Many of the Things We Call Untreated Alcoholism Are Just Being a Human Being – Steve B.

Yeah, but what do you know?
Hi, everybody. I'm Steve Bordner. I'm an alcoholic.
This is tough about, I mean, I realize there's a lot of people in here and going,
I don't know who this mook is, never seen him, but so many people have come up,
hey, good to see you again, and I heard you, and so I'm going, we could just go home.
Just play the old tape, and we'll go home and get back to the Laker game.
But, ooh, hostile.
Shall we talk about what happened to the Kings?
Or no, I don't want to hurt you.
Oh, breaking my heart.
I like it, coming here and just alienate everybody right in the first couple of seconds.
I think that's a record even for me, drinking, you know.
I don't think I was able to do that. I was drinking.
It's a good thing to do.
But I always love to sit up here and look at everybody,
because I realize how many lives.
Norma used to say that if we drink, 20 people are directly affected.
And so I love to look out at the crowd and think about not only how many lives are affected
because we're sober, but how many other lives are affected because we're sober.
And now when I'm sitting here, I'm looking out, and I'm seeing so many faces.
Some of you are faces I don't know your names, but I know I've run into you or talked to you before,
and a lot of you I do.
And that's just, I don't know about you, but for an alcoholic who was totally bankrupt in every area
and came into AA with bupkas, to be able to do that,
simply because I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, is just a privilege,
and I never, ever, ever want to take that for granted.
And I want to thank the committee for having me up here.
It never fails to just knock me over that somebody wants me to come up and talk
and share my experience, strength, and hope.
And I want to thank you.
I want to thank you for the beautiful flowers in the room.
They sent me this bouquet.
Most of the time you go to conferences, they send you like a basket.
It's an alcoholic basket.
There's nothing nutritious in it.
It's all white sugar.
And, of course, you eat it anyway.
But I've got this thing called chronic fatigue syndrome,
and I went to this psychic nutritionist that's got me on nothing but tree bark,
so I'm really glad for the flowers because I can't eat anything except that I ate the flowers too.
So I don't know.
And I want to thank my sponsor, Perry, for picking me up at the airport.
I hope you get a sponsor as perfect for you as Perry is.
Alcoholics Anonymous says, don't ask why.
Don't ask why.
You know?
An old-timer.
Don't ask why.
Now, I'm a why-asker.
I am.
Why, why, why, why?
Why is the sky blue?
I'm like a five-year-old.
Why, why, why, why, why?
Why, why, why?
When I get to heaven, I've got a lot of questions for God.
I need about 100,000 years with God.
You know?
I just don't like a lot of his rules.
I don't.
But the kingdom of God is not a democracy, and he never asked me to vote.
I'm waiting for that.
I mean, a lot of the rules are stupid.
One of the things I want to ask him, if you had to invent two sexes, right, two genders,
why, after making a promise, would you do that?
After making love, couldn't both of them want to talk, or both of them want to sleep?
Okay?
Seems simple to me.
Just seems simple to me.
We both nap, or we both talk.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
Not good enough for him.
Nope, nope.
One's got to roll.
And I just can see him up there with St. Peter going, okay, watch this, watch this.
They're having a lot of fun, but watch.
He's going to roll over, and she's going to kick him in the tukka so hard.
So I've got a lot.
But Perry's just so simple.
He goes, I ask him all these complex questions.
He goes.
Just have faith, Steve.
It's just he grounds me.
And Perry and Diane are good friends of mine.
I met them a couple years ago.
We'd go to a tennis tournament once a year and hang out.
And Diane's just such a wonder.
If you know her, she's on the H&I committee.
And that's scary, because I was with Diane at a tennis tournament where she was getting the newspaper reporters straight.
They were giving her, like, facts.
And she's going, no, no, no, she lost in 76, two to one.
And he was going, you're right.
So I can just see her with the warden.
Well, he gets out in six years.
No, he should get out in five years.
And Clem and Lisa are here.
I'll tell you one of the other things.
I see people here that I always see at conferences.
And one of the things you guys have done for me, because I get to do this a lot,
is I was going around to a lot of conferences, and I realized I didn't have a commitment of my own.
I didn't have a commitment of my own conference.
And so a couple years ago, I determined that I would just turn down invitations if they happened there
and started getting a commitment of my own conference.
And that's what the worker bees here have.
They have taught me.
And when I go to conferences and I see the same people that are working these.
And if you knew, the people who seem to stay around just seem to be the people who are involved.
There just seems to be a ratio for that.
And conferences may not be your thing.
Making the best coffee at your meeting may be your thing.
That's what I love about Alcoholics Anonymous.
You get some new guy.
And, of course, in L.A., he's probably a producer or a movie star or somebody.
A Laker.
You know, I'm going to hammer at this now, because I know where the soft underbelly is.
And he goes, okay, you've got to get a commitment.
And, of course, he wants to be the speaker.
And you go, sweep the floor.
I don't sweep floors.
Sweep the floor.
You're the floor sweeper.
So he gets this commitment.
He does it for like a year.
And then so after a year, you get some new guy.
And you go, okay, give him the broom.
He's the sweeper.
It's my commitment.
I'm the sweeper.
I'm the best sweeper in L.A.
I mean, because we just can't do it.
We just can't sweep the floor.
We have to be the best sweeper in L.A.
The best coffee.
I've finished.
I'm just freebasing my espresso so I'm ready to talk.
They got a thing out there, you know.
It's right there.
Just you go freebase it and you come and talk.
It's easy.
I have a couple of questions.
I did.
The committee asked me to make one announcement, too, right before the dance after Scott's talk tomorrow.
We will be having the relationship workshop, too, right before the dance.
It's the come away closer.
It's the come away closer, stop it some more workshop.
Of course, I don't know why they even announce that, you know, in any conference, the relationship
workshop is always happening in the alcoholic men's room, in their rooms.
They're very short conferences, but they happen up there.
I love it.
Perry and I did a four-step today, a fifth step.
And so now I'm at that place and I've done everything.
Now all I have to do is write down my, and this is why this is such a great program.
I'm going to tell you.
I'm 21 years sober.
I got sober May 25th, 1979.
So I'm a week and a day into 21 years.
And absolutely amazing.
I am an alcoholic.
I don't, I don't have the, I've been accused of the drunk of not a drunk-a-log.
And because mine's boring, I don't have much of a drunk-a-log.
I'm short, I'm white.
If I go to jail, I'm an hors d'oeuvre.
So I never got in a lot of trouble.
I mean, you know, just.
It just seems like there's a couple of speakers in A.
The guys tied down in Folsom doing life that now run the Silicon Valley.
You know, those guys.
And then there are those guys that, you know, they woke up in Reno with $100,000 and 12 hookers in the room.
You know, that didn't happen to me either.
Yet.
So I just drank myself to death in that chair.
All the interesting stuff I have had happen to me has been in sobriety.
So.
But I'll tell you what.
I didn't ever get one single day sober outside of Alcoholics Anonymous.
I am just one of those people.
Never got it.
Never got a year.
Never got six months.
Never got any of that stuff.
So I know, and I will tell you in 21 years, I have never been close to a drink.
I am very comfortable not drinking.
I have got, and Bob B. from Minnesota talks about this, that it's not the powerless part.
It's the unmanageable part.
A lot of the stuff in my life has become.
I have do other things.
Alcoholically, what a surprise, but it was to me.
But when it comes to actually drinking, I, and a lot of stuff has gone on.
And the only reason I can figure is I just was done by the time I got.
When I walked in here, I was just finished.
There was no fight left in me.
And I am just simply so grateful there was a place that when you're done,
there is a place to go.
I have a couple, I have one question about San Jose though.
Has anybody but me noticed?
And this will just show you.
I am the sick speaker.
I am the not well speaker.
All the other speakers are very well.
And you need to hear them all.
They are all very well and all very stable.
I am the unwell one.
I am the example that you can stay sober and be unwell.
And my pitch often confirms how unwell I am.
But has anybody else noticed in these lovely public bathroom things they have here?
There is a circle and triangle on the door.
Has anybody noticed this?
Am I like the only one?
Now this is how sick I am.
I get down here to do some stuff with Perry and I am wandering around.
And I see there is a circle and a triangle on the door.
And I go, now it is just one right down here.
So I figure, do they just put that up for the conference?
Is that just for us?
So I am going, well there has got to be another one around.
Let me find that one and see if there is another circle.
And so most people come to San Jose, they go to the tech museum, they go to the IMAX.
I am looking for a port-a-john, okay.
I am wandering around and there is another circle and a triangle.
So now, you know, there is some writing on the side.
So I figure,
I am going to find the number and call these people and ask them and they are in AA.
Because I figure it is one of two things.
It is a person in the way who is kind of advertising or it is somebody who is relapsed telling us
what he thinks of AA.
So now I look for the number on this place, right?
There is this thing, I look, there is no number.
So now it is an anonymous port-a-john, I know it is an AA thing.
And then what I love about it, this is what I love about it.
It says, it says,
This service is direct.
Only one person can be in here unless the other person needs assistance.
Yes like with their garter belts.
What, what is going to stop?
Every teenager in San Jose with that must think that is a motel for checking in.
Now you can check in there for 25 cents for 20 minutes.
That is 5 times longer than any teenager needs.
I mean,
Well,
I think yourself really English me and I
No,
your English is great.
But where we are in my inventory is now I get to write my, I think, what a great program this is.
Because when you get to the sex part of your inventory, you get to write what your sexual ideal gets to be.
What a good program we have.
I get to determine.
I don't know.
I haven't finished it yet, but I think it has something about establishing Viagra somewhere in my body.
I'm not, I don't know.
It's just, you know, I'm still selfish and self-centered.
If you're new, and I'll tell you a little fantasy I have at meetings sometimes that will show you how selfish and self-centered,
and it shows me sometimes how selfish and self-centered I am.
Sometimes a meeting will bore me.
I don't know about you.
You probably don't ever get bored with a meeting.
You probably don't ever get bored with hearing the same thing you've ever heard the first 30 days you got sober over and over again.
I remember one of the first tapes I ever heard, the guy said, I've heard everything I needed to hear in AA the first 30 days.
You just hear it with different music, and sometimes it's interesting and sometimes it's not, and I just go to meetings.
There's a Texas saying.
You go to meetings in the beginning because you have to, then you go to meetings because you want to,
and after a while you go to meetings because it's 8 o'clock.
And I think one of the big liabilities in AA is there's so many entertaining people that if the meeting's not entertaining,
you're going, well, it's not a good meeting.
You know, everybody's staying sober.
It's just, so every once in a while I'll go to meetings, and I'll have this fantasy, and once I had it, I have it recurring.
I'll be sitting in a meeting, and I'll be bored.
And all of a sudden I'll start imagining that aliens bust into me.
Now, why they would come to Earth to go to an AA meeting, I don't know, but it's my fantasy.
Now, their plan is to kill everybody on the Earth and take it over.
However, they decide they're going to keep about 10 people alive in sort of a zoo,
just as an example of what used to live on the planet.
And, of course, they pick me because I'm special.
You know, now why anybody would bust in here and look around all you attractive people and go, yeah, we'll keep him.
I have no idea, but it's my fantasy.
Now, what they do is after they say, we're going to let you go,
they say, we want you to pick 10 people to be with you.
Now, as soon as I say this, I know what happens to you.
You start thinking about me, and you start thinking, would he take me along?
You know, and would I be one of the 10?
Well, let me just put you to rest.
All the men die, okay?
No men survive this.
They just don't.
They're gone, okay?
But don't feel too bad because we all starve to death because I'm not picking any of these women
because they know how to build a lean.
Two or make fire, all right?
And when I first had that fantasy, I went, my God, Steve, you're still so self-centered.
I mean, to have that kind of fantasy.
And what I'm so grateful for is, and where I've come to, I think, in all this,
and Perry told me this yesterday, is I don't have to be perfect.
I simply no longer have to be perfect.
And I don't know about you, but there's something deep inside of me that's buried so deep inside
that I just believe.
And I know it's not true.
I know it with my head.
And sometimes my gut just doesn't know it, that I have to be perfect in order for you to like me
or love me.
And if I'm not, you'll go away.
And Alcoholics Anonymous has done so much to heal me of that.
I mean, I've had massive failures.
Failures not in the sense that really I guess there is any kind of failure in God's universe.
He has transcended so much of it.
But failure in the sense that I have not done what I set out to do.
And when I've shared those, I mean, out there, those people don't want to hear about it.
And when I've shared about those in meetings, when I've shared about those when I've talked,
I have heard so many people come up and say, that happened to me.
That helps me.
It helps me to know at 16, 17, 18 years of sobriety, you go through that.
Because at five years of sobriety, I'm not supposed to think I have any more problems.
And what I realized about Alcoholics Anonymous is we use everything,
the good, the bad, and excuse the profanity, the ordinary.
Because there's nothing harder on me than the ordinary.
You know, I want to be on top of it or buried underneath it.
But you just put me in the ordinary, and it's just not quite enough of a buzz.
And Alcoholics Anonymous has given me a place where I can bring my entire life
and a place that I can be imperfect, not on purpose, not for any other reason than I am,
and still find that people hang out and stay with me.
It's an amazing thing.
So if you're new, I just want to welcome you, talk to you a little bit about the newcomer.
I just want to welcome you to Alcoholics Anonymous,
the most rigid organization on the face of the earth.
I mean, we like to think that Alcoholics Anonymous is very bohemian, right, and cool.
No, no, no, no.
That's when we're drinking.
When we get sober, we get a little rigid.
I was up in La Canyada a little while back at this meeting.
It's a very nice, high sort of end sort of meeting.
Older people there.
One of the problems with going to meetings in L.A., you go there,
and if you're over 30, you're like Ward Cleaver.
I mean, it's just...
Everybody's young.
And this was sort of an adult meeting, and it was a noon meeting,
and they were giving out chips.
And they had a 30-day chip.
And there was nobody there to take a 30-day chip.
Now, there was a woman down front.
She's about 42 years old.
She was no kid.
She had 29 days, and all she was trying to do was be nice.
She just wanted to take a chip to make the meeting happy.
So she raised her hand, and she said,
I got 29 days.
Could I take a chip a day early?
You would have thought she farted.
My God, they freaked out.
No, you can't take a chip.
You'll go blind and will die, and they'll be boiled.
It's in plagues, and Locke and Yotta will turn into a landscape.
This from a group of people who left the house on Halloween
to get a pack of cigarettes,
didn't come back till Valentine's Day,
still in their Halloween costume.
You know that little flashy number where you're the nun on the front
and the hooker on the back?
That one.
Yeah, but God forbid this woman take a chip one day early.
I mean, I just, if you're new, I just suggest you,
and I say, you know, the phrase is,
if you like everybody in AA, you're not going to enough meetings, that one.
I don't think that's true.
I think if you don't like everybody in AA,
if you like everybody in AA, you're not on enough committees.
That's really,
that's where the rubber meets the road.
You've got to get on those committees.
So if you're new and you really want to get even with the old-timers,
join the picnic committee next year.
Get on the picnic committee.
And then somewhere when they're debating things,
raise your hand, your little newcomer hand,
and you're under your hand and go,
I think we should move the picnic tables over there this year.
It'll get very quiet.
The oldest of the old-timers will raise himself up
to his entire four-foot-two height on his walker
and say something to you like,
we don't move the picnic tables at the Founders Group.
Bill Wilson ate some potato salad at our picnic table.
Dr. Bob had a little fried chicken right there.
We don't move the tables.
I shared that in this guy.
I love this guy.
I don't know.
I've never saw him again, but I love him.
He was in his home group, which was a clubhouse,
but they were trying to run the clubhouse by the traditions,
and they were debating.
Now, this is, this is, this is,
if you've ever been in an AA debate, you understand this.
They were debating whether it was within the traditions
to put a soda machine in the clubhouse or not.
Only an AA could this take five years to debate, right?
The U.S. Senate could pass this quicker than we could.
So they were debating this pro-contra, pro-contra.
So finally they took the vote,
and they decided after hours of debate
that it would be all right for them to put a soda machine in the clubhouse,
and it wouldn't violate traditions.
And then this mook, who I love, raised his hand,
and he said, Mr. Chairman, there's an issue we have not discussed here.
And he goes, what's that?
He goes, I like Pepsi.
He said the chairman almost killed him
because he knew what that meant.
Another 12 hours, Pepsi, Coke.
Dr. Bob liked Pepsi.
Bill Wilson liked Coke.
Akron, New York, traditions, steps.
So I love Alcoholics Anonymous.
The other thing, newcomers, is we'll lie to you.
There's a couple of lies we tell.
One of the lies we tell in AA is there's no chiefs in Alcoholics Anonymous.
We're only Indians.
That's a big lie, and you guys are already ahead of me on that one.
That's a huge lie.
The truth is we are all chiefs pretending to be Indians
so we don't die with a big fat liver out to here.
Because the physics is, R and S is,
physics are that this room is not big enough
for the egos that are presently in the room.
I mean, that's just the truth.
See, but we just pretend to be Indians
because I would like to put it on the 20 questions.
Would you like to be Pope of Alcoholics Anonymous for a day?
If you answer no, you can drink, okay?
I don't know any self-respecting or alcoholic
who would not like to be in charge of this organization
just for a while just to get rid of the bad alcoholics.
I mean, God knows they're sober, but they're bad alcoholics.
They didn't do the four-step exam.
If I was Pope, I'd put you in stocks out in front of meetings like that.
Bad four-step.
So if you knew, we'll lie to you.
I'll lie to you.
I'll tell you anything I think you need to hear
to keep you sober for a day.
I lie all the time.
I'll go up to a newcomer and go,
how long are you sober?
They'll go, 65 days.
I'll go, great, 72 days we give you a gift.
I'll go, great, 72 days we give you a gift.
So sad they believe me.
They get that newcomer look.
You will?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
72 days you get a gift.
We'll send it right to your house.
They go, how do you know where I live?
I go, we know.
Because you've got to mess with their paranoia, you know?
When they come in, you know, we're paranoid.
So newcomers, if you stay sober,
you'll get to mess with newcomers.
This is one of the privileges of sobriety.
Very sick people come in and we mess with you.
Because there's no place else to go.
If you don't make it here, you die.
And so if us messing with you, you know,
what are you going to do?
This is what alcoholism is like.
One of the best examples.
You walk out that door, right?
And there's a guy who's 6'4 and all muscle with a baseball bat
and you walk out that door and he beats the hell out of you.
Okay?
Now, a normal person will walk out that door one time,
get beat up and walk out this door.
A mentally challenged person
will walk out that door one, two times
and they'll walk out this door.
The alcoholic
will walk out that door day after day,
week after week,
month after month,
year after year
and let that guy beat the hell out of him.
And then the day he's not there,
you sit down and wait for him.
I always love alcoholics who go out and go,
why did you leave AA?
Because it's full of hypocrites.
What?
It's true.
It's true.
I'm a liar, a thief and a cheat.
I am.
I just don't have the grosser handicaps.
But Alcoholics Anonymous is full of hypocrites.
True.
But where did you go?
To a bar full of drunken hypocrites.
Now, I just don't see the advantage in that, right?
At least here we have a chance to get better.
So anyway, the newcomer will come up to me
and 72 days will go by and I won't see him
and he'll come up to me and go,
where's my gift, man?
I go, oh, well,
we moved that up.
Central office changed that.
We're up to 120 days and you get the gift.
I mean, I will do this for six months
until they get it.
Finally come up to me,
I know what the gift is, Steve.
Sobriety, right?
Yeah, you got me.
Sit right to your house.
Sorry, I lied.
Oh, well.
You're sober.
I don't care.
One of my idiot guys I sponsor,
I only sponsor idiots.
Just like my sponsor.
And of course,
they will call me at 4 o'clock in the morning.
Now, and this is something I never understand about it.
I guess that's the same way as newcomers.
The crisis happened at 9.30.
It happened 9.30 a.m.
But they're going to get through it on their own
and they break at 4.30.
Why couldn't they have broken at dawn?
So they call you at 4.30.
Hey, me, me, me, me, my, my, my, my,
they, they, they, they, her, her, her.
I must tell you that most of the reason
for my men's problems are women.
Women alcoholics, I think they'd be okay.
I don't know.
But anyway,
me, me, me, me, my, my, my, they, they, they,
and I'll go,
read page 35.
I don't know what's on 35.
I haven't read 35 in a year and a half.
Just came in my brain.
Click.
Ten minutes later,
thank you so much.
Watch 35 save my life.
God, man, you're so cool.
So I read 35, figure out what I said, you know.
Because if there's any, you know, if there's any,
and that's where I know I'm self-centered.
Man, you know, if there's any, anything to be given away,
if there's any attention or praise,
man, I just, you know, I sit a little higher.
There was this woman, a friend of mine,
and every time she'd share in a meeting,
she'd go, and there's Steve.
There's Steve.
Steve's my angel.
Steve helped me.
Steve saved me.
Steve saved my life.
There's Steve.
There's Steve.
Now, I had no idea what she was talking about.
I mean, we'd been friendly,
but I don't remember one of those,
I'm dying and I need your help,
and where I gave her the meaning of life kind of conversations.
I just don't remember it.
Didn't stop me from getting a little taller in the meeting.
No, no, you know, I do things like that.
No, no.
Halo would get a little shinier, yeah.
Because there's some attention being given away.
You know, I'll take it.
And you guys probably didn't know that about me.
And so, but finally, I had to go and ask her.
I said, you know, I don't, you keep saying this,
and I would like to remember.
I have no idea what did I do.
She said, one day, we were just at a regular old noon meeting,
and I was getting ready to walk out the back and go drink,
and you said, would I come up and read the steps,
and I sat in the meeting, and I never drank.
What did I do?
I didn't do, I didn't do, I mean, it wasn't even like anything I said.
And it's those things that I continually,
we remember in Alcoholics Anonymous, it's the small things.
It's the newcomer, where I got sober,
we're used to gear meetings around newcomers.
I don't know that that's a good idea or a bad idea.
It's just the way they did it.
And those newcomers say, I'm going on my first vacation.
So the whole meeting would be about how to go on vacation.
You know those meetings?
Oy, yi, yi, take your own car.
Take the international directory.
Nobody will ever answer the phone on that doggone thing,
but you take the international directory anyway.
It's just sort of like a,
a relic.
A great story about that.
In Milan, apparently, and this is for the newcomers,
if you think we're nice, we're not.
We're not nice people.
In Milan, the person in the international directory
apparently has relapsed a number of years ago.
They leave his name in the directory,
so all the alcoholics from the United States will call him,
asking him where meetings are.
Can you think of anything more cruel to do to a practicing alcoholic?
Then all the idiots from California get them all,
hey man, where are the meetings?
You want to take me?
You want to meet me there?
How about some coffee?
And you're hungover.
He doesn't change his number, so I don't know.
But I think what happens then is that newcomer,
and I've heard this,
that newcomer goes on that vacation
and comes back and shares about it incessantly.
But somebody says to him at break or coffee over a cigarette,
how'd that vacation go?
How'd that vacation go?
How was that meeting with your kids?
How was that first baseball?
And what happens is two years later,
you see him take a cake and they'll talk about that.
It is the little things in Alcoholics Anonymous that you've done for me
that have been so meaningful,
because your kids can't fake those.
I mean, I've gotten a lot of speakers,
and I've joked for a while,
I think that speaking is a wonderful thing to do,
but it's just not a very important job in Alcoholics Anonymous.
I mean, I could fall over dead right now
and a couple of you would push my body away
and come up here and give just a wonderful talk.
And then you'd get me the medics.
Because this is your moment.
But the fact of the matter is,
being a speaker in Alcoholics Anonymous
is sort of like being Tony Curtis in Spartacus.
You know, I mean, in Spartacus,
you've got these buff, killer, Roman killer guys,
and then you've got Tony Curtis,
and they ask him, what do you do?
And he goes, I'm a singer of a song.
And they go, great, that's what we need in the war,
a singer of songs.
That's really what we need.
When they give us the hot lead enema,
you can hit the high notes.
That's really wonderful.
We're happy you're here.
That's all that I am, is a singer of songs.
But the real work is putting those tables together
and all the work that the committee has done
and all of the little things and the people hosting.
I got Tony, who met me three blocks away.
Hi, how are you doing?
Anonymous Tony.
Hey, whoa.
How about your drink?
Yeah, oh, good.
They're going to the symphony.
Of course, I got a big book and a big thing thing speaker,
so I wasn't really being anonymous myself.
But those are the people.
I would just encourage you to thank them all.
We're not a group of people,
at least if you guys are anything like the people
I go to meetings with,
we're not a group of people that generally says,
thank you so much for what you do.
Thank you for the coffee this morning.
Where is the coffee?
How come there's no coffee at this meeting?
To which I always say, you want to be coffee maker?
Which shuts them right up.
I mean, I'm a real good complainer,
but it takes me to recognize and say, thank you for that.
A lot of work goes in here.
One of my favorite people is Big Jack Peeve up in my neighborhood.
Jack's got like 55 years.
And Jack at that San Fernando Valley convention
sits in that archives room by himself,
hour after hour,
just waiting for some new,
newcomer to come in so he can tell about the legacy of alcoholics.
Now that, yeah, yeah.
That's a gig.
You know, this one, this one is so easy compared to that.
Yeah, you got to get on a flight, but then you get home late,
but to sit there and just wait for one person,
you know, that's the kind of stuff that impresses me.
Newcomers, I just want to tell you, I'm an alcoholic.
I'm not a drug addict.
I never met a drug.
Alcohol couldn't help.
Okay. And I don't say that.
I have no problem with alcoholic addicts.
Addict, alcoholic, alcoholic, necrophiliac,
whatever alcoholic kind of you are.
It's okay with me.
I'm always surprised people know what that word means.
That's why I use it.
I just, that's a test, you know,
it's a lot of syllables for an AA meeting.
So that's true.
There was a very well-known speaker in Alcoholics Anonymous sharing at my old,
because you can never, we're not,
we're never going to open up a graduate school for AA.
I mean, we don't have to worry about that,
but there was a very well-known speaker in Alcoholics Anonymous.
He was sharing in my home group and a friend of mine was at the meeting and this speaker said
that a couple of beers did for him more than Nietzsche ever did, which I understand.
Now, in front of my friend, a couple, the woman went to the man and went, what's a Nietzsche?
And the guy went, I'm not sure.
I think it's a kind of sex.
But I just, and the reason I say that is because I don't have any problem with that,
that controversy, you know, but, but what the reason I say that is because I want to let you know that,
that for me, if I could have done with my alcohol, what I did with my drugs,
I would have never needed Alcoholics Anonymous.
See, for me, I take a drug and I don't like it.
I do a very strange thing.
I stopped taking it.
I go, I didn't like that.
I don't want to do it anymore.
I couldn't do that with alcohol.
See, I couldn't.
I don't know if you've read this book lately, but we have a very radical definition of alcoholism in this book.
I mean, this is not a definition that most people would agree with.
We have this, there's a passage in here, and this is not a direct quote for those of you who are big, quick thumpers.
It's just sort of what it says.
It says there's a certain kind of hard drinker, certain kind of hard drinker who might die a few years earlier from drinking,
but he's not an alcoholic.
That's pretty radical.
Most doctors would say.
He's an alcoholic.
See, for us, dying isn't good enough.
Dying will not make you an alcoholic.
It just makes you a wimp.
Just a bad drinker.
Couldn't handle it.
Dying isn't good enough.
Now, for us, the definition of alcoholism is everything in your life is on the table.
If you take one more drink, you're going to lose everything you ever got, and you cannot not drink.
That's the definition of alcoholism in that book, and that fits me.
That fits me.
And it doesn't fit me with anything but alcohol.
Now, I will tell you, I don't do drugs.
I don't do anything the doctor doesn't recommend, and some of those I won't do,
and some of those I've had to do, but I didn't want to.
But I will tell you why I don't do recreational drugs.
One, for me, not a drug addict, I believe it would interfere in my relationship with my higher power.
That's just for me.
Because there's cultures where they do drugs to get in touch with their higher power, right?
You always hear that from practicing alcohol.
Yeah, but what about the Iroquois Indians, and they do mescaline all night long.
What's wrong with that?
But you know what would happen if this group was like an Iroquois Indian?
They would do this mescaline once a month on the full moon, right?
And we would do it with them, and we'd be dancing around,
and then the next day, we'd be sneaking into the mescaline supply.
And they're doing it once a month on the full moon, and we're doing it Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.
We're out there dancing.
There's no full moon.
No fire.
There's no fire.
There's no fire, and we're going crazy.
And if we were in that kind of spiritual group, they'd come to us and go,
okay, look, we're going to do the mess, but not you, okay?
We're going to give you a little rattle and a little tom-tom, and that's all you do.
Because we don't know what's wrong with you, but this part doesn't work for you.
It works for us, not you.
You're some kind of weird Indian.
We don't know what you are.
So I don't do it because for me, I believe it would interfere with my relationship with my higher power.
I also believe that it would limit my effectiveness,
and Alcoholics Anonymous.
If you knew and you're smoking a joint, we're probably not going to let you lead our meeting.
I mean, and it's weird.
It's a weird thing because we're not particularly consistent with that, you know?
The tradition says the only desire is to be sober, but we've, and Bill Wilson said that drugs are a sex addict.
But we can, you know, if you're a sex addict, you can share in your meeting.
I'm a sex addict alcoholic.
I had sex with 12 prostitutes last night, but I didn't drink.
Come lead the meeting.
Come on down.
Come on down.
Come on down, baby.
God darn.
We want you to lead the meeting.
You can be an overeater and say, I'm going to be your alcoholic.
I spent the night with Little Debbie last night.
Me and Little Debbie snack cakes.
We spent the, and I didn't drink.
Come on down.
We'll let you speak at our convention.
It's in San Jose.
You'll be right there, you know?
You can be a bank robber, rob a bank and not drink, and we'll let you speak at the International, you know?
It's a weird organization.
But you know what, newcomer?
That's just the way it is.
It's not going to change.
And I know for me that one of the greatest gifts I've been given is my effectiveness with another alcoholic.
And I don't want to throw that away for anything.
And for me, you know, none of that stuff ever floated my boat really anyway, or I'd be an alcoholic addict.
And so for me to trade what I can do with a newcomer for that just isn't worth it for me.
And then the last reason is I think it might set up in the itch for me.
See, I don't know.
I don't know.
I might be able to do it, but see, it's not what I really want.
Percodan goes better with bee feeders.
I'm sorry.
It just does.
I know.
As soon as I...
This guy talks to me.
He talks to me now.
I talk to you.
I mean, I know he talks to some of you.
I am now the guy in the AA.
It's really a shame.
People go like this.
And I'm not a signer.
And I don't know what you're going to do with this.
I'm going to kind of watch this.
Somebody said, that's what you do?
Oh, look at that.
I do it.
She does it.
That's fun.
All right.
Okay.
I'm not going to do it.
Oh, good.
A defiant signer.
I like that.
I won't talk to you.
I won't even look at you.
All right.
But he talks to me.
This is the guy who talks to you.
He talks to me 21 years later.
You're a very good person.
You're a very good person.
You have just one drink.
You have just one drink.
How about just one drink?
What's a Zima?
What is a Zima?
Right?
Zima, the only drink I've seen fascinate old-timers.
I've literally seen a shaking, puking drunk sitting there going,
how do I do the steps in the old-timer?
You tell me about Zima.
I'll show you how to work the steps.
We'll save your family, but first you tell me about Zima.
Tony.
All right.
I like Tony.
I think I like to drink with Tony.
Most of you know, but Tony, yeah.
Wet and dry.
How can a beer be wet and dry, wet and dry, wet and dry, wet and dry, wet and dry, wet and dry, wet and dry?
I mean, I figured out who he is.
He's the rain man of demons.
I'm a very good drinker.
I'm a very good drinker.
Five minutes to Jack.
Five minutes to Jack Daniels.
Five minutes to Jack Daniels, yeah.
And then he goes, you know, let's have a non-alcoholic beer.
All right.
Now, again, I don't have any opinion about that.
I've gone to some AA parties where that seems to be a fairly common thing.
I bet it was even an AA club that said no non-alcoholic beer at the dances,
so I guess it's something people do.
I don't drink a non-alcoholic beer, and I'll tell you why.
For me to drink a non-alcoholic beer is like for me to go to a house of prostitution
to listen to the piano player, okay?
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
I mean, I'm going to tell myself that's where I'm going, but I'm going to get a room, you know?
I'm just going for the music, just for the Bach, the Mozart, you know, ragtime.
I'm getting a room.
Now, if you're new, he talks to you a little differently than he talks to me.
He tells me, I'm a very good person.
I've been sober 21 years.
I can have just one drink.
You never had a Long Island iced tea.
I know.
When I say that drink, people encourage me to relapse.
Oh, well, man, Steve, you ought to.
You need to throw away 21 years for that, because that's a good drink, man.
Whoa, if you miss that, pal, yeah, go become a newcomer, you know?
I don't know.
But if you're new, it says something to you like this.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
Just wants to make sure you're listening.
All right.
All right.
All right.
Okay?
You got 90 days.
You better drink soon before you get so much time you can never drink again.
Now, let's look at the logic here.
Let's just look at the logic.
The logic is I've got 90 days.
My life is going better.
My life is going better because I'm not drinking.
If I do not drink and continue not to drink, my life will probably get better.
That's the logic.
Not with us.
No.
90 days.
Life is better.
Let's drink.
Or he'll say something like this.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
If you hear that, that's him.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Maybe we're an alcoholic.
I'll be reasonable.
Maybe we're an alcoholic, but let's drink tonight, and if we're alcoholic, we'll come
back tomorrow.
See, his plan is always to come back tomorrow.
Now, there's only one group of people.
There's only one group of people.
There's only one group of people in this room can drink tonight and guarantee me where
they're going to be tomorrow, and that's the Al-Anons.
Now, I work in a good program.
They'll guarantee where you'll be tomorrow.
But see, if I drink tonight, I don't know where I'm going to be Christmas.
Now, he starts in on me.
He goes, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.
You're a very good person.
Very good for you.
We got one drink, but just one drink.
Now, if I ever, ever, ever, ever take that drink because I'm sane today, I've been restored
to sanity, the second step.
I know what will happen to me.
If I drink, if I ever, ever take that drink, the second it hits my stomach, bam, he's over
here going, you rotten loser, you.
You just threw away 21 years of sobriety.
Why don't you drink your miserable self to death?
And I'll kind of go, you guys aren't consistent.
I just want to point out to you at this point how pitiful we all are.
You are laughing at a man talking to his fingers.
You are sitting here having a good time to a guy who's got finger puppets.
Yeah, sobriety is a real trip, you know.
God, this is fun, isn't it?
So, the red onion never beat this.
So, he's going, you know, you guys aren't consistent.
And they go, we don't care.
Our job is to kill you.
We don't even like you.
So, why do you talk to us rather than your sponsor?
Because alcohol is a pimp.
Alcohol is a pimp.
And every man and woman in this room has been his boy or his girl.
You're in your car going over for Thanksgiving, going to spend it with grandma and the kids
and Uncle Fred.
Alcohol says, get in the car and where's my money?
Now, it's Christmas.
You're just running down because you need a screwdriver for the bike because you're
actually trying to follow directions.
Something I never read before, sobriety.
And you get in the car and alcohol says, get in the car.
Where's my money?
Dad's got stomach cancer.
He's going out.
You're on the way to the hospital and alcohol says, get in the car.
Where's my money?
And then some nice judge, a therapist, sends us to A&A.
The pimp becomes Barry White.
You know, I see that.
I'm so sorry, baby.
I'm so sorry, baby.
Who loves you, baby?
I won't be mean to you ever again, baby.
You know, just take a drink.
I love you, baby.
I love you.
Get in the car and where is my money?
So the freedom lines here.
One of the things I love about the stories in the back is they're all the same.
When it comes to drinking, they're all the same.
Took a drink, got in trouble, tried not to drink, thought I could drink, lost the wife,
lost the kids, got sober, thought I could drink, couldn't drink, got to the hospital,
lost, in the drinking part, every story is the same.
Where it changes is when people get sober.
I think we're not supposed to do this, but for me and probably most of you,
if you drink, we can absolutely predict what will happen to you.
What we can't predict is what will happen to you if you stay sober.
That's where all the miracles lie.
That's where all the changes are.
And that's where all the possibilities are.
There is no possibility other than insanity and death for me and drinking.
Now, that's a problem because, I mean,
I have a certain certainty about that that I find comforting.
Now, this is a very weird program.
I mean, the other lie they tell you newcomers, and my special grandmother,
Alabama, used to say this all the time, you're not a bad person trying to get well.
You're not a bad person trying to get good.
You're a sick person trying to get well.
Big lie.
Big lie.
If that's true, how come I got to do a moral inventory?
Would you explain that to me?
You know, last time I looked, heart patients weren't doing moral inventories.
Last time I looked, people with sugar diabetes weren't going, hey, Fred, when you're out
of town, I slept with Ethel.
I won't do it anymore.
No, alcoholics are doing moral inventories.
Because I don't believe that there was anything moral about me getting alcoholism.
But I'll tell you what, some of the stuff I did while drinking is bad stuff.
Because if I need to drink, I may have to take your grandmother out on a crosswalk to
get one.
And I won't mean to do it.
I'm not intending to do it.
But get in the car and where is my money?
And your grandmother crossing the street will know.
It will not be enough to stop me.
My grandmother crossing the street.
My kid in the car.
None of that stuff will be enough to keep me from that.
And the great thing about drinking is there are no rules because I can't afford them anyway.
And I hope, I hope, I hope it never happens.
But if I get a little too tired of coming to Alcoholics Anonymous and a little too tired
of going to meetings, a little too tired of talking to those idiots I sponsor and a little
too tired of being a service and I stop this and I relapse and I take a drink and I take
somebody out in a car accident.
When I stand before that judge, I hope I never plead the disease concept because I don't
think it was ever intended to get me out of taking responsibility for what is wrong with
me.
You know?
I didn't know what was wrong with me before I came here.
And unfortunately, you people have told me what was wrong with me.
And you are absolutely right.
And you know what?
That now makes me responsible for treating it so that nobody else gets hurt, maybe even
including me.
And so newcomers.
I believe God has got us all in a double bind.
A double bind means God wins.
Oh, what a surprise.
You know?
All I can make is poo-poo, he can make a butterfly, but I think I can beat him.
See, because I don't know about you, I didn't come to Alcoholics Anonymous looking for God.
I keep thinking I was God.
On any given day, I'm disappointed that I'm not.
And I really don't want the God that's in the big book.
I don't want a God that's, he's the employer, I'm the employee, he's the agent, I'm the,
you know, he's the father.
I'm the father.
I'm the child.
This is the God I want.
I want to rub his big fat belly.
He comes out of the bottle and says, how many wishes?
I want a God that the book, writes the book, step over to the bar, have a few drinks.
If it doesn't work, you're still 21 years sober.
That's the kind of God I want.
Kingdom of God's not a democracy.
So it's a double bind.
See, newcomers, I believe that for us, we will work a 12-step program.
We're going to work the 12-step program of alcoholism.
We're going to work the 12-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous, but what we're going
to do is.
We're going to work a 12-step program.
It's not which, but if, and it's not if, but which.
Now I don't know about you, but, and actually Scott had got me thinking about this years
ago.
He, Scott used to share that he wanted to see the newcomers literature because he knew
they had it.
He wanted to see the newcomers literature.
And when I got thinking about that, I thought, yeah, what are the 12 steps of alcoholism?
And I don't know whether you can make up your own, but for me, the 12 steps of alcoholism
goes something like this.
One, I declared I was in complete control of my drinking and my life was fine and dandy.
Thank you very much.
Two, I knew, I always knew there was no power greater than myself, but all of you needed
to be restored to sanity.
Three made a decision to turn my will and my life over the care of alcohol because it
was the only thing that understood me.
Four made a paranoid and immoral inventory of anybody but me.
Five admit nothing to nobody ever.
Six became entirely willing to have God punish you for all your defects of character.
Seven humbly asked him to go bug somebody else.
Eight made a list of all persons.
Nine took direct revenge whenever possible, especially when to do so would injure them
and others.
Ten continued to take your inventory, and when you were wrong, promptly told you so.
Eleven sought through alcohol and medication to improve my unconscious contact with myself,
praying only for what I wanted when I wanted it and the power to get it.
And twelve, having achieved spiritual death as a result of these steps, I tried to get
rid of alcoholism.
I tried to carry this message to other alcoholics and take just as many of them with me as I
could.
Only one tradition, do whatever you got to do to get through the night.
It's the only tradition in that program.
Do whatever you got to do to get through the two 12-step programs side by side, and I the
alcoholic will work one, I will work the other, but what I'm not going to do is not not work
a program.
Bobby Dee said, I'm going to serve somebody.
And by the grace of God, I'm going to serve somebody.
And by the grace of God, I'm going to serve somebody.
By the grace of God, I'm going to serve somebody.
Do it.
By the grace of God, I'm going to serve somebody.
And by the grace of God, I'm going to serve somebody.
I'm going to serve somebody.
And by the grace of God, I'm going to serve somebody.
So, today's program is called, The 12 Steps, Scholarship of God's Fellowship of Alcoholics
Anonymous, People Like You Good Sponsorship and the 12 Steps.
It's a choice of which today for me?
But not if.
Now, the problem that you do is you take away my coper, and then you make then you
make me I'm a victim.
Then I'm forced to live life without the buffer.
And my problem is you.
You know, my problem is I have no idea in the world how to get along with God or you.
I know how.
No idea how to form a relationship with God or man.
I know how to dominate or be buried underneath.
I don't know how to be a worker among one or a friend among friends.
And I've got to turn my will and my life over to the care of this creator that, you know what?
The problem, and I believe this is the truth for me,
is for me I believe the problem with turning your will and life over to something you call God
is that I got God confused with my parents.
See, I got God confused with my parents.
And my parents were great people.
They made some big mistakes and they did some really wonderful things,
but they were imperfect.
And I grew up in an alcoholic home.
Now, your book says, this was before it was my book too,
your book says, abandon yourself to God.
Utterly abandon yourself.
Now, it keeps using this word abandon.
And any time an author uses a word a lot, it must be important.
Now, for me, in an alcoholic home, this is what happens when you're abandoned.
Abandonment, you're five years old, you're on the side of the pool,
you don't know how to swim, and your parents are in the pool and they're saying,
jump, I'll catch you.
Now, you're five, you're not stupid.
You ain't jumping to the drunk.
That was mom.
Mom was the drunk.
She's down there going, God.
I'll catch you.
You know, you're five, you're going, uh-uh.
I think I'll go in the baby pool and wait around.
I'm not jumping.
Thanks.
Thanks, mom.
But the non-alcoholic, the co-alcoholic, and please hear me,
I'm not saying the Al-Anon because a person who is with an alcoholic
who's not in recovery is not an Al-Anon any more than a drunken AA.
The co-alcoholic, they look pretty good compared to the other one.
This was my dad, a wonderful man.
I mean, my father was one of the greatest people I ever known.
But he had no idea how to handle this disease.
And he'll be down in the pool and go, jump, I'll catch you.
And you're in midair.
And he goes, but I've got to take care of your mother.
Push.
Push.
See, now, I didn't come in here thinking,
if I turn my will and my life over to the care of God,
as I understand him, he was going to get me.
I just didn't think he cared very much.
I just didn't think he was available.
And so I figured, if I turn my will and my life,
over to the care of, not much was going to happen.
And that has been my journey.
The book talks about, we talk about what we were like.
Not it, we.
You can tell I'm getting time.
We, rather than it.
It's to wives, not to the wives.
I mean, you know, I'll tell you what scared me.
I'm sitting in a big book study the other day.
And I don't have my book with me.
I always take my book.
And somebody's reading, and the word was prodigious.
I had no idea what the word was, but she stumbled on it.
And I went on a, and out of my mouth went prodigious, without a book.
Now, you know you're going to too many meetings.
You know you're going to too many AA meetings
when you can quote innocuous pages of the big book from memory.
So this has been my spiritual journey.
To turn, continue to turn my will and my life over to the care of.
And it is a bear, because as far as I can tell, it just never stops.
They're just, it says, I love that word lives.
And I think what it literally means is it's just talking about us as a group.
But if you stay sober for a while, you have.
You have that one to two year life, you know, that newcomer life.
And then there's after, and there's lives change.
And then some of you get married.
You'd like me to get married.
You get divorced a lot.
You have kids.
You become the elder of the group.
I mean, there are different kinds of lives that happen in Alcoholics Anonymous.
And I find out I keep turning all of them over.
I don't know about you.
I have this idea in my head that if I work the steps,
someday I'm going to get to a place where I can go to you.
Now, leave me alone.
Just leave me alone.
I've got to go.
I've got to go.
I've done it all.
I'm good.
Now I can be by myself, the thing I think I've always wanted.
And it just never seems to get there.
You know, this Memorial Day, I'm probably at your meetings.
We were talking about, we talked a lot about a lot of the alcoholics who had died drinking.
And I lost a couple this year.
Sweet, beautiful, wonderful, wonderful people.
And if you're like me, and you're sort of a B type of person,
and you're not very driven, and you look at some really incredible people
and you've made it and they don't,
it raises some questions, in my mind at least.
And I'm so grateful for this book because the book says,
could not or would not.
And that's such a peaceful thing.
Could not or would not.
We don't know.
Some people won't and some people can't.
And it doesn't ever give me any criteria in this book to decide which one they are.
That's God's business, not my own.
I'll tell you what I've had to stop doing with God.
And this is me.
I told you, I've got a lot of problems.
I've got a problem with gravity.
I've got a problem with...
Women scare the hell out of me.
You never know when it's going to get dangerous in a relationship with a woman.
You don't.
That's the truth.
I mean, it's true.
I was going home the other day.
This was with three previous love bunnies.
And I'm sitting there and she comes up to me and we're going to go to Cancun
and she says, I'm going to go buy a bathing suit.
You want to come?
And I went, yeah.
Yeah.
Now, nothing dangerous about that, does it?
That doesn't sound dangerous, does it?
That sounds pleasant.
Like, you get to go to the bathing suit and she comes out in her cute little body
and you watch her.
It's a little bit like a strip show, you know?
And then when she goes back in, you get to look at the other girls.
I mean...
Oh, yeah, like you guys don't, right?
All the guys are going, no, not me, honey.
Unless they're blind, folks, okay?
So, it just sounds like a pleasant day to me.
But I don't know what happened.
We get in the car and on the way to the mall, this woman put on 400 pounds.
Because she takes about 12 bathing suits, goes behind that,
and all of a sudden, green smoke's coming out of there.
And she's going, fat, sagalite, fat, sagalite, I hate fat, fat, sagalite, you know?
Your mother wears a bathing suit and hell cares.
I don't know what she's talking about.
But all of a sudden, she points her head out of the curtain with, like, four bathing suits
and goes, which one do you think I look best in?
And I don't know why I feel my life is threatened, but I know it is.
This is a lot.
This shouldn't be a pressure question.
But I just instinctively know I'm in trouble.
I'm in trouble, you know?
And so I go with the, I'm a little bit educated as a guy.
I know black, basic black.
So I go, well, honey, I think you probably look better in the black one.
What do you think, I look fat in the blue one?
Well, I know as soon as the woman in your life says, fat, all right, there, just put the bullet in.
It's over, you're done, there's nothing you can do.
You're in the room, she said, fat, you're dead.
That's it.
End of the story.
But I'm trying.
I'm like the little mouse in the cage cleaning himself
before the snake.
The snake eats him, you know?
That's all I am.
I'm going, oh, no, honey, you don't look fat.
You know, you're not fat.
What, are you an idiot?
You know I put on a few pounds.
Well, maybe you put on a little while.
You said I was fat.
You said I was fat, you know?
I'm going to hit myself in the head with a hammer.
None of the craftsmen's sale.
So I don't know diddly squat about life.
I just, you know, I don't know anything about God.
So I've had to stop saying for me, because I said I would say this off.
I could never accept.
I could never accept a God who is.
I could never accept a God who is.
And finally dawn on me.
It's not my job.
Not my job.
I got to accept God for whoever he reveals himself to be to me.
And you know what?
I believe in a loving God concept.
But the bottom line is God can be a raving sadist.
And it doesn't matter.
There's no other game in town to go to.
He's God.
And if he's a raving sadist, you know,
I might want to follow what he says a lot more.
And if he's loving.
Now, probably the premise is if I think God's a raving sadist,
I've got the wrong idea of what infinite love is besides my idea of finite love.
That's probably the problem.
But, you know, in a way, it just doesn't matter.
There's great this great Hindu story.
This guy may have all sorts of God, you know, Shiva, Vishnu, Ralph, all these gods.
And this one guy, he refused to what he refuses to worship any God but Shiva.
Shiva's it, man.
And Shiva shows up and says,
Hey, I'm not happy about this.
There are I got my buddies.
I want you to be.
I want you to worship them, too.
And he's gone.
No, I'm not.
No, just you.
You're just you.
He's what?
I'm God.
I'm telling you what.
Nope, nope.
Just you.
Just you.
So finally, Shiva one day shows up.
Half Shiva, half Vishnu.
And he's going, Nope, not going to not going to the schmuck.
I'm here.
I think that's the way they talk schmuck.
And that is I want to put God in a box.
And see, my problem is I want to do with God what I've done with everything out.
I want to figure out how he works so I can control.
But I want to figure out how it works.
So if I want to say, no, no, no, don't heal me, he heals me.
And if I say, heal me, you know, I want to figure out how that all works.
And life is just too baffling for me.
I, I just had to come to accept.
And, you know, when I do that, it's the most bizarre thing because I have a problem.
I mean, you know, it seems to me there's a lot of crazy stuff that goes on in the world.
And when I just accept, you know, it's none of my business.
Just talk to the drunk in front of me.
Make a call to a friend.
Find out.
Find out how the person in the hospital is doing.
I have this sense that the world is all right despite all the evidence to the contrary.
And see, for me, the alcoholic, and the literature talks about this, if I don't have a loving
God in my life, the world becomes a hostile place.
The freeway becomes the chariot race in Ben-Hur.
My coworkers become Darth Vader and I'm Luke Skywalker and I'm looking for my lightsaber.
You know, newcomers, here's deep spiritual insight for you if you're an alcoholic.
Let the tailgater pass.
Deep spiritual insight for an alcoholic.
Let the tailgater, I'm going to say it again because it's deep.
Let the tailgater pass.
That's new information for us.
You know, we don't let tailgaters pass.
What do we do?
We slow down so their head gets big and their eyes explode.
Or we let them pass and then we tailgate them.
And so just accepting God on God's terms.
And I'm not God has allowed me to be imperfect, and I'll tell you, all my heroes in Alcoholics
Anonymous are imperfect.
I had somebody in Minnesota tell me, the only thing you do with old-timers is you learn
to tolerate them.
I like that.
You learn to tolerate.
I'm not an old-timer.
I'm just an old-timer training school.
Got another 10 years.
Old-timer training school where you learn to say, you know, we didn't have 12 steps
when I got sober.
I had 39.
We didn't have chairs at conventions.
We sat on rocks.
We didn't drink coffee.
We had fungus.
It was a harder program.
Well, let me tell you what this has done for you, and Memorial Day that we also talked
about all the old-timers that have gone.
Alabama.
Alabama.
Alabama told me that you never get this out of your head.
Alabama must have had about 35 years of sobriety, and you pick her tape up probably from Terry.
It's a great talk.
But we're sitting around, and she ran the clubhouse I went to in Alabama one day.
We're talking about ice cream, how when you get new, you can't keep ice cream in your
refrigerator.
I don't know about you.
When I got sober, I discovered ice cream because I guess scotch and water didn't go with ice
cream.
Ice cream and snicker bars.
And we said, you can't.
And Alabama, 35 years of sobriety went, yeah, honey, I couldn't keep a fifth of ice cream
in my refrigerator to this day.
A fifth of ice cream.
See, you can't get it all out of that.
British Bill has passed away.
British Bill used to joke he was the town drunk and the town was London.
My kind of drunk.
You know?
Mike Ross, whose job was to find meetings he didn't like and tell them.
.
That was Big Mike's job.
You know?
And I'll tell you what I learned from Big Mike.
Big Mike was part of the Damon Runyon.
There's only a couple of generations in AA.
The Damon Runyon generation, right?
And then the Damon Runyon generation sort of handed it off to the World War II generation.
And then the World War II generations had to give it to my generation, the Woodstock generation.
And then now we're handing it off to Generation XY, whatever it is.
And you know what?
We better tell these kids they're doing a good job because they're going to get this
thing.
If you're new and you're young, this is the golden age of alcoholics.
Alcoholics Anonymous, right?
Right now.
Some of my best times happened in 1979, 1983, but by God, I hope the best times of my AA
life aren't gone.
I hope that there isn't some bygone age of AA where it was better and now we're just
in sort of some decline.
And sometimes when I hear old timers talk to newcomers, I think they're telling them
that.
You know?
And they're going to inherit this thing.
So we better not shame them.
Now, I used to go to a meeting where they were tattooed and pierced in places I don't
even touch in my own body.
.
It's the only meeting I've ever been to where from the podium they announced, if
you're dealing drugs in this meeting and we catch you, we'll kick your ass.
I'm sorry.
But.
All right?
I actually saw somebody come in with a mask and a fake submachine gun to terrorize the
meeting and it went crazy.
But you know what?
These people, after the...
Just take that and then we won't ruin it.
.
.
.
.
See, that's not even funny.
After a while, I can say anything and you guys can, which is great.
So anyway.
.
But after the meeting, they would go to this place in LA.
It's called Swingers.
It was open all night.
And when I would finally leave, and I was only there because I was traumatized and I
needed a newcomer to work with and I knew where to find him and this was the only late
night meeting.
I would leave these people and there would be one guy with black hair and tattoos and
a leather jacket sitting down there talking to another guy with a black hair and a leather
jacket with a Marlboro Reds and two double lattes talking about how to stop smoking.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. .
. .
.
.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and then a message comes from
the Intercom about that guy that I couldn't get.
B Puis.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
B Puis, lobos baby.
.
.
.
.
.
and then they do something very spiritual.
Burn their faces off!
They say to the carpenter,
Burn their faces off!
And he goes,
You know, if they're not against us,
they're for us.
Leave them alone.
Leave them alone.
You know, that's what I do with meetings.
There used to be a meeting in L.A.,
the Five and Dime meeting.
Now, when I went and spoke there,
they came up to me and they said,
Really liked how much you talked about alcohol in your pitch.
Now, I know what they were meaning.
Don't talk about drugs.
Well, I'm not a drug addict.
I don't have any drugs to talk about,
but I'm an alcoholic.
I'm an alcoholic.
Don't tell me what to do.
I was going to make stuff up.
I was going to start talking about shooting Idaho pink
and, you know, tying off and all sorts of stuff.
You think they would have known?
And I'll tell you one of my best heroes
and our good friend Paul who passed away.
This is my favorite story about Paul.
I was in Mexico with Paul.
We were coming out of a club.
Matt Sharon was there.
And, you know, when you leave Club Med in the morning,
you take all your luggage down
and they take it away for you
and then you pick it up at the airport.
So you have a little day bag.
So we're down there and Paul's wife, Max, was down there
and she had no shoes on.
And I went, Max, where are your shoes?
And she went, Paul packed them.
I went, what?
She went, Paul packed them.
I went, what do you mean Paul packed them?
He said, well, Paul doesn't like the way I pack my suitcase,
so he packs it for me.
And he packed all my shoes, so I don't have any shoes.
And he's down trying to find them.
Now, this man had been in AA 30 years,
in Al-Anon 30 years,
and he's trying to pack his wife's suitcase.
That's my kind of alcoholic.
That's my kind of recovery, right?
You know, I don't know about you,
I would never dream of packing a woman's suitcase.
I just want to keep the women in my life out of mine,
let alone pack theirs.
I'm trying to keep the feminine products
out of my suitcase for customs.
That's all I want.
I used to tell Paul,
my favorite part of his story
is when they've got him in the asylum
and he's given orders and Max has followed him.
That's my kind of alcoholic.
You know, I think that's the kind of...
I love people who are very spiritual
and have feet of clay.
I don't trust perfect people.
And I want to just tell you about one last guy
because he's not famous.
He never will be.
His name was Big Jack.
And I'll tell you what Big Jack taught me.
Big Jack taught me it was okay to be imperfect.
Now, Big Jack looked exactly like his name.
He had a big bald head,
a big round body.
He was a railroad guy,
probably with about an eighth grade education.
He used to be in the Navy
and liked to brag about how he'd beat up
four or five or six...
shore patrol guys during World War II
before they hauled him off to jail.
And I never saw Jack go to a meeting,
at least at noon.
I guess he went to night meetings.
He would just stand out in front of 43-43 Radford,
my old home group,
sit on the bench and talk to guys.
In fact, I saw him lead one meeting
and I understood why he shouldn't go to meetings.
It just wasn't his thing.
And if you're new,
this might not be your thing,
but you'll find your little niche in alcoholic non-alcoholics.
You'll find whatever your job's supposed to be.
And I would just go.
When I first got to L.A.,
I used to have a job as a waiter.
And it taught me a lot about
how to work.
And I remember one day,
I went to a 7-Eleven after this job
and 7-Eleven still had video machines.
What I'd do is drink a Diet Coke
and play the video machines
until I sort of came down and went home.
And I had a $20 bill
and this guy did not want to change my $20 bill.
And I don't think I can tell you why,
but this now became the most important thing.
I was there before I was there.
I was about three years sober.
I got so angry.
I wanted to kill this man.
I literally wanted to reach in
and rip his beating heart out of his breast
and flip it to him before he died
because he wouldn't change my $20.
So, just being helpful and kind
in all my affairs.
And I got home.
And I was so livid.
And you've got to remember,
I'm a guy, the last fight I got in high school.
I mean, I got sober and all that anger came up.
I got home and I really had a fight not going back.
So, the next day I'm talking to Big Jack.
And Jack was just one of those guys
that could get you straight with one word.
And I take, obviously, a zillion words to say anything.
But Jack, so I'm telling Jack,
yeah, Jack, and he did this and he did that.
But I got home and he went,
yeah, Steve, and you don't have to make an amend, do you?
And I went, yeah, Jack, but I said,
when do the feelings change?
And he said, eventually.
Now, you ask me, when do the feelings change?
And I'm going to talk about your, your, eventually.
And Jack would just,
you just go spend about 10 minutes with Jack.
He'd help you, help you, help you, help you.
So, now, one day I'm sitting with Jack
and he's helped me over through many things.
Always telling me,
they didn't hire you to run the restaurant, Steve.
They hired you to wait tables.
Oh, yeah.
Because I thought I was in charge of seating.
I learned more about getting along with people in that job
than I could ever.
So, one day I'm sitting with Big Jack
and we're just talking about something
and all of a sudden,
Jack uses a racial epitaph that is anathema to me.
Historical note,
the last time anathema was used in an AA meeting was 1954.
Okay.
And I'm, I'm shocked.
And I go, Jack, like, he didn't know what he said.
I thought, maybe it just slipped out.
And I said, Jack, you just used, that's a bad word.
You're not allowed to use that word, Jack.
That's a bad word.
And Jack went, I don't like them.
They don't like me.
Well, I took my coffee and got up.
Now, I did what I always do with people.
He's dead.
He's, I don't have racist friends.
You know, I marched in Washington in 64.
I don't have racist friends.
You are dead.
See, because I'll tell you what I've learned in the fourth step
with the dishonesty part.
Dishonesty for me is not just lying.
You hurt my feelings and you are dead.
You don't know you're dead.
I never tell you.
I just never talk to you again.
I might say hello, but you're not leading my meeting.
Your hand can be up all day.
I'm not calling on you.
You're not coming to my birthday party.
You are dead.
And I never, ever do anything like, hey, you know, you hurt my feelings.
Could we work this out?
So I walked away and Big Jack was dead.
And off my head it went, you know what?
Why should I do this?
He's really helped me.
I mean, yeah, he's a racist.
I don't like that.
But, you know, there's a lot of good.
Maybe Jack will be my first racist friend.
And for the first time in my life, I was allowed somebody to be imperfect
and be really absolutely wrong and stay their friends.
Now, I made a mistake.
I should have just left it alone.
I should have just said, Big Jack's a racist.
He's always.
He's always going to be a racist.
We don't talk about that.
No, I tried to convert him.
My premise was he didn't understand the 20th century race relationships
and I'd be slipping stuff in.
And one day I slipped in the wrong thing.
And all of a sudden, Big Jack's fist went back.
I swear to God, the sun disappeared.
I just sat there like a deer in the headlight.
I mean, oh, my God.
His fist went back and he was livid and he went.
He looked at me and he said, you are a dead man.
Never talk to me again.
And Jack never talked to me again until the day he died.
He talked to me once only to tell me something he wanted to tell me,
which was not kind.
Now Jack became a teacher in another way.
That was my home group.
And Jack would sit out there every day.
And now my job got to be not to walk in there and saddle up to him
and try to get him to like me again and not to hate him because he hated me,
but to simply let him be and be neutral about it.
And it took a long time.
It must have taken two or three years before I could walk by him
and not have feelings of, oh, yeah?
That's the kind of teachers I found in Alcoholics Anonymous.
Very imperfect, very human.
Because I'll tell you, this is my belief today.
Many of the things we term untreated alcoholism and sobriety aren't untreated alcoholism.
They are being a human being.
What's wrong with me basically is I'm a human being.
That's what I can't stand about myself.
I'm a human being, which means I'm imperfect.
And I don't want to be imperfect.
A, I don't want to be imperfect because I think the only way I'm going to get love is by being perfect.
And A, I don't want to be imperfect because it's limiting.
I want to be perfect.
I want to have it all right.
I'm that good kid who wants to cross all the T's and dot all the I's.
I'm the guy that when I was dating you, if you were out riding Guido's motorcycle,
I was there talking to your mother.
And to be able to lay that.
And to be able to accept your imperfections has allowed me to accept mine.
And so I'm very grateful for people like Jack.
I'm very grateful for Alabama and Paul and all my heroes and all the saints in the program.
But I'm really grateful for just the soldiers, the very human people that have failings, the people.
And I'll tell you, if you're new, don't quit your home group.
Because if you do, they'll just follow you.
The next group you join, it'll be the same people.
They'll have different little earth suits on.
They won't have the same names.
But it'll be the same people.
It's going to be the same.
The people that irritate your home group are going to irritate you.
Because if I have lessons to learn, changing home groups is not going to fool God.
He's just going to put more people there that I have to learn from.
I am just so pleased to be here.
I'm done with my part.
If you're new and you think because, or if you're not new, if you think that because I spoke, I know something.
Or if you just want to talk to somebody that's not going to be around, I'm going to be around all weekend.
There's nothing more useless to the convention than a speaker that's spoken.
And so, they're done.
Next.
Some things in alcohol just don't change.
Next.
You guys need to be stimulated.
And I've done my job.
Now next.
But if you want to catch a cup of coffee or talk with me, I'm still on the clock.
And if because I've been up here that it makes you want to talk with me about something, or if I've said something, please come up.
I never talked to Norm A because I was afraid of him.
I was afraid I wasn't good enough to approach him.
And I know today that I could have sat down and talked to him.
It took me ten years before I could go up to speakers and say, can I talk to you about what you said?
I just didn't feel worthy of it.
So, I just want to break that.
If you're like me, please come up and talk.
It's a joy.
It will help me do something in the weekend.
It will give me more people I know.
And I just want to share the last story that I always close with.
And I close with it because you guys like it.
And this is the third step for me.
This is the kind of God I have in my life.
I ask God for strength that I might achieve.
I was made weak that I might humbly learn to obey.
I ask God for power that I might have the praise of men.
And I was rendered powerless that I might feel the need of God.
I ask God for health that I might do great things.
And I was given sickness that I might do miracles.
I ask God for all things that I might enjoy life.
And I was given life.
That I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing that I asked for.
But everything that I hoped for.
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
And I am among men most richly blessed.
That is the paradoxical God that I have found in Alcoholics Anonymous.
Just like in the professor's paradox.
I asked for health and I got this sickness.
It's called alcoholism.
I'm not cured.
If I take a drink today, I'm going to die.
And by having it and still running the risk of dying,
I'm more effective as a newcomer than if I could go out and take a couple of drinks with impunity.
I would be able to do miracles because I was rendered ill.
And so the drunk's on his way home one night and he's sick and he's hopeless.
He tore out because he's been on a run.
And on the way home he runs into God and God's got something in his hands.
And the drunk goes, what's that?
And God goes, that's sobriety.
And the drunk goes, man, I need it.
How much does that cost?
And God goes, well, how much you got?
And the drunk goes, well, I got about $50.
And God goes, okay, for you, sobriety costs $50.
And the drunk goes, wait, wait a minute.
If I give you $50, I won't have enough money for gas for my car.
And God goes, oh, you have a car?
Well, sobriety is going to cost you your car.
He says, wait a minute, if I give you my car, how am I going to get to my job?
God goes, oh, you have a job.
No, no, no, sobriety costs you your job.
He says, wait a minute, if I give him my job, how am I going to pay for my house?
He says, you have a home?
I thought you were in the cardboard box down by the railroad tracks.
No, no, no, no, sobriety is going to cost you your home.
He says, wait a minute, if I give you all that, what am I going to do with my wife and my kids?
He says.
You have a family?
My goodness gracious, your list is totally out of date.
No, no, no, no, sobriety costs you your family.
He says, well, if I give you all of that, what good is my life?
And God goes, that's right.
Sobriety will cost you your life.
And the drunk, because he's at that magic moment of surrender,
is willing to give his father his money and his car and his wife and his job,
his house, his children, his life.
And then his father looks him deep in the eye and says,
all right, I'm going to give your money back, but it's not your money anymore, it's my money.
You're going to spend it for me.
Give your car back.
It's not your car anymore, it's my car.
You're going to drive it for me.
Give you your job back.
But your job isn't about doing anything or being anything or accomplishing anything
other than being something like me to the people you work with,
because it's not your job, it's my job.
You're going to work it for me.
Give your house back.
It's not your house anymore, it's my home.
You're going to live in it for me.
Give your wife and your kids back.
You know, based on your behavior, they have a right.
Never to talk to you again, but I'm giving them back to you,
because it ain't your family anymore, it's my family.
You're going to take care of them.
I'm going to give your life back.
It's never your life ever again, it's my life, but you're going to live it for me.
I believe that is the deal that a loving creator cuts with all of us in the third step.
I am among men, most richly blessed,
and those blessings I have found in the heart and soul of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Please keep coming back.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.