Offering a Phony Step 3 Prayer While Feeling Like a Moral Leper – Barney M.

Good evening, my name is Barney and I'm an alcoholic. And yes, I am from Alderson, West by God, Virginia. And it's nice to be here tonight. I come back to, I retired about five years ago and bought a piece of property back in West Virginia. So I'm back there most of the time. But I come blackout to California in the wintertime because I'm crazy but I'm not stupid. and so I get the hell away from all that snow and ice and everything but it's nice to be here again I haven't been in this club for a long time it's been I guess about five years or so since I was here I think Tim was saying that he was here with me the last time I was hier and I remember coming to Laguna Beach to the Canyon Club when I was about six months sober the man who was sponsoring me was coming down here they used to have people come down to the Canyon Club and this is the old Canyon Club and bring a panel and they would come down with 6 or 7 speakers from LA or wherever they were coming from and he asked me if I'd go to the Laguna Canyon Club and participate in the meeting down there And I did. He allowed me to talk about I think he said I could have two minutes. And so and that was just about twenty nine years ago. And so I've been coming to the Canyon Club for a long time. And I remember when they built this new club and it's very nice, very fancy place. It's nice. And so it's nice to see all of you again. if you're new here tonight and there were quite a few people that raised their hands and there are quite a number of people here I suspect who have a year or less how many have a years old a year or less a year or less yeah I'm glad to see you all I I don't know how you feel if you are new but I know that when I was new my sense was that I was in the wrong place that I was here by mistake that I was not really an alcoholic that somebody had made a terrible mistake namely my ex-wife and because she was divorcing me she called me an alcoholic and I knew that I was not an alcoholic I didn't like being in AA I thought they were boring I thought the people were kind of goofy and I wasn't interested in whatever was going on here. I knew that I did not have a disease and I was willing to admit that my drinking was a little peculiar sometimes but I didn't really think that I was hooked that badly and like Tim, I thought there had to be some way that I could get my drinking under control but here I was being divorced and I didn't want to get divorced we had six children and we had played a lot of Vatican Roulette so we had these six kids we were living in Woodland Hills, California at the time and I was a rather successful guy I thought. And, you know, it seemed to me that you couldn't be an alcoholic and be as successful as I was. I was a television news anchorman and I was making a lot of money. And I was I had this nice home and I had six kids and I Had a swimming pool and I Had two cars and I HAD A LOT OF VERY FANCY CLOTHES AND MY KIDS HAD FANC Y CLOTHED My wife had fancy clothes and I couldn't imagine that anybody like me could possibly be an alcoholic. I didn't know anything about the disease of alcoholism, but I just imagined what an alcoholic was like. And I just didn't see myself that way. And so I knew that there was no possible way that Alcoholics Anonymous could help me. The main reason I knew that I was not an alcoholic is because when I drink, I feel better. So I knew you couldn't be an alcoholic. I thought alcoholics were people who drank and started seeing rats coming out of the walls and cockroaches coming out from the chandeliers and hiding bottles and couldn't hold down a job and, you know, wearing long coats and just kind of huddling in doorways and sleeping in cardboard boxes. And indeed, that is true of a lot of alcoholics that I have met. I sponsor a couple of guys that slept in cardboard box I mean, that that is true of some people here, but it is certainly not true of everybody in AA. But I just had this vision of alcoholics that was very screwed up. And I grew up in the south side of Chicago in an Irish Catholic neighborhood where you didn't have to be Irish, but it sure helped. And my father was Welsh, but my mother was very Irish. She was one of 16 children in an Irish family, and she was a Flannery. That was their name. And so I considered myself Irish, and I told everybody that I was Irish. And the Monsignor who ran that church was Monsigneur Patrick J. Maguire. And his feast day, of course, was St. Patrick's Day, which became the most important day of the year. And that's the kind of place it was. And the Dominican nuns ran that school that I went to, and in those days you could go to a private school for almost nothing. As a matter of fact, it was a dollar a month. That's what we paid tuition in that school, and we had these wonderful nuns teaching. And my memory of the nuns is not, I hear people talk about nuns in a negative way. I don't have a negative feeling about those nuns. I think they tried as hard as they could to teach us some values and some standards in addition to reading, writing and arithmetic which they were very good at to teach us some values and some standards to live by so that we could live as a happy people that I could be a happy man and I could have a good life and then I went on to Catholic high school in Chicago Mount Carmel High School on the south side of Chicago and I had the Carmelite priest there and I think these men worked very hard to try to give us a set of standards and values to live by so that we would be happy, contented, peaceful people in our lives. And then my mother used... My dad died when I was 14 and my mom used the last of the insurance money to send me to the University of Notre Dame. And I had the Holy Cross fathers and I know that they worked very hard to try and give us the set of values and standards and values to live by so that we could live to be contented, happy people and grow to be fine men and standards of the community. And they all failed. These people screwed up something terrible because when I was 21, I was a mess. When I was21, I wasn't a man. I was a frightened, inadequate, terrified little boy who was mentally still on the south side of Chicago, mentally still poor, mentally still not with it, mentally not knowing what the hell to do for a living. Just absolutely lost in a world that I didn't understand and that I was scared to death. And I was the center. and I knew that I was a sinner I knew I was a sinner when I was seven years old matter of fact I knew that I was a moral leper that's not only somebody who sins a lot that's somebody who enjoys it thoroughly and I knew you were supposed to like it that much I was supposed to feel guilty and I was supposed to feel a lot of remorse and the only time I felt guilty is somebody caught me because I love sin I mean sin is really fun And I found a lot of things to sin about. But I was a very confused young man. I really had a lot OF confusion about everything you could imagine, and I didn't know how men behaved. I didn' t know what you were supposed to do to be a man. I thought it had something to do with being tough. I thought It had something To do with Being willing to throw the first punch. I thought it had something to do with talking loud and being aggressive and I thought it had some thing to do with pretending that you were okay even when you weren't and I know how to do that and I know how to pretend as they say I know how to pretend I got my shit together I can pretend that I can look pretty good I can act sophisticated and worldly and I'm just this little Irish kid from the south side of Chicago who doesn't know what the hell to do with himself. I didn't do any drinking in my younger years to speak of. I had a little bit of drinking. I didn' t like beer and the taste of whiskey. My mother was an alcoholic. She wasn' t drunk all the time. She was just drunk part of the time and we didn' d know what an alcoholic was. We certainly didn' l know anything about Alcoholics Anonymous. We didn' ll know any of that stuff but I you know she sometimes she got very drunk and she'd roll around on the floor and cry and carry on and I've embarrassed me and I didn't know what the hell to do about that but it never dawned on me never occurred to me that I would ever do anything like that I mean people don't behave that way. And through a series of really odd coincidences, I ended up in the radio broadcasting business. I had learned a little bit about it at Notre Dame and then I got a little job at a little radio station in Monroe, Michigan when I came out of school and I did that. And then I went to Toledo and I became a news director in Toledo. And And then I was a news director of a radio station in Detroit. And for some reason or another, I was 22, 23 years old. And I had guys working for me who were 45 and 50. And I was still scared to death. And I thought somebody was going to catch on pretty soon. But I'm still bullshitting my way through. And I'm looking good. I know how to look good. I know what I got it together. and uh now i'm i'm scared and i and i'm i feel inadequate and i feel like i'm not i'm not you know i don't have i don'T KNOW WHAT TO DO AND AND UH I GOT MARRIED WHEN I WAS 21 I GUESS AND STARTED HAVING THESE KIDS AND AND UH UH I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S MUCH ABOUT THAT EITHER I DONT KNOW MUCH ABOUT BEING A HUSBAND I DONOT KNOW MUCh ABOUT BEIN A FATHER I DONTO KNOW MUch ABOUT ANYTHING I'm so dumb, just so dumb. And and I'm the news director of a major radio station in Detroit by now. And then I went into television and I started doing TV work. And a lot of changes took place in television right at that period. And in the middle 60s, everybody went full color. And, you know, from black and white to color, we went from magnetic optical sound to magnetic stripe film. We went to, and ultimately we went to minicam and videotape real fast. And satellite trucks, and Jesus, everything changed. Within a period of about ten years, everything rolled around. And God had all changed. The electronics changed, and everything changed。 And I was there. I was working through all of that process. And every time they, you know, we went from typewriters to computers. And Jesus, I mean, it was just nutsy. And I Was So Frightened Little Boy. Now, somewhere in my early 20s, I made a magic discovery. And I think it's a discovery that sooner or later every alcoholic has to make. And it's such a simple thing. Nobody ever pays much attention to it when it happens. Somebody ought to put a plaque on the wall. But nobody ever does. It's just one night it happens and it just goes by and here it is. No matter how I feel, no matter what's going on in my life, if I'm up or down, if I'm happy or sad, if i feel bright or stupid, whatever is going on in my life, when I drink, I feel better. It is such a simple, it's just nobody ever notices. it just happens now it turns out I feel so good when I drink that I want a lot because I somehow am convinced in my own mind that if I drink more it's going to get better and better and better and it doesn't as we all know But it does get pretty good. And it's a lot of fun. And I somehow, I feel like a million dollars. A few drinks and I'm right on top of the world. A few drinks that I am brighter than you. A few drink that I'm the most intelligent guy in the room. A few drinking that I certainly am the most handsome. A few drank that I'am the slickest guy going. A few drinks. I mean, it just magically turns me into something really marvelous in my own brain. And so I drink a lot. And I get drunk, of course. And here's the thing. When I get drank, I have a tendency to move around a lot I travel quite a bit. I go from bar to bar. I go from city to city. I go from country to country. I just move around a lot. I don't remember things. I have a tendency to forget. Forget where my car is. I forget what I'm doing. I forget who I'm with. I forget I just can't remember. I just I go through these periods of time that I kind to lose time, I lose a day. I lose two days. Well, just as an example, I can remember I woke up in the airport in Kingston, Jamaica. Turns out it was a Saturday afternoon. And the last thing I can Remember was having a couple of drinks in a bar in Detroit Friday night. Now, that would be all right if it happened once. But it happened to me a lot. And you wake up in all these strange places and you can't remember where the hell you are. And it's embarrassing and you don't want to ask. And you finally figure it out and you manage to get home and of course the first question is, where have you been? They've been calling from work. You know, if you anchor the news and you don't show up, they notice. They just expect you to be there every goddamn day. I mean, you're under pressure that way and it's just... God, it's awful. and I don't know how to explain my behavior. I don' t know what to say because I ain't going on these trips alone. Most of the time I have company and my only hope, of course, most of the times is that she's got her own credit card. But I spend huge amounts of money trying to impress people I don't even know. And it turns out I spend, most of the time I spend about 10% more than I make. And it doesn't make any difference how much I make because I'll tell you what, by the time that I was 27 or 28 years old, I was making a lot of money. And I was having a good time. And ABC was flying this other guy and I into New York and we were being wined and dined in the Leonard Goldenson suite at the New York Hilton Hotel and we were being taken up to the top of the black tower there on the avenue of the Americas and they put us in this big auditorium I'm 27 years old 28 years old and we're lecturing the suits we used to call them the suits these are the guys who are sales guys and advertising guys from all over the country would come in And and they'd sit in this auditorium and we would lecture these guys on how we got such great ratings in Detroit. And we had no idea. But we would tell them anyway, we made stuff up and they took notes. and uh those were wild times and uh it was that's my bookie tell him uh i'm giving the 14 points though and uh oh the superbowl's over uh so that's why i was and uh so we're working hard the ratings are great we're making a ton of money and i'm drunk all the time just drunk night after night after night after and just roaring around having a hell of a time and And I can only tell you that by the time I was 30, I began to get very tired. And it became harder and harder to function. It became harder and harder to go down and sit in that studio and have them turn those goddamn lights on you. And you just want to melt. And it got harder and harder to read the copy. It got harder and harder to convince people that I was okay. Because by this time I'm getting a reputation. for being a real bad drunk. But the ratings are good, so they're not going to fire me. They just lectured me a lot. And when I'm 35, my wife divorces me because she thinks I'm an alcoholic. And I know that I'm not an alcoholic, I'm too successful to be an alcoholic I got underwear with my initials on it. How can I be an alcoholic? And I went on, got drunk one night and I called this guy. And this is a guy that had told me some months before that he was an alcoholic. He said it right out like he was real proud of it. And and he said, you call me if you ever think you've got a problem. so i called him not because i thought i had a problem i gotta get this woman to drop the divorce i got a bullshitter and she ain't buying my bullshit too much anymore i've been married to her 14 years she now knows all the stories and i don't know what to say to her to get her to drop this divorce and i call this guy and i said i'm not an alcoholic that's not why i'm calling you and he said yes i know social drinkers call me all the time at three in the morning he said what do you want i said well i've been thinking and what i'm thinking is if i don't drink for about six months that uh she'll drop this divorce and i can get back to what i consider normal living and but i got a bullshit of pretty good here for about six months now i can stay sober for about a week when i'm really pushing it but after that i get real nervous See, I have this problem. It's not a drinking problem. When I drink, I feel better. It's when I quit drinking and I go on the wagon, that's when I get nervous. I get nervous and edgy and irritable and crazy and I can't function. And that's when I ain't drinking. I have what I would describe as a horrible sobriety problem. I don't know what the hell you're supposed to do with that. And the guy said, well, he said, I'll tell you what. He said, we just do this thing a day at a time. I said, no, I need about six months. One day she ain't going to buy that shit. Six months. and he said well barney i haven't had a drink actually in four and a half years i said well my problem's not quite that severe i don't need that kind of time i need about six months this was the first conversation i was to have with this man of many conversations because he became my sponsor and we were to have many conversations that were the same as that that is i would talk to him about what i was feeling and thinking and he would say something back to me that would indicate he hadn't been listening and he did it all the time he starts taking me to these stupid meetings which were just god awful we'd go to these meetings and it was the same crap every night somebody get up there and lead the meeting be real happy and joyful and free and and then they would, oh, call on people to read. And they'd read the same crap out of that book every night, like they couldn't remember it. Chapter 5 and how it works. And then they'd call on People to Read who weren't very good at it. and then they would applaud oh george is going to read chapter five isn't that one jesus and then THEY READ THESE TRADITIONS i had no idea what the hell that was all about but they seemed really important to these people they were every night they read them i thought they must do that to see if the newcomers can pronounce anonymity i don't know and then when they can't they laugh at him you know the same i don't know i don'T UNDERSTAND i DON'T HAVE THE SLIGHTEST IDEA WHAT'S GOING ON THEY'RE READING ALL THESE STEPS THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT GOD I DON'T KNOW AND THEN YOU GET PEOPLE GETTING UP THE PODIUM AND THEY TALK ABOUT ALL THEIR MARRIAGES AND THEIR DIVORCES AND THEY'RE JAILS AND THEir HOSPITALS AND THEир INSTITUTIONS JESUS IT JUST GOES ON AND ON AND THIS LITTY OF HORRIBLE THINGS THAT these people. And I don't identify with any of that crap. And people are saying, have you identified yet? And I'd say, no. And And I don't expect to. I'm not like these people. There wasn't an anchorman in the bunch. Nobody like me. And we go to these meetings, and we go to these meeting, and they go to the meetings. And then I said to this man who was my sponsor, oh, one night I thought I could help these people a little bit. And I went up to this woman who seemed to be in charge of this meeting. And I said, you know, I notice you folks read out of your blue book there every night. You seem to read pretty much the same stuff. And there is a lot of great literature that's been written over the centuries. Prose and poetry. Things that would be very inspirational to these people, I'm sure. And I could bring it in here for you. And I noticed a lot of the people that are reading are not very good at it. On the other hand, I am. So I could read this stuff and be something new for these folks, you know. They must get awful bored with this crap. And she said, how long have you been sober? I said, about two weeks. She said, well, I'll tell you what. I need a floor mopper. I said, you need a what? She said, we need somebody to mop the floors after the meeting. I said oh God. And I went back to my sponsor and I said how do we write to New York to report that bitch? She's trying to kill newcomers. He said, what are you talking about? I said, she wants me to mop the goddamn floors. He said, well, that would be a good thing for you. I said why? He said well, I don't think you should ever ask me that question. Just do what I'm telling you to do and mopping the floors will help you stay sober. I said I don' t understand how. He says just do it. So I started mopping floors there on the left side of Ohio Street every Tuesday night. Actually I got pretty good at it and I was finishing my side quicker than the guy on the other side. and my side was cleaner so every Tuesday night I'd finish you know and I'd go I got you again you son of a bitch I never told them there was a race but you gotta keep an edge that's the way I used to amuse myself I'd sit in the back of meetings and mock speakers and make fun of everybody I thought the birthday cakes were really ridiculous. And then after I'd been hanging around here about six months, the thought occurred to me is I haven't had a drink in six months. And I thought, I wonder if I could get one of them cakes. If I could give a year, I could make a cake and I could make a speech. and i could tell these people what a bullshit thing this is and that i don't like their book it's badly written it's a bunch of crap i don' t work their steps i don''t believe in god and and i've had i've studied theology for 16 hours at notre dame and i don'T believe in God. So I can tell them why I don't believe in God. I could lay that one on them. But I could tell them I stayed sober anyway. And they could stick that. So I sat in the back plotting my speech. Night after night after night, I sat there and I thought about that speech. And I kept adding things and subtracting things. I thought, I'm really going to tell these people. And then I had this spiritual experience. I was sitting in a meeting one night, and this tall redhead walked by. And she had this gorgeous long red hair. And she has these long legs. She had the greatest legs in North America. And I knew she could help me. so i started chasing her around the meetings and i i i went to a lot of meetings just to see those legs i hated meetings but i would go to see those legs and you know i'd walk a mile for a camel i'd see those legs and i kept trying to get her to go out with me she wouldn't go out with me she had three years sobriety and she said i don't date newcomers and i said well i'm new now but i'll be old later how about coffee trial or something here. And one night she said, how many children do you have? I said, well, I have six, but they're very small. You'd hardly notice them. See, I, in a way, trying to threaten my wife, I had said to her one night, if you don't drop this divorce, I'm going to get the best lawyer in Beverly Hills and I'm going to demand custody of the six children. I thought that would scare her a little bit. She said, you can have them and she left. So I'm living in this apartment in Santa Monica with my six kids the oldest of whom was 12 and the little one was about a year and I've got a lot of kids and I try to go to meetings and I am trying to work and I trying to function and I have crazy and I hired a lady to take care of the kids and I didn't speak very good Spanish and her English wasn't very good so I couldn't explain to her that I couldn'T pay her. But I figured, you know, a couple of weeks and she'll leave and I'll get another woman and that's the way it'll go. But she stayed. I don't know if she wouldn't go away, that woman. And finally after about a month I came up with some money and I paid her and her sister came over and her brother and sister spoke pretty good English and I said, ask her how come she stayed when I didn'T pay here? And she asked her and she said, because she really likes your kids. I said, God, it's amazing. And so that woman stayed with us for a long time. And I went to meetings and I hated the meetings. And I the book to me was just so stodgy. And and so, God knows, it had been written in 1939. And I thought, you know, this is old fashioned stuff. It read a little bit, I thought, like it had been written by an Episcopalian from Vermont. Turns out it was written by Episcopian from Vermont, but I just I hated the meanings that I hated the book and I hated everything that was going on. Some of the speakers were kind of funny and I really was attracted to this redhead. That's why I don't think motivations matter. See, I don'T care what your motives are. If you're in here for all the wrong motives, that's fine. That'll make a difference. The trick here is, listen to me if you're new, okay? Put your ass in the chair and leave your head outside every night. That's it. There is no other advice. I'm going to talk here for 45 minutes. That's the most important thing I'm gonna tell you. Put your ask in the chair and leave your head outside because your motives don't matter here and and and in my opinion this is not an intellectual exercise there's nothing to be learned here there there is it's not like you're going to come in here take notes and learn something intellectually and then know something we do not have a chapter entitled into thinking we got one called into action what does that mean it means my floors it means make coffee it means stack chairs it means participate it means if somebody asks you to read or participate in an aa meeting say yes that's all you don't have to like it just say yes because you're saving your own ass. I mean, I see people all the time in AA meetings. We have a problem. We have a La Jolla meeting on Saturday nights and we have two 10 minute speakers and we have a hell of a time trying to get two people to talk for 10 minutes. Oh, I don't think I want to do that. Who gives a shit what you want? You do it anyway. You don't have You know, it doesn't matter what you want. It doesn't mater what you think. Thinking got you here! Action will keep you here. Chuck Chamberlain, who was a wonderful guy in AA, used to say, I don't believe that you can think your way to good actions. And I certainly don't think you can think your ways sober. He said, but you can act your way to better behavior. You can act your way to better thinking, ultimately. But action is the magic word. You just got to do it. It's like my sponsor used to say, don't come to a meeting and tell me how you feel. Don't cometo a meetingand tell me what you think. Come to the meeting andtell me whatyou did today to participate inyour own sobriety. Did you call an alcoholic? Did you read the book? Did you go to a meeting? Did you call your sponsor? Did you try to help some newcomer? Well, I'm a newcomer. So what? Somebody's newer than you. If you got one day, you tell the guy that just walked in the door how you got the one day. That's what you do. We share our experience, strength and hope. That's why we're here. That's all we do here. So if you're new, you turn around and get the person that's newer and give him your phone number and get him to call you. Somebody's newer than you. If you got one day, you tell the guy that just walked in the door how you got the one day. That's what you do. And you get a commitment from the newcomer to say, finally, well, yeah. Because he's sure you want something. And you get him to do that. I worked with a lot of new people my first year I sponsored people in my first year and they all got drunk every damn one of them and I finally gave up on it because I knew I wasn't helping anybody and I didn't know what to do because everybody I'm working with is getting drunk and finally when I was three years sober I almost got drunk by that time I'd gone to work for CBS in Philadelphia make it a ton of money successful as hell not going to meetings because who needs meetings when you're three years sober and a guy and my wife was divorcing me I married the redhead by the way when I was a year and a half sober and she had two kids and we're raising these eight kids ha ha oh yeah ha ha and And and a guy said to me one night, a guy had 18 years of sobriety. And he said to him, he said, how's it going? I said, would you really like to know? He says, yeah. And I told him, I said it's not my life is not good. I'm here trying to be successful. I'm trying to get the ratings up. I'm try to make a career here. But I don't like the A.A. here. And I don' t like the way they do their meetings. They're very different from California. And they don't read Chapter 5, for Christ's sake. And they don't read the traditions. And they don't have birthdays here. They don't have birthday cakes. They call them anniversaries. And if you sponsor somebody, they don' t call them babies. They ca ll them pigeons. And I said to a guy one night, I said, how come you call them pigeons? He says, that's kind of what they do to you. Yeah! So the guy it was all different. I just thought, Jesus, I can't do that. I can deal with this. And I said, my wife, you know, I married this girl and she's got these two kids and we've got these eight kids and I'm half crazy. And some of the kids are drinking and using drugs, which I thought was kind of unfair. And and I was just nuts. And the guy said, well, how many meetings do you go to? And I did. Well, I don't have time for meetings, for Christ's sake. I'm trying to be successful here in my career. And he said, how many newcomers do you work with? And I said, I'm no good at that. I tried my first year and they all got drunk. He said, what are you doing about the third step? I said. Oh, well, I don't believe in God. Hard to do that one. He said. Well, I think you've got to go to meetings whether you like them or not. I think I'll go to the meetings and just put your ass in the chair and shut up. don't you have to explain to them that you've been sober three years just shut up and uh and i think you gotta have to do something about newcomers you gotta you gotta try to give your phone number to newcomers and uh he said i think i need to do some about the third step i said like what he said well we got a prayer in our book here for guys like you it's the third step prayer. And I didn't know that. And he pointed it out to me. My sponsor says if you want to hide anything from an alcoholic, put it in the big book. And there it was. There was that prayer. And I said, oh yeah, okay. He said now why don't you just do that like you mop floors or make coffee or stack chairs. Just do it you don't have to believe nothing he said just just say a phony prayer i said to a phoney god he said yeah of course i said oh i could do that he's so sure i said well i could be do that so i started saying the phony pray to a funny god and i'm going to meetings and i'm grabbing newcomers and threatening them and some of them stayed sober and i don't know what the hell to do with them when they're sober they're in your living room they're in your kitchen they're on the phone they won't leave you alone what meeting are we going to tonight so what do you mean we you're the newcomer god damn it leave me alone and then you know that they embarrass you they come to the meeting you know and you're you're trying to look like a good sponsor and they come up and say things like how do you work Step three. Sort of embarrassing when you got to say, I don't know, I never tried that one. Finally, the only thing I knew to do with these people was to sit down with them and tell them the truth, which is a painful thing for me to do because I'm trying to look good and I'm trying to be smooth and I've tried to be slick and I can't do that because nothing's working for me. So I sit down and I say, look, let me explain something to you. I don't like Alcoholics Anonymous, okay? I don'T like these damn meetings. I think the book is badly written. The steps are bullshit. I DON'T believe in God. And to be honest with you, I don' t even like you. The only reason I'm sitting here talking to you is because somebody told me you would help me. And the people I sponsor are very sick. They say, oh, I really identify with you. I have finally come to the conclusion that you don't have to be very bright to sponsor people. I believe this. I think sponsorship is so simple that it almost escaped me. It turns out that the principal job of a sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous is just to keep the baby amused. Keep amused until AA works. And I know how to keep amused, go mop floors, make coffee, stack chairs, get involved. I know how to do that. Call me every day, God damn it! I know How To Do That. And ultimately and finally what happens is that AA works. It works in their lives magically in a way that I couldn't even imagine. And now I've got babies that explain it to me. They love to do That. Well, let me explain the steps to you. But that's just the way it is. and I got fired from that job and I came back to California and I went to work in San Diego I found out the AA was different there too Jesus, everywhere I go it's different and I started a meeting in Philadelphia I started another meeting in San Francisco I started again in San Rico then I started yet another meeting in San Dago and the other night somebody asked me to come down and talk at that meeting that I started in downtown San Diego that damn meeting is going to be 25 years old and and I went and talked to her the other night it blows my mind when I thought about it oh my god this meeting is going to be twenty five years old and and they're still using the same podium that was made by a guy who volunteered to make this podium when we were when the meeting was a couple of months old they've still got that same podium he's dead now that guy's been dead for a number of years That damn podium is still going. That's the way it is at AA. We die, but the program goes on. And Carol and I have over the years have, Jesus, I tell you, we just turned 28 years marriage. And she's in West Virginia and I'm here in California. It seems to work better that way. But I sent her for our anniversary, I sent er 28 roses. and she stuck them out. They had a hell of a snowstorm that day, so she stuck the roses out in the snowstorm and took a picture of it and sent it to me. But it's amazing. She and I have fought and argued and hollered a lot, and a lot of our kids have screwed up over the years and just some of them don't even talk to us now for reasons that have nothing to do with us. They just don't talk to each other. They're mad at one another. And so they don't talk to us. I mean, you explain that one to me. Kids, I tell you. Third step. When I was 16 years sober, I was driving from San Diego to L.A., which I do a lot when I'm out here. And I had a tape on in the car. And it happened to be a Chuck C. tape. Now, I never understood Chuck C in the early days. I used to hear him talk and I had no idea what the hell he was talking about. And I'm listening to this tape and I and all of a sudden I'm understanding what he's saying, because I'm 16 years over. And it's making more sense to me than it did when I was two years over and I'm and I're listening to the tape and I'm talking to the type, which is a little crazy. I'm trying to do a tape and the tape in the guy's dead. Now that's not see. But I'm going, yeah, Chuck, that's right. Yeah, you got that said. Yeah, that's it. I'm going along the freeway. Yeah, that's right, Chuck. One of the things he said was something I had heard him say before and I never really locked in on it. He said, I believe the first two words of the Our Father mean exactly what they say. I believe that the first two words of theOurFather mean exactly what they say. Our father oh he's my father and i'm his son oh and that's spooky he's my dad and i miss kid oh my god he's my dad and i am his kid well what's my relationship like with my kids not so good sometimes have they always done everything i wanted to do certainly not have they sometimes been a real pain in the ass of course have we fought and argued and screamed those kids and I yes over the years yes a lot have I sometimes just been so angry with them I could just kill them yeah have I ever stopped loving them no I don't think so I don' t think so and it's not because consciously I want to love them Sometimes I don't. I can't help it. They're my kids. I'm their dad, and they're my kids. And so I love them. I love him when they hate me. I love em when they don't speak to me. I love those kids. It's an involuntary thing. But I do love em. Oh, wait a minute now. If he's my dad, and I'm his kid, have I always done everything he wanted me to do? No. I'm a moral leper, I told you that. Have I often in my life been a real pain in the ass to him? Sure. Has he probably been very angry with me many times? Yeah. Has he ever stopped loving me? Well, I guess not. If he's my dad. And I've come to the conclusion that he is. I've come to the conclusion that he's my dad and I'm his kid and I talk to him that way. And that's our relationship. And I think he loved me when I was drinking and I think he loved it when I did all the rotten things I was doing to people. Because I am a user and an abuser of people. I really am. I am very self-centered, egotistical, no good son of a bitch. Trust me. Has he ever stopped loving me through any of that process. I don't think so. Like he loved me then, I think he loves me now. And that's the relationship that we have and that's how that's my way I talk to him. And that is my relationship. I have come to believe come to believe that a power greater than myself oh can restore me to sanity. I don' t think he has done it yet but I think he can. And so I just keep coming to these dumb meanings and talking to drunks. Because I think AA is essentially just one drunk talking to another drunk. I think, you know, AA is not the book. AA is Not the Steps. AA is The Meetings. AA is That Praying. AA is that Intellectual. AA, in its essence, is one drunk talking to an other drunk so that the second drug gets it and finally goes oh oh yeah I've done that one drug talking to another drug and so that's what we're doing since 1935 when two guys started this thing with one drug talking to one other drunk that's how we've been doing here that's where we're at this very moment and if you're new I wish you well I hope that you will come back tomorrow night to some meeting I hope you will put your ass in the chair you don't need your head in here you don' t need to think about it just put your fanny in the share and ultimately through a series of actions that probably you don''t even want to take that you don ''t understand that don'' t make any sense to you you take a whole series of action and ultimately your emotions quiet down when you come in here you know, your emotions are kind of like that. You're high and you're low and you'RE HIGH AND YOU'RE LOW! And after you take certain actions over a period of time, your emotions kind of get more like that It's never like that because you're dead then. And after your emotions quiet down for a while, you begin to understand a little bit about why you've been doing it all this time. There's a man sitting here in the front row who's been doing this for 54 years. I think AA works. If I don't drink between now and May 25th, I'm going to be sober 30 years. And I don'T take any credit for that. I honestly do not. But my sense is that being with you, being willing to drive from San Diego to Laguna Beach on a Saturday night and come here and talk to the lepers. Being willing to participate and be in the same room with you just to be in this world. same room with you because god is in here with us whether you believe in god or not doesn't make it ever see he is or he isn't so don't worry about that he's in here and he's in here together sharing the same disease and sharing a common solution and the solution seems to be one drug talking to another drug god bless you Thank you.