Meditation Is Putting Your Attention on Something Other Than the Committee in Your Head – Barefoot B.

I'd like to thank the group for allowing me to come here to share my story. Can we open maybe with 30 minutes or 30 seconds of silence? Thank you. just updated the notes I just wanted to start with a little bit of a reading there's certain things that I feel strongly about and there's certain ways that I've come to see in my 19 years of sobriety that are a little more ideal of a way of going about sharing and living life, and a lot of that I'd like to share with you tonight. But this opening reading is something that I feel strongly about. I have learned that that which does not come from the heart does not reach the heart, and I wish to reach your heart tonight. I came here to participate in your anniversary, not to perform. form. I would rather talk about the program than to talk about myself, because the message is far more important than the messenger. AA talks can be, and too often are, a repetition of past or present sorrows. Sketching the background is important and has its place, but it's merely the foundation of the talk. The best talk, the one that helps the most people to the highest degree, is the one that brings out just how the program works and just how this speaker follows it. A good talk may be divided into three parts. How sick I was, how I got better, and what helped me to get well. Of these three the emphasis should be on what helps me to get well. Hopefully this talk will reflect what I just read. I was born into a very wonderful family, I was fortunate enough to have a wonderful upbringing. I was living in a neighborhood that was very isolated and very perfect for four boys being allowed to do whatever they wanted to do in the neighborhood, along with other kids in the neighborhood. And I was the youngest of those four boys. Since I had three older of brothers, I excelled at sports because I was always playing sports with people that were better than I was. And I ended up becoming a semi-pro baseball player and probably was a very promising professional baseball player, but drugs and alcohol took that from me. But I grew up in this really wonderful cocoon of America in a neighborhood where none of of the parents knew where the kids were, and we were just expected to either come home or go to somebody's house to have lunch. And then before the lights came on, or when the lights were coming on, you had to be home for dinner. And that was the beginning part of my life. That was the first ten years of my wife. I lived a very sheltered, very wonderful life. No abuse, not very much conflict. I knew everybody and everybody knew me, and We all went to the same school, and we grew up together, and it was a very beautiful place. And then at age 10, I moved from Tyre Town, New York, to White Plains, Newark, which was about 20 minutes away. And that was the real first, that was really the first turmoil in my life, because now I was the new kid in town, and just in case you don't know this, usually the new kid in time gets beat up at the beginning of the school year, and I didn't necessarily get beat up because I had sports going for me, but I certainly was picked on and I certainly was sort of attacked because I was the new kid and I was the easy target, basically. I went to that school for a couple years and then I went to a middle school where not everybody knew each other because it was a middle School that pooled from a bunch of other elementary schools and then i went to an all boys Catholic high school which was because it sort of stunted me with not being around women. Because, you see, I had four older brothers, and I mostly hung out with guys. And then at the age where you would start noticing women and you would starts interacting with girls and stuff like that, I went to an all-boys Catholic high school. So I sort of grew up at that point a little unable to talk to the opposite sex and a little inept socially anyway, but all I had going for me was sports. And at age 13, I took my first drink, but I really didn't drink again much after that until I was about 16. And then 16, drinking was sort of a monthly thing, and then at 17 it was sortof a weekly thing, and then from 18 to 30 it was basically a daily thing. My progression is very obvious and very quick. I can't speak for anybody else, but within a short period of time, I was pretty much full-blown alcoholic. I went to college in Florida. That was a really great experience from what they told me. Because for the first time, I was out from under my parents' control. And I don't mean that in any kind of negative term. I just mean that up until that point, my parents pretty much ran my life. And then for the first time at age 18, I could do whatever I wanted to do. I remember reading about a famous female rock and roll singer in Rolling Stone magazine. I read this article. And she said, you know, when I was 16, I was very virginal. And I wore a white blouse and a little Christian cross. And I was a good kid. And then at age 18, I did everything there was to do. And I said, that's my story. That's it. That's exactly what my life was like. Up until age 18 I was very virginal and I was very cute and I was very nice and I was very good. And I just did what I was told. You wouldn't really notice me except for my excelling at sports. As a matter of fact, you probably wouldn't see me much. I just wasn't really around much, and I didn't hang out or anything like that. And then at age 18, I did everything there was to do. From 18 to 30, I Did almost everything there Was to do, I was absolutely crazy. And alcohol was a very big part of that. And I have a lot of gratitude for that period of time, and I have A lot of Gratitude for alcohol during that period Of time, because I don't know what my life would Have been like if it wasn't for alcohol. Alcohol did something for me. Up until that point, up until 16 when I started drinking a little bit regularly, I can honestly say that my life was very much black and white. And then when I start drinking alcohol, my life became very much color. Like when the house lands at the Wizard of Oz. There was a significant transition as soon as I started to drink an alcohol. If there could have been a microphone within me, and if I could have found these words to use when I first started using alcohol, what you would have heard was, yes! Because when I drank something happened. And it was very good. Suddenly I was able to interact with girls. And suddenly I was a little bit more funny. And suddenly I was probably a little bit more acute even though nothing changed. I just suddenly found something that worked really, really well for me. And for those of you that have read AA literature, very quickly what it turned into was addiction because when something works then you're going to be doing it pretty regularly soon after that. And that was what my life was like from 18 to 30, was pretty much on a daily basis I was trashed. Pretty much on the daily basis, I was either trashed or figuring out a way to get trashed and at first it was pretty cool, at first was fun, at first there wasn't really a lot of unmanageability and then and then it turned on me and people started dropping out of my life and I started doing things that I either didn't remember doing or wish I didn't remember doing and that progressed until age 30 I returned from college it was a four-year college only went there for two years for those of you that don't know me, it wasn't until after I got sober that I actually realized that I was supposed to achieve a certain amount of credits in order to graduate. When I was at college, I didn't know that. That's how separated from what was going on around me I was. In In my early 20s, in college I had a promising baseball career. As a matter of fact, me and this other guy were the only two players on the baseball team that did not have scholarships, and the only reason why we didn't have scholarships was because we didn' t live in the state where the coach lived, which was Massachusetts, and I lived in New York at the time. And me and his other guy, his name was Bill Also, he was a Southern boy. way. Both of us were the partiers, and both of us were two of the better players on the team. And we would get in trouble with the coach, but since we were the two better players, he really didn't punish us. He would just sort of scold us in front of other people so that they wouldn't act up, but if we acted up as long as we played well, then he didn't really care. I was a pitcher. The second year in college, I was was the only sophomore on the varsity team because by that point Bill had died. Me and him were the two partiers, and Bill had actually died in a freak car accident during the summer before he came back the second year. And that second year I was the only sophomore that was on the Varsity team, and I was also the only pitcher pre-season that had a win and before the season started I was cut because I was so out of control and I couldn't really keep it together and when you're a pitcher at the level of college what you do is you either run constantly because the stronger your legs are the better our picture you're going to be or you would sit waiting to go in sometimes days at a time sometimes a week at a time. And alcohol and drugs were calling me, and I was sitting there bored to death, not wanting to run and not wanting to hang out, waiting for my turn at the pitch. And there were times where I left practice and just figured, you know, I probably won't get called today, so I'm out of here. And a few times I got called, and after it happened a couple times, he cut me from the team, even though I was one of the star players. And I blamed blame that directly on alcohol. But you see, I was happy that I got cut. Because although I was there to play baseball and to go to college, as soon as now I'm on my own and I can drink the way I want to, I discovered that none of that mattered to me. What I wanted was to party. And then by the end of my second year, I basically couldn't return to that school and I came back to New York with my tail between my legs wondering what was that all about and then within a short period of time because of my party in my parents threw me out of the house which they had never done with any of their other brothers with any my other brothers they actually threw me at the house twice once for a weekend and once for six months and then I took a hostage it was a woman that lived in New Jersey and I moved to New Jersey and I got married and I literally took a hostage and we were married for about three years and then that marriage ended and now I was especially happy because she was sort of hassling me about my party and I gotta wait for my parents and now i gotta wait from her and now can do whatever I want to do and from 1986 to 1989 my life was a horror each morning waking up wondering what am I going to do And what did I do? And each day, working for AT&T, delivering pizza and making lots of money at both of those jobs, and putting it all into my body in whatever form showed up that night. And my life skyrocketed. It wasn't like the Eagles song where it was like in the fast lane. I mean, it was like jumping off the side of a mountain. I went down fast. And from 86 to 89, it Was The Worst Time Of My Life. It was the worst time of my life until the first few years of recovery. Because you see, from 86-89, life really sucked and I lost lots of things and I became unpredictable to myself, which was a scary place. But you see during those periods of time, at least I had moments of relief. least. At least I had moments of buzz. At least I have moments of escape. At least I've had moments I'm not in my head and in my gut 24 hours a day. But then I got sober. The first time it didn't work out so well, and it didn't last very long. It was only about a year and three weeks. And then because of the breakup of a relationship that I was suggested not to get into, and not being able to deal with the emotions of that breakup, I went back out. Because after that year and three weeks, I had no tools for dealing with life and I certainly had no tool to deal heavy emotions like the breakup of a relationship. The only thing that ever worked for me when stuff like that was going down was to drink and to drink heavily. So I went back out and I stayed out there for about seven months. And it started where word left off and real quickly it was beyond where I had stopped the year before that. It was as if the progression continued even though I hadn't had a drink for a year in three weeks. And then after about seven months, I was beyond the point that I was when I had stopped before that year. And I went into my second and to this day so far last rehab that I went to called Clearbrook in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Anybody here go there? Yeah. Cool place. And I have to be honest with you, other places I had gone to were probably cool places too, but I just never gave it a chance. For the first time in my life, I was there because I realized I had a problem before that. I kind of was just trying to get myself out of the situation. The same reason why I went to AA meetings before that was to just get myself out of the situation and I saw that there was something here in AA that was actually pretty cool but it really didn't apply to me because obviously you guys are a lot worse than I am because I'm in my mind superior and intellectual and I can figure it out you know and when I came that second time to AA after failing out of it for a year and three weeks not Not that it really was a failure. Obviously, everything happens for a reason and obviously everything is learned from leading up to this point in my life. But when I went to that last rehab, for the first time I admitted defeat. For the first times I knew I couldn't do it on my own. And I was there for 28 days, which I understand today isn't a standard amount, but back then it was. and I was working for AT&T so I had these really great benefits and when I when I showed up at that Clearbrook the first day I remember pulling up to the front area this was the adult for the guys that were there this was was the adult section. It wasn't the adolescent facility, it was the adult facility because they had two facilities and when you come up a little bit of the driveway and go toward the main building on the right there's a little bit over an overhang and the car came in under the overhang because I think it was raining a little bit and the guy opened the trunk and my stuff was in the trunk and I took it out and I turned around and there was this very large black man that was standing there. Very large. Looked like a football player. And he looked at me and he said, my name's Wisdom. And I'm happy that you're here. And then he did something that if I had thought about what he was doing would have really freaked me out. But for some reason, I just melted into it. And that was that he leaned over and he gave me a hug. And what I didn't know at that moment was that this guy had been there for three weeks and was in the same place that I was three weeks earlier. He was just another client that was there. But he was sort of the mayor of the community. He was the main guy that they picked as the exemplary, you know, rehab guy. And he was there to welcome new people, and I was the new person that day. And his name was Wisdom, and he lived in Edison, New Jersey. And I never saw him after that. I'm not saying that he didn't get sober. I'm just telling you that I never Saw him again. I was there for about a week, and then he left, and Then I Never Saw Him Again. But that day he did something for me. That day he touched me, and I'm not talking about physically. That day I melted into rehab. And it was because of that, and only because of that, that I got something out of rehab. I was there because I surrendered and I was there because i melted into it. I didn't fight it. Everything they told me to do, if If they had told me to strip off all my clothes and to stand on my head in the corner, I would have done it because I had enough. I just had enough." Now, they didn't ask me to slip my clothes off and stand on the corner of my head, but if they had, there was a pretty good chance that I would've. And I did something that I'd never done. You know, I sat up front and I took notes and I shared and I cried and I freaked and I talked about stuff that I thought that I would bring to my grave. And those 28 days were very beautiful, because I allowed them to be. And then I left, after 28 days. And for those of you that have been in rehab for an extended period of time, I'm not saying 28 days is an extended periode of time but I went through probably something that was pretty typical and I kind of freaked because, you see, I was in rehab and you guys, the people there were kind of making the decisions for me but now I'm about to get out and I'm going to be in rehab. And I'm not about to make my own decisions and that is a scary place when you know that you can't do it on your own. And they told me some important suggestions that I was fortunate enough not to internalize those suggestions. I internalized it as these are things that I must do. and those suggestions were to go to aftercare and to show up at meetings and tell people that I was new and come early and stay late and get phone numbers and get involved and all of that and I did all of it and I said all of this because I felt that these are things that I must do these are the things that people did that were successful in finding recovery And I just didn't. I had been defeated. I was willing to take suggestions. And I started going to meetings. And it was a really cool time because the fellowship of AA is very beautiful. But what I discovered after being involved in the fellowship of AA after three and a half years, that it wasn't enough. up. I had been going to a lot of meetings, I had been making a lot coffee, I'd been picking up a lot of ashtrays, I've been putting away a lot of chairs. I gave good share, if you understand what I'm saying. But I was dying slowly and progressively because I wasn't dealing with the spiritual, psychological, mental and emotional aspects of alcoholism. I was simply not drinking. I had physically removed myself from a substance called alcohol. And after three and a half years, I hated it. Life sucked. Why am I here? This isn't working. I don't want to go here anymore. It doesn't work. What am I going to do now? People were asking me to sponsor them and I was dying on the inside. I was looking really good on the outside and I was dying on the inside. And I couldn't understand why. Because drinking is the problem, so not drinking is the solution, right? I'm sure there's somebody sitting here right now that thinks that. And I'm here to tell you that if you are an alcoholic, that is a lie. That was my first and possibly most important life lesson here in AA, was that not drinking is not the solution to alcoholism. I'm just grateful I didn't kill myself, and I'm just grateful that I didnít go back out. Because I donít know if I had another go go back out. Because I had experienced the six or seven months of going back out, and that was a nightmare, and it was a whole lot worse than when I had stopped all those years before that. And now I have three and a half years, and I have this front, and I have an image, and this really good sounding chair, and got the lingo, I got the behavioral way you're supposed to be here in AA, and you're suppose to sound good, and And I got the little underlinings and I got the little notes. But why does life suck? I couldn't figure it out. I couldnít understand what was wrong and I couldnít tell anybody about it. I had lots of people in my life. I used to go to meetings at Friendship Hall in Piscataway. I knew just about everybody there. there. One of the ways that I would describe what I was going through was, I was too cool to get sober. Because you see, I still scamming and cheating and lying and just doing basically whatever I wanted to do. And then I'd show up at a meeting with a smile on my face. And And I was living with the craziness in my head and I was living with a craziness of my gut. And I had no escape from it. At least when I was drinking, I had some escape. I had to know escape from the crazines in my head, the guilt and remorse, the resentment, the fear, the crap that was going on in my head. If anybody ever talks to me the way my head talks to me, you will not be in my life for very long. Why do I put up with it inside my head? I have absolutely no idea. The self-talk is an important topic to bring up at a meeting. And if it ever comes up at the meeting, to be honest about it. Because you see, up until that point, I really thought that alcohol is the problem, so not drinking is the solution, right don't you go to meetings right so I made the mistake of going to this meeting that I didn't really know very many people there was a meeting I had never been to before it was in the touch in New Jersey and I was living in Dunelan at the time and I sort of toward the end of the meeting so I wouldn't have to put up with everybody talking at me during the rest of the meetings I said you know I'm not doing very well you know I've been here for three and a half years and I'm not really comfortable and I shared some stuff a couple of it was specific to what was happening at the time that I have absolutely no recollection of but I'm sure it was pretty messed up because that's how I was at the same time you know what I mean like Like, you know, taking two-hour lunches. You know when you're supposed to take 45 minutes and showing up late to work and saying stuff that isn't even close to the truth and sort of being a little suggestive inappropriately and sortof making comments to my mom that's totally disrespectful. Yeah, that's sober, right? And after the meeting was over, a couple people came up to me and said, Bill, you now, know, it sounds like it's time for you to get into the steps. And I don't know about you, but I always felt that the steps were intellectually insulting. I mean, I can come up with a much better program than that. I think my parents' church used to spout some of that stuff. It kind of doesn't apply to me. It doesn't really sound like a good idea and it doesn't really seem to have anything to do with what my problem really is. You know what I mean? It just doesn't seem to be a solution to my uniqueness, or whatever you want to call it. I mean, a good step would be the lone step. Like, you know, when you get a loan, you know what I mean? Or the supermodel step. You know what i mean? The dating supermodels step. Those are good steps. That's a quality solution right there. The, you know, BMW upgrade step. You know what I mean? And I left that meeting not too impressed with the feedback after the meeting. Because the steps are intellectually insulting. Why would you suggest that? It doesn't apply to me. Doesn't apply and that's lame, you know, it's just lame. And then within a week I had been to another meeting and I didn't know too many people there so I kind of took the risk again and waited toward the end of the meeting. And different people after the meeting came up to me and said, you know, Bill, it sounds like you need to get into the steps. And I was so self-centered at the time that I thought the people from the first meeting told the people in the second meeting that you should say that if Bill shares this way. And once again, I wasn't that impressed and I really didn't think that it applied and I couldn't understand why anybody would say that to me. and then I shared with my sponsor at the time some of the stuff that was going on and I took the risk of sharing with somebody that was in my network and everybody seemed to be pointing toward the steps which I thought were pretty lame but I couldn't deny that everybody was saying the same thing now because now four or five different sources as some of which I have respect for, were suggesting me in that direction. So I sat down with my sponsor and we started doing some step work and I have to be honest with you still to this day I don't really know where his direction for step work came from because I still to today don't recognize it. I still have some of the paperwork, and he actually even gave me what I would describe today as a nightmarish three-column resentment inventory that I now believe is more abuse than help. But as we were doing this, I was in the middle of the fourth step, and i kept saying to my sponsor you know i'd like to go to this meeting you know why don't we go together and he was kind of busy and then you know how about if we go to this other meeting and then he was kinda busy and he cancelled a couple times when we were supposed to get together to go step work and i just wasn't really seeing him much anymore and i wasn't even sure if he was going to AA anymore uh he had gotten involved in Amway And, you know, financial gain became his priority and that's fine. And so I had started some four-step work and then just kind of nobody was pushing me anymore and I really thought it was lame anyway. So I just kind put it down and that was the way it was for I'd say close to a year. And in the workshops that we do now with the big books, step workshops, I speak pretty harshly against that because that's basically a recipe for suicide. Doing some step work, especially doing some fourth step and not going on with the rest of the process. because you see what happens is that you bring up from your subconscious and your unconscious stuff that is pretty dark and pretty scary and you bring it into your consciousness and if you don't process it rather quickly with 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 to process that stuff out of your system them. You just begin reliving it and redoing it. And it's a really ugly place to do some step work, especially some four-step work and not going forward with the process. It's a recipe for suicide, literally. And now the year goes by and I'm just living this horrendous life. It was so much worse than before I had stopped drinking, because like I said, at least when I was drinking I had moments of relief. It now was affecting my sleep. When I first came here I had trouble sleeping and that kind of straightened out. And now because of all the guilt and remorse and fear and shame and resentment that was rattling around in my head, I was having difficulty sleeping and it was driving me nuts even more than if I had been sleeping. But I had no relief. It was crazy. I still don't understand how I ever made it through that period of time because I can honestly say that I was pretty close to suicide. And I could have very easily hurt somebody. Or, if this is what it's going to be like, I might as well just drink because at least if I drink, I get some escape. And I was at the Area 44 convention that year, which was in Somerset, which for a period of time it wasn't and now it's back there again. And I was dating this woman and I'll refer to her as my future second ex-wife. And by the way, I just spoke to her the other day. It's always cool talking with the ex-wives, which are three now, by the Way. And I'm currently not married. And I actually have a pretty good relationship with all three, which is a miracle. As a matter of fact, my second ex-wife, years after all this, I ended up listening to her fifth step and was a pretty strong spiritual influence on how her life became, which is an amazing experience. It's a beautiful experience, and it's not a promise in the big book, but that's a piece of my story. and we were at the convention and we ran into two friends of hers Sammy and Michelle I always like spending time with bikers and when I was partying I hung out with bikERS and these two, Sammy and Michele were bikers and Sammy was this big Santa Claus of a man pretty much with tattoos all over his body except on his face and I had been to meetings with Sammy and I took a risk and I told him some of the stuff that was going on and he wasn't very pretty and I was really serious and I Was really hurting and I WAS REALLY HATING LIFE at one point in our conversation he kind of laughed He laughed at me. Out of identification, I'm sure. But I was in this vulnerable place and I didn't really, I was telling him some dark stuff, man. I was calling him some really messed up stuff that I was currently doing. And I got offended and I got pretty pissed that he was laughing at me and I told him, you know, I don't know what's so funny, Sammy. I don' t really see anything funny. I appreciate you laughing at and he looked at me like those spiritual people do, and you know, he didn't look at me, he looked through me. You know what I mean? He looked into my soul. He looked entirely into my heart with these incredibly compassionate eyes. And he said, Bill, you know I know it doesn't look like it and I know It doesn't feel like it but you're in a really great place. And I was like, Sammy, I don't know why you're saying that. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. And he said, no, no. Really, you're in this really wonderful place. Because, you see, you only have two options. And the big book talks about it. You can go on living the way you're living and I can guarantee that it's just going to get worse. Or you can consider another way besides your own. And that's it. You have two option. There's only two ways you can go. You know that it's been getting worse and it's going to continue getting worse. And if you're lucky, you are going to drink. If you're lucky, you're going to drink. And if you're not lucky, you are going to be progressively miserable for a long period of time. Or you can consider another way besides your own. Because you can't blame alcohol, but you can blame alcoholism. Your best thinking got you here again. And the way you live in your life got you there. here. And you need to find a new way, because your way ain't working. And if you want a new way or if you don't want a new away, I don't really care. I'm just here to tell you about it. You see, I knew Sammy for those three and a half years. And I saw that he was where I was the year before that. And i saw that for this last year, he was no longer in the misery. He was no more uncomfortable in his own skin. He became that guy that everybody what he goes to. He became that guy that you just love hearing him share. He become that guy that sets aside what he needs and what he wants to help you for no reason, expecting nothing in return. And I saw that he was lit up, and I saw that he wasn't a much different place than I was. And it really pissed me off because it was nowhere near where I was, and i couldn't understand, you know, he must have been that way, but I knew that he wasn't, because a year before this, he was more squirrely than I was. He was the guy at the meeting that you wouldn't even sit next to. He was, he was the guy at The Meeting that you would try, you would, you know, see where is his car and not park near there, because this guy was, this guy did the stare down, you know what I mean? This guy was capable of punching in the face just because you reminded him of somebody that he didn't like a long time ago. He was a dark guy, man. He was an angry guy. He was scary guy. And he wasnít it that way anymore. You see, I came from a good family. I had been around good people. I had known people that just were naturally good people, but I had never in my life seen somebody that was dark and a year later was no longer dark. This guy was the first transformed person I ever met, ever. And I wanted what he had. And he was uniquely qualified to carry carried to me the message that he did. Because he reached me where I was, and I could see that he was no longer there, but I knew that he wasn't. He was there at one time. And I said, Sammy, I know that something happened to you a year ago. You're a completely different person. What happened? And that was when he knew I was hooked. And that's the way the big book presents it. Just wait for them to ask you what you did. and be an example of the light and let them know that you were in the darkness and that you're not there anymore and wait for them to get hooked and sometimes they are hooked and sometimes their not and that's fine I'm just here to carry the message I couldn't care less whether anybody here gets it I prefer that you do I prefer that you don't I prefer you do because then maybe you'll stop hitting on my girlfriend friend. I prefer that you do, because then you will stop torturing your kids and your wife. I refer that you to because I can truly understand now that all suffering is completely unnecessary and all suffering completely self-sabotage. And it's not about them and it's always about us. And I just couldn't see it at that point in my life. But I know it today. I know it deeply, and I love it. I do not have to be that way ever again. And I said, Sammy, you know, what did you do, man? What did you do? Because I'm not getting it. I'm out here at any kind of message. Nothing's getting through. I have this block in my head that it's just, I just don't get it. What I've come to see now is that I always considered myself to be sort of a pseudo-intellectual. But you see all that does is make my mental obsession that much stronger. In other words the bigger the thinker, the bigger the problem. And I thought I had a big thinker. And I said, Sammy, you know what? What did you do, dude? What did your do? I mean, come on. And he said, Bill, a year ago I went to this big book study. And it was a study that the late great Howard Gee did from from Berkeley Heights, and he said he heard some things at that workshop that he had never heard before and he had been in AA for eight years. Miserable. Tortured. Suffering. Dark. Scared. Pissed. Eight years of that. I only had three and a half years of it. Thank God. And he said, for the first time I saw really what my problem was. And for the the first time I saw what the solution really is, and why it's so necessary. Why it's so desperately necessary when it comes to an alcoholic like me, and it looks like, like you. And he started doing work out of the big book, and every area of his life changed for the better. And that was a year earlier, and his whole entire life changed, and he He was now standing before me, carrying that message to me. And I was like, what's the big deal? I mean, I read the big book more than once. We used to talk about it at our meetings. But you see, we didn't really talk about the big book. What we would do is we would read the big book and then talk about how our week was. We weren't talking about the book at all. We were reading the book. How I see the big book today is that you really need to sit down with somebody who's very familiar with that book, and you really needs to sit with somebody whose had a transformation with that book. And then and only then can that transformation be passed along to you because you could read that book from now until the day you die and you're going to miss 90% of it. I didn't know that then. As a matter of fact, I thought the book was pretty lame. It used this weird language and I couldn't relate to a lot of it and what does this have anything to do do with anything. Where's the loan step? Right? Where's the upgrades to the BMW step? I mean, come on. And coincidentally, that day that I had that conversation with him, a few weeks later there was going to be another big book study that that group was doing and coincidentally he had a flyer for it. So I said to my future second ex-wife, I said, hon, something's happened to Sammy and Michelle that I just don't really understand. And that if I wasn't seeing it with my own eyes, I would not have believed. And there's this study that's going on in New Providence, New Jersey in a couple of weeks. And do we have any plans for that weekend? And we didn't. And to be honest with with you, it wouldn't have mattered to me. I was going. And the two of us went. And the first night, Friday night, they talked a little bit about the history and they talked about the preface and the forewords of Drs. Epinion and Bill's story. And like what was Sammy's experience, I heard some stuff that I had never heard before. And when I left Friday night we were driving home and I was pissed. And And I was like, I'm pissed because I've been in AA for three and a half years and why is this news to me? Why have I never heard this before? This is the most important message I've ever heard in my entire life and I've bee going to AA for 3 1⁄2 years and you people kept it from me. Now what I discovered later was that most people in AA don't know anything about it. But I was pissed. Because it was the most important thing I had ever heard. And I had just gone for three hours Friday night. They were going to do all day Saturday and then they were going do Sunday morning too. And for the first time in my life, I found out what my problem was. And I discovered that not just alcohol is my problem. And what I discovered was that alcoholism was my problem, and that there were spiritual, psychological, emotional, and mental aspects of the disease of alcoholism that I knew nothing about and that I had never heard of before and that were actually just getting worse for the three and a half years that I was not drinking because I was not seeking a spiritual solution to deal with all of that. And I always wondered why is it that once I start drinking, I end up going too far? Like, Like, why is it that I start drinking so I can talk to women and then I'm too drunk to talk to the women? Like an hour later. Like, what happened there? Like, whoa, we shot the mark. What was that all about? I never knew that when my friend said to me, let's go to the bar and have one, that what was really going to happen was let's have one week. You know what I mean? And they talked about the craving when you drink alcohol that if you're an alcoholic, that's what happens. Never heard that before. Never knew that. Why is this news to me? Three and a half years. Why is it news to you? And then they talk about the mental obsession and then when I stop drinking, for some reason I end up going back to it. I don't see the problems that alcohol causes me. I just think about the relief that's going to come when I drink because alcohol works really good. Alcohol helps me to escape. I walk into a bar, piss at everybody and an hour and a half later I want to buy everybody a drink because I love you, man. What the hell is that all about? I walk into a bar with so many problems in my head I might as well just jump off a building and an an hour-and-a-half later I have no problems. What's that all abut? Alcohol works, man! Alcohol works really well for me, an alcoholic. alcoholic. What I didn't know is that's not what happens for a lot of people. That's only 13% of the population right there. Non-alcoholics make comments to me like, you know, I don't want the third drink because I'm feeling the first one. I'm feelin' the first one and I love it, that's why I want more. They're feeling the person and they don't love it. And then they go home to their family and they have dinner and they're on time and I can't relate to that. And they look at me strange and I look at them strange and whatever, not drinking with that guy again. He's making me look bad. So then I finally discovered why the 12-step solution, the three-part solution which includes the 12 steps is so important. Also for the first time in my life I saw what AA solution was and that is the working and the reworking of the 12 steps going to meetings and interacting with other AAs and being of service to people in AA as well as outside of AA expecting nothing in return and as soon as I discovered that AA solution had three parts I lived in all three parts and like in Bill's story, my life has become incredibly more wonderful as time passes. And I don't get it. It's such a lame thing when you look at it intellectually, but it works so well when you actually do it. It's unbelievable. The steps don't care if we agree. The steps don' t care if we understand. They just want us to do it." if I know deeply what my problem is I will desperately seek that solution I no longer see someone's unwillingness to do the steps or unwillingness to get sober or whatever you want to call that as their fault I've worked with many very difficult cases as a matter of fact if anybody here knows somebody who just doesn't get it please give them my phone number 201-232-8749 I would love to talk with them and I would love to work with them I can't say that I was a low bottom drunk but I am dedicated to helping people that are really hard cases I don't know why but this is my family and I no longer see someone's not being able to get it as their fault I sort of see I sort of see someone's failure as my inability to convince them of what their problem is. I'm just not explaining it well enough yet. I feel real strongly about this. I used to work at the VA hospital, I used to work with lots of low-bottom drunks. We do workshops constantly. The most wonderful experience I've ever had is seeing a low-bonham get it. And I no longer see it as their failure, I see it it as our failure. I see it as my failure. I just haven't explained it well enough yet, because if I can explain it at the depth that I understand it, there aren't too many people. I mean, just the fact, we have this wonderful slogan that goes, your best thinking got you here. If anybody here can get that even in the slightest, you know what you're up against. Your best thinking has gotten you here! My best thinking got me here three times, and then my best thinking was getting me right out of AA real quick before time. My best thinking. And then that was when I realized what I was up against. I'm up against an unsuspecting inner resource that wants me drunk or dead, or just mildly miserable for the rest of my life. And I will come against that part of me in no uncertain terms as harshly as I possibly can, in any way that I possibly can. Because I no longer want to live live the way I used to live. I will seek a spiritual path and I will speak the three-part solution of AA as harshly and as extremely as I can. Just like if you got in my way of drinking, you would be eliminated. If you get in my way of spiritual recovery, you will be eliminated I will not be nice about it either. There's nothing more important to me than growing spiritually. There's Nothing More Important To Me Than Trying To Help Somebody Who Just Doesn't Get It. there's nothing more important to me than the shout from the mountaintops that you no longer have to live that way it is so self-sabotaging and it is so unnecessary it is so pathetic what the mind does to us it is so unnecessary to suffer and after the workshop was over I got into the steps we started doing workshops workshops. You know, this all happened like in 1994. The current workshop that we work with, which is an eight-week workshop, it's a seven-week step workshop and the eighth week is a meditation workshop. We've been doing those workshops since 1997 all over New Jersey and all over the East Coast. Anybody that will have us. I'm now currently doing one with my my love Lena and it's really great to have a male and a female up there because I have to be honest with you there's way too many guys that are doing big for presentations and not enough women doing them and that's a challenge that I give to you women never here there was a day when we first started doing this that if the woman came to me and said do you know any big book sponsors that I could work with I would have said to you I don't know very many. I don't know any. I know one. She's over there. Go talk to her. She was so overbooked, it was sick. I can now refer you to 20 really ideal quality, solution-oriented women that are in New Jersey. I'm so grateful to have them in the trenches with us. If you're on the verge of doing it, please step up. We need your help. People are dying. And it's all so completely unnecessary. You know, So I was at a workshop one time, and the presenter was asked, you know, there was a woman. It was a women at Burnsville, and she said, I have a question at the end. She said, you now, I'm the only person in my family that has an alcohol problem. Why me? That's a pretty good question, you don't know what I mean? Why me, why me? And I went up to that woman after the meeting, and I said, do you want to know why you? because out of everybody in your family you're the lucky one because you have a disease that if you take the cure your life will be better than when you got the disease in the first place most people who are not alcoholics or addicts their life is generally cool they don't necessarily need to overcome a lot of things they don'T necessarily need to have any kind of transformative spiritual experience but you'RE THE LUCKY ONE because if you take the cure and if you do all this stuff your life will be incredibly more wonderful as life passes you won't look down on those people because they don't do it but you'll be like what I have is so incredibly wonderful I wish I could give this to everybody whether they're an alcoholic or not so that's why you have this disease come and join us there is a solution and we need your help with passing the message to other people And everybody needs to hear this. Everybody needs to hear it. There are people dying in AA that never hear the message. That's our fault. That's AA's fault. There's only two reasons why people relapse. One is because they were never given a decent overview of what the program or what the solution really is, and the other one is that they were given an overview that was really good at what the solution was and they chose not to do it. The first one is our our fault. The second one is their problem. If they've heard it and they choose not to do it, maybe I'll talk to them again. And maybe I won't. in September in September I went to three, in three weeks I went on three silent meditation retreats or three, you know, just spiritual retreats and I'm not saying that to brag or to impress anybody with it but for some reason there were three retreats in a row two of which I ended up recording and one I just went to because it was my teacher. We constantly talk about doing meditation workshops. We're constantly being called on, you know, what's the deal? I just don't seem to be getting this. We're consistently being called on would you come and do a workshop because there's an area that seems kind of out of the picture and then the beautiful thing that happens, we end up coming and doing a workshop and then it starts to change the way people share meetings in that area. It's kind of a cool experience, besides a bunch of people that start working the program and seeing their lives change. Two years ago my mom died. And the strange thing about what happened when my mom died was that she went in for a basic surgery. That wasn't really that big of a deal. As a matter of fact, she didn't even tell us until like two days before she went into the surgery. She went in for the surgery and she never woke up. She was in a coma for about a month and then she died. Whole systems of her body just shut off. There was, you know, her lungs stopped breathing, her heart stopped and her liver stopped. And they could do something about the heart and they could something about the breathing but there's nothing you can do about the liver shutting off. What you people did for me was that because of the process of the steps and because of a process of amends and because of the spiritual growth that's highly emphasized in our literature that a lot of people don't notice. I was straight with my mom. I was completely up to date with my mom. I told her every time I talked to her that I loved her. She told me every time she talked to me how proud she was of me. She could have died at any time under any circumstance, which is what's happening. Nobody in my family ever had a last conversation with her. She went into surgery. Surgery. My father doesn't even remember the last thing he said to her when she was alive. And lots of people in my family suffered, and I did not. And you people did that for me. You people told me if I do these things, there's going to be lots of them. Lots of my life is just going to change. I had no more regrets with my mom. I had No More Past with my Mom. I was simply on the phone whenever I talked to her. And when she died, I was totally cool with it. Who am I to argue with God taking her home? She was a wonderful woman. And I tortured her for so many years. My family was so wonderful and I tortured them for so many years And then the beauty was that we make up for all of it. and then we show up and we love them back finally and they see us for who they always hoped we would be and then whenever they go we're going to be alright with it when my mom died I was at her deathbed at the moment of her death it was the most beautiful sacred moment I've ever experienced serious? What's interesting was during the funeral, there was probably 10% grief and 90% gratitude for the fact that that woman was even in my life at all. And I was able to be there for members of my family, and I didn't dump my stuff on them. And in ways that I wasn't capable of 20 years earlier. That second ex-wife that I mentioned earlier, she had a son that I greatly loved. I still to this day on some level consider him to be my son and after we broke up she sort of came between the two of us and I wasnít really allowed to see him anymore and that was really devastating to me. and I just kept waiting because he was 12 years old. And I knew that when he was 18, he'd be on his own or soon after that, and I Just kept waiting, and I kept waiting. And I kept making sure that I had his phone number, and I Kept making sure I knew where they were, and I Kipped waiting. And when he Was 23 years old, he moved out of the house and he was living at college and then when he graduated from college his mom said to him who do you want at your graduation party and he listed a whole bunch of people and towards the bottom of that list he put my name and I went to his graduation party it was the first time I had seen him in years and I was so proud of him and I actually showed up late and when I showed up he was there with his family and his friends and everybody that he loved and his parents from school and stuff like that and for the next two hours he just stayed with me to the point where after two hours I said to him Chris you know you're ignoring everybody else but I hadn't seen him in such a long time and we had a relationship we had to bond and I hadn's seen him and he wanted to spend time with me and ever since that party we hang out every couple weeks and just recently moved to L.A. because he's going to movie making school because it's something he always wanted to do and I just talked to him last night and he's loving it and I was laughing at him because he said that he's been sleeping on his sofa because he can't afford to buy a bed yet and so next Thursday is his birthday and hopefully just before that or just after they won't even receive the money I'm sending them you'll have a bed and like I said soon after that this this ex-wife that it wasn't very pretty the the way we broke up, she came to me to listen to her fifth step. Because she trusts me and she knows that I'll share anything she tells me with anybody else. And because she knows that I never attacked her even after all that stuff that was going on when our marriage ended. And I don't know about you but it's almost humanly impossible when you're under attacked or to react reasonably but you people did that to me I was able to do that I was to be under attack and never do anything that I regretted and never doing anything I needed to make amends for and that's a miracle and you people do that to meet in this book of these 12 steps to destiny and this higher power that there were times in my life that I hated and there were signs of my life but they wouldn't pray to the higher power because then he might know where I am. This higher power whose life I try to allow to live through me in any way he wishes, I no longer see my life as my own. Very often I don't necessarily get my way but it's always better than I would have ever wanted. Every prayer I've ever uttered has always been answered and I've never gotten the answer answer no to any prayer I've ever made. The only thing I've ever heard from my higher power is yes, not yet and I have something better in mind for you. I've never heard no from my high power. I know that if I don't get something I really want it's just because there's something much better coming around the corner and I'm alright with that. It doesn't have to be my way. I'd much rather it be the other way because I know where my way goes. where my way goes is stepping on the toes of the people around me where my way goes there are many things in my life that I thought was what would be best for me and ended up being the worst thing that ever happened just like there's many things I thought with the worst things that ever happen that ended up being in the best thing that never happened like my alcoholism nobody could say when I was out there drinking torturing people that that was a really good thing while I was doing it but I see today that that wasn't good thing because if I hadn't gone through all that crap, I wouldn't be where I am now. I no longer deal with good and bad, right and wrong, all that stuff. I just don't know. My higher power's got it. I don't really have to deal with right or wrong or good or bad anymore. I have preferences, but this is the next one. If I don'T get my way, that's just as good as far as I've seen in my life. And then I try to carry this message it's on to others, and I try to work with people and turn them on to stuff that is probably a little bit more along the lines of how they believe and how they see life and their higher power and their religion and all that stuff. It states very clearly in our literature that we do not put our beliefs on anyone. If I start working with somebody who's a Hasidic Jew, then I've got some really cool Judaism books that I can turn you on to. If you're you're a Christian, I've got some killer books I can turn you on to. I can speak your language just as easily as I can with a Buddhist. And that, in my mind, makes me that much more effective with whoever God's going to be sending me because I never know. And half the time, I wish it was somebody else. But if you're willing to show up and do some things, then I'm willing to go out there and I'm going to show off and tell you what those things might be and what I'd do. and I'd like to thank the group for allowing me to share and there's definitely not going to be any CDs after the meeting of this talk but I think there will be a website maybe we'll have the talk eventually so thank you