Identification as the Force That Beats Clinical Therapy — Carl M.

Good evening. My name is Carl. I'm an alcoholic. And Cliff has been the best host I've ever had. I wanted to say that because his sponsor is here, and I promised him I would say that no matter what he did. And I want to thank Bob and the committee for having me here. It's a real privilege. I do have to tell you, first, I am from Covina. We affectionately call ourselves the sobriety capital of the world. I know that some of you take exception to that. But we really, I have to tell you that one of the most comforting feelings in my sobriety is sitting at my home group. And right next to me would be my sponsor. In front of him is my grand sponsor. I have a couple of guys that I sponsor. And about a year and a half ago, a fellow that, a guy I sponsored. Sponsors, sponsors got all excited because the guy he sponsored is now sponsoring someone. So I actually sat there and I got this overwhelming feeling of comfort of being in the center of something like that. Where there'd be eight generations of sponsorship happening in one little room. My home group is a 615 attitude adjustment meeting, which many times through the year, it is dark out when it starts and it's light out after. And there are actually people in my home group that think they have something. To do with that. But I got to tell you, I'm nervous because I mean, some of my heroes are in this room. There's a lot of people. There's very few new people that know nothing about Alcoholics Anonymous here. It's much more comforting to talk to people that really know nothing about Alcoholics Anonymous. Because then I can screw up all over the place and nobody knows. Nobody knows. But I mean, after sitting here and I mean, I got to tell you, watching the Byzant family today. That was one of my favorite moments of Alcoholics Anonymous. I get a lot of them, but boy, seeing them sit here and listening to the experience, strength and hope and the beautiful, beautiful stories they told. It made me so proud to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I have to tease Peter or actually Bob. Last night when. I was out in the lobby and Bob had just kind of overheard that he thought they said Carla was replacing Dick Anderson, but he heard Carl. So he came over to me in the lobby said, oh, so you're you're filling in for Dick. And I go, no, no, no, it's Carla. And he goes, oh, well, OK, whatever. Then this morning when I came to breakfast, I just walked in and sat down next to Bob. Bob turns to me and goes, I am so glad that Carla talked last night instead of you. I enjoyed. I enjoyed her so much better than I enjoy you. So I want to say that I was so impressed with Peter and the man. And I mean, you. I got to tell you that a man that works for peace in this world cannot be a failure in no way can be a failure. And I. I wonder. You look so much like your father, you walk like your father, you talk like your father. Bob. Where did he come from? Oh, boy. And being nervous, I just going to tell you a little bit, a little story. And I've learned a very valuable lesson about being nervous. And I'm speaking in a meeting. It was October of 2001. I was asked to come up to Corning, New York. And. I got there and I was going to be Saturday night. And on Friday night. A man named Wally P. Had brought this fellow named James Howard. To come split a pitch with him. Now, James got sober with Roland Hazard. Never came over to Alcoholics Anonymous until the 80s. Stayed with the Oxford groups. And I was just fascinated with listening to him. And then I got really, really nervous thinking, oh, my God, I got to talk in front of that guy. And so the whole rest of the weekend, I was just frantic about about talking in front of him and wondering what he was going to think. And so on Saturday night, I'm giving a talk, but I'm just looking down there in the third row and wondering how James is responding to it. And he just sort of had this glassy look kind of like that the whole time. And I got more nervous about it. And apparently it went OK. But in the receiving line after when people come up to say thank you, I was only worried about what James was going to say. And I've been thinking about it the whole time I was talking. And I kind of was a little bit rude to some people as James was approaching. Thank you. And James gets there. James goes, son, I'm sure you gave a great talk, but my hearing aid went out right at the beginning. I heard nothing you said. And this event, I mean, the laughter and the amazing camaraderie that goes on in a room full of people that have found this solution is just a privilege to be a part of. I'm going to steal a story. I'm going to steal a story from where I heard it. I don't know where he got it. In fact, throughout this, as I'm just rambling on, I may use some stuff that you've heard from somebody else. I may give credit. I may not. There'd be a long bibliography. But as far as I know, I'm supposed to carry a message, not make up a new one. In fact, if I made up a new message, I think I'd charge you for it. But this whole event and the laughter and the camaraderie and the love that goes on in a room full of people that have found this solution, I'm going to steal a story from a friend of mine. And I'm going to steal a story from a friend of mine. And I'm going to steal a story from a friend of mine. Reminds me of this little story that I heard from Ernie, the attorney. And he told this story about there's a man who passed away, a really good man, no religion, no particular denomination, but just a really, really good man. And when he got up to wherever it is that we go afterwards, I like to call it the big meeting in the sky. But for regular people, wherever it is that we go, whoever it is that meets us there said to him, well, we're in a little bit of a dilemma. We don't quite know. We don't quite know what to do with you because you are no particular religion, no denomination. And we're just going to let you choose where it is you're going to spend eternity. And we're going to show you a few different places that you can choose from. And then you decide we're just going to do it that way. And so he brought him over to one door, opened up the door. And there was a bunch of men and women in there that were just kneeling over. And they were praying, praying, intensely praying and rubbing rosary beads and doing Hail Marys. And he goes, who's that? And he goes, well, those are the Catholics. And he goes, is that all they do for the rest of the world? And they said, well, that's all they do for the rest of eternity. And he goes, well, that's all they do for the rest of eternity. And he goes, well, that does not look too interesting to me. What else do you have? And he went over to another door and opened up the door. And in there were a bunch of men sitting in pews with their wives next to them. And they were singing some dreadful hymns. And one woman, the man was falling asleep. And she hit her with a hymnal. And he goes, well, who's that? And, well, those are the Lutherans. Is that all they do for the rest of eternity? He said, yeah, that's all they do for the rest of eternity. He goes, does not seem too good, exciting to me. What else do you got? Opened up another door. And there were all the men that were on mats bowing to the east, intensely bowing to the east. And the women were all veiled. And he said, who's that? He goes, well, those are the Muslims. He goes, is that all they do for the rest of eternity? That's all they do for the rest of eternity. He goes, I still don't see anything that really, really gets me too excited. What else you got? He goes, well, we've got this other door over here. And they walked over there. And they opened up the door. And the thick smell of coffee came out. And people were just laughing and hugging and laughing. And carrying on and just having a wonderful time. And he goes, wow, that looks good. Who's that? He goes, we don't know. They won't tell us. So anyway, I love being with you people. I'm at my best when I'm with you people. I sometimes get a little bit of a mixed feeling. Like late this afternoon, my phone rang. And it was my little five-year-old son. He'll be five on January 21st when I turn 25 years sober. We have the same birthday. It was an amazing gift on my 20th birthday. But he has a sister that's seven. And he chimed into the phone, Daddy, is AA done with you yet? I want to hit golf balls. And of course, my heart breaks. And I'll be back. I'll be back as soon as I can. And you see, I really, see, I'm trying to do that balancing act that Bob and Linda and Peter were talking about. I'm doing my best to do that. But I really want to hit a home run as a dad. I really. But if I'm not with you people, I don't even get in the batter's box. I don't even get a chance to swing. And so I'm really grateful to be here. I'm supposed to talk about step one. I'm going to. I'm going to talk about the chapter five. At the end of chapter five where they say our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas. A, that we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives. B, that probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism. C, that God could and would if he were sought. I'm glad nobody chimed in right there. So I'm going to try to do that. I'm going to try to do that. Right? I'm going to talk about what I've learned out of the book about alcoholism. Our description of the alcoholic, what I've learned in my life and I'm going to try to describe that to you. It also says that it's very important that our personal adventures before and after are part of this surrender to alcoholism. And it's one of the most important things in Alcoholics Anonymous is identifying with other people's stories. And so I'm going to throw some of that stuff in there. Then I'm going to try to explain how there's a deeper surrender sober whether it be a year, five, ten, fifteen, twenty years sober. Right? A surrender to alcoholism while not drinking. That there's a surrender to this way of life that takes on a deeper, deeper meaning. So the most important thing I can tell you about myself is that I'm an alcoholic. And the reason that I believe I'm an alcoholic is really very simple. I've got a really strange relationship with my wife. I have a strange relationship to alcohol. That's why I'm an alcoholic. No other reason. And this strange relationship that I have with alcohol takes on a few forms. The first part of this strange relationship that I have with alcohol happens when I drink it. A very strange thing happens when I drink alcohol. The book calls it an allergic reaction. And the book says the symptom of this allergic reaction is what they call the phenomenon of craving. Meaning unexplained. And the best way that I can describe this thing, the book calls the phenomenon of craving in my life. Is it seems like whenever I drink booze. The more I drink, the thirstier I get. Happens with nothing else. Just booze. An example of that is I've got this bottle of water up in here. And over the next, as Lee said, 78 minutes and no more. As I'm talking with you, I'll drink at least half. Maybe I will finish this whole bottle of water. But once I finish this bottle of water, I can absolutely guarantee you that I'm not going to go get a case of water and lock myself in my hotel room. I'm really, really not. And that's the one thing we all have in common. The way our mental obsession manifests itself. Our spiritual malady. And even what we do while drinking. I mean, as an example. It's the one thing we have in common is this craving. As an example. Let's say those doors in the back opened up. And they wheeled in a giant cart full of all the types of booze we all like. I mean, top shelf and rock gut. Enough for all of us to have all we want. And they wheeled it right into the center of this room. And everybody was given, oh, four or five good stiff drinks. Really good stiff drinks. We're all going to be acting quite a bit differently. Over in this corner, there will be some people loving and hugging and talk, talk, talk, talk. Over in this corner, there will be some people fighting. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Over in this corner, there will be some people boo, boo, boo, boo. Over in this corner, there will be people getting naked. I myself would visit all four corners a few times. Might hang out over in the naked part a little longer. But we all have one thing in common. We will all be back at the cart. We will all be back at the cart. But we all have one thing, bar none, we all have in common. And that's why sometimes it's hard to always, it's not that easy to identify an alcoholic. It's when we listen to people's stories and they go different places, they do different things. Some get arrested, some wreck cars, some do not. Some people lose family, some do not. Right? So we all react very, very differently except for that one. It's the one thing we all have in common. But if that was the only thing that made me alcoholic, this strange physical craving that I get. If that made me alcoholic, well then, just say no would have wiped out alcoholism. Right? Early 80s, Nancy Reagan came out and said, just say no. I would have and I imagine you would have gone, ha ha, no. And just gone on and lived a happy, successful life just saying no. But I've got this other strange part of my reaction to alcohol. And that happens when I'm not drinking it. Of and by myself, if I don't drink for a day, a week, or a month, I seem to have this mind that is able to rationalize and justify my walk back to the next drink at all costs. And it does not matter about the pain, humiliation, suffering of a day, a week, or a month ago. And it certainly never enters into the equation whether it was my pain and humiliation or your pain and humiliation. Does not matter. But sooner or later, my mind is able to paint a picture that makes it okay to take another drink. So I can't drink successfully because of this strange physical craving that happens. But I cannot of and by myself not drink successfully. I'm damned if I do. I'm damned if I don't. It's the ultimate catch 22 we call alcoholism. I also seem to have this strange spiritual connection to alcohol. And I could not have described that to you until I was, it was the year 2000. I was already 13 years sober. And I felt this but I couldn't have described it to you until this particular event in 2000. My mother called me and said, I'd love for you to drink. I'd love for you to come to Iceland with me. I want you to see this museum that was built for your great aunt. And I'd love to see the old family farm. You should go see Iceland. And after that we'll go down and meet your brother and his wife and his kids who are spending the summer in the south of France. And indeed we went to Iceland. Whole different story. It would take until breakfast to tell you how that part changed my life. But it has nothing to do with this story. It's when we went down to the south of France to meet with my brother. And his wife and his kids. And they're staying in this beautiful villa. And on one of the days we were there my brother said, taking everybody out to dinner. We'll get the nannies to watch the children. And we'll all go out. So my mother, my brother, his wife and I all went out to this 13 course French meal at this amazing chateau. It used to be a castle and it's now a restaurant and a hotel. And if you've ever been, it is a once in a lifetime experience. I mean we went there and we sat in this beautiful chateau. And we sat in this beautiful courtyard. And they were bringing each little course of the meal that they would bring to the table. The waiter would also bring a small little glass of wine. And like an embarrassingly small glass of wine. And would then tell a story about the vineyard that this glass of wine came from. The family behind the vineyard. And the history of the family. And how that family may have related to the next family he starts to describe. And it was all very interesting. And indeed my brother and his wife and my mother were trying all of these things. My brother was trying all of these little glasses of wine. And I was 13 years sober so I was trying all the diet cokes of the region. I kept asking the waiter for a story about the diet cokes. But he just, no monsieur, no monsieur. But alcoholic or not, if there's ever a chance to drink a little extra, it would be there. Right? And indeed my brother and his wife were trying all the ones. And the ones they liked, they'd ask for a little bit more. And they were having a good time and trying this. And they were swirling it around and having a good time. And my mother, after two tiny, tiny little glasses of wine, when the waiter brought the third, she said, no more for me. And I said, mom, come on. I mean, I'm driving. Have a little more. And she said, no, I don't like the way it makes me feel. Should have left well enough alone. But I couldn't resist. I said, mom, how does it make you feel? And she said, well, like you said, Carl, I'm having like a once in a lifetime experience. I'm sitting in this beautiful courtyard looking at the amazing clear colors of the countryside off in the distance. I'm listening to this beautiful string quartet that's playing. And I'm engaging in conversation with three of the people that I love the most on this planet. And if I were to drink just a little bit too much, the colors start to get dull and blurry. The music starts to sound shallow. And I have a hard time connecting with you. Do you get it? She's just described the exact opposite relationship to alcohol than I have. Because what she's saying is of and by herself, she sees the colors of life. She hears the music. And she can connect with you. She adds a little alcohol. And it all gets dull and difficult. Me, of and by myself, I can't see the colors of life. I can't hear the music. And you're really god damn boring. I get enough alcohol in me. And the colors come alive. I will tell you where that cello was made, whether I know or not. I'll tell you what German village it was from and the maker. And you become very interesting. But not as interesting as me. . And what I believe is that my spirit, that thing that makes me me, sold its soul when I was a young boy, when I tried alcohol. And that happened for me. That the thing that makes me me died. And that it's my contention that there's a whole point of Alcoholics Anonymous is to awaken that spirit so that I can, without alcohol, see the colors of life, hear the colors of life, hear the music, and engage with you. I set this relationship up with alcohol that I just described to you. And here I'm going to start, do a quick zoom through. And because it says it in chapter 5 that we're supposed to identify with personal adventures before and after. Set this relationship up with alcohol that I just described to you right from the get-go when I first started drinking. . I started a lot later in alcohol, drinking than most people in AA. I was 11. It's a, I mean Peter, you were going at it at 5, right? First treatment center at 11? Something like that. But I'd had a really good childhood. I came from really good, good parents. Had a really good childhood. At 11 I took a drink. And we lived in Seattle. A typical morning in seventh grade for me would be I'd show up early for school, not for study hall or anything. But to meet my new friends at the very edge of the school property, loser's corner. Every school's got a loser's corner. It's about 10 feet off the school property. Kids would be out there smoking cigarettes, trying to look cool. We would also have what I like to call the playground cocktail. That is a jar full of whatever we could rip off out of the parents' liquor cabinet the night before. You can imagine six or seven of us, 11, 12-year-olds, handing this jar around, choking it down. And of course it was the early 70s, so we're smoking that commercial pot. Anybody remember that stuff? Four finger lids, $10 a bottle. Seeds and stems and the whole bit. And it was even before Zik-Block baggies were invented, when it would just be a regular Glad bag. And as you'd roll it up, there'd be like nine people spit on it. Like, ooh. Were you guys there too? So at this point, many people that speak in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous often interrupt themselves and they say something like this. I don't mean to offend anybody, but drugs are a part of my story. I understand and have great respect for what they're attempting to do when they say that. They're attempting to protect singleness of purpose. Vitally important thing to protect here in Alcoholics Anonymous. Indeed, no individual or group should ever portray to the public or anybody else that Alcoholics Anonymous is about anything other than recovery from alcoholism. We're kind of a one-trick pony organization. Name kind of insinuates that. But that idea aside, I still think it's a bizarre practice for alcoholics to apologize to other alcoholics for doing drugs while drinking or in between drunks. I understand apologizing to police officers and judges and people that may still love us. But I don't know why we apologize to each other. In fact, the most bizarre example of that I've ever seen is a number of years ago. I was in a big meeting out in West Los Angeles. Quite a few years ago. And I was out there listening to a speaker. The speaker that night was up there giving one of the most ugly, nasty, blow-by-blow drunkologues I've ever heard. And I got to tell you, when I'm out there listening to a speaker and the drunkologue starts to get ugly, the uglier it gets, the more excited I get. That night, I think I was on the edge of my chair drooling, looking up at this guy. He's like, buddy, go! Go, go, go, go! And at one point, this really ugly story. This guy said, you know, I had four DUIs. And the judge said, if I get one more DUI, I'm going to prison for sure. He said, two weeks later, I'm on the freeway in a blackout. I had a family of four. They wound up in the hospital and I wound up in prison. In prison, I sodomized men. I was sodomized. And I don't mean to offend anybody, but I did some drugs, too. I was the only one that thought that was strange that night. Everybody else was like, oh, all right. By the time I'm 14 there in Seattle, I'm in a neighborhood drunk. I'm in a neighborhood pot dealer. I forgot to mention, but my father was a neighborhood Lutheran minister. He was not chuckling. My parents, really, really good people. They saw what was happening. They didn't know what it was. But, I mean, it was kind of hard to hide. I mean, by the time I'm 14, my hair is growing down onto my shoulders in front of my very bloodshot eyes. And my vocabulary is, whoa. Whoa. All right. That's my vocabulary. I'm regularly locked in my bedroom listening to Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, getting all the necessary tools for living from those lyrics. My parents tried to help, but they didn't understand I was an alcoholic. They blamed my problems on people, place, and things. It's a big misperception. It's a big misperception. It's a big misperception. And I'm not saying that I'm a person of alcoholism out there in the world, and especially in us, too. They thought if we can fix the people, place, and things in his life, things will be better. They thought if we can get him away from that damn group of kids he's been hanging out with, things will get better. If we can get him out of that damn public school system he's in, things will get better. They tried all of the above. You see, I'm an alcoholic. My problems are not based upon people, place, and things. My problems are based upon my physical and mental relationship to alcohol. You see, if you change the people, place, and things in somebody's life like mine, all that happens is that I'm loaded with different people in different places, ruining different things. That's all that happens. By the time I was 22, or by the time I was 18, I barely scraped out of the public school system there in Seattle, and my parents decided that Seattle was the problem. They sent me across state to Washington State University. I spent three years at that university on my parents' money and got almost ten credits. By the time I was 22, this little story I'm about to tell you will let you know exactly where I stood with my family. Now, my father was Swedish, my mother was Icelandic, therefore I looked like a polar bear. And I don't know whether this custom I'm about to tell you about is Scandinavian or whether it's Lutheran. I don't know. But at Christmas time, my parents wouldn't just send out Christmas cards to their friends and relatives. My parents would send out this big, long Christmas letter that said everything the family had been doing that year. When I was about 22, I got a hold of one of these letters that had been sent out the previous Christmas, and as I read it, it let me know exactly where I stood with my family. Now, the first paragraph talked about what my parents had been doing that year. Another impressive year, I'm sure. The next paragraph talked about what the Morris children had been doing that year, and that paragraph went something like this. Our oldest daughter, Christina, just graduated from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, with a master's degree in human resources. She's now working for a large pharmaceutical company in the Midwest. She traveled to Europe this summer. She saw a lot of people. She's a very happy young woman. We are very proud of her. Our oldest son, Eric, just graduated from Washington State University with a degree in marketing. He's now working for a large advertising firm here in downtown Seattle. He loves the golf. He loves to travel. He's engaged to be married to this wonderful woman named Mary Lou, who works for a very small company here in Seattle named Microsoft. It was small at one time. This also explains the villa in the south of France. No resentment from me. I'm not going to say anything. I'm just going to say that I'm very proud of her. I'm very proud of her. Pump it up. I want to say a few things. Three main things. First, translate, mechanism. Spontaneous. Expansion of a metro station. Transification of Apple auspices. Comb荥jú. Then third, sprinted new, first ногm 청. These are a few of the first things that I'm going to talk about. Arm on the ground. Then, at a low, low speed.I'm turning this down. Go ahead. Go ahead. They love to golf together. They love to travel together. He's a very happy young man, very full life. We are very proud of him. Our youngest son, Carl, just turned 22. They were actually being pred 낳ed after getting the across. My sense is their头 were like the most famous baby pyro again. They were actually being very kind. Very kind. Long story short, it really would take until breakfast to explain this next few months, but long story short, a really bad night happened, so I joined the Navy. What I'm about to tell you should scare the living daylights out of you if you care anything about the security of the United States. But on my way into the Navy, I passed a potential test. It's called the ASVAB test. And this test that I took qualified me to become a nuclear engineer. That should concern you that the Navy would have any system in place that would possibly, maybe remotely, or even maybe accidentally or purposely get somebody like me near anything nuclear. However, they made me take another test when I showed up at that base for boot camp and I could not pass that particular test. It's called a urinalysis test is what it's called. The Texas Army never crate an aircraft with a lower levelает with such a type of typeonder. As the pessoal of the CCUDC in Pennsylvania have gone into that and much of the world did go except when they wanted to go firein planes and all kinds of air alien belts that are smaller or larger, we were given the opportunity to have a quick look at the arms, and be sure that each soldier sending a Salv was a suicide bomber. I was seen going through every single one of those worded in fairway. into one building and I was taken into a completely separate building right into the commanding officer's office, a guy who ran the whole Great Lakes Naval Base. Big, beautiful office. Pictures of naval vessels on the wall, big oak desk. And the man sitting behind the oak desk had so much gold on his shoulders, it would blind you on a bad morning. And this would have been the early 80s. So he had a telephone on this big oak desk with a speakerphone attachment. And this man pushed the button on, as I was standing in front of the desk, he pushed the button on the speakerphone. And into this speakerphone he said, Walt, it's my father's name. My father had been a chaplain in the United States Navy, reserve and active for over 40 years at that point. He was one of the highest ranking chaplains in the Pacific Northwest. This was an old World War II buddy of my father's. And into this phone he said, Walt, out of consideration for our long-term friendship, I thought I'd call you before I took any action. I'm supposed to kick your son out of the Navy right this very second, but I thought I'd ask you, what do you feel I should do with your son? And he said, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Now normally if you met my father, you would, just by his voice and his body language, you knew that he found life to be an enormous privilege. You could just sense it in him when you met him. And you could especially hear it in his voice. He had a passion for life that I could only dream of having. But there was another voice and another body language that would come out of this man. And that was like he'd just been kicked below the bridge. belt. It was weak. It was soft. It was discouraged. And I'd heard that voice many times. And it was always when he was dealing with me. That's the voice that came through that speakerphone that morning. I heard my father's voice very, very destroyed. Say, it's just none of my concern anymore. Click, dial tone. As I stand here today, I can still hear that. If I could have slithered out of that office that day, I would have. That man decided to keep me in the Navy anyway. Thank God for you guys, he took away that nuclear status. Kept me in the Navy anyway. And a year and a half later, I'm a lower rank than I first came in. Well, it's like this. I mean, I knew I was in the Navy when I'd be out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. And I'd look at my surroundings and I'd see I'm on a big gray ship. I'm in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. By God, I'm in a uniform. No doubt about it. I am in the United States Navy. However, when that ship would pull into a port, I'd leave that ship and I'd take a drink. And I would totally forget that I'm in the Navy. And I would come back to where I had last seen the ship when the drunk was over. And at this point in my life, I have no idea once I take a drink whether it's going to be three hours or three days. It's a very strange feeling, I got to let you know. At 6 a.m. in a foreign country, Sunday morning on a pier, and I'm standing there going... There was a destroyer here the other day. This one morning, I had been drinking all weekend. And again, it was another one of those three-day binges. It was Monday morning. I'm late getting back to the ship. At that time, our ship's mission was the destroyer squadron flagship. We had a, kind of, a three-day binges. We had a three-day binges. We had a three-day binges. We had a kind of like a fireman schedule of four days on, three days off, three days on, four days off. And so when I would be in the middle of a drunk, you know, I would rationalize and justify being late for my ship. Now, I would be maybe a day late coming back. But in my mind, I thought, well, normal people work eight-hour shifts. If they're an hour or two late, that's just a quarter of the shift that they're supposed to do. Well, I got to do four days. So one day late is really just a couple of hours. I'm eight hours late when it really comes down to it. Anyway, I was late getting back to the ship, and I'm driving my car into the base. And I was trying to get a half a pint in me. Simply, this is my detox plan. It's a way to slide into Tuesday. I'd get half a pint in me. I would go do what I need to do until noon. I'd come back out to the car, and I'd get the other half a pint in me. I guess I was at the front of every naval base. There's a guard shack where a Marine stands guard. And you're supposed to slowly pull up at the guard shack. Show them your military ID. You'll check the sticker. If everything's in order, it'll allow you to proceed onto the base. This particular morning, I guess I was paying more attention to getting that half a pint in me. And I remember my eyes came into focus, and the Marine had his head out of the guard shack. And I was wondering what he was so excited about until I looked down, and I saw I was still going 40 miles an hour. I tried to swerve. The car hit this median on the right-hand side and flipped over and bam, right through that guard shack. I can still see that Marine doing this big dive out of there. The Marine was all right. They were patching me up. I was getting up at the hospital for minor injuries. And they were reading new charges on me. And this is nothing significant in my life, new charges. That's just what happens in a guy's life like mine about every 90 days if you're living the way I'm living. But the most significant thing that happened that morning is the Navy doctors prescribed this stuff called Anabuse for me. And they sent this prescription back to the ship's doctor, and I was now under orders to show up at sick bay. And the corpsman would put this little white pill on my tongue and make me sit there for a half an hour to make sure it actually ingested in my system. Over the next seven to ten days, I started to experience the most cunning, baffling, and powerful side of this illness we call alcoholism. That is, I had no alcohol in my system, and I was slowly going insane. So you take alcohol away from an alcoholic of my type, and I assume you're a type. I literally start to implode in, on myself. The real, fatal nature of alcoholism then kicks in. I had no idea that's what I was dealing with. You know, at the very end of step one in the 12 and 12, it says, under the lash of alcoholism, we were driven to AA. It was there we learned the fatal nature of our situation. And I didn't understand the fatal nature of my situation. They had just taken alcohol away from me. See, if you take alcohol away from me and you don't give me Alcoholics Anonymous, I, restless, irritable, and discontent is a nice generic term that the book uses, I believe, to sort of just cover everybody. I literally, I remember counting those days on that Anabuse, just, it's been four days. And I'm on Anabuse. I'm on Anabuse. Now it's been six days, and I'm on Anabuse. Now it's been eight days, six hours, and 15 minutes, and I'm on Anabuse. I started to look around that ship. The other men. They're talking behind my back. All 300 of them. Have you ever felt that way in AA? The only difference is that in AA, we are talking behind your back. It's not an illusion. It's actually happening. On the 10th day, I just snapped. I went AWOL from my ship, and I locked myself in this little hotel room. Plaza Hotel, 4th and Broadway, downtown San Diego. And I remember sitting on the edge of the bed, and I looked at this bottle of vodka and this rickety little end table that I had, and I had a shot glass, and as I sat there, I remembered that the Navy doctors had given me a very stern warning about drinking on top of Anabuse. They had told me, Son, you need to understand that if you drink on top of Anabuse, you'll get one of two reactions. One reaction is you'll get violently ill. The other reaction is you might die. I remember sitting on the edge of the bed, and I thought, well, I wonder which reaction I'm going to get. And I took one shot, and nothing happened. Authority had lied to me again. I waited about two minutes, just to make sure, and I took another shot. All of a sudden, I felt tingling in the face, so I looked in this cracked little mirror that was in this hotel room, and I was bright red, blotchy and purple in places. Hmm. Took another shot. All of a sudden, I could feel my heart going, boom, boom, boom. Looked at my shirt. I was drenched in sweat, and then all of a sudden, I was like, hyperventilating. We're doing all right so far. You guys are really, you guys all look really, really good tonight, but if you think that's funny, there's something wrong with you. There really is, and I've got proof of that. I really have proof of that. I'm going to skip ahead a couple of years. I'm going to come back to this room here in the Plaza Hotel, but two years sober, got an honorable discharge out of the Navy, and my first sponsor, Bob W., and his sponsor, another guy on my ship, and I'll talk more about him. They were real sticklers about the night step, and one of the amends that they told me I needed to make that I couldn't make while I was still in the Navy was that my parents had paid for a bachelor's degree. I didn't have one, I had two choices. I either had to go back and get what they had paid for, or I had to pay them back every single nickel. So when I got out, that's how I wound up in Covina. I signed up to go to get this telecommunications business bachelor's program, and in the first couple of semesters, I had to take a business presentation course. It's like a speech class designed for giving business presentations. In the first couple of days of this speech class, the instructor was randomly pointing at students, throwing them up in the front of the room one at a time, and he would give them a topic to talk on, and each student was supposed to talk for two to three minutes. The instructor was doing this just to see what he had to work with for the semester. And after about seven or eight students were thrown up there, the instructor pointed at me. I walked up to the front of the room, and from the back of the room, the instructor shouted out, talk about a bizarre situation in your life. So I told them about drinking on top of antabuse. They did not respond the way you guys responded. They were like... There were, though, a couple of guys in the back going, woo, right on, dude, aha! So anyway, I'm back in the hotel room. I'm red-faced. I'm hyperventilating. I'm sweating, and I take another shot, and up it came. My second sponsor, the late Eddie Cochran, got... Rest his soul. He died in 1999 with 47 years of sobriety, and on December 2nd, he would have been 60 years sober. One of the pioneers of Southern California Alcoholics Anonymous, and right... I mean, it's just... We've got a couple of them sitting right in here, too. This man used to describe what happened to me next as projectile regurgitation. It's a different level of puking than we're all used to. We're all quite used to throwing up. You know, we're out there in the middle of a drunk, and we get... We've got a little warning, right? A little sour taste in the back of the throat. Maybe a little bit comes up in the back of the mouth, and we go... And we know, based upon experience, we've got anywhere from 30 seconds to one minute to find a bathroom if there happens to be one. If we're driving, we've just got to get the window down. If it's our friend's shoe tonight, that's just the way it goes. But we get the warning. But here on the Antibuse, there's no warning. It's just... Just a big... Kind of a Linda Blair spray across the room. Thank God the Plaza Hotel is the type of hotel room where the toilet is in the same room with the bed. It's a design feature, I believe. Maybe to make convicts feel more at home upon release. I'm not really sure. I got to tell you... When I was... Maybe, I don't know, six months sober or something, I was somewhere... I don't know, somewhere in Canada. And I was at a coffee table with some people. Because being in the Navy, I had to spend the first two years of my sobriety kind of like a nomad. Right? Ship would be here, ship would be there, and we'd find the meetings where we couldn't. I'll get more to that later. But this particular time, I had a coffee shop with people I don't really know. And they're talking about basically step one and the concept of turning to lower companions. And I decided I would chime in. I realized I probably shouldn't have now. But I chimed in and I said, Oh, I absolutely understand what you guys are talking about. I would turn to lower companions. I would be AWOL from my ship and I'd be in the Plaza Hotel, this little fleabag hotel. And I'd usually be in room number 10 and I would have to go through this little song and dance of drinking and puking and drinking and puking on the interviews until I could get down to some real drinking. And over in room number nine, there was this nickel and dime crack dealer. And sailors and street people would be coming and going in a busy hallway. Just coming and going, coming and going, coming and going. And over in room number 11, there was this pregnant hooker. And sailors are coming and going and people are coming and going. And just really kind of a three ring circus. And somewhere around midnight when I'm getting ready to do some real good drinking and their whole business has settled down, the three of us would party. And I was trying to describe that I was turning to lower companions. And they said, Son, wrong answer. Wrong answer. They were not your lower companions. You were their lower companions because at least they showed up to work that night. Don't let you get away with a single thing around here. Found the magic of drinking on top of anabuse that if you hang in there, it's really important. It is. You cannot half measure it when you're drinking on top of anabuse. You really do need to hang in there that if I would keep drinking and keep puking and keep drinking and keep puking for approximately one to one and a half hours, enough of the anabuse would kick out of my system and I would just be left with red face, hyperventilating and sweating and I'm pretty much all right with that. I drank on top of anabuse the last seven months of my drinking. There's no other way than described as a book Desperation Drinking. Constantly trying to get back. Trying to constantly... Because I knew, as I had said earlier, when you take alcohol away from me, I'm dead. This thing that whatever it is that you... that is me, I just can't. I feel like I've got this thin film that I can't get through. I see you guys out there and I can't break through the film but somewhere between the third and fifth drink it all just melts away and I'm here with you. And all these authority type figures are trying to take alcohol away from me and I'm desperately, desperately trying to hang on to it. My second and my last drunk, I was left for dead in a motel parking lot in National City. National City to San Diego is kind of like South Central Los Angeles is to Los Angeles. Los Angeles? Los Angeles. Los Angeles. Los Angeles. Where's the guys from Philadelphia? Scott and Todd. They came... Where are you guys? These guys. Scott and Todd came to visit me earlier this week down in Covina. They behaved themselves very, very well. They led a meeting at a local recovery house. They had lunch with my ex-wife and my kids and I and behaved themselves. They went down to Orange County and stayed with the mans and then they took off to Tijuana. What are you doing in Tijuana? Jesus. They need more supervision. This whole group right over here. But that's what I would do. But I was drinking when I did it. They're sober. And the last thing I remember is lots of fish flying. There was a lot of blood. The fish were not mine but apparently the blood was and I came to on an operating table and you know how when you come to you start looking around for signs of where am I? Am I in my own room? Am I in jail? You know, what's happening? And you often hear people that are trying to describe their surrender to alcoholism and their gratitude. For Alcoholics Anonymous they often say oh, I'm just so grateful to be sober and now that I wake up you know, when I used to be drinking I'd wake up and I'd look next to me and they're like oh! And they're trying to describe some sort of pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. But that is not pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. What pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization is is when you come to and you look next to you and you go wow, not bad. They wake up and look at you and go oh! And they run in and out the room. That. There's always two sides to that story. This particular morning I came to and I was on an operating table they were doing surgery on my face and anybody in the medical profession would know that anybody that shows up with various combinations of alcohol or drugs can't talk, jaw is broken, it's illegal to use anesthesia. So my face was being operated on without any that was a fun morning. That was a fun morning. Last night of drinking I'm being let out of the San Diego jail being transferred from civilian authorities to military authorities and it was one of those mornings I'm in handcuffs lots of angry people around me and neck muscles aren't working well. You know those mornings. And that morning the officer deck would not allow me on board they put their arm up and said he put his arm up and said wrong answer. Orders have already been processed on this loser and the orders are 90 days in the brig bad conduct discharge or treatment. Now as I stood there in handcuffs I do not remember thinking oh God you are so good to a bum like me I just can't go on this way and now look at you've offered treatment you're so good I do not remember thinking or feeling that nor do I remember thinking or feeling and it would have been more likely that I would have been thinking hey if I just act like I want that treatment thing maybe I can beat this rap too. That would have been more likely but I don't remember that either. I now know that it would not have mattered what I was thinking or feeling that morning because I was in handcuffs and I don't know about your experience in handcuffs but my experience in handcuffs throughout my life was always the same. Whoever had me in handcuffs never once turned to me and said so what's your opinion on this matter? It never goes that way in handcuffs does it? When you're in handcuffs you go where they say and they took me up to this treatment center and when the doors were locked behind me it was a military treatment center up in Miramar when the doors were locked behind me that's when they took the handcuffs off me and that is what society feels about how Carl Morris acts out in the world without Alcoholics Anonymous. And rightfully so. So I am not someone who came to Alcoholics Anonymous surrendered. I am now I was forced by an institution through a treatment center to be sitting in your meetings. You guys didn't seem to care. I am so very very grateful that you didn't you didn't change your meetings because guys that you knew not surrendered to alcoholism didn't even know where they were at. You guys just carried on the way you always carry on. And I'm a product of becoming surrendered to alcoholism in Alcoholics Anonymous. I did not get surrendered and then came to Alcoholics Anonymous. I was forced in here and literally I don't know if you guys can go to San Diego you can see it when they bring the least it back in the 80s they would bring the sailors in there and they would have an armed guard with us. And he just kind of leaned up against the wall outside smoking but he's carrying a weapon. It's kind of strong sponsorship to keep you in the meeting I guess. Just sort of their version of that. And for us to behave and stay in our seat. When I'd been in this treatment center seven days they took us all to our first meeting and I got to tell you my very first meeting I'm like Bob was talking I immediately I am not one who fought Alcoholics Anonymous I heard it the very first night it was almost like it was weird you guys were speaking some other language but I understood it. It's like I'd landed in mainland China and you were speaking Chinese but all of a sudden I understood Chinese. It was the strangest feeling I'm sitting in the back and you guys did your meeting I now know that it was a podium participation meeting and a long string of people came up here I didn't know that there were different types of meetings I didn't know there was speaker meeting step study I didn't know but a long string of people came up to this podium and the first few read and the remaining 9, 10 or 12 people just talked for 2 to 3 minutes right off the cuff and as I sat there in the back I got this overwhelming feeling as I listened to what you read and even more importantly when those people were just talking off the cuff I got this overwhelming feeling of oh my god they know they know now if you were there and saw me back there thinking and you nudged me and said so what is it that they know that you think you know I would have said I don't know but they know they know and I believe what was happening is those people were sharing responsibly in that meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous because I believe what was happening to me is what Alcoholics Anonymous wants to happen to any new person who is sitting in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and may or may not even know where they're at or why they're there and that's what was happening and that's identification and I was identifying with two things I was identifying with the way they described their drinking and even more importantly I was identifying with the way they described the way they felt when they were not drinking I didn't know how to describe that to anybody I felt it if I could verbalize it throughout my life when some authority figured me yelling at me about my drinking I would have wanted to respond yes I agree it looks bad I know I agree it looks yes I see that burning car over there I know I agree I'm with you this looks bad but if you knew how I felt when I wasn't drinking you wouldn't be asking me why I drink and you guys were talking about that in a million different ways I'll never forget my very first meeting one fellow describing the alcoholic mind he said it in one sentence and he sat down in the 24 years and 11 months that I've been here with you and he got called on he walked all the way to the front he introduced himself and said one sentence he said my name is Jack I'm an alcoholic my mind would have killed my body a long time ago except it needed it for transportation and he sat down and I just went hmm I the next night they took us to another meeting and I don't know what kind of meeting it was but as much as I identified at the first meeting I got equally as confused at this next meeting because everybody at this meeting you don't hear it much anymore but you did back in the 80s everybody at this meeting was talking about something called a drug of choice people were saying well Christ sake was I supposed to be choosing out there do they want me to choose now what are they talking about so I was escorted back to the treatment center the next morning so I asked the counselor who had been assigned to us I go Mary last night in the meeting they were talking about something called a drug of choice what on earth do they mean by that and she said Carl let's play a game now that kind of worried me because she was insinuating that I'm supposed to pay attention for a while and I hadn't said anything to anybody but there was something really weird going on that I didn't know how to describe to anybody but I now know what it was is that when I showed up to that treatment center they did a medical check up and I on these things but those that have know that this is true your field of vision is just fine but there's dancing squiggly things over here and when you turn to see what it is now it's over here so I'm doing a lot of things which one would you take I started to drool immediately I take them all and she started to snap her fingers settle down settle down Carl you can't have them all you can only have one which one would you take I thought for a second I said well Mary I guess if I only can have one I guess I take the ounce of cocaine she said maybe cocaine is your drug of the Jack Daniels now the only reason I bring that up is to bring up a very important aspect of alcoholics anonymous if you're new or fairly new and that's sobriety days if you're new or somewhere in your first whatever six months anonymous tonight there's more people that work with new people in this room here tonight than I gotta tell you and I know there's lots of people that work with new people and you probably run across this scenario like I do every once in a while not very often but every once in a while see some new guy around my home group go up say hey good to see you how long do you got every once in a while not very often every once in a while I get this response oh well my drinking sobriety date is January 4th my pot clean date is May 3rd oh I blew my methamphetamine date last night I was in Walmart all night long one sobriety date one sobriety date funniest thing I ever heard about sobriety date same scenario saw this guy around my home group how long do you got I had 90 days but I drank last night so now I have 89 days I know it took me a minute too I almost had to call my sponsor got out of that treatment center and the only thing I knew was that when I was during the day they would be doing the normal therapy stuff that treatment centers do and God bless them I'm sure it was really really good but this place took us to meetings every single night and during the day I would be trying to listen to the clinical talk that they were giving us but when they took me to you something was happening and I now look back at it and I like to describe it as you were talking to my alcoholic heart the language that you spoke seemed to get through in a way that I couldn't describe to you didn't understand it was going on it just seemed to bypass my head and right into this thing that is this giant hole in my gut of the spiritual malady and you were throwing band-aids on my alcoholism when I got out of that treatment center the only thing I knew what to do was to go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous I showed up at the 6 o'clock gong show meeting in Pacific Beach truth about my life at that time I'm 45 days without a drink sitting in the back I've got a lot of information and I'm physically feeling better than I felt in a long long time since a young teenager because I mean in a military treatment center I don't know if any of you have been to it but it's a little bit different because this is what they do they scream at you most of the day as you're running three miles 150 push ups 150 sit ups about four times a day they're screaming move it move it you're drunk you're gonna be a I got out of there so I'm sitting in the back of this meeting I got 45 days I got information and I'm physically feeling better but there had been no spiritual awakening spiritual experience or even a personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism hadn't happened rarely rarely does one guy that night operated his primary purpose who understood his alcoholism found me sitting in the back and he came out of his get away get away he's mine I got him his friends are walking away dejected all right but that's the reason this guy was so excited to meet me that night is there was something going on in this guy's life that particular Friday night that made him especially glad to meet me this guy's girlfriend had left him the night before for one of his friends in his home group so he was wondering what he was going to do with his weekend homicide suicide get loaded or grab this newcomer in his car got to read the book damn her got to read the book damn her now I didn't know it but I was getting a very early introduction to your typical AA relationship break up is what I was getting but I'm so very glad that that guy that night in his pain understood his alcoholism and was somebody in Alcoholics Anonymous who had done the work of Alcoholics Anonymous and therefore understood that the solution to his pain was out of self out of self out of self I am so glad that that guy that night in his pain was not at home under the call me back give me a magical answer I'm sure that guy found his sponsor in that barrage of meetings we went to I remember correctly it was kind of hazy but I remember at a number of the meetings he'd be off in the corner at the break or before or after the meeting talking to these older guys and some of them would be sitting there going hmm hmm and other ones that he'd be talking to be going ha ha ha ha ha but invariably they'd turn him around point at me he'd come barreling across we're going to another meeting throw him in the car he'd start driving he'd start yelling rah rah rah but by going to so many meetings in the same area of town I learned something really valuable about how we go to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous especially when we're new and especially when life starts eating at you when life becomes hard again and I have had that so many times in my sobriety where life really I just don't know which way to turn and it's one of the things I'm so grateful about in my home group because we say the third step prayer at the beginning we say the seventh step prayer at the end and some mornings and I'm sure you guys do it's sort of like we're saying this third step prayer and I just sort of like say it by rote and I don't even think about it I'm actually thinking about why he's coming into the meeting or you know what's she doing or why is my sponsor working with that guy when not paying attention to me and you know those types of thoughts are reeling through but other mornings I go in and I know I'm in trouble and I feel like and I feel like like getting down on my knees to say the third step prayer right there in my home group and I'm just so and it's one of the things that I've had to learn here in Alcoholics Anonymous is that no matter what no matter whether I'm celebrating the joys of life whether I am just sort of like blah or whether I absolutely don't know which way to turn and in sobriety like Clancy says no friendly direction he's usually describing right before we come to Alcoholics Anonymous but I felt that way right in Alcoholics Anonymous no friendly direction and I did right there in my home group just hitting wanting to hit my knees now where was I oh so after that what I learned about how we go to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous you know in good times bad times I'm going to correlate it to a football game now a football team is out there on the field for one reason only to win the game and how do they win that game they huddle up they make a plan and they do one play then they huddle up again they make another plan and they do one play well the game around here it's exactly what we do here in Alcoholics Anonymous and the game around here is one day without a drink you're a big winner and how do we do that one day we run in here and we huddle up and we go remember we're bodily and mentally different from our fellows break and we go out there and we try a little of this and we try a little of that and we run right back in and we huddle up and we go remember we're bodily and mentally different from our fellows and just before we break some guy in the corner goes wait wait wait hang on hang on I've been here for six months I'm sober but I'm broke and I'm bored what do I do somebody like Bob will stand up and say get a job son break and we go out there and we try a little of this and we try a little of that I got back to my ship and the one other sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous was waiting for me his name was Bob W he became my first sponsor he had 14 months and he said I'm your first sponsor so 3 months into this I got a job while at Rel 담 it's called at Rel Dom I'm the big guy in the red I keep the other friend clean he was like your brother scandoing that was one of of these things and just offered him� highs like I love you I'm not relax you're dead I'm always not come to your gate I'll never be finished until my death that's all I get have you ever maze and I was herelle waiting for you, you people that show up at meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, no matter what's going on in your life, because you are properly armed with facts about yourself, and you are throwing out these little things that you say all the time, and some of the other people in your home are going, God, Fred is saying the same thing. But I would be, like, knocked over. I mean, the first time ever, in the six months I was in a meeting, and I was like, and it's one of those things where you're just short of breath, and you don't know why you're short of breath, and something's wrong, and I don't know what's wrong, that's what's wrong. And somebody said, if you don't take the first drink, you can't get drunk. I was like, whew. That was big news. That was huge news. Overwhelming news. You could find me later outside the A-Club pacing up, if I don't take the first drink, I can't get drunk. If I don't take the first... Now, I'm not going to lie to you. Now, be careful about calling people that love you and try to impress them with what you've heard in Alcoholics Anonymous. Because I called my mother that day, and I said, Mom... And trying to break the ice a little bit. I mean, we're still on a major walk in an eggshell relationship. You know, I was in San Diego, they were in Seattle. They were most happy about the thousand miles there, is what they were happiest about. And I called my mom, and I said, Mom, you wouldn't believe what I heard in the meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous today. They said, if I don't take the first drink, I can't get drunk. I can't get drunk. There was silence on the other end of the line. After about eight seconds, she said, hmm... Bunch of philosophers there in that AA program, huh? But I got to tell you, if you've been coming and going and coming and going out of Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, when they talk about that we... While we're drinking, we build up an immunity to alcohol. We build up an immunity to the effects of alcohol. And that's why they have that graph, right? And they talk about that we need it more and more and more, and then it turns on us. But we build up an immunity to the amount of alcohol we take. My belief that if we're coming and going and coming and going out of Alcoholics Anonymous, that we can build up an immunity to the message of Alcoholics Anonymous. And here's an example of what I'm talking about. Let's say right down... You're at your home group, you're at a meeting, and there's two guys sitting right next to each other. One guy is brand new in Alcoholics Anonymous. He's on day number two, never been here before. The guy sitting right next to him also has day number two, but he's been coming and going for 15 years. Coming and going for 15 years. The old-timer says, if you don't take the first drink, you can't get drunk. The guy that's brand new goes, did you hear that? He's nudging me. Did you hear that? He has a minor spiritual awakening right there. He's just like, whoa! He stays sober for four days thinking about it. Starts checking in with other people and, hey, have you heard this news? Right? It's huge to him. Life-changing news to him. The other guy, who's been coming and going and coming and going, who also has two days. Old-timer says, if you don't take the first drink, you can't get drunk. Flatline. No response. All he does is nudge the guy next to him. You got a smoke? I'm going outside. So it's my contention that maybe if you've been coming and going and coming and going, we might have to do twice the work for half the feeling. My first sponsor, Bob, when I was six and a half months sober, the ship had to go out to sea for an extended period of time. And he made me meet him in the aft end of the ship, down in this little battery shop, way down in the engine room. And the first night that I met him there, he came down with that blue book. And he just tossed it down on the table. He said, I've been hounding about it for weeks and months now. Have you read it? And I said something really stupid like, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's like how it works. Are we antagonists? Some doctor with some opinion about something. Now, I've been an alcoholic for six and a half months. I've been to a lot of meetings. I mean, I was just meeting, meeting, meeting, meeting, meeting, meeting, meeting. But I was going to these book studies where they would just sort of read a paragraph and then share about something completely else. I had never actually done that. I had never actually been to where they were actually reading the book page by page, paragraph by paragraph, line by line with somebody who understood it, who's trying to relay this message. I'd never experienced that before. And I really wasn't about to experience that either because Bob only had 14 more months than me. And he didn't. It was the blind leading the blind. And he opened up the book and he started to read. And then when he was tired, I would read. And what happened to me over the next 21 days is that, the first thing that happened, by going through the book and he was sharing what, I'm so glad that step 12 says having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried. I'm so glad that, you know, he didn't have to go get some sort of certification or check in with somebody before he worked with me. Because he, like I said, it was the blind leading the blind. It was Alcoholics Anonymous in its purest form. He had no idea what he was doing, but he understood that he was doing this to stay comfortable himself so that he could get through this time period that we're in. And I think that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to make sure that he's not going to be in a time period that we're out at sea. And he couldn't get to a meeting. So he was going to work with me. He heard that is what he's supposed to do. But I almost guarantee you that as we went through the book and he was trying to share with me what little he knew, he probably mixed up Roland Hazard and Nebby Thatcher. Told me a completely wrong story. Right? Got it all mixed up. Who cares? Who cares? He was trying. He was trying. And it was two guys sitting down in the, in the, this little battery shop down in the bottom of this. In the engine room on this naval vessel out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, trying to have an experience with the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And the main thing that I remember what happened to me as I was going through the book is that I'd been experiencing this thing for a long time of where, when I'd be racing from meetings to meetings, for you to say something, for you to say something that's going to fix me. You would find me late at night or in the middle of the afternoon or sitting by the freeway as my car would break down again. I couldn't get to the meeting and I'd be buckled over, pushing down on my stomach. What's wrong with me? What's wrong? If this is what sober is, I can't stay much longer. What's wrong with me? And as I went through the book, one of the biggest gifts that was given to me was that although after doing this, I might still be pushing down on the gut with that feeling, but I was no longer saying, what's wrong with me? I now understood. Alcoholism. That's what's wrong with me. Alcoholism. I also remember during that time when I was pushing down one of these nights and I went to a late candlelight meeting, and this is again an example of you guys who understand your alcoholism, who show up and say the same stuff over and over again because you're not taught. I still remember the first time I heard some guy repeat something like a week later, that had said it last week and I nudged my first sponsor, why is he saying the same thing again? He's not talking to you. He's talking to the guy we don't even know is here. The guy in the back that you're not even paying attention to. That's who he's talking to. And I've been that guy so many times up and down the West Coast, up into Canada and down into Mexico in my first couple years of sobriety. I'm sitting there, they don't even know that I'm dying of alcoholism. One guy, this one night I was just, and I ran to this candlelight meeting this old time I was there and he got called on and he said, if anyone out there is thinking of committing suicide, I have it on good authority. Now I knew when an old timer says good authority, it means direct from God. Says I have it on good authority that however you are feeling when you commit suicide, is how you will feel for all of eternity. I went, oh, this is bad news. This is really bad news. But this guy's a responsible member of alcoholics, anonymous and he never shares a problem without having the solution. So we backed it up with a solution. So he said, so the solution to this is wait until you're having a really, really good day, then do it. The other thing that happened to me during this period of time is that I understood the value of one alcoholic sharing with another and how absolutely vital it is to share with others. And I'm not saying that I'm not. I'm not saying that I'm not. I'm not saying that this is vital to the fabric of Alcoholics Anonymous that that, I mean, it's from everything from that stems. I mean, everything in Alcoholics Anonymous stems from one alcoholic sharing with another and the identification that takes place. And I'll never forget how I learned that. My first sponsor Bob and I would often split a hotel room off when we, a ship would pull into a port somewhere, we would split a hotel room. We'd find the AA groups in the area. And we were in Victoria, British Columbia. I still remember the name of the hotel, Strathcona Hotel. We got a room there and then we found the AA club. We went to the meeting and afterwards Bob, Bob W., my first sponsor, said, you know, I'm not feeling real well. I'm going to head back to the hotel room. And I stayed out with the AAs for a couple more hours, went out to eat, maybe went to another meeting, flirted with a girl or two. I don't know what I did. Maybe all three. But afterwards, a couple hours later, I came back to the hotel room. And on his way back to the hotel room, Bob had found this other guy from our ship named Blair. And Blair was like, he had a gutter, he had vomit on him, he was wasted. And Bob had put him onto my bed in the hotel room and had propped him up against the headboard with like an end table and a pillow. And Bob was reading the big book to him. And I looked at this and I think, this is ridiculous. I mean, Blair doesn't even know where he's at. He's one of the . Bob's like, rarely have we seen a person fail who was thoroughly. I think this is ridiculous. But I threw my two cents in. And then we did the classic of two sailors carrying the guy back to the ship. And Blair's like, hold this. We're carrying him back to the ship. We get him back to the ship safely. The last thing I heard from Blair for a number of weeks. And a few weeks later, we're back in port in San Diego. And it's 3 AM in the morning. And I'm in my rack on the ship. And all of a sudden, he's like, wake up, wake up. Whoa, whoa, whoa. And it's Bob. Bob says, Carl, get up. Blair's on the Coronado Bridge. We got to go get him. And apparently, over the last few weeks, Blair's tried to drink. He's tried not to drink. He's tried to drink. He's tried not to drink. I guess he's at the jumping off point. He's up on the Coronado Bridge. And I don't know if you know about San Diego and the Coronado Bridge, but it's a really popular suicide spot. It's such a popular suicide spot that they actually have suicide hotline phones up at the top, just in case you change your mind. They're hoping that your feet are still on the bridge when you change your mind. And Blair had gotten onto one of these suicide hotline phones. And this is what Blair was apparently telling the highly qualified, well-meaning suicide hotline counselor on the other end. Blair was saying, I will only talk to Bob W. Counselor was saying, who's Bob W? Blair was saying, it's anonymous. So she went to go get her supervisor, another highly educated, well-meaning suicide hotline counselor. And they got onto two separate phones. And they started doing the good cop, bad cop, firing questions, good cop, bad cop. And they found out that he's in the Navy and what ship he's from. So they just took a stab in the dark and called down to the quarterdeck of our ship. And they said, is there a Bob W. on the ship? Now, Bob, my first sponsor, he'd guard your anonymity at the level of that ship. But he did not guard his own, so he could be of service at any time. So the guy who answered at 2 o'clock in the morning said, yeah, yeah, yeah, Mr. 12 Steps. We know all about him. So they go down and get Bob. Bob comes. He gets me. Carl, wake up. Wake up. So we hop into Bob's car. We're driving down to the base of the Coronado Bridge. And Bob says, Carl, grab the big books out of the glove box. Bone up on working with others. It's like, . It's like, . And he says, ah, forget it. We're going to wing it. We get down to the base of the Coronado Bridge. And everything that San Diego County has available for a situation like this is there. The fire department is there. The paramedics are there. The police are there. The on-duty psychologist is there. And we walk up on this scene. And the fireman who seems to be in charge looks over as we're walking across and goes, is one of you Bob W.? And Bob goes, yeah, that's me. He goes, we've been talking for an hour and a half. I don't know what you're going to do, but here, go ahead. Hands him this little speakerphone contraption. Bob says, Blair? And you can hear on the other end, Bob, is that you? And Bob says, yeah. And he says, yeah. And Bob says, yes, Blair, it's me. Now get the hell down from that bridge. And you're, OK. One alcoholic can affect another alcoholic like no one else can. Take three of the services up front. We need theAssociate of Affairs. Wow, the