Mark the Spot Where You Saw Higher Power Pass and Go Sit in That Window Again — Step 11 Distilled – Howard P.

Now to introduce our speaker, which is Howard P. He's from Gilbert, Arizona. Thank you very much. Hi, everyone. My name is Howard, and I'm an alcoholic. Cliff, thank you very much for inviting me to come up. It's an honor to be here and come over, or whatever direction it was. And I enjoy doing this, but especially here, and I thank you. Thank anybody else that had anything to do with it. And I need to square away some administrative things. One is that in my talk, if it looks like I'm not convincing you of stuff, I will start quoting from the big book. I really just make things up, but I give page numbers, and nobody ever checks. And it seems to add to my credibility. So, also... So, I will, from time to time, look at my watch and at the clock. I used to tell this all the time, and then there was a new guy came into the program, and he started to tell him this same thing. But he's not speaking anymore, so I'm going to take my joke back. But I do look at the clock, not to see what time it is, because I don't care what time it is. But for those of you that are concerned, if you're concerned about what time it is, I want you to think I care. It'll give you an opportunity to just relax and enjoy yourself. Cliff told me how long I had, and he hinted that if I ran out of breath earlier than that, it would be acceptable with you folks if I sat down early. I didn't tell him, but that's not likely. Anyway... You know, I've been telling my story for... a long, long time. I spoke at the spring fling when it was in the spring. And then I spoke at the spring fling when it was in the summer. And now I understand it back in the spring. And I probably told the same story very much that I'm going to tell tonight, and that was 20 years ago that I was telling this story. But after so long... It isn't that you don't have more story to tell. It's that whatever you told the last time got you invited back. And you don't want to stray too far from that. And I don't work on it at home. The only practice I get is when I'm up here. So anyway, I was born in Los Angeles, Alhambra, California. In Los Angeles County. About a thousand years ago. Now, I don't remember anything about California when I was a child. The first home I remember was a little farm community about 45 miles southeast of Wichita, Kansas. In what we thought was the Bible Belt. And as you stray a little further south from where I was... You're in Oklahoma. And they think they're in the Bible Belt. A little further south is Texas. They think, you know... And then the people in Nebraska, South Dakota... It looked like everybody thought they were in the Bible Belt. And then I came back to California, and I found out California people are not in the Bible Belt. And California people do not want to be in the Bible Belt. And I understand that. In the Bible Belt... Well, in this little town, it was a farm community. And we had free movies. The merchants put up free movies. Actually, pretty good genealogy kind of movies. And it'd have a cartoon. And then sometimes it would have a short feature. And then the main feature. And it was for free so that the farmers would come. They would come to our town to do shopping and trading with our merchants. And I went to the movies. Now, there was a short feature about training wild elephants in India. It was a travelogue short feature. And what they showed was to take the baby elephants out of the herd when they were very young. And they started their training by putting a rope around the right front leg. And they would... And they would... And then wrapping the rope tight around a huge tree. They'd snub that baby elephant up to the tree. And he would pull and tug and tears down its face. Old face was a sad story. But the fact is, the baby elephant came to believe that when that rope is tight, it's futile to pull. And they just stood there. Then the trainer saw that he had that lesson taught. And he started further training. But always through the training, they reinforced this belief. As the elephant gets bigger and stronger, they have to reinforce this belief that when the rope is tight, it's futile to pull. At the end of the movie, they used the big elephant to pull trees that they'd cut down and trimmed the leaves off of, put the trees in a harness, and the elephant pulled the tree out of... out of the forest for harvest. At the break, in order to... Well, they was having lunch. In order to keep the elephant where they wanted, they drove a stake in the ground. A relatively short stake. They tied a rope around the elephant's right leg. They wrapped the other end around this little stake. And the elephant could walk around, but when it got to the end of the rope, it couldn't pull. Now, the rope didn't hold the elephant. The stake didn't. It didn't hold the elephant. The limiting belief that they had imposed on him when he was baby was what held the elephant. I came to Alcoholics Anonymous with approximately 650,902 baby elephant beliefs just like that. Stuff that I had been taught that I didn't even know I was taught, which I kind of unconsciously felt like this has to be true for me to have a... to have a sense of well-being. Part of this I learned in church. One of the things I learned in church was I'm separate from God. God was an anthropomorphic being up in heaven, behind the streets of gold, the pearly gates on the streets of gold. And I was a little kid in this little farm community. So I knew I was separate from God. I felt like I was. And I was. If they had told me, he's in Wellington and I'm in Argonia, I wouldn't have known I was separate because I sure felt separate. But I was also taught that if you behave the way God wants you to behave, and there was plenty of people in that church to tell you how God wanted you to behave. If you behave the way he wants you, and then in living your life you face adversity. If you beseech God in prayer for help, he will help you. Now, the first time I remember praying, knowing who I'm praying to and what I'm praying for, was early morning Sunday in church. It was the day before wheat harvest was to start. And the minister led us in the fervent prayer for it not to rain until the wheat is harvested. Because if it's rain, the fields are muddy and you can't get the equipment in and you lose the crop. Now, if that worked, and they made the harvest, then they'd pray for it to rain so that they could plow. But you prayed forever. And the day we prayed for it not to rain, that afternoon it rained, it hailed, the wind blew, wiped out all the wheat, and while nobody pointed the finger at me, I knew whose fault it was. I knew who was it. I knew who wasn't doing what God wanted you to do, and therefore he did not answer our prayer. Now, if you're five or six years old, and you've assumed the entire responsibility for wiping out the cans of sweet crop, what you have is an ego problem. The old ego bases its sense of well-being on making things happen that it lacks the power to make happen. And we're spring-loaded that way. Alcoholics are biochemically spring-loaded. And one of the things we're taught in our culture, at least in this little farm community, this Bible Belt community, is if you're going to really amount to anything, you've got to win the competition. Competition for what? Competition for everything. Everything. From when you first start out, you compete in softball, you compete in basketball, you compete in all the sports, you compete for who's going to do the best in school. It's always, you've got to win the competition so you can learn to be the best, so you can learn to be the boss, so that you can achieve authority, prestige, money, property, and then you'll feel good. Except you won't. You and I won't. Those of us that are alcoholics. We are bodily and mentally different than, say, 85% of the rest of the people. They have evidence now, scientific evidence, that alcoholics is a class of people, and I'm telling you, you can stay sober 35 years, work the steps, go to meetings, sponsor people, do all the stuff, and never hear this, and stay sober. I've done it. But when I was 35, I was doing, leading a men's retreat in Nashville, and a guy by the name of Burns B., who's an MD, the CEO of a chemical dependency treatment program, primarily for doctors, and he had a little presentation where he showed brain scans. And he's accumulated enough data, and others have too, that show that alcoholics, in terms of abundance, are probably in the top 15 or 20%, as far as the neurotransmitters that activate the fight and flight center is concerned. In the population. We're spring-loaded to fight and fight. And boy, if they say win the competition, we're ready. We may not win it, but we're in there fighting. Now, having, and you're probably in the bottom 50% in terms of abundance of dopamine and serotonin, which activates the placer center. And actually, if we had a screen, say zero was the worst feeling that you had, and 10 was the best feeling that you had, okay, we were running about a three. Maybe four in a good period, but we ran low. And somebody give us a drink of whiskey. And the old fight or flight, the old anxiety and anger, was sedated. In a manner of knowledge, it's to burning the nerves, nerves numb. Burning them numb so they're not pumping. And you get relief from stress and anxiety. I was 13 years old when that happened to me. I remember taking that drink and thinking, man, this is what they mean when they say, let's have a few drinks and get the feeling good. You know, being spring-loaded to a state of low-grade alert is not a bad thing if you're a caveman and you're looking for the grizzly bear. But that's the reason that, you know, you never get the pleasure center kicked in. Because when you're facing the grizzly bear, the last thing you want is to have some pleasant feeling about it. You need to get the hell out of there. And so, so if in my life everything seems to me that's attacking my ego, and not letting me have my way, everything that's doing that is grizzly bear. And I'm in there fighting to have my way and the pleasure center never kicks in. So I drink alcohol and I go from a three to an eight. And I'm addicted to it right then. Now, when you come off of that, it turns out that the numbness, as you burn the nerves numb, the numbness only lasts two hours. The burn lasts ten. But Rita and I knew that what you do is after two hours you keep drinking. And you burn it numb again. You just keep it numb. Pretty soon it gets so badly damaged that no amount of sedative will penetrate and give you a sense of relief. Then you start smoking pot and you take bennies and other stuff all in combination to find a better life to chemistry. Which brings you to Alcoholics Anonymous. And they have the silly idea that the first thing to do is stop drinking. And if you do that, you'll stop burning the nerves. And then they say, stop fighting everybody and everything. I mean, it's amazing. It's amazing how these steps address our problem. You know, and I know I would have done better if I had taken it in sequence. But I already knew a lot. And so I took it kind of, as they say in, they used to say a lot, you do it in cafeteria style. I don't hear that phrase much anymore, but they used to call it do it cafeteria style. And that's where you take some of the first and some of the fourth and some of the, you know. But you don't want to put it all together. I, I, I fell in love when I was in the eighth grade. I know what falling in love is. I didn't know, but I found out. Falling in love, okay, there's a spirit that underlies the totality of things. That, to me, is a fact. And when my spirit resonated with this eighth grade cutie, redhead, freckle-faced, populous girl in town, my spirit resonated with hers and we knew that our spirit was one. Now, we're kids, but I'm in love. But for love to come into my consciousness, it's got to come up through my ego. And my ego says, I want to see her naked. And she said, I'm not going to be your girlfriend. I'm not going to have anything to do with you. You're just going to be a lot of trouble. But I was in love with her and my life was empty without her. We made it through high school. We graduated together. The Korean War broke out. I went overseas. And she got engaged to this wealthy kid and I knew I'd lost her forever. I was never going to come home. And then I heard they broke up and I came home that evening. We had came back to the United States. We'd just gotten back and I got word that her and this guy had broken up. And I did put in, I did put in, for leave that night and I went, or that day, and I went home to tell her I loved her. I've always loved her. My life is empty without you. I'm not proposing anything. See, by this time I'd learned don't be too aggressive about this seeing your naked stuff. And I laid some Shakespeare on her. Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eyes against whom all the world cannot hold argument persuade my heart to this? She fell for it like I did. We got married about a month before I got out of the Navy. And now, then I saw her naked. And then she got pregnant, but not until then. And in 11 months we had a son. Now, you know, we're good at acting as if. Acting as if I have it together. Acting as if I'm going to do something. Or acting as if I'm doing something when I know I'm not. I know I'm not kidding myself. But I just hope I'm kidding you. And I'm in trouble with life. And we leave and move to San Diego where the weather is decent. And I got a job first as a tool maker and then I got a job as an entry level engineer. I was going to school. I didn't have a degree, but I was working for a degree. And I got this engineering job. And I was, I knew because I didn't have a degree that it was in over my head. And then I just snowed these guys into thinking I could do it. But the fact is, I could do it. I was very good at being a process analyst. We analyze processes. And I was good at that. Now you had to write reports and I wasn't good at that. But what I found is if I took the free board home, took all the stuff to work on home. And I drank about a half of a half a pint of whiskey, whatever it was that immobilized me for being able to write a report went away. And I became brilliant. I did not get drunk. I got brilliant. I wrote a report. I discovered the technical vocabulary. I didn't know I had. I mean, these were good. And I thought, you know. I sent the report in, and then next, you know, all reports are in on Friday. And the next Tuesday, my boss's boss came out from his office. Actually, my boss's boss's boss came out of his office with my report and said, Howard, did you write this? And I said, yes, sir. And he said, we knew you'd do it if you'd just give us the effort. Now, I thought, effort, my hind foot. I gave you effort. It wasn't effort. It was whiskey. But my head said, don't tell that to him. If he believes effort, let him think effort. They're going to pay you for effort. They ain't going to pay you for whiskey. They're just going to give you a hard time. The important thing is, I know it's whiskey. And whiskey it was. I went from a process analyst to an engineer to a senior engineer. I left General Dynamics Astronautics in San Diego and moved to Culver City to the Hughes Tool Company Aircraft Division. As a senior engineer and then as an engineering manager. Now, that's not setting the world on fire, but that's a progressive series of promotions that I got from drinking whiskey. And that's what it was for. And I went there in 1966. In 1970, my boss started to talk to me about my drinking. And, you know, there's a thing called synchronicity where things just seem to happen at random. But turn out better. You know, now, my life was in synchronicity then because my watering hole, the bar I drank at, was called the Tattletail. And when my bosses after me for drinking, this guy came in the Tattletail with little white pills with crosses on them. Which he had stacked up with tinfoil wrapped around them. You look at these and you think, well, those are lifesavers. Those are lifesavers. Many of you never heard of bennies. The bennies are good. That's the beginning of speed. And bennies and booze helps you in every area of your life. Except controlling your body functions. It does not help you. In fact, when you take bennies and booze, you need help when you don't get it. But, it also got me, and you know, my speech would be slurred. I drink so much, but right before I got brilliant, my speech would be slurred. You take bennies, you say the same things over and over again, but you say them fast, and you do not slur your speech. It's amazing. My boss demoted me. Took me out of management. My wife was leaving me. Well, I was going to leave her. You know, I was going to, she was going to, you know, she went to a lawyer and I was hopelessly in debt. I owed $2,500 and there was no money coming in to make the payments on that amount of money, nothing happening where I can make that payment. And she didn't know I owed it. And this is stressful. And, and every, you know, in nearly every area of my life, it was stressful. And I had an opportunity to sell some equipment that I didn't know I had. And I had an opportunity to sell some equipment that I didn't know I had. And I had an opportunity to sell some equipment that I didn't know I had. And I had an opportunity to sell some equipment that I didn't know I had. The equipment was, in fact, owned by the federal government. And I found it right before they lost it. I got it to a fence and the fence disappeared. And I'm back in the tattletale without the fence trying to set up some more equipment sales. That was July the 25th, 1972. On July the 26th, 1972, I woke up. on page 8 in the big book no words can express the loneliness and despair I found in that bitter morass of self-pity quicksand stretched out in all directions at work if my boss would just look at my desk and see that the stuff I've said I've done I haven't even started on I mean that is quicksand if Pat just knew all the trouble I was in and all the lies I've told every place in my life is like that quicksand in every direction and my life is disintegrating and I can't stop it except that morning I stopped by the paddle tail at 6 o'clock I had two double shots of whiskey and every one of those problems went away now why would somebody give that up I mean when things are so bad and then they're all right why would you give that up but I'm a candidate for hard time in the federal penitentiary and I need to hold I need to stop until this blows over and so I went to a I called this guy his name was Kenny Sixberry at the paddle tail but he had joined AA eight years ago and he was now known as Kenny S and I called him I thought he was the president of AA worldwide and I called him I would not have called a lesser light I was a big shot spelled that a number of ways but there I was and Kenny I said sometime would you take me to an AA meeting he said how about tonight I said oh no not tonight I got you up in two minutes no no no but you know that smooth talking son of a gun had me agree to go to the meeting and I had promised Pat something and that was I was just going to drink a half a pint a day and I'd stop by the paddle tail at six to get rid of yesterday's hangover and then I'd stop by and get a half a pint from the liquor store and I'm going to baby that through the day that half pint's gone before noon but my thinking's better and I'm thinking I don't mean I'm going to drink exactly a half a pint a day I'm going to average a half a pint a day and I'm going to go get tomorrow's half pint and have a drink out of it and I won't want a full half pint tomorrow I'm sure of that I'm just going to take enough of this and then I'm going to save that for tomorrow that is gone by two and I get the third one and I'll drink if I want to get off my back I'm making a living I'm paying the bills I'm not doing any of that but I'm arguing that and then I buy the fourth one so that I can open the I can break the seal in front of Pat on this half a pint and right immediately take a drink which accounts for why it smells like I've been drinking I don't even drink this half a pint and I pass out she's thinking hell he can't even drink a half a pint she's the most gullible person in the world the most lovely and gullible person in the world and and then I take a lethal dose of Benzedrine while that's going on and at the shape he picked me up and he picked me to my first day of the meeting and I told him on the way well I'm not an alcoholic now that's rigorously honest that's not absolutely honest but we don't have absolutes in AA because the fact is alcoholics have to know they're not alcoholics or they're not alcoholics we're obsessed with the idea we're not it's an obsession you can't know you are and then you are there's no way absolute honesty fits in that it's rigorous honesty when I rigorously honestly said I'm not an alcoholic Kenny rigorously honestly said I don't know if you're an alcoholic or not but we're going to the right place the first guy I met was the guy that was Kenny's sponsor his name was Frank now in the tattletale we're deep thinkers we think deep though nothing is as easy as it looks if something can't go wrong it will go wrong and we'll do it and at the worst possible time man we're dealing with the truth of life right there life sucks and then you die don't trust anyone we didn't just say that that was my way of life that was the fundamental truth that I had and I met Frank now this is the way Frank smiled he actually thought he was smiling he was making notes about something and Kenny said this is Howard's first meeting Frank stood up and smiled and he said what I told you he said welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous join with us and do what we do and don't do what we don't do and in a relatively short period of time your life will be a magnitude better than you ever thought it was going to be join with us and I trusted you trusted Frank oh don't trust anybody trusted Frank and there was enough trust that I felt good about it now I know I've had a ton to drink and dinners but it was I felt trust to Frank I didn't wonder why or anything like that but I know I did I was very conscious of that at the meeting it was a beginners meeting and anybody here in their first meeting and you'd hold up I held up my hand and then I didn't know it at the time but whatever the topic was going to be or whatever it was going to be if somebody was new they'd call on Chuck Ennis he had 26 years in sobriety and they'd call on Chuck and say Chuck the topic tonight is what is alcoholism and how do you stop drinking and Chuck would say he'd tell the story about working at MGM and at the end of the day going across Washington Boulevard to the backstage bar I've been in there but it was basically a studio people's thing and he said I'm just going to have two drinks three at the most said next thing I know his last call for alcohol is two o'clock in the morning and I'm fighting with the bartender saying your clock is fast and there's ten minutes left for me to have another double and I want it well I just stopped for two now I've gotten those how many you know and I'm identifying with him this is the tattletale in me and then he said I would do that Tuesday night and Wednesday night and he said my life just went down the tubes and I came to AA and they explained to me what an alcoholic is alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control their drinking not very complicated but that's it so the loss of control is characterized by an insane obsessive belief each time we start to drink that somehow some way this time it'll be different this time I'll just have a few I'll baby a half a pint through the day this time it's going to be different I'm just going to drink enough to get some sense of relief to get my heart started again and then I'm not going to drink anymore but once you start you as a class of people we as a separate entity experience a phenomenon of craving for more once we start to drink eventually we reach that state and the compulsion to drink is greater than your willpower not to drink now that's the way he explained it and I couldn't wait to talk to Kenny at the break I said I had and they called on other people there was actually actually the CEO of one of the biggest bottled water companies who's in that meeting and he told stories just like my story and I'm impressed except I never had a craving and I couldn't wait to tell him he said that that's a distinguishing feature between the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic this phenomenon of craving I never had a craving he said what time did you start to drink I said about 6 in the morning he said why did you start then I said because I had a hangover it's the only way I knew how to get rid of a hangover he said I understand that now when you got over the hangover did you keep drinking you see I know he has me but I quickly point out well yes but I didn't crave it I just wanted it he said there's a type of alcoholic many who are sober and they ate it who once they started to drink slugged them down so fast that the craving didn't have an opportunity to set in I thought maybe I'm in that class okay I stayed sober a week the next week I went to San Diego now I had quit smoking cigarettes five years ago with willpower and I have willpower to stop drinking whiskey if I want to I've just never wanted to I'm going to drink whiskey I'm going to you know well I got to San Diego I was having dinner with this guy who had available maybe a second job for me that I could do from Culver City for San Diego and then fly down there on weekends that would pay off this 2,500 bucks I owe it was you know and he said what do you want to drink and I said I'm not I think I may be an alcoholic he said you're no more alcoholic than I am and I said I think you're right I'll have a double laughter let me tell you about my willpower I don't think I think I was the kind of guy that once I started to drink I didn't try not to drink but this time I tried not to drink and I didn't I had the willpower to not drink I couldn't walk by the damn bar I couldn't walk by the bar to get aboard the airplane to fly back to Los Angeles for four days I was drunk on the streets in San Diego sometimes in some stranger's apartment I mean it was a long time ago it was a long time ago it was a long time ago but I had never done anything like that but I'd never tried not to drink either laughter now I've quit a lot of times forever and you can do that because when you quit forever you know it ain't forever but when you come to AA and they talk about this day at a time crap you know they mean forever that's a whole new world you know they outsmart you at every turn Jack Bailey who was my after a while he was my sponsor sponsor sponsor Jack Bailey said the concept of the first drink getting you drunk is too complex for the keen mind of the alcoholic he said the phrase keen keen mind you never hear in an Al-Anon meeting that's a phrase you only hear in alcoholic meetings we had a lot of laughs we had a lot of laughs we had a lot of laughs we had a lot of laughs we had a lot of laughs one of my first speakers was a girl named Flo D she passed away that year but she was a wonderful speaker and she did a ton of good work of recovery down in on the streets in downtown Los Angeles she talked about having this love affair with alcohol like the love affair that Tomcat has with a female skunk she said I never did get all I wanted but I got all I could stay for and stay she said when my husband proposed to me it shocked me so much I fell out of bed she said I'd been chasing him all over town I chased him into a church and I caught him by the organ her story it isn't mine but she also talked about falling and breaking her arm and then getting the shingles and I have had the shingles and I know how painful that is she's sitting up at 3 o'clock in the morning on the foot of her bed and I know that and she said I just got mad at God and I shook my fist in his face and I said why me she said a booming voice came to my ear and said because Flo there's something about you that pisses me off you gotta be sick for that to help you but that really helped me you know I got that I got it I won't go into any of it but but Norm Alpey I heard Norm Alpey and he and I got to be friends and Norm Alpey I think is the best speaker ever in AA and one of the best people he was just a wonderful truly great guy and I met so many of them Frank died in my fourth year of sobriety but he changed my life so much I was telling Mark earlier that some of the things he taught me and well I will tell you one of them when I was about a year sober now Kenny moved out of town and kind of left me without a sponsor although he stayed my sponsor but he moved out of Culver City just to a couple of towns further apart but but I was pretty much left to work the steps myself now I would hear people say stuff and I'd take it home I wasn't going to do the steps but I heard a guy say if you make one mistake and brood about that you've made two mistakes is that something isn't that profound I'm going to take that home you know and then I brooded because I brooded another guy said I was 36 years in learning that all the people that I hated didn't feel it and it was killing me take that home take that home and you hate it because you can't stop hating I heard a guy say if you're new in AA and you're not working the steps AA will stop being fun and you'll decide that AA doesn't work for you and you're not going to those meetings anymore you're not going to drink but you're not going to the meeting you don't go to the meetings for a while and pretty soon you'll go into the bar and you'll order a drink and if you do that and the bartender says what's the matter Howard I thought you was going to AA don't AA work he said if you're not working the steps be honest with me be honest with him and tell him you don't know if it would work or not because you didn't try and there was nothing in my head to pop off at that I knew that that was the truth I heard a guy say he was in AFCAR and he had a speaking part in the steam and he was familiar enough with the business that he knew there was a lot of residuals with the speaking part in the movie The Sting with Robert Redford and Paul Newman and so he said and I never tied that together until later he helped me tie it together he said I've been so busy this week wanting what I was getting that I didn't have time to worry about getting what I want he said in AA we try to learn to live in the now right now and whatever's happening right now love that because that's what's going to happen anyway my head said let's stab him in the eye with a sharp stick I want to see him live because that's the way I really think and I go outside and it's raining it's raining as hard as it can rain in the Pacific Palisades and I've hated the rain since I wiped out the wheat crop I've never been in the rain I made it to the car and this voice said to me or a thought came to me the reason I don't say voice anymore I used to say a voice in Clancy who was a dear friend of mine and I'm his dear friend he wrote me an email and said so also he shows a friendship for me but Clancy said there's two things I want to tell you Howard one is when we pray to God no when we talk to God we call that prayer now when God talks to us we call that schizophrenia I think that's funny I don't believe it but I still say a thought came to me instead of a voice that for the newcomers it's a little more credible isn't it that the thought came to me the voice said why don't you just love the rain it's going to rain anyway that's what Archie talked about and I and I was able to love the rain I wasn't able to stop hating I wasn't able to not bruise now I took this home and I loved the rain I could hear it on the shingles and it was soothing and it was soothing and I loved it and if you'd ask somebody you'd have said to Ron if you're new and you'd say hey Ron what happened why did I love the rain and Ron would say well for the same reason you trusted rain from time to time God's grace comes to you so that you have a sense of well-being something works so that you'll keep coming back and that's why you love the rain and I would have not talked to Ron anymore I didn't want to hear about that but I worked the steps I did the first step first part of the first step skipped the second and the third part of the first step skipped the second step skipped the third step but I did a terrific inventory I was a battered child I had been abused in many ways and I made a list of all my resentments of my dad and I forgave him he died sober at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting with three years sober of a heart attack in 1951 and he was very active in AA and it wasn't hard for me at this time to say I'm selfish and I want to have my way and with my kids I have to have my way and I did not give him his way and he beat the tar out of me and I forgot and I forgave him now no big deal but if you forgive just the tall poles in the tent when you knew you're shutting off those pumps of anger and fear and you're giving yourself a chance to give up some of that and a chance for places to set in and then I took the equipment back it wasn't that easy it was a miracle that I got it but I got the equipment my wife went to the bank and signed the note and I bought the equipment paid for it I never got a dime for it but I coughed up hundreds of dollars to buy the equipment back and I took it back to the company I worked for who had it on government loan and told my boss I stole this I'm bringing it back he said don't tell me that Howard just take it to the calibration lab and I said Tom I know that and he said I don't know that I don't know that I don't know that I don't know that but this guy would call a sponsor make a direct amend so that you can really get rid of it now he knew I'd be safe he had worked at that place and he knew that I'd be safe and I took it to the equipment lab and the next morning when I come in there was a note on my desk come in and see me when you get here it was my boss and I went in early and I was always in before he came in and I was always in and I was always in but he was in first and I went to his office and he poured me a cup of coffee and he said I want to talk to you about that equipment I had it expedited through the equipment lab it's in perfect working order now I don't know where it's been but I know it wasn't stolen because I have it I don't want you to ever tell anybody that you stole it because there's no provisions in our procedures for bringing stuff back and all you're going to do is get me in trouble so I haven't told anybody about that until tonight and I wanted to tell Brian because I asked him if he remembered how good he felt when he had his first drink if he thought something like I had that this is this is what it's like to feel good I've never felt good before and I could tell him the truth as I'll tell you the truth the next morning when I woke up and just gradually it came to me I'm free of the equipment I'm no longer a candidate for a hard time in the federal penitentiary and I just got to feeling better and better as I am in just telling you this and goosebumps come up to your body as they are and I feel as good as I did when I had my first drink that is a deal my speech ain't slurred I'm not in trouble and I feel good the stress and anxiety had been temporarily pulled down and the pleasure centers kicked in what a deal you know for fun and for free I told Frank I didn't pray I told everybody I didn't pray nobody cared but I'd get in your face because I wanted you to know I don't pray God don't have ears God is a spirit God created the universe he does not need input from me about anything I don't have ears I don't have ears I don't have ears I don't have ears I don't have ears I don't have ears I don't have ears I'm not sure it wouldn't tick him off at me that's what Flo was praying to him all the time that's why he gave her the jingle he didn't seem to care but all he said was I never learned to pray effectively until I learned to meditate what's meditation he said you know read the 12 and 12 step 11 that's the best description of meditation for new people in AA that I know of he said it's not all good for newcomers but that he said you can go to the Bodhi tree and get thousands of books on meditation but he said I'd read those few pages in the 12 and 12 first and I read them on he told me that on Tuesday and I read them and on Friday when we were back setting up the meeting for Friday night he said well did you read that and I said yeah yeah that's the St. Francis of Assisney prayer which is just what I'm not going to do he said is that all you got out of that and I said that's all there is in it right and we went next morning through that and we found things like prayer is the principal prayer and meditation is the principal means of being conscious of God's presence in your life prayer meditation and self-examination logically related and interwoven will form an unshakable foundation for life do you feel like you have an unshakable foundation for life Howard I don't know well you wouldn't want to give this up okay and then he said now there's the St. Francis of Assisney prayer I don't want you to mess with that that's a saint's prayer you ain't even close to that how about let's start you out with the first step now I knew the first step you know I knew it as well as Chuck knew it by then now if you just concentrate and you're conscious when your mind is repeating the big book's description of an unshakable alcoholic and alcoholism and you're conscious of it to the point that it describes in the step 11 that you're kind of getting the deep meaning of each word and phrase and if at the end of it when you see that they're talking about you're now in pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization okay and it talks about the phenomenon of craving and the other and then you do it over and over and over okay and you're conscious that that's what you're saying also coupled with that it's self-examination that identifies my history of drinking and how well that fits that description of alcoholism and then I can consciously stop and fully concede to my innermost self that I'm an alcoholic and then as I'm conscious of that I can consciously know that I'm that if I drink or use again I'm going to return right back to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization and then he said about prayer just relax and try to be open to being conscious of how much your life has changed since you come to AA and as you're aware of that also be aware of what little you have to do with it and if you get a good feeling from that if you look up the word grateful in the dictionary it says it's a good feeling you get when some bad is taken away or some good is added to your life and now you're conscious of that and you have that feeling one prayer would be to say thank you God but I don't want you to do that thank you is just words this is not a bottle this is not a podium this is not a microphone stand bottle podium start with this is a lectern podiums you stand on this is not a lectern this is not a microphone stand because those are words these things aren't words thank you God it's just words he said I want you to do that if you're feeling grateful let the feeling of gratitude be your prayer and when you're doing that from time to time a good feeling will come up your body and leave the goosebumps that will be my higher power saying I felt your gratitude and you're welcome Frank didn't help me much in my life he just took me Saturday nights to answer the phones and he took me on 12 step calls and he enriched my life and although he passed away he's never died he talks to me he talks to me and it's not I mean it's so we worked the steps I worked the steps and then I hit a brick wall okay the reason you hit a brick wall is because your boss gives you your job back gives you 15% pay increase your wife says I'm not going to threaten to leave you again I'm staying but we're working on problems well her staying with me is absolutely essential to my sense of well-being in life absolutely essential but if we're going to work on problems that's like getting promoted again it's stress you know it's stress it's pressure you see and as you get this strength and your life gets better you get into more challenging situations and the answer is start the steps again that's step one that's my answer you start at step one and you go through them and you learn a lot of stuff and I get guidance and my life is better and I don't even believe God is participating in my life I'm nine years sober and I meditate every day on the first of October 1974 I made a commitment to meditate for 30 minutes every day for the rest of my life I meditated and it was in 1981 and that I had been promoted and promoted and promoted and I got an assignment from the executive vice president and my boss to make a presentation at a level of responsibility that I don't belong in and they tell me well that's your new job oh my belief was like the little train that could once you reach your goal you're over the crest of the hill it's a downhill track from then on no more stress I got over the hill and now it's worse than ever and so I meditate now my first part of the meditation was just being conscious of how dreadful my life was but in a little bit I got to the meditation and when my timer went off I had a sense of well being and but I knew don't back out of this sense of well being or you're going to back right back into dreadfulness so I sit there a little longer and my head asked the question why can't I just feel good the guys I work with don't have to do all of this the executive vice president he don't I mean when we have problems he knows what it has to do with the job but he don't scare him at all there's no stress on him it's just his job well you know why can't I have it that way why do I have to do this meditation and stuff and then I saw in my mind's eye a frozen lake and somehow I knew because it's my my fantasy or my vision it's a fantasy Brian but for anybody else it's a vision I knew that the ice was as thick as the laws of physics will allow ice to get and my mind knew you could put a Sherman tank for World War II tank on that ice and it will support it and then I knew that walking across the lake a step at a time would be a good metaphor for me living my life a day at a time and if I'm not convinced that the ice is thick enough to support me I'm going to dread every step I take I will be filled with dread every day I take if I do not know I am supported I'm and I could then pull out of the back out of the meditation to a commitment I'm going to make the damn presentation sink or swim if it works it's God and then a whole series of things unbelievably started working in my life and at work and I did when I felt agitated and doubtful I would stop and meditate that was a big help for me and I came okay now the big book says on page 48 and 49 the prosaic steel girders are made of electrons holding around each other incredible speeds and in accordance with what I saw science tells us so and we have no reason to doubt it the perfectly logical assumption is that underneath the material world and life as we see it you see he throws life as we see it in there underneath the material world and life as we see it there's an all powerful guiding creative intelligence manifesting precise law order harmony and unfolding goodness now if you look at the universe in the material world it is magnificent you know every massive object take the prosaic steel girders is made up of particles and within each particle are the four forces of nature the strong force the electromagnetic force the weak force and gravity if gravity is assigned the value of one the electromagnetic force is assigned a one followed by 38 zeros a big big number but one's negative and one positive and the different charges attract each other and bond together so perfectly that gravity becomes the dominating force and that's why massive bodies are held together by gravity and why the universe is a single significant whole no big deal but it's convincing that underneath the material world there's an all power within your body and mind we can see light from 13 billion light years away whatever transmitted the light 13 billion years ago and whatever created our vision which is principally interactive with it so when the light comes out of the Hubble telescope we're principally interactive with it we can see light now that's kind of evidence that is just one spirit underlying the totality of things manifesting precise love in every aspect of all being and life as we see it the circumstances and events of life the character and quality of the circumstances and events of life we don't have to change that we just have to trust it and when I trust it I find my life works now last year I had a very successful business that stopped working and I had to close the business down but I made it anyway I didn't want that that wasn't what I want but I learned a long time ago if I based my sense of well-being on me getting what I want I ain't going to have a sense of well-being my wife who's been married for 59 years had had had continuing rheumatoid arthritis and that got very bad and she had a childhood disease that had been dormant but which because of the other health problems it manifested and then she had a stroke and she lost her sight and she couldn't walk and she's in bed and she said I don't think I want to go on and I said I understand about quality of life but I want you to try to go on and then if the quality of life don't get any better then we'll talk about quality of life and what to do but would you try and in three hours she said to me would you help me up and she's on a walker with her head on the walker and tears and slobbering and walking around that hospital room you don't know when you'll feel good about seeing that it's when she's out of bed and since then her vision is gradually coming back she's walking without a walker she and I are committed to living our lives to the fullest we've gone through real problems and the more we go through the problems the greater our life is that's a fact I wouldn't tell you it's just because of the program it's because of the program and it's because of God you know God and I just tell you I've always wondered I've always wondered how can there be illness like Pat had and concentration camps how can that be in the universe created by a God who has all power and is all good how do you fit that together and I'll tell you what I have decided over the last year suffering does not go unrewarded problems do not just happen and go unrewarded if you accept them spiritually and deal with them they are part of the essential manifestation of greater goodness our life has a greater goodness now than it did before we had the problem and that that could only happen in this mystical way in this spiritual way I don't you know I don't I believe that stuff because that's my experience that's another good thing about AA an exceptionally good thing about AA is they don't ask you to believe in things that you can't validate in this lifetime it may be that the immaculate conception is absolutely a fact but you can't validate it in this lifetime yet you're required to believe it in my church and if the consequence is not is an eternity in hell well then let's believe it you know AA says give it a shot see if it works if it doesn't work set it aside only believe what makes sense to you says that on page 93 tell the newcomer whatever concept of God you have will work for you if it makes sense to you AA makes sense to me in a book on meditation it says whatever way you find God is the right way if you find God through an analysis of material properties and quantum physics and that that's the right way for you or if you're like Pat and you just conscious of God's presence and trust that's the right way for her but wherever you see God pass mark that spot and go sit in that window again for every one of us this is our window this is where we see God pass thank you for letting me share