I just think of an important point and pow! For those of you who are grammatically challenged to have a drink, implicit in that is that we're going to have one. I have never in my entire drinking career had one drink. I have ever had a drink. I have NEVER had one drunk. The very first time I drank, I had two. I'll get to that real quick I drank in Oklahoma City I finally burned so many bridges down there I had to leave I moved back to this little small town in Kansas where I'd been born and raised I was fifth generation in this little community I promised the people I went back to work for there that I wasn't going to drink because by that time my reputation as somebody who hit the sauce a little bit too hard had begun to precede me and I promised an old friend if he would give me a job I promised him I would set the stuff down and I'd never drink again. And the hell of it is, I meant that. I really did. I meant it with all my heart. And I'm going to talk about this because I want to talk about this more in connection with some brand new ideas that were given to me in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. I said I was going to quit and meant it with all of my heart and believed that I could. See, I know something about every one of us who are alcoholic in this room. I was going to be the best son that my mother had. I'm the oldest of four boys. I was gonna be the Best Son that my Mother could have. And when I got married, I was Gonna Be the Best Husband That a Woman Could Ever Hope For. And when i had three of the greatest children any father could ever hope to have, I was Going to Be the best Father. And I failed at all three of those. And not just in a little tiny way. I failed in a major way. Absolutely total and complete failure. You know why? I don't have the power to do what's right. I have the right moral ideas, but I don'T have the POWER to do WHAT'S RIGHT. Back to this little town, stay dry for four months, pick up a drink, boom, I'm right back where I left off. By this time, I've been a resident of a couple of jails, just simple old stuff, DUIs, that sort of stuff. But I'm also beginning to become fascinated. By the way, I lose that job. I'm beginning to become fascinated with the idea that maybe the best way to drink is get into your car and drive around the county, out on the country roads, and then I begin to think, you know, it would be cool to carry a gun. Loaded handgun. Now, farmers in Kansas get real nervous with people riding around the county with loaded handguns and a bottle of cheap vodka up in the front seat. They're exceptionally narrow-minded. And they don't care if it was because I didn't get along with my mother when I was little. Psychology what? They don't care. Anyway, so I'm more trouble, more trouble more trouble with the law. Finally but this time I've been in and out of that's why these bracelets are so it kind of brings on a little homesickness. If I could find some paper slippers to wear while I talk I'd really be homesick. In any event they finally get so tired of me they got the Kansas Bureau of Investigation they got a doctor an attorney, actually it was the county attorney, my wife, and a couple of alcohol counselors. And they've got me in this room, and they say, this guy's hopeless. He's a hopeless alcoholic. And that, by the way, by this time, that had been introduced into my medical charts. I am a hopeless alcoholic. I'm a chronic alcoholic. And I can remember watching the doctor write that into my chart one day. And this particular doctor was a fellow that I'd gone to high school with. He was two years older than I was. Now he's my family doctor, and he writes into my medical chart, this guy is a chronic alcoholic. I don't think there's any hope for him. So I'm also an individual. I told you I believe I was born with this something wrong with my mind that it doesn't work right. As far back as I can remember, people have been having meetings about what are we going to do with this guy? It used to be my mother and my grandmother, and I'd hear them whispering in the kitchen, what are you going to say to him? What are we doing to do? with Jerry. And then it was my mother and my aunt, and then it was my mother and the school teacher, and there was my mother in the school principal, and that's my mother in a school superintendent. There have always been people holding meetings about what are we going to do with this guy? And lo and behold now I'm 35 by the way Jane, 35 and they're holding another meeting and this topic is still the same and the way the meeting is conducted goes about the same as all the other meetings. Nobody's asking for my input but the question on the table What are we going to do with this guy? And somebody said, you know, he really is a hopeless alcoholic. I think he's becoming dangerous not only to himself but to others. So let's put him in the mental institution up in Osawatomie, Kansas, which is the state asylum, and leave him there for the rest of his life. And that was the conclusion that they came to. Now, that's a long way from bank president down to being going to the nuthouse, isn't it? And you know what? Sitting in that room that day was no different than sitting in the back of a patrol car with handcuffs on. As I was sitting there, I'm thinking, I didn't plan any of this. In fact, I've always had great plans. Have any of you ever woken up in one of those kind of bad situations and thought, Boy, I bet you'll make my mom proud today. Yeah, I got up and came out of the house with the best of plans, and here I am. So there I was. I really honestly cannot tell you how that happened, except for one little thing. Seven years earlier when I had my very first two drinks, When I had the first one, I can remember thinking, this is the worst tasting stuff I have ever had in my entire life. God, I think I'll have another. I look back on that today and I think, that's insane. My wife, by the way, if you see me running around here with a very beautiful woman Looks like she's about 12 to 13 years younger than I am Her name is Gail and she is very beautiful and inside and out And I have a friend of mine that says he's not sure why she's with me either In fact, he's going to get with her family and see if they can't do an intervention and get her some help But she's just a little sane woman That's all I can say about it. She is the type, now listen to this, she is the type that if you pour her a glass of wine, she'll taste it first. It's a true story. She'll taste it. And if it doesn't taste good, she will just slowly but surely kind of push it away from her. And I say, what's wrong? She says, that's not a very good wine. So what are you going to do? I'm in a room full of drunks because that's my reaction too. We've been together for 15 years and that still happens. Well, what are you going to do? And she looks at me like, I'm not going to drink it. 15 years we've been zusammen, she'll drink a little glass of wine and I'll say to her, sweetheart, do you want another? And she'll say no. No. As God is my witness, and I'm not doing this just to be cute. As God as my witness I still do not understand the mindset that can take a glass of wine, drink it down and then say no to another one. But because I'm alcoholic and I have a naturally curious mind. One thing about sobriety and about our program, we really do begin to live in a way that we have never been able to live before. We have a freedom from bondage of self that enables us to be here and now with an unquenchable curiosity. I want to know more about the great spirit of the universe too. and that great spirit of the universe reveals itself to me more and more and more and all I have to do is be ready to accept it but that's another story I finally sit in there in this group of folks and they say let's lock him up and just as they're about ready to lock me up an old boy walks in his name is Mac McAtee he's dead now I can use his name Mac's dead now. He had been sober seven years, and he was a Bowery bum up in Kansas City. And he was so bad of an alcoholic that he had the shakes, and he'd have to put a bottle of booze between his legs and work and work to get the lid screwed off. His shakes were so bad. Anyway, Mac was sober. He walked in. He saw what they were doing. He said, you know, why don't you send this guy to one more treatment facility and let's send him to one where he will become familiar with the principles of alcoholics and armists. Because I don't know that you all have ever given this kid a chance to understand that he is ill in that way. I know he looks terribly insane, but I believe that he ist just an alcoholic. And he said, besides, let's look at the practical issues. Now, Kansas farmers, if they're nothing else, they're practical. And they pinch a dime, make it go a long way. He said, if you send this guy to the nuthouse now at 35 years old, and let's assume that he lives to be 70 years old. You're going to have to feed him housing and clothing for 35 more years. That's going to cost you guys a lot of money. And on that basis, they began to say, well, is there another option here? And he said, yeah, let's send him off to a treatment facility. Well, somebody came up with some money. In those days, you'd go to a treatment facility like I went to for $1,500, $3,000, something like that, real low. And they said, Jerry, how do you feel about that? How do you feeling? Either go to the nuthouse or go to treatment. Well, I said, folks, I'm not doing any treatment. Was I or was I not born with a mind that didn't work right? They said, okay. And I realized in just a matter of moments, it wasn't more than just two or three moments, that the talking was over. There was no negotiating. See, the reason an alcoholic doesn't want to go to treatment, you know why? Because he automatically knows that somebody is going to expect him to quit drinking. Well, just the idea of not drinking is absolutely horrifying to me. Again, I'm going to turn to Jeannie. I think she said it this morning. I had reached a point where I couldn't drink very much, and yet I had to drink, but I couldnít drink. I mean, I couldnít not drink. She said that, and I couldníd either. And yet I have to drink. I mean, I was in that horrible, horrible contradiction of life where there is absolutely no way out. I didn't know what I was going to do, and so the idea of going to a treatment center where I knew I wouldn't be able to drink was so frightening. It's like backing a frightened animal into a corner. The only thing you can do is to become terribly enraged. You know, rage like we experience, I believe, is a valid emotion. I mean, when you have spent your entire life trying to do the right thing and you fail over and over and ever again, the only thing left to do after trying that hard that long your whole life and always continuing to come up short and failing is to become enraged. What in the hell is wrong with me? In the quietness of my own mind from the time I was four to five years old, I have begun to ask that simple question. And what in the world is wrong with me? I've always known that there is something wrong with you. I've already known it. I've never always known them. Always have known them." So I knew that they were serious about sending me to the nuthouse, and I said, Is there any way we can talk some more? And they said, No, we can't talk. And I said I'll tell you what, if you want me to go to the treatment center, I'll go. And they sent me. I went. I checked in, and I'm an alcoholic. Now I don't know about the rest of you alcoholics, but I'll show you what kind of an alcoholic I am. I will be whatever it is you want me to be, at whatever time it is that you want me to. I checked in and they said to me, OK, Mr. Atkins, we see here you have a problem with alcohol. I presume that you have no other problems. Hmm, no, that's it. Just booze. Man, I've been taking anything I get my hot little hands on. You know, I got enough volume. You know volume has a cumulative effect? I mean, it gradually builds up in your system. Well, when you come off of it, it virtually goes away. I don't tell anybody about that. So they think my withdrawal symptoms are going to go away, and I think it's about 48 hours on alcohol. And at 48 hours, I am literally coming apart at the seams. So I go through about a week of that, and it's just getting worse and worse and worst. My eyeballs won't settle down. I can't eat. I can'T sit and focus. I mean it really is a bad situation. And after about ten days, we came into a weekend. And I'm like most alcoholics. I can be good for a little while. And I've been good for ten days more or less. And they said, well, we'll give you two-hour pass if you want to go out, you know. Okay. Sounds good to me. Another friend there, he was there. He was a young, rich farmer out of Western Kansas. He said, what do you wantto do, Jerry? And I said, I don't know, Doug. What's up? Well, he said, i've got my car. I said okay, i'll ride with you. Where do you wanna go? And he said well, okay, let's go. We jumped in his car. We drove right straight to the liquor store. Each of us bought a pint of vodka, jumped in the car, rode around a couple of blocks. Next thing I knew it was gone. I said, Doug, I thought a pint would last me for the rest of my time in treatment here. I had another three weeks to go and he said, I did too. What do you think we ought to do? And I said well let's go back and get some more. Well he said what are we going to do. He said we can't leave it in the cart. I said we don't know, we can smuggle it in. So that's what we did. and that was on a Saturday and I noticed that Sunday it was a lot easier to get through treatment than it had been prior to that. Withdrawal was a whole lot simpler and so I made some classes on Monday like I was supposed to and on Tuesday I took a drink as God is my witness I don't think I took more than two swallows of that thing and I just went over backwards and this was about 2 o'clock in the afternoon I came to and I was looking at my counselor 6 o'clock 4 hours that I can't account for and she says you're in trouble I won't tell you the words that went through my head you can imagine and so I said what do you think I ought to do she said go get your stuff packed you're out of here I said ok see I was beginning to get tired she said you're outer here Okay. So I went and Pat came back. She said, I said, now what do I do? She said well we haven't arranged transportation for you yet so why don't you go down to the chapel and sit and we'll come and get you when we've got arrangements made to drive you over to the insane asylum. It's about a hundred mile drive. And I said okay. But I said Beliette what do you want me to do in the chapel? And she said if I were in the situation you're in I would pray. Now, as fun as this story is to tell, there's a significant point to it. And I'm coming right to that now. Do any of you remember that last, last, lost low spot where somebody suggests you pray and you think to yourself, there is no God that I know of that would listen to a guy like me? I have done every unclean thing there is to do. I have cheated at everything I can cheat at. I have stolen from my kids, from my wife, my employers. I have become a pathological liar. The God that I had been born and raised with in the Bible Belt of Kansas would not have listened to a guy like me. And I knew that. so as I amble down the hallway towards that chapel, I'm thinking, I not only don't know what to pray, I know that there's no point in asking for anything. What are you going to do? I mean, I don't deserve to have a God at that point. And I sat in that chapel and I can remember just becoming more tired and more tired and more tired. And I thought, you know, I quit. I quit what? I don't know. I quit everything. I would have quit breathing if it had been possible. You tell me what to do and I will do. My sponsor years later told me what a surrender looked like. A surrender is when somebody comes by and says, okay, we've got you outnumbered and outgunned. You lay down all your weapons and you sit here on the curb and we'll come by in a little bit and we will tell you where to go and what to do. And that's where I was. I was sitting on the curb waiting for somebody to come by and say, okay, now do this, and I'm willing to do it. Had they come for me and said, okay, we're going to take you over to the Nuthouse now, I'd have said, fine. God, I just love that. And Billyette comes and she said, Jerry, are you ready? And I said, yes, I am, Billyette. And she took me back to her office and she says, I don't know what happened. And I said, what do you mean? What happened? She said, we have a policy here that's chiseled in stone that if you drink while you're in this facility, you are automatically kicked out. And for you to be kicked out means you have to be sentenced to go locked up in the insane asylum for the rest of your life. And she said, our staff has met and decided to give you one more chance if you're willing to work with us. When the grace of God enters your life, something is going to change. And all you have to do is be willing to surrender enough to get on the train and see where it takes you to. The journey began. I didn't know it, but the journey began." Now, the point of that story is that many of us are brought to believe through our religious training that God will help us when we do the right thing. That we must be good in order for God to love us. Any of you ever been born into that? Yeah. If we're good enough, God will love us or another version of that is God helps those who help themselves. I was in a spot where I was totally powerless to help myself and I was given the greatest gift that I have ever, ever, ever been given. And the point of the whole story is this. God gave me my greatest gift. This tells you about the nature of the Spirit. I was giving the greatest gift I've ever been given, and I was given that gift when I at least deserved it. I hadn't done anything to deserve a gift. It was given to me free and clear. Absolutely free and clear." Somehow I managed to get through the rest of that treatment, got out, got into AA, was active in AA for 12 years. Here's where the story begins to become interesting. Went to a lot of meetings, read the steps off the wall a great deal. Learned that you can actually work the steps off the walls. Well, you can. Step 9, made direct amends. Yeah, I've apologized to people here and there. When I really did mess with them. There's a few others, but they don't deserve amends anyway. They certainly don't reserve my apology. Turn my will and my life over to the care of God. I'm here on it. I got to working the steps off the wall, and I came to understand you can get some off-the-wall results. But once we're awakened by the Spirit, there's something that happens. And if you grow uncomfortable in this little thing of ours and you don't understand why, the odds are that you have been awakened in the Spirit saying, come on, and you're not coming on. That's all. And that produces a hell of a conflict. It's like a big rubber band. The Spirit says, let's go. And we're saying, well, wait, wait a minute. My life is too good. You know, I can't sustain a relationship. I'm miserable and I'm unhappy. I am totally useless, but I lack it where I am. Thank you very much. I mean, I have fun with this. I really do. You can see that. But I'm deadly serious because this is a lethal illness. It's a fatal malady. Once we accept that, then we can just joke about it. I means, you're going to die if you don't get spiritual help. We talk about living life on life's terms. I can't live life on Life's Terms. The only way I can live life is on spiritual terms. My sponsor told me one day, he said, You know, Jerry, I've been thinking. He said, I think I am a spiritual being having a human experience. He was always the kind of a sponsor who would drop pearls into my life when I wasn't quite ready for them. But in a way, I was. And I'd pick those pearls up, those imaginary pearls, and I had a little leather pouch, and I'd put those little pearls in this leather pouch knowing that at some point in the future I would take those pearls out and I would look at them because I would be enlightened to the point where I could begin to understand what those pearls were about. A spiritual being having a human experience, I must live by spiritual terms. I don't get to live any other way. And if you're a real alcoholic, you probably won't get too either. Now the deal is, the question is, how long are you going to fight it? I fought it for 13 years. I was coming into my 13th year of sobriety and I would walk among people like you and I knew that you were clean and I wasn't. You know what my sponsor had that I wanted? He had these clear blue eyes that I could look into the depth of his soul and know that he was all right and he looked at me as crazy and as ill as I was and he didn't see someone that was bad. He saw somebody that was broken. Thirteen years sober. I thought, I don't know what it is he did to get what he has but whatever it is, I want it. So I said to him one night after a meeting because I'd been chasing around. Wherever he'd go, I'd go. And I hadn't asked him to be my sponsor yet. I just kind of kept, you know, Don't you love people that just exude the Spirit? It just radiates out of them, and you're okay when you're with them. So finally one night I managed to walk up to him and mumble. This is where I used to ask a girl to dance, by the way. Have you ever walked up to a girl when you were about 13 years old and you were just scared to death, and they looked so cute, and you say, I'm supposed to run and dance for you? Well, you know all the way across the dance floor they're saying, Oh, Jesus, here comes old weird Jerry. And when I started walking towards my sponsor that night, I know that that's what he was thinking. Oh, God, here come old weird jerry. So I walked up to him and I said, you want to meet my sponsor? He said, I don't think you need a sponsor. And I said what's that? And he said why is that? And he says I think you'd need an AA friend. And I thought well, tell you what, slicko, if you want to be my AA friend, you can. But as far as I'm concerned, you're my AA sponsor. And away we went. My first question to him was, okay, what do I need to do? His first response to me was, I don't know. He was teaching me to become an effective sponsor from the very beginning because I said, what does he want me to do and he said, well, what did you do then? And he says, I didn't know what you needed to do. He said, I barely know what I needed to. I said, well, what did you do then? Well, he said, that's an entirely different question. See, now I am asking him to share his experience with me. And he began to share his experience with me and his experience went something like I just started this whole thing off with I have a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body from which I have recovered. And I could look at him and know that he had recovered. And I'll tell you something here this afternoon, folks. If you want to engage yourself and comply with the conditions of the spiritual program that's laid out in our big book, you will be recovered from a hopeless state of mind and body. The doctor tells us that early on in the doctor's opinion, which many of us, by the way, I'm going to give you my 30-second commercial. Many of us believe the doctor's opinion should start, be the first page of the big book. And if you ever get a chance to have some input at the general service office in New York, insist that the very next printing have the doctor'S opinion start as page one of the big book of alcoholics and alums. Please. Because everything we need to know is laid out in there to firmly set us on step one. Now, the phenomenon of craving never occurs in the average temperate drinker. My wife, the little sane woman I was telling you about, she does not have that. You know, I asked her one time, I said, well, what happens when you take a drink? She said, if I like the taste, it's pretty good. And I said well, okay. But I said why is it you never have the second one? She said I'm beginning to feel it. And I say really? she says yeah beginning to feel it doesn't want to okay what is it you feel she says i feel like i'm losing control aha there's a difference i take a drink and boy i tell you what i don't care how snarly my life looks i am will begin to get control won't you man can't we make some plans You betcha. Now, that girl that has not done what I wanted her to do, I'll take a drink or two and I'll know how to go after. I'll pay some bills. I think I'll have a drink of two and pay some pills. Three drinks later, well, it's not that important that I get them paid tonight. The phenomenon of craving never occurs in the average temperate drinker and it always occurs in me. A little bit further down on that same page it says, some of these things differentiate us from different folks. We're a distinct entity. I've always felt different for the very first time. See, when I was 13 years sober and I didn't believe AA was working for me, and now I'm trying to speak to some of you that I hope get what you're looking for. I believed 13 years over because I didn' t believe AA wa s working for m e. that I must be alcoholic and a, I don't know what, but and a something else. I didn't think this worked. Well, of course it didn't work. You goon-bah, you weren't doing anything. But I thought it wasn't working, so I must being an alcoholic and something else So I began to go to the self-help section of the bookstores and try to find self-helped books. Never been able to help myself in my life, but now I'm looking at a self-held book. And I've got a funny story. I'll tell you about that in a minute. But he says we're a distinct entity, set apart from others. What are we doing here? We're set apart, aren't we? We need to be in here so we can learn to live life out there. And that's not living on life's terms. I have to discover spiritual principles which I can take out on the street. Now, one of the best things that I can do out there on the Street is act goofy. Everybody is, you know, I'm pretty harmless. They think I'm harmless, and I am. I'm just having a good time. Why not? I don't have to be serious anymore. That's one thing that's nice about being 65 years old. Nobody expects much anymore. I can flirt with good-looking women and nobody, you know, it's not politically incorrect. I mean, I'm old, so who cares? It's a blast. And the world is full of beautiful women. My wife just happens to be the prettiest, that's all. And I love her dearly. The doctor's opinion also tells me something. It says, unless I can experience an entire psychic change, there is very little hope of recovery. Unless I can cause a psychic change. Unless I completely change myself. I don't even know where my little psyche is. I wouldn't know how to make a psychic change anyway. I looked for it in my inner child, but I didn't find it there. I heard a guy named Bob O. out of Denver one time. He said, if I ever find my inner childhood, I'm going to shoot the little son of a bitch. And I'm on board with Bob on that issue. I look in the doctor's opinion some other places. It talks about being a pathological liar, psychopath, always remorseful, making promises you can't keep. I became convinced in going through the doctorís opinion that there was nothing wrong with me except that I was an alcoholic. And by the time I got toÖand I am powerless. Now, that was the other thing that IÖ We are in the grip of an illness. See, now, if you look at my story, I just told you I stayed active in AA for 12 years, or 13 years, and at the end of 13 years I was sicker than I was when I got here. You know why that is? We are In The Grip Of A Progressive Illness. That over any period of time gets worse, never better. And that makes no difference whether you're drinking anymore or not. See, that's the message we've quit carrying, I think. Except in a handful of select circles like this here, But there's a big body of Alcoholics Anonymous that people think once you quit drinking, hey, everything's okay. Our first speaker talked about that this morning. The most insane thing I ever did was to take a drink after I'd been sober for a while or at least dry for a While. That's insane with all the trouble I'd Been into. But we do it, don't we? Thirteen years sober, the level of my illness had reached this level of intensity. I was on the 32nd floor of a beautiful hotel in downtown Denver. Being put up by the federal government, my room was paid for, I had a great salary, I had new car furnished for me, and standing there on that 32nd Floor one miserable night in November of 1989, my best option was to jump out the window because I had tried the spiritual solution and it had not worked. Not long after that, I came to understand through an old AA giant by the name of Chuck C that there is such a thing as an unconscious surrender, which I had done way back on January 16th, 1977, in that little chapel. I didn't know that's what I was doing with surrendering. It was a very crude surrender. I had quit. But it wasn't complete and total surrender. Now, 13 years later, I have an option. I can either consciously surrender, or I can keep trying to run the show. See, I didn't even know that for 13 years, every idea that I brought into AA on the first day I got here. See, when I got into AA, I was already sober when I came here. AA didn't get me sober. God got me sober, gave me the gift of sobriety. But every old idea that I had, bringing in Alcoholics Anonymous in 1977, by 1989, almost 1990, I still had all those old ideas. And the book, once again, it has so many of my solutions for me, I just don't hear them. It said many of us try to hold on to our old ideas, but the result was nil until we let go absolutely. And I don't know what that means. I think I do. I don' t know if anybody else does this. I assign meanings to words without knowing really whether it works. You know, it kind of gets me past it. It does, you know. I remember, you Know, I was running out of time, so I'm going to hurry. I do do that. I remember I was asked to reflect on the second step. The second step came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. and I wrestled with all the theological questions that I had based upon the religion that I had been raised with. And finally came to this, if I were asked to consider the consequences of my choice, if I consider the consequence of choosing that God does not exist, what are those consequences going to look like? Well, I had already come to the conclusion that I couldn't articulate this real well, but I knew I was powerless. I mean, I just knew it. So the consequences of my choice is, is God or is God not? It's simply, if there isn't a God, I'm filling the blanks. I'm screwed. If there is no God, I'm screwed. I'd love to clean that up, but I don't know any better way to say it. Besides, if that's your alcoholic, you understand what I mean. There's another word I could use you to understand better, but we won't. Well, we're trying to raise the quality of our lives, and we don't need to hear that. I am better because I hang around with you all, by the way. That's the other reason my wife likes you all so much. She says, Honey, after you hang around with those folks, you're better. And she just treats me like royalty when I come home from these because she said, Boy, I don't know what those folks do to you, but you are just a lot better when you get home. So anyway, that's how I got past step two. I like the consequences of saying that God is. Got into step three. Am I willing to do this? Am I truly willing to turn my life and my will over the care of God? God, I offer myself to thee. To build with me and do with me as thou wilt. I thought the first part of that sounded good. The second part of it, to do with Me as Thou wilt. I thought, uh-oh. Uh-oh! I like women and I like money. And if I become an AA missionary, and that's what I'll become if I have to go through these damn spiritual exercises, God's going to send me to Mexico where I'm going to have to carry the message of AA to alcoholics down there. Just men only. I'm going to have to live in some missionary-type dwelling that's probably just a little old dusty room with a naked light bulb hanging down from the ceiling. There will be a community bathroom down at the end of the hall. Twenty-two other guys will share that, and I'm not willing to do that. I just don't want to. I just Don't Want to Do That. And so every morning during prayer and meditation, the Spirit asks me to consider that question. Are you willing to go do that? And my answer every day for four days is, I don't Want To Do That and on the fifth day when the Spirit says are you willing to go down there if that's what I ask you to do my thought was I just don't want to do that and I heard myself taking words and assigning them see I take the word willing and I think that if I'm willing I must want to willing to do something and wanting to do Something are totally different things listen folks I am willing to go anywhere I am asked to go. I owe my life to Alcoholics Anonymous. You all have been that good to me, and you have made my life have a meaning that there was no way 29 years ago I was ever going to have any meaning or any sense. My life makes sense to me today. You know that? I'm out here having a good time with the clerks and people and the stewardesses on the airplanes and my wife and friends and my life makes perfect sense just being the goofy little guy that I am. and why wouldn't I be willing to go anywhere? This is where I'm going to go to the nuthouse and be locked up for the rest of my life. Instead, here I am 29 years later in a beautiful place called Seaside, Oregon. There's no other way to get from there to here except by this path that somehow we've been given. And on that fifth day, I heard myself say I don't want to, but I am willing to do anything I have to do. And I came clear on something about this whole program of ours, the spiritual program. All I have ever brought here, and all anybody who ever speaks to you has brought to this deal is this. Is a tiny bit of willingness. That's all I got. That's what I brought here. And the reason I had that willingness was I didn't like the other option, the other alternative of living a life of alcoholic insanity. See, I lived in alcoholic insanity probably from years 2 through 12. But I knew that it was painful alcoholic insanity years 10 through 12, and I know what that looks like. And it's a horrible way to live. So, I am willing to do whatever I need to do because I do want what you all have. And I am unwilling to go to any length to achieve that. But I discovered something. My whole life, I told you I have a slight reading disorder. I'm a little bit dyslexic. I don't think that's unusual for alcoholics. I think we suffer from attention deficit disorder. I think they're dyslexia. I think it's a disease. I think people are bipolar. I mean, if I had my illness untreated that I now know that I have and still have, 29 years ago those doctors would have treated me for everything but alcoholism. The fifth chapter says how it works. Do you know I read that for 12 years, how to work it? Yeah, you've got to think through that, don't you? Because there's a whole bunch of them out there saying, well, doesn't it say what it says, how do I work it, How it works. Meaning, I must comply with the spiritual terms of the program, and if I do, I will have an experience. I can't get anything out of this. But if I surrender and surrender and render and comply and comply something will happen as a result of these steps. I don't have to make it happen. I don't have to get a higher power to get here. I don' t have to go through these steps. The higher power has already entered into my life the moment that I draw that first sober breath. And if you see somebody in these rooms that has something you want, I would love to talk to you about the four-step. I mean, I'll tell you one quick fun story. You've got to watch the time. You hit the table or something. And if you all get tired out there and, you know, your smoke break time and your bottom's telling you you've got to go, just get up and leave. I was in my first four-step, and it was hard. I had a tough time writing. Oh, geez, it was difficult. It was hard, and so I raced over to the tattered cover there in Denver and bought myself a book, and you know why I bought it? Because on page 37 it had a bill of rights, personal bill of rates, And it told me in there I had a right to be angry because somebody had probably hurt me in my young life. And there was a whole bunch of reasons that I could be angry and hurt and blah, blah, and I'm reading these Bill of Rights. And I raced home, picked up my phone, and I called my sponsor. I said, you know, I've been having a tough time with this four-step, but I don't think I need to do it. And he said, really? I said yeah, that's right. He said why not? I said you know I discovered I had some personal rights. Oh, really? I said, yeah. See, what I wanted him to acknowledge was that I was so magnanimous in my affection for him that as soon as he understood what I had here in the way of a gift, I was going to race my coffee over to him, which is brand new, give it to him. I'd go back and get another copy. And instead he said, we don't have any rights. I said, I beg your pardon. And he said, we don't have any rights. I said what do you mean we don' t have any right? He said we gave those away when we took the third step. I've had gifts in this deal and that was maybe the second most powerful gift I've ever been given because once I understood that I have no rights, I expect nothing from anyone. You know, dogs bark and snakes bite. And alcoholics drink. And kids get mad at their parents once in a while. You need not respect me. You need nicht geben mir nichts, weil ich absolut nichts erwarte. Meine Frau und ich, wenn Sie es wissen wollen, eine lustige Art zu leben. Ich gebe meiner Frau alles, was ich ihr geben muss. I expect nothing in return and what she is able to do with that is she gives me everything she has to give and expects nothing in return and that dynamic means that I am always giving her gifts because she doesn't demand anything, she expects nothing and everything that she gives to me is a pure and perfect gift because I expect something see if I demanded from you now it's no longer a gift, it's just a payment and I spent a lifetime doing that Have you ever given somebody something? A smile, a hello, a nice time, a Nice Dinner, movies, and you expected something in return? That's a business deal. But I thought if I'd be nice, oh really, that's a Business Deal. See, I'm not in the Business Deals anymore. The Spirit gave me the gift of physical sobriety when I least deserved it. I'm going to give my children all the love a father can when they least deserve it. And I tell you what, we have a grand, grand time. My amends took that same form. It didn't make any difference what I ever thought anybody... By the way, my four steps showed me that nobody has ever given me any harm. I've harmed everybody that ever showed up on my list. I wasn't always able to. I finally became able to put the other person aside entirely and see what was wrong with Jerry, one of the most marvelous other gifts that came to me. I thought I was a pretty swell fellow. I got through my first four-step, and I just absolutely appalled at the truth. I am anything but a swell fellow, and I needed a lot of cleaning up to go on out there and I did it. My life just began to get better and better and better and the Spirit began sharing secrets of the universe with me. They're just little things. Nobody's ever going to share the theory of relativity with me or quantum physics to where I can understand it but the Spirit shares with me ways to have interactions and relationships with people that to me are more effective as a sponsor and I am having a grand time. And for anybody from Seaside, Oregon to invite me and my wife to get on an airplane and come and spend time in a beautiful ocean side room it just staggers my imagination and I will love you and love you and love you and you can't do anything to keep me from that. And I do thank you from the very bottom of my heart. You guys are great. We hope you've enjoyed this recording. To obtain additional copies, receive a free catalog of A.A. and Al-Anon talks, or to find out about our Tape and CD of the Month Club, call Encore Audio Archives at 1-800-878-1308 or visit our website at www.twelvesteptapes.com Thank you for watching.