Humbly Asking Higher Power to Remove the Seven Things on His List – Clint H.

Clinton Hodges, alcoholic. I'm glad to be here. I want to thank the committee for including me in the lineup this year. I met some of you in Hagerstown about four years ago. I want to thank the guy that came to pick me up at the airport. It's such a surge of people in that airport, we hardly could find each other. We managed. Ben followed one guy about 10 paces, called him Clint. He's shaking him off. He said no. I like that snow. Looking out the window, seeing the snow fall into the air. I spent part of my childhood in Billings. And snow was bad news. because I carried a paper out to Billings Gazette when I was a kid and the snow would cover up the curb and your front tire would hit the curb and at 4.30 in the morning you got 100 papers in the snow and I never was in a good mood. But it looks beautiful today. It looks beautiful. There's another note here, I guess another thing that was says Joe is 111 today oh Joe stand up no well could you raise your hand oh it says Joe is ill today oh hell no wonder No wonder he's not here. Well, there we go. I was in Indianapolis, and a few days before I went there, I called in for messages. My receptionist said, you lead an interesting life. And I said, well, I do. As a matter of fact, what are you talking about? She said, I understand you're going to be in Indianapolis this weekend. I said, i am. How do you know that? She said there's a message here that the guy that's going to pick you up at the airport, you'll know who he is because he's going to have a wooden leg and he'll be carrying a big book. And he had both. And I was glad to hear my friend Larcine this morning. I had my last drink on August 14th, 1966. And I have been here with you for these 37 years. and I have come to a place in my life at 66 years old where it's so clear to me the journey is not over. The service is not rendered. The laughter has not faded away and the passion is growing and I look back and I remember those days and I was taken back with Larcine today because I grew up in one of those homes too I grew up with food getting thrown all over the place we traveled I went to high school in North Africa in Morocco and my stepmother was with us there were four kids and my mother was with me and my grandmother and I don't need to tell you much more about that except that the general of the base that we lived on after we'd been there in Morocco for about seven months sent my stepmother back to the United States and told her, don't be coming back here anymore. And it gives you just kind of a sense of the colorfulness of my father communicating with my mom in the officer's club late at night. Made everybody jumpy. It made me jumpy and you Larcine doesn't talk like this but I heard for my own echoing for me today as I listened to her I learned I remembered the terror and it's not too strong a word the terror of living in a home like that of living in that awful uncertainty of knowing on Saturday morning when my dad would reach up above the refrigerator and into that cupboard that that stuff in the bottle was meant really that he was done being with us and that he would leave. Sometimes he left physically and we got to be grateful for that. Sometimes he stayed and drank at home. And the terror that accompanied that makes you long for structure and you turn out to be people that are all about the rules because you need something that won't waver you need something that doesn't suddenly become a very dangerous thing and we come here with whatever childhood wounds we have, and they slowly heal. And the healing is an ongoing thing. The healing is what allows the laughter in Alcoholics Anonymous and may be the reason for the healing, that laughter. My mom died when I was 14, and my dad within a year had married the sparring partner they were a pair to watch my mother I have a twin brother that's in Portland he's an alcoholic it's over 20 years I have a little brother that is he died four year five years ago in Atlanta he was not an alcoholic. I'll tell you what, he reacted to all of that in an interesting way. Booze didn't do it for him but he opted out. I think that in many ways as he pushed that cart around the streets of Atlanta, he had a message, the grocery cart that had all his things in his message was to some unseen audience do you see what they did to me do you see what they did if they had raised me right would I have to push this cart would I have to sleep outside and when you live like that long enough there is some kind of idea that someday, somewhere, somebody will hear, see the message, understand, and tell you, yes, you were done terribly wrong. But I don't think he ever heard that. Nor do I think it would have done him much good had he heard it. and I would go back there after I got sober and I could find him in four or five days I'd find Bobby and I'd sit with him for a couple of days and ask him if he wouldn't please come to California and he wouldn' t do that and I knew he wouldn''t do it and I still had to go and look and when he died we all gathered at the cemetery my brother and my twin brother and my little sister and me and it was hard to know what to say because we kind of felt like we had escaped you know he was a year when my mother was born two when she died and there was a beauty to him and a brightness And I think this building is about 10 feet up off the deck now. Do you hear that? What's going on with that? A little buzz. Do you here it? I hope you hear it. Don't monkey with the mic. Can you hear me if I push this mic out here a little bit? Hello, can you hear my voice? Can you here me? People are going, what? Okay, up, you need more? Okay. I don't know what you're saying. Up, you need more volume. Okay. We'll deal with the hum as long as you can hear. And so, sometimes I feel like I don'T have any power, but this is not one of those times. I'm so sorry that it happened. Well, if I pull it back, there's a lady wearing a brown hat back there. Doesn't matter. There, now she left. Okay, now we can talk. And yet with all of that story, we grew up without anything. We had no money. There wasn't anything extra for anything. I used to get so mad at my mom because we wore newspaper in our shoes instead of getting new soles. and I knew she was stashing money someplace. I hated that vegetable garden back there in the backyard, Victory Garden they called it, World War II. I hated it when my dad would come home on furlough and I hatedit when he left. We moved when my little brother was born. I have a sister and she's four years younger than me and she is in Denver and she isn't an alcoholic And I will talk a little bit more about her later on. I had, when she was born, it was a big deal. Somebody's touching me. What are you doing now? I'll see you later. Thank you very much. Let me just say that for a moment. She outnumbered me. It sounds like you can't hear it right. You can't here yourself out there. Well, I kind of like it. I'm a little worried. Hey, I just put that in there. Yeah, just try it. Oh, I'm the list, buddy. Come on. Let's go. I'm going to lose it. Yeah. Give him a little more time. Right now, see if he can't touch you. Sit back down. Sorry. Thank you. Thank you, Bob. Yeah? My name is Clint. I'm an alcoholic. Thank you very much. and thanks for kissing me I like that alright does that work a little better yeah okay tell the lady in the brown hat to come on back where do you want it up well I can talk like this but I how are we doing now bring it in a little bit ok let's try that yeah Now, that little sister of mine getting, you know, it was a funny thing. My mom and I, I adored my mom. I was her favorite. We all thought we were her favorite, I was really her favorite and she would come in and tuck me in at night and we would whisper our secrets I was four we would I'd try to make her laugh sometimes I did and then I'd repeat it five times she would we would pray together and one night when she was tucking me in my dad had come home on furlough and he was back overseas and she asked me how I would feel if she brought a little baby home from the hospital and I'm fine with that knock yourself out, okay with me and she did and I didn't see her after that it seemed like to me and then I noticed they had a little room set aside and it was beginning to look like they intended to keep that kid and it's very disconcerting that little crib in there and all of that stuff and my mom was spending far too much time in there with that little baby and so I would go in that room when my mom wasn't watching me and I would encourage my little sister to move I'd give her a little thump I wanted her out of there and one day my mom of course noticed that kid cried more when I'd been there than at any other time, and she followed me in and grabbed me and threw me out into the hall. And before I hit the wall, I knew she didn't love me. I knew my mom had pretended to love me until it came along. But she never really loved me. I felt very betrayed. And it only takes a nanosecond for all of that to process. and after a while all you know is you can't trust your mom and she doesn't really love you and you forget how that happened when did I learn that and by the time I was 6 years old my mom and I went to war they were immersed in the church My mom and my grandma and my grandpa went to some and dragged us. We went to Church of the Air in Billings, Montana. Hellfire and Brimstone, just a really colorful place to be. I mean, they were altar call and people coming down front. And my uncle got sent to China to be a missionary. There was a lot of talk about sin. and the laughter seemed to go out of the home and I don't know that those two had much to do with one another but nobody was really happy in World War II and all of that and in Billings, Montana during World War III nobody knew what was going to happen people kind of hunkered down and waited they didn't live their lives they waited and religion was very important to them as I look back on it Because it promised a brighter day. Not here, but someplace. Someplace. And we went to church a lot. And we learned all kind of... Learned more about sin than kids should know, I think. We learned about... Well, it's funny. We didn't learn about sex, although it was kind of hovering in the air. you ask the question once and the reaction is just amazing and you don't bring it up again you know you're not going to get much information about but the information comes through doesn't it and it all distills down to something like sex is filthy and disgusting and ugly and you should save it for the one you really love laughter thanks thanks mom that helps maybe it's why we sit up so late in coffee shops at night after we get to AA but we survived we survived that and one dark day my mom found a lump and within a year she was gone Within a year, we had moved back to Billings, and my grandma didn't like to see us coming and hated my father because he was such a drunk. And he took off to Japan or someplace. We lived in the basement in the cellar in my grandma's house, four kids, a little toddler boy, and my sister four years younger than my brother and I. And now we're like 13, and we lived there for a year. And in the spring of 1951, I guess, my grandmother, who had never let us up into the main part of the house to see my mom, she had her little girl back and that was kind of the end of that. She called down to the cellar one morning and said, your mom died last night. Are you going to go to school or not? And I thought, that's the end. That's the rest of that? Can't trust my mom and I hate my grandma and I've got to get out of here. And three, four days later, we stood at the cemetery, low-rent part of the cemetery in Billings. And I didn't cry. I didn' t cry. They threw dirt on her. I couldn' t afford to start. I said, You don' t love me. I don' d love you either. That's all you can say. You don't love me? Well, then, I don't Love you. Two years, I stopped breathing deeply that day. Two years went by and we were now in Morocco and I had a stepmother and a dad and there was all of that problem and after a football game they passed around a bottle of vodka. I hadn't been breathing very deeply but I got a shot of that vodka and I started breathing deeply that night. I knew a lot about everything that night I didn't need the rules and regulations anymore I had known for a long time since I was maybe three or four that I'm not big enough for this world and when I had my mom's love and I always had it but I lost it in my mind And it seemed like I lost the capacity to be big enough to live the life, even a four-year-old. But I found out if I sold some money out of my grandmother's missionary jar, me and could use that to buy something for the kids at school when I got to be six or five, me and that money was enough. Me and the lie was enough。 And my whole life has been about being big enough and the secret that I'm not big enough and the Secret that I don't know how to be big enough. And I can't tell you that secret because I'm supposed to be Big Enough. And I'm 16 years old, and me and vodka is Big Enough, and over the next year or so, I found out something else. I wasn't really clear on it then, but I do know now. I had learned a lot, been told a lot about faith and belief in church. And I looked those words up. Not then but later, I know that faith means a confident trust born of experience. Faith is that knowing that you don't know you have. Faith is getting a bottle and locking it up in the glove compartment And feeling better before you've had a drink Faith is about later at the University of Oregon Going into the student health facility And getting a prescription for amphetamines It's just a piece of paper And you put it in your pocket that's better I know I'll be able to study all night tonight and drink and not get quite so drunk faith so we come here we have a little bit of this faith thing going on have we had faith in the wrong things yes indeed but do we know about faith yeah we know we know we know about belief I believed in booze and it didn't take me long a belief is an expectancy I always expected booze to work, and I can remember knowing very well that if I could just get into town, get into Casablanca with some of the kids, you can buy anything you want, even though you're 15 or 16 or 17. And we would get in there. I think we need another battery. I had a lot of advantages and I'll tell you another interesting thing my childhood seemed to me to be such a tragedy and when I was sober about five years in AA I was in a meeting in West Los Angeles and I had participated and a guy came up to me afterwards which was kind of new in AA, and he said, you mentioned Billings. Did you live in Billings? I said, yeah. When I was a kid, I was there. He said, did you live on Yellowstone Avenue? I said yeah, I did. He said you didn't go to Broadwater grade school, did ya? I said I did! He said twin brother? I said ya. And he said, my dad told me to never play with you two guys. So I was a lower companion at an early age. What I look back on as a terrible tragedy was just an annoyance to everybody else. But that first drink and what happened after that was something that was going to alter the course of my life and it was an amazing, amazing time because I did have advantage. I got an opportunity to go to college. I graduated. I got a opportunity to do something else. I got the opportunity to go to dental school. I didn't graduate. That was an entirely different set of challenges. In the clinic, Saturday morning, four hours of having somebody in a chair being expected to do some thing in their mouth. They just come out with that new high-speed air-driven handpiece and you could take out a quadrant of teeth just twitching. They don't like to hear you say whoops. I had forgotten, somebody reminded me, I made a set of dentures for a guy he came up the next year and I'd see me at the end of the clinic and he'd go, hey! Something wrong with my teeth? They threw me out of there. You'll be glad to know that. I waited for a few months, went into the Marine Corps, went up down here to Quantico, went back out to the West Coast as a young officer in the Marines. Loved the Marine Corp. Loved it. They kept their promises, and they always told you exactly what you needed to do. So there was that structure and that security. And I am so grateful to report that about a year after I got out of the Marine Corps, after I served that four-year tour of duty, I got sober and I was able to serve another five years in the reserves as a captain leading an artillery battery and do it right. And I'm very grateful because I loved the Corps And I was so shamed at what drinking did to me, at those letters of reprimand. I was such a shame that I besmirched the uniform. I was ashamed that I dishonored the oath I took. And you've given me back that. By the time I was 29, I was in a lot of trouble. I'd been married twice. I had three sons. I was living in what I called a garage in Glendale, California, just outside of L.A., with three other guys. It turned out some years ago now, my wife and I drove over to Glendal. She said, I want to see that garage. We drove down in, and she said, is that it? And I said, yeah. She said that's not it. That's it? And I say, yeah, she said that is not a garage. That's a shed, is what that is. I looked again and by God, no car had ever gotten in that place. That's an shed. And in those days, in 1966, I lived in that shed with three other guys and I would spend the night in the park or in jail or come back to that shed. And it was what you have. It's what the alcoholic will put up with. It's What Comes to Us, because it was just a nasty, nasty little smelly room with a sticky linoleum floor and a cot with a wet mattress on it and a radio that would never shut up. It always played music, even after I pulled a plug out of the wall, the radio would play. There's a lot of terror there. The terror was back, and it was back and it wasn't. back and I could not do anything about that. I had not seen my sons nor their mothers nor did I want them to see me. And I was in and out of the Glendale jail. And out of all of that, a guy, I'm walking along the street and a guy pulled up in a car and he hit the horn a little bit. I'm walkin' along bad shape, bad shape one morning. neat in a week and I was sick and I looked over at the car and I recognized that face and I walked over and I realized it was a bail bondsman a guy that I had done business with quite a bit and he said I'm going to take you someplace today and he drove me across Glendale after a bunch of running around we pulled up there was a flight of steps hung on the side of a cinder block building over a laundry recliner, went into something called the Alano Club of Glendale, whatever that may mean. And there you were, and there you weren't. And I had a lot of stuff that was, you know what it was? I knew that I would be living on Skid Row in about a month. I knew that. But you were kind to me, and I liked what I felt there. And I could tell the way you described your drinking that what was wrong with you and what was wrong with me was pretty close. You seemed to have solved it in some way. I could not. And I knew that whatever you had used to solve your problem was not available to me, and I didn't think all that through. It's just kind of how I had it figured out. And what you had to say was interesting but not very important. You didn't get my attention, but it was a place in and out of the sun. It was a space away from where I could get arrested, and I went there every day. And then at the end of about three weeks of that, I found one night in my little room a stash of amphetamines and cash, and that requires a drink, as you may know. And I was on a run and drunk for two weeks. The garden spot of Lawton, Oklahoma was where I stayed a couple of nights. Bad town to drink in, but it's better than no booze at all. And I came back to L.A. at the end of two weeks. I was on reserve duty back then, and I was an embarrassment to the command. I woke up that morning in the room. I wokeup that somebody said this in an interesting way. They said a piece of furniture had been added, a jumping-off point. I could neither live with it or live without it. I walked over to the club that morning. I walked up that long flight of stairs. I pushed the door and it was open and there was a guy named Bill Kennedy in there. He died two months ago. And what I remember about Bill that day was that he never stopped smiling. He never stopped loving me. He never judged me. And we had a rather colorful conversation because he said, how are you doing? I said, I'm not doing so good. He said, what happened? I said. I got drunk and let everybody down. Like AA in Glendale is going to collapse now that I'm drinking. He could have said so many things that day. He said, are you alcoholic? And I don't know. I don' t know about that. Maybe I'm too young. But I knew what the right answer was. And I knew I needed to be in there out of that hot sun. I knew i was subject to arrest and i didn' t want to be arrested. I couldn' t go to the park. I always got shoved around at the park. The gains were kind of developing in those days. I finally said, yeah, I've been an alcoholic about a month now. It's like I'm a mild case or something. I don't know what that was supposed to mean. You know what it was supposed To mean? I won't be any trouble. I just caught it, and I'm not going to be a problem for you. That's really what it was. Just picked it up, toilet seat thing maybe. I don't know what the hell it was, but I caught it. He blew right past that. He didn't even go after me for the mild case thing. He said, so, you're an alcoholic and you got drunk? I said, yeah. he said we do that we do that that's what we do we're alcoholic and we get drunk and he said you will do that too if you're an alcoholic like me he said I don't know if you are I don't know but if you are an alcoholic of my type he said you not only will drink but you will drink no matter what. And I drink no matter what I will tell you I'll pick up the kids, the kids don't get picked up, not by me my children do not get picked up by me others have to do that I'll bring the check home but the check does not come home I have to stop and cash it And I'm very mindful that I'm not drinking. So when I stop in the bar, it's just for one drink because I'm not drinking and I've already set aside the money for the household and put it in one pocket and kept 20 out in case I should start drinking, I'd have something. But when you're not drinking and you're in a bar and you order a drink and you don't need to tap into your drinking money, do you? No. You use the household money because you're not drinking. And about 10 o'clock, the household monies are gone that night and all you have left is your 20 and you drink it. I drink no matter what. That's what I do. I surrendered that day on the 14th of August 1966 in a profound way and I didn't know it for a long time but I surrendered to the fact that I will drink no matter what I knew that's the way it was and now Skid Row is two weeks away and I'll die there and yet in a weird way there was a relief to that the fight is over The pretense is over. I don't need to pretend anymore because I drink no matter what and I got that I drink no matter why. And I had tried to quit so many, many times because I did not want to be a drunk. And I was never able to make it work for more than three or four days, often not till noon. Sometimes I'd quit three times by five in the afternoon. And always another half-punt. Always another run. Always another promise to myself. No one wanted to be around me. Nobody wanted to watch me kill myself. Nobody wanted that. And they were gone. They should have been gone. My mailing address was General Delivery Glendale, and I knew that day that I will drink no matter what. I didn't surrender to God or even AA. I simply surrendered to the fact that I am beyond human aid, that there is nothing that will get in the way of that. And I couldn't have even used those words. I just... You know, troops that have surrendered are very specific. They throw their weapons down and they go sit at the side of the road and they wait for somebody to come along and tell them what to do. and I went in that club that day and sat down and just waited and I felt better because I knew what I was and I knew that I would always drink and Bill was kind to me he didn't stop smiling he said if you get hungry and can keep something down we have a kitchen back there I'll fix you a little sandwich I can't remember if I ate anything that day I remember the half cup of coffee where else can a sick alcoholic get a half a cup of coffee served with kindness and I went back the next day and the next and the next. And you never asked me to quit drinking. I don't know if there are new people here tonight, today, but we won't be asking you to quit. Do you know why? Because we know you can't. We didn't quit. Bill Wilson said in this book, this crazy crazy book he said there at the hospital I was separated from alcohol for the last time. He does not lay claim to quitting A guy out in California long since dead but wonderful guy named Chuck he used to say if I'd have known that was going to be my last drink I would have had two Me too boy, me too I would have had to. And I'd be gone. I'd been gone. Joe came up and read the steps. Thank you. If it was about quitting, we'd have heard him say, Step one, quit. Quit, just quit. and therein lies the miracle I kept at bay for a long time. Oh, I was in touch with it, you know. I saw my youngest son when I was nine months sober standing on the beach in Santa Monica. I was allowed for the first time without adult supervision to see this apple of my eye. and I got to thinking as we stood there looking out into the water that I counted back God nine months he said why are you crying daddy and I didn't know that I was I hadn't had a drink and I hadnít quit and I had been with you and I was going to move I had my driverís license back I was gonna move out of that garage, I had a, I'd gone to the Bank of America and said, I told them about you and about me. And they got the file and the operations officer said, can you pay us $5 a month. And I said, yeah, yeah, I can do that. So I'm getting free. And I was getting physically, they took me, they let me go with them to the Nuthouse one night down at Norwalk. God, it was such a, I was so excited. Bill Christian had an old Chrysler and six of us piled into that thing. I'm new, I sit in the middle in the back seat on the hump where the newcomers are consigned. But they're loving each other and laughing and telling their funny stories and we're going down the freeway and I finally said, where are we going? They said, we're gonna put a meeting on in the nuthouse. I went, okay. Yeah. Pulled into the gate through those cyclone gates and the cyclone fences and we get farther in And they said, the Nuthouse is in that little building standing aside, that cinder block building. We pull up near there and we all get out and all of a sudden it became so clear to me why they had included me. Six of us were going in that Nuth House. Five of them were coming back out of that Nath House. And you had changed me so much in nine months that my, who are the thoughts? My first thought was I can outrun every one of these old fools because I can be over a cyclone fence. and my second thought was if I belong in there if they think I belong in there, maybe I do and my third thought was just keep pace with these people and you know why because you are having fun all the way down there in Bill Christian's old Chrysler. You laughed, you loved each other, you told your goofy stories and you cared and you included me. And if you think I belong in there, maybe I do. Maybe I do." We went in there. Meeting was an hour. At the end of the hour we all stood up we said the lord's prayer they didn't hold hands in those days we walked out into all six of us into that mild california evening and got into christian's old chrysler i drove back to glendale and you laughed and you told your stories and you loved one another and you You included me. A guy invited me into his home for a party. Yeah, I'll be there. Thanks, yeah, yeah. And so my career selling encyclopedias came to an end. Now I'm selling imprinted ballpoint pens. and then I got another job and another one I like to work and you told me to work I remember when I came back and said I got drunk again Bill said just so you know that doesn't surprise us if you're an alcoholic if you got a job that would surprise us but drinking but I like to work and I worked and I saw my boy and I started my journey in Alcoholics Anonymous I was vaguely aware that a miracle had taken place in my life but I really wasn't sure much about that because that would entail God in some way and the third tradition says that you have a loving God I do not and if you're new and you don't have a loving God park whatever old ratty little boar god you have at the door and come on in here we have a living God we have a loving God I know he loves us because if he did not we could not be sitting in here comfortable and feeling welcome we would be someplace else today feeling pretty bad because we were beyond human aid. And if you're new and you're an alcoholic of my type, maybe you've got one of those radios too. Can't turn them off? Maybe that rat you see at the corner of your room which mysteriously turns into a pair of paper socks at dawn if you got one of those welcome he told me to put clean sheets on your bed God I want it on my bed I didn't know how you knew about that and at every step along the way I was gifted with a willingness to be here to be a willingness to just sit down and I started to sit down and listen and I had been shut up and listened and one guy said just so you know that's two separate things for you to do shut up and listen I'll tell you about how to handle these invasive sponsors if you're new it's a tricky thing And Larcine got into it a little. You've got to watch them like a hawk because they want to get into the middle of your personal life. And we know you don't want the delicate balance to be upset in any way. And so what you do is you get a sponsor and call them when they tell you to call them. And every once in a while, maybe once every six weeks, you throw them a little ball. You ask them a question. You don't care how it comes out. You just ask them questions. Shall I wear the green socks or the blues? I'll wear the blues. Oh, thank you. That's so beautiful. You can keep them at bay that way for a while. But they're tricky. They know stuff they shouldn't know. One time I went up to my sponsor. I said, I got a problem. Yeah, what is that? I said well I hate my ex-wife. What's he going to do with that, right? He said, do you want to do something about that? Do you want change how you feel about her? Well, I didn't. I kind of enjoyed hating her. I had my driver's license back. It's something to do on the freeway. I hated her. He said I'll tell you what. But I said yes, of course, I want to change that. I want to, what are you going to do? He said, did you know that if you want to change how you feel about somebody, you have to change the way you treat them? Okay, thanks. He said come here. How's that child support coming? I'm going to get to that. he said yeah you are he cared a lot about child support and we spent about 30 minutes talking about child support about the fact that I could afford it, the fact dat I had a court order to pay it the fact tat I was getting cute with it I didn't have a checking account he said get one more money order every payday made out to her and put some extra in it to catch up for the months you were cute. You will have an envelope, and it will be stamped, and it'll have her name on it, and you will... Did that bank have a slot for mail in it? Yeah. Mail it before you leave the bank. Do not take it home and think about it. And I began to do that. He said, if you don't want to do this, that it's okay with me but you're going to have to get another sponsor he cared a lot about that child and I I have a wonderful relationship with that boy today I'm even with all those kids but this particular kid lives in California and I see him more. And he's married. And he has got, I have got seven grandkids. His is the oldest. He has three. And he just gone back to start his second year at Harvard. And we are not Harvard people. And I am privileged to be to be close to that whole scene. A loving family. He didn't learn that from me. To some extent, he learned it from you. And from his mother. The woman that was a bad mother until I started paying child support regularly. Then she shaped up. I was five years sober and somebody said, you've got to go to law school. I tell you, if you're new and starting out in AA, you haven't dared dream your dreams for a while. Pick them up. Don't be reasonable. God, don't be unreasonable. Dream your dreams. get a job get a sponsor pay your bills dream your dreams and go to meetings because the condition we're in when we get here does not really lend itself to dreaming large dreams and yet they're still there they're so important they're there and we need to keep that in mind because God's grace is such that abundance can be part of the game that path that led us out of that mess we were in really does lead to a broad highway when I was nine years sober the state of California gave me a license to practice law and I've been doing that and I discovered I'm gifted I discovered that I like trial work I like picking juries and putting on evidence I love that civil justice system that we have and I don't try them so much anymore but I'm a trial coach and I show other lawyers how to do that and it's much in demand and much in need because we kind of lost the mentoring system and we've forgotten why we went into the legal profession in the first place and you've taught me to let the other guy tell the lies and you taught me that the jury when I'm picking a jury they're picking a lawyer and I want it to be me I have to wear this sobriety in that courtroom I lost my way you see I went to that you know what it kind of came to after I'd been sober for a while I thought that I had and because I liked it and got good at it I thought that me and my position in the profession of law was enough and I lost my dependence on God I lost the sense of the miraculous and it made my AA existence go flat and time doesn't allow me to tell you all that happened because of that but I can tell you that one day it all went away I had the right house I hadthe right lady I hadtheright income stream I had all of that and I had an image and my partner came to me and said I don't want to play with you anymore the lady I don' t want to be with you any more the house went on the market I was devastated, and I had to re-kickstart a law practice. And I didn't know if I could do that, and I thought I had do it alone. And there long since I had lost any sense of obedience, long since had I lost any sens of the daily spiritual practice. I was getting by on, well they say it in the book those three legacies. I had no recovery going on. I had some ability to be in the meetings. I had something else. I had the ability to have service, but it was hollow and flat. And I had an image, and it was killing me. I remember when I was in the Marine Corps and they told us how to camouflage tanks you put branches on the tanks so they look like trees my tanks always looked like tanks with branches on them that's how it looked like with an image just some donkey kind of keeping an image and it all went away and it went away in a way that was terrifying to me and I had visions of myself pushing a grocery cart around Los Angeles as my brother was in Atlanta. Terrifying, terrifying. But it took me to a place where I was finally willing to take another look, finally willing, to take a look again in the book to see what was there because I had nothing else to do. I knew I couldn't start taking pills. I know I couldn' start pretending. I couldn''t continue to pretend that all was well. In a weird way, because I was willing, people came into my life and I was taken back through that book again. I was given another shot at it. I filled in the base of the triangle, which is the recovery piece. I looked up the word recovery in the dictionary. These words are wonderful. Willing in the dictionary means gladly ready. I always thought it meant gun to the head time. You know what recovery in the dictionary means? One of the definitions, it means the extraction of something precious out of that which appears to have no value. Recovery. Recovery and the day came as it will someplace in the middle of that chapter four which is all about step two where i had to take a look and see he's got everything or nothing what is my answer to be they asked me that this guy there was what's your answer we're not skipping this we have to answer every question that's posed what is your answer i said i'll tell you the truth my answer is very simple I don't think he's nothing and I don' t think he's everything he's cracked up to be he said I'm glad you told the truth there may be a way out for you he said list the five things that are more important to you than a better relationship with God and I came back to him in a week I had my list I had seven things on that list I had control I had anger, I had greed, lust, image. There were seven things. He said, great, so a better relationship with God is number eight on a list of eight things for you. I said, yeah. He said okay, I just want you to know that because if we get into step three you're going to be asked to make a decision to turn your will and your life over to number eight on the list of eight. You think you're gonna do that? I said, no. So he said, that all has to be reprioritized and he told me how to do it. He said, we're not trying to get rid of greed right now. We simply want it to be a little lower on the totem pole than you have it. Lust, hang on to it. Drop it down a few notches. I mean, that's where you go for your power. He said, we've known since antiquity you can't do that. And I remembered the Old Testament. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. There they were. There they weren't. He said to ask that they be reprioritized. Just say a little prayer. Take me to a place where I'm gladly ready to have anger less important than a better relationship with you. And you know what? Astonishingly, in two weeks, because I had been crushed and I had surrendered and I hadn't no place else to go, the unthinkable happened to me because I can assure you when I was 14 at that grave and thinking about my mom and how she beat me to mow the lawn, but I would mow it. And she couldn't beat me enough to clip around the sidewalk. and how I stood there with such hatred. Part of it was hating God. And I knew that he and I were never going to be friends and now I'm asking that this remarkable journey continue because I knew I couldn't do it in my own way. I knewI couldn't run my life and every attempt I'd ever made to run it was a mess. and one day I knew there's nothing more important to me than a better relationship with God that has continued to today thanking God for being here this morning for the snow and the ocean and for an AA conference starting the day that way direct my thinking because it's my mind that's really a problem. The mind that I brought in here was not ever going to make me happy. There's a line in the book that says, our troubles we believe arise out of ourselves or something like that. What that really means underneath that is if my troubles arise out of myself no one has to change for me to get free no one else that was a remarkable moment because I'd always wanted people to change so I'd be happy I wanted dead people to change my grandma she ain't going to change except in my heart my mom isn't going to change except in my heart once you figure out where you're playing and get God number one now you got to figure out where he is the great reality is deep within what does that mean and it means is there a place inside me where I can go where God is and I'm trying a lawsuit in San Diego and I was kneeling by the bed in the hotel one morning and it was my part of the case which is easier because you have to put on the evidence but you know what's going in when the other guy is putting on his evidence it's coming in at the speed of sound and you don't, you know you're always on a high alert before I got up off my knees that morning I had found a place inside me where I can go where God is and that is all I ever wanted I didn't know that that would happen for me I had no idea of that we're seekers but we're also finders I'm a seeker and a seeaker needs a master and you're my masters because a master by his very life gives living witness to the seeker that what the seeker seeks is real and it has given me a healing and a calmness and a kindness that I never had and by the time I got through those steps and they were really colorful man, I'll tell you it was so interesting to do that inventory and to read it in 6 and 7 and humbly ask God to remove my shortcomings i was taken at every step to an interesting place sometimes geographical i was in northern california when i was at step seven humbly ask god to remove our shirt i was at a conference i heard a gal from reno and she was 19 years sober and she told when she was 10 years sober about being so afraid of heights that she decided to take skydiving lessons. And she's in this plane doing her solo, came out of the airplane. She had rigged up a parachute and it wasn't right and it didn't fully open and she hit the ground going a lot harder than she wanted. And in her language that night as she spoke about this day, she said, I spent the next 18 months in a hospital learning how to urinate again. And I'm going, wow. All she was trying to do is get over her fear of heights. Can that be that bad? Her husband left. Her ex-husband came back into her life. He's a good guy and a good member of AA. And he would visit her regularly. And one day after about a year that they were in the cafeteria of the hospital after a physical exercise program she was going through and he said you know joyce i have to ask you what was that all about we've never talked about it and she said you mean he said yeah what were you doing she said i just wanted to get over my terrible fear of heights and he started to laugh a little bit she said what are you laughing about he said all you had to do is humbly ask oh my god been jumping out of airplanes on my sobriety I've always thought I had to deal with myself that's the essence and core of my selfishness that I think I have to do it all myself never occurs to me to turn in all things through the father of light and that's been a great lesson I had them go on the road and make amends I asked him if couldn't can I make some of these by phone?" I said, did you do the harm by phone? No. Hell no, I showed up for that. I flew to Denver and met with my sister and her husband and their six kids. I'm so sorry. I have been a bad brother. When you married that guy, my dad came from Dothan, Alabama. My sister married a black man and I knew she did it to make my dad crazy. Turned out at the end of that weekend on the airplane coming back, turned out she married him because she loved him. And they raised six kids. And color is not an issue in their home. I mean, they raised a cop and an attorney and a physician And a guy that teaches English to high school students in Tokyo I mean they raised contributors No alcohol in the home No problem But I came back to L.A. with a new hero My sister that I never wanted I fell in love with her that day And I made amends to the women I gave them back their dignity We must do that We took it. We must return it. And I went back to the cemetery in the little crazy, little low-rent cemetery in Billings, Montana. I hadn't been there in a long time and found that grave. A member of Al-Anon that I love a lot, Corinne, went up there with me. We were both speaking at this conference, and we got off the plane, and she came up with this paper bag. And I didn't even want her to know that I had to go out there because I wanted an option not to go. She said, you're going to need these things out there. And I looked in this bag, and there was a liter of water, and there were some shears, and some paper towels, and some Kleenex, and Some Garden Seeds. And I tramped around that afternoon and found that grave. And I don't know what to do with my mom's grave. My grandma's grave is down the road, and I don' t know what do to with her grave. She seemed so terribly vicious to me. And by the time that weekend was over, I had forgiven both. By the time the weekend was over I knew my mother had always loved me and I loved her too and I had forgiven her and as my scene said this forgiveness thing is very personal it isn't oh I forgive you for the it is shifting into a new place it's the theme of step 8 and it's critically important I'm married now. The only reason that I have Linda in my life, I think, is because I forgave my mother. And I forgive her when I took that pair of clippers and started to clip around the marker. That spring the snow was off the ground and the leaves I swept. And I remember that clipping around the sidewalk was something I would never do. And I surrendered to that silly little task. I was obedient, and the tears, I thought, would never end. And I cried all my tears. And so it's been a remarkable journey. I've watched other guys go through that process. I've watch—I'll tell you about Tom, and then I must sit down. And I want you to know that the idea of staying in touch with these steps, I think is easiest if I'm taking somebody through them. And I have a lot of fun with that. There's such majesty there because they're transformative. Because they'll take a guy and once he gets it, he didn't quit drinking and knows that a miracle took place. now he gets interested and this guy Tom he was a burglar basically is what he was and also a window washer which is a nice mix of careers because he always knew where to go back at night and he had 13 places in South Pasadena that he had burgled and at step 9 he says do I have to go back there. I said, not unless you want to be free. And he did. With all the other amends he made and he made a few. He's a burglar and he's a thief and he is a felon and any one of the people to whom he made amends, all they had to do to run him back to jail was to drop a dime and there was one house the 13th house he hate he went he could not bring himself to go there all the others he had gone up and knocked on the door and said did you live here six years ago yeah did you live here when this house was burglarized yeah I did that and I came back to clean it up with you and he cleaned it up and there was one he went by once he couldn't get in he went buy another time he couldn t make himself get out of that old pickup truck he called me one morning he said this is the only one I have left and it s possible to finish your amends and I will tell you there is the difference between finishing all of them and finishing all but six is huge and he had one left to do and he wanted to be free and he said i gotta go over there this morning i heard the fear i said i'll go with you he said I'll call you when I'm done and he called me later that morning and he could hear his voice he was lighter i said what happened he said an older couple and she came to the door and i told her why i was there and she seemed shocked. And she asked me a lot of questions about what had happened and what I had broken and why the mirror came off the wall. And he answered all her questions. I thought there was a safe back there. And after a while, she became convinced that he had done that, that it was he. And then she invited him in. And the husband, they're an older couple. And then out come the cookies, for God's sake. They're sitting there in the living room And he came to the question that we must always ask when we're making amends. What can I do to make this right? Children need that question, boy, they do need it. Because we cannot leave them thinking that they misperceived it and maybe are a little crazy. You saw it right, son. You saw him right. And I'm so sorry about that. They need that. these people to Tom said you don't need to do anything for us you've done it just by coming here he said I don't think so because until right now we always thought our son had done that and we're so glad to know he didn't do that and we are so glad to let you off the hook and a family healed up and Tom got free and I saw one of these miracles that is available to you if you're new or sort of new and so my journey is getting sweeter all the time the last 15 years has been the very sweetest of all and being here this weekend with you is very, very much what I wanted to do thank you