Our Facility for a Bottom Is Absolutely Extraordinary — You Can Watch People Share Their Way Right Out the Door – Scott R.

Did I just like go black or something like that? Is there any light? My name is Scott Redman. I'm an alcoholic. Hi everybody. I'd like to thank the committee and Diane for asking me to come and talk and I'd like to thank the other speakers and thanks for your talk tonight. I'd like to welcome all the newcomers to Alcoholics Anonymous.
If you're new, I'd like to tell you that I have a great life today. If you're new, I'm sure that just thrills the living crap out of you.
I know how happy I was for the people having a good time when I got here. I was just thrilled to death for them.
And I used to sit in my seat in this godforsaken, stinking little clubhouse that I was imprisoned in when I got here.
And I'd listen to people talk about the new car, the new house, and the new family.
And I'd sit in my seat and I'd think, maybe you'll go home tonight.
And maybe your house will blow up.
Maybe you'll blow up. Maybe your family will blow up.
And we'll see how spiritual you are next week.
And they get right up in my face and talk that endless, unsolicited AA crap to me.
And you know the guy they send. It's that guy. The guy with one tooth with a cavity in it.
He's got a belt buckle large enough to serve a whole fish on.
And do I want what you've got?
No. No.
But thanks for spitting on me. I really appreciate it.
If you're a drug addict, I'd like to welcome you to Alcoholics Anonymous.
If you're a dope fiend, which is somehow worse than any of us, I'd like to welcome you to AA.
Catch alcoholism.
We'd love to give it to you.
Also, I'm very, very excited about this new group that's started to kind of leak into meetings.
I'd like to welcome all the tweakers here tonight.
I'd like to welcome you.
If you're applauding, it's probably...
Right.
If you're identifying, you probably forgot what you're identifying with.
And I like them because they stay quick for a while, too.
They're real quick.
Every part of their face is moving in a different direction.
They're all wearing their clothes out from the...
Inside.
And...
Even if you're a dope Goliath, a dope juggernaut,
even if you're like the Bigfoot of dope addicts,
I'd like to welcome you to AA.
And I'm not making fun of you,
although I'm certainly coming pretty damn close.
But I...
The deal is, is we have a book about alcoholism written by alcoholics.
And I talk about drugs in my talk.
I'm going to talk about drugs...
I'm going to talk about drugs some tonight, and I don't mean to offend anybody.
The last time I talked at this conference, which was four or five years ago,
a guy walked up to me after the conference and said,
why do you hate AA?
And I thought to myself, I don't.
I love AA.
I hate you.
I'm fine with the AA.
You're kind of pissing me off, but I really love Alcoholics Anonymous.
Because I had just talked about drugs in a way that he found offensive.
And believe me, my deal...
Diane, could you raise your hand for a second?
She asked me to talk here.
Okay.
It really annoys you.
Talk to her.
I wasn't looking for the gig.
My friend Cliff, who's got over 30 years, once told me,
if old-timers really, really get pissed off at you for talking about drugs,
it's probably because they're taking them.
But I judge no man.
I judge no man because I'm too spiritually developed.
I just...
Okay.
And if you don't have alcoholism yet, that's fine.
Stick around.
Get a diagnosis.
I didn't have alcoholism when I got here.
I caught alcoholism in AA meetings.
The infection enters through the ear.
It infects you.
You catch the dreaded alcoholism.
I developed a mild case.
I now have a horribly fatal, ravaging case of alcoholism.
It has taken me 15 years to get this bad.
And people who don't catch it, a lot of them die from it.
And people who catch it and catch it good and stay caught
seem to get better in AA.
So that's why I'm putting that out there to you.
And I had a number of reasons why I couldn't possibly have been alcoholic.
Number one, I'm Jewish and Jews don't drink.
Because it might dull the pain.
You know?
And...
Ah, you don't want to waste any agony opportunity that presents itself.
Funny enough, one of the first guys that saved my life in AA
at this first dingy hole-in-the-wall home group that I had was this guy.
One morning, I was a couple of days sober, and he identified his name.
He said, I'm an ex-Catholic, which means that I do not believe in God.
And I'm therefore positive God is going to come kill my ass for feeling that way.
I said, oh, I'll sit near him.
Because I had been introduced to this Old Testament God that got your ass no matter what.
He got you.
He turned your wife to salt, killed your goat, put a finger in your eye,
and got your ass no matter what.
So I totally understood that.
In addition to the Judaism,
I couldn't possibly have been alcoholic because I had been in psychotherapy for 18 years.
I was going to be dead, but I was going to understand it.
And I'm not putting therapy down.
Therapy is great stuff.
I use therapy in my life today in many different ways.
My colossal mistake is that I was trying to treat my alcoholism with psychotherapy,
which is not unlike showing up at a gunfight with a knife.
And getting these colossal ass whoopings.
I mean, just...
Just killed, scraped off the ground, being used as the devil's scouring pad.
I mean, just killed, you know?
But I was going to be dead with no Oedipal conflict, you know?
I was doing really good work in therapy, but I was dying from the alcoholism.
And the third reason why I could not possibly have been alcoholic was I was not an alcoholic.
I was just a very complicated, sensitive artist.
And my job was to go to the icy edge, peer over...
Over the edge and come back and report to you.
Unfortunately, I was often too loaded to remember what I had seen over the icy edge
and too creamed to even get back to you to report it.
So that didn't work out that often, but that's certainly what I perceived my mission was.
And by the time I got to Alcoholics Anonymous on April 22, 1985,
alcoholism had eaten my heart and my brain and thrown me out of my own life.
My life had run out between...
My fingers like a handful of water over and over and over again.
And I had a terrible journey to AA.
A terrible journey that started...
I was brought up in the Bronx in New York City.
Witness Protection Program?
Right?
Officer?
I am?
By the way, I love the guys with one month who are standing up during the countdown.
Like they won something.
Hey!
I'm dying!
Hey!
Sort of like being voted most attractive man on your cell block.
It's an honor, but...
You just don't know if you want to show up to pick up the trophy, you know?
And I'm happy for you and I'm glad you're here and I hope you never have this honor again.
Ever.
My family was insane, completely nuts.
They're still nuttier than 10 pounds of Christmas fruitcake.
My wife never believed me about my family until she met them.
My mother threw an engagement party for us and my...
My Aunt Rose came and wore her wig backwards and it...
It had a bun on it right out front.
And, uh...
I want to tell you, I've shared this.
I've shared this a lot of times.
It never ceases to amaze me.
I had another aunt who...
If you got anything for free in my family, it meant it was stolen.
And I had an uncle who used to...
He was a welder and he used to get free bales of steel wool.
And his wife took a decorating course and made throw pillows and...
Filled all the throw pillows with the free steel wool.
So that stuff works its way through on you after a while.
So when you were at their house, if you looked at the room,
everybody was moving a little bit.
You know, the whole room was like a living, pulsing, breathing thing.
And I had...
Had an uncle who was one of the top ten welterweights of the world during the 1930s
named Izzy Redman.
He was concerned about anti-Semitism.
He was fighting down in Atlanta, Georgia
and had his name changed to Izzy Goldberg
so that no one would know he was Jewish.
I wish I was lying.
I wish I was lying.
I wish I was lying.
these are my people. This is my genetic pool. This is scary. This is not the kind of thing
you go and brag to the bartender about. Hey, I'm from a long line of morons, thieving morons
with bad fashion sense. And there was mental and physical abuse in my family and a lot
of suicide attempts and chronic institutionalization. And just so you know that nothing really has
changed. Last year, my mother called me and said, oh, honey, I've got bad news for you.
I said, what, mom? She said, your Aunt Lena died. I said, oh, no, when? A year and a half
ago. I said, what? She said, well, your Aunt Phyllis has been in an institution again.
And she calls me and harasses me. So I haven't been picking up the phone. But Phyllis died
a couple of weeks ago. So I finally started answering the phone again. They finally got
to me to tell me Lena was dead. So there's a lot of openness in my family, a lot of
openness.
Communication, really, is the word that best describes my family. And if you're new here,
all I've got is good news for you, because my family did not have one single solitary
thing to do with making me an alcoholic. And I am not telling you for one second that a
lot of damage didn't get done. A lot of damage got done. And I'm not telling you for one
second that I haven't had to work real hard on getting well. But they didn't make me a
drunk. If they had made me a drunk, then the therapy would have worked. I'm not telling
you for one second that I haven't had to work, because I had good therapy. I could
have worked out my family problems, and I could have been able to drink like a gentleman.
I wouldn't have had to go to parties anymore and say, oh no, no heroin for me, I'll have
a Perrier. I wouldn't have had to do that. I could have just been like the normal people.
If alcoholism is a three-fold illness, if it's a physical reaction to alcohol, and if
you're special and a drug addict, try some control. If you're a drug addict, try some
control crack smoking. Just fill your mouth up with the crack smoke and say, not in the
mood, blow it out. Hats will fill the air, I guarantee it. But we have this bizarre physical
reaction to alcohol that makes it impossible to control and enjoy or stop once we start.
That only happens in a certain class of people cut out from the pack. And if you have this
weird physical reaction to alcohol, and it's coupled with some fascinating thinking, it's
referred to as alcoholism.
Alcoholism is the source of much mirth at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. It's fabulous
stuff. I love reasons to drink. I collect them. I have a friend named Larry, who the
first time he ever read the fourth chapter of our book, he read the first page, and there's
a sentence in that first page which basically says, facing an alcoholic death or a spiritual
life is not always an easy decision to make. Tough one. Die in a pool of my own urine,
spiritual life. Very, very tough. And the first time he ever read that sentence, he
said to himself, well, how bad an alcoholic death are we talking about here? That's not
a normal reaction to that. There's no normal. I'm 15 years sober. I go to five, six meetings
a week. I work with newcomers. I allow myself to be sponsored. I'm sponsored. And the reason
is because of this thinking. About six months ago, I had hand surgery. And the surgeon said,
to me, Mr. Redmayne, you're going to require some general anesthetic. I went, oh, general
anesthetic. Oh, my. Normal people do not get excited about general anesthetic. No normal
person gets a little, oh. I'll tell you why. You are generally anesthetized for general
anesthetic. You're asleep.
Here's why I love it. They hit you with it, and they say, count backwards from 100, and
you go 100, 99, and you go out. I love 99. And it sounds like you love 99, too. 99.
The difference is, is on any given day of the week, I traded my life in for 99 like
that. Wouldn't even hesitate. I settled for a nickel today when I could have a quarter
tomorrow any day of the week. Like my friend Steve told me years ago, I did whatever alcoholism
told me to do. I did it any time it told me to do it, and I did it for exactly how long
it told me to do it for, and I thought I was a free man.
Now, my favorite reason to drink that I've ever heard, a couple years ago, I was sponsoring
this guy for about 15 minutes, and he lived with his wife. He was a male prostitute, and
he had a gay lover, and he called me to tell me that he drank, and I said, oh, why? And
things have just been ship shape up to now. And without missing a beat, he said, I caught
my wife cheating on me.
Now, I just wanted to tell you, I'm not a gay. I'm not a gay. I'm not a gay. I'm not a gay.
I tell you, I get that. I totally get that. That was the product of either one of two
things. That was either just a gem, boom, it was just an occasional hunch or inspiration.
It was fully cut cloth. He needed something, and there it was, a pearl. Or that was the
product of weeks in the rat's maze, weeks on the hamster wheel of turning the whole
universe so it can just drop in slot by slot, turning the whole world.
So he could get to that drink, all right? I know I have a wife. I know I'm a hooker
with a beeper. I know I've got a gay lover, but the bitch cheated on me. I'm out of here.
You've got to turn the whole world, and I've seen alcoholics do it over and over and over
again to make it so. You've got to cut and paste reality. And once that thinking becomes
established, and you've got to cut and paste reality, you've got to cut and paste reality.
And someone with alcoholic tendencies, our book says, they have probably, aren't they
sweet to us in our book? They are so sweet, probably beyond human help.
The other thing, I love this. Oh, I love this so much. Right after the description of the
third episode, we embarked on a searching field with Merle inventory, which many of
us had never attempted. Isn't that sweet? I have never sat down to do the work with
a guy and have him go, oh, yeah, you did that? Wow.
I've been doing that stuff for years. They're just, except in the chapters that are not
written to us, like the employer, the wife, you know, and the family afterward. They're
not that nice in those chapters, but they're very, very nice to us in the other ones. So
once you have that thinking that keeps you driving to a drink that you can't stop taking,
I developed this cancer of the soul, this spiritual tapeworm that ate me up from the
inside and left me hollow and insane and alone.
And it started at a really young age. I was in my early twenties. I was in my early twenties.
It was a young age with me. And I drank until I didn't want to be a drunk. As a young man,
I overcame my alcohol problem with marijuana. I'd like to welcome all the pot smokers here
tonight. You remember wow, right? Wow. Wow. Wow. And right after wow usually came what?
What? Wow. What? Wow. What? Wow. What? Wow. What? Watching a pot smoker is like watching
a game. It's like watching a game. It's like watching a game. It's like watching a game.
dog try to run on linoleum. There's a lot of activity, but no movement. They cannot
get a claw in the rug. I triumphed over marijuana with pills, and I was victorious over pills
with cocaine. Cocaine is an excellent drug. It's particularly good for sex, if you enjoy
sex from the Neolithic period. I conquered that goddarn cocaine with heroin. Heroin is
a very dark, complicated, artistic drug. Then you cross a line and become a vomiting pig.
It's just a little hop, skip, and a jump. I drank until I didn't want to be a drunk,
and alcohol was on the table every day. But I didn't have alcoholism. When I was just
turning 20,
I was working in the Bronx, and I slammed some dope, and I went to hitchhike down the
West Side Highway to go home, and my aunt and uncle picked me up. My father had just
had a massive stroke, and I was taken to the hospital, and I couldn't be there for him
the night that he died. I had holes in my arms and bumps on my arm, and a drug was in
me, and I was trapped. I couldn't get out of the car. I couldn't get out of the hospital.
The sound of my father's heart machine just bounced off me.
The curtain was down, and I felt like an animal, like a pig. Probably a few nights
in a guy's life, you ought to be there for his old man. This was one of them, and I could
not answer the bell, and my father was lost to me for good and forever. I couldn't even
think about him. I couldn't talk about him. I couldn't look at a picture of him. I couldn't
even listen to a sound of a heart machine, because it sounded like a personal indictment
of my failure and collapse as a man, a son, a brother.
I didn't like much being around hospitals either, and any time it came up, I'd get that
thing, and if you're new, I don't know what it is for you. I don't know what your black
hole is, but I would come up, and I'd literally, it was like having Bell's palsy. The side
of my face would just twitch, and I'd feel like I'd be blindsided by a brick, and I knew
that night what the problem was, because I had to find the problem, what the problem
was, and get rid of it as quickly as I could, and the problem was heroin and needles, and
all I had to do was never do that again.
And I'd never be that guy again, ever. So that was my rule.
Shortly after that, I was living one of my childhood dreams. I got to act in a Broadway
play, and a new usherette with long brown hair walked into this play during a performance,
and I took one look at her. I saw her. I didn't even say hello to her. I walked back into
the dressing room after the show. I stood up on a chair, and I announced to the male
members of this cast, I said, if anyone talks to the new usherette with long brown hair,
I'll break all the bones.
I'll break all the bones in your hands and feet. So for the next week, but I wasn't going
to talk to her, because I was too scared. So anytime a guy would walk near Nancy, he'd
kind of go, and kind of dash away. And I fell in love with this woman the first time I saw
her before I ever talked to her, and she with I. And we were in our early 20s, living in
arguably one of the most exciting places in the world. I was acting on Broadway, and we
had a great time.
We didn't know that we were just a couple of dogs running on linoleum. We were going
nowhere fast, because we had alcoholism, and we didn't know we had it. And Nancy became
very, very ill from prolonged exposure to me.
She became very sick, and we had these 32-ounce tumblers in our house. One day, I came home,
and I popped a cork on a bottle of wine, and I emptied the entire bottle of wine out of
my throat. I was like, I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going
to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die.
I'm going to die. There is no way of getting out of here alive. It's like a year before
recommend a cork.
Everybody remember it.
Just a minute here.
And I played that one where you got a bottle of wine and it was one of these tumblers.
And I turn around, and my wife is giving me the pre-Al-Anon rat face.
I said,
What?
She said,
What are you doing?
I said,
I'm having a glass of wine.
Can a man have a glass of wine in his own home?
Blem.
We became so sick that at one point a guy lent us his car, and we sold his car.
Now, I want to tell you how I was able to sell this guy's car.
It's for the same reason that I love dental surgery.
Dental surgery, dental surgery.
Because I leave out the middle.
You see, we didn't have rent money.
Big duh.
And I said to Nancy, with tears in my eyes, I am so sick of borrowing money.
Let's stand on our own two feet.
Let's be responsible.
Let's sell the car.
And she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, let's do.
Now, we were able to sell the car for the same reason that I love dental surgery.
I leave out the middle.
I go from you need dental surgery to painkiller.
I leave out the surgery.
I leave out the whole middle.
I leave out the surgery.
I leave out the sutures, the blood, and the pain.
I go from let's pay the rent to pay the rent.
I leave out grand theft auto.
I leave out forging the pink slip.
I was thinking about this thing.
I've got to share this with you.
I was thinking about it when these extraordinary gentlemen stood up tonight who,
between the two of them, equaled 104 years of sobriety.
Steve and I had an old friend named English Bill who we both loved.
Loved.
Loved.
Loved.
Loved.
Loved.
Loved.
Loved.
Loved.
Loved.
Loved.
Loved.
Loved.
Loved.
Loved.
Loved.
Loved.
Loved.
Loved.
Loved.
Loved.
Loved.
Loved.
They took off down the road, and they went on a dirt road, and off this dirt road, and
into the boonies, and they finally reach this lean-to, and there's not even a door on it.
It's just like a flap of burlap, and they go in, and there's nothing.
There's a trunk inside.
stained underwear, sitting on a filthy
mattress, sucking on
a bottle of wine, and the only thing next to him
is a candle in a can.
And the guy with a couple of weeks looks at this guy and says,
look, I'm new. I don't know much
about this thing, but I'm telling you, one thing
I know for sure, if you keep drinking,
you're going to lose all this.
Nancy and I had our
older son, Micah, and
he was surrounded by friends and family.
We had a ton of phone calls. There were a lot of
people at the hospital. He was really
welcomed into the world. And
two years and nine months later, when our Jesse
was born, there were no phone calls,
no flowers. There was nobody at the
hospital. We had been completely isolated
by the disease of alcoholism in two years
and nine months. And it was not because
people didn't love us. It just hurt
too much to be around us.
We pressed ourselves upon people
like a thumb upon a bruise.
It just hurt too much.
And Jesse
was not welcomed into the world. And he was
transitive tachypnea of the heart.
A baby. He was up in an incubator.
A doctor calls me that night and says, Mr. Redmond,
your wife's all alone.
She's in a tremendous psychological duress.
The baby's in an incubator.
We need you down here. And I said,
I would love to come down,
but the fact is I can't find anybody to
watch my two-year-old son.
And a doctor, who I had never met before,
said to me, I'll tell you what, why don't I
give you my address, my husband's home, and you can
take your son to my house, and my husband
will watch him, so that you can be with your
family. And I said, no.
There was no way that I could accept
her generosity. So now my poor
son has to be locked in the house with this
insane man, wracked with guilt.
I would have done better to take him down
and leave him with a coloring book in the waiting
room. At least he
would have been away from me for a while.
And
things got worse.
I love that part of Bill's story where he talks
about getting himself into a spot where he's stealing
from his wife, dragging the mattress down to the first
floor so he doesn't jump out of the window.
And then he says, little were we to know
this could continue for three
more years. I mean, our
facility for a bottom is just
absolutely
extraordinary.
And you will see men and women
come into Alcoholics Not.
And I'm not saying that they're
going to be anonymous with bottoms that will make
your hair stand on end. You will look at that man and woman
and you will say to yourself, well, they're obviously done.
There's no way they could ever drink again with what they've gone through.
And if they stop doing this work for any appreciable amount of time,
it will not be their bottom anymore.
It'll be a period of time where people were thinking behind their back,
where they had some bad breaks and some unlucky stuff,
and they will move on with the business of dying.
And it is an extraordinary process to watch.
You can actually watch people share their way right out of the door.
And it went on for us for three more years,
because it wasn't until Jesse was three,
about six months before I got sober,
actually less than that, a couple of months.
Nancy, I had had an idea to cook something,
and I died in the middle of the idea.
Nancy came home, and I was on the floor.
The oven was on, and I had a pan of eggs in my hand,
and I was laying on the floor.
And she tapped me with her foot and said, how are you?
And I said, I am exhausted.
And so she went to the phone and called the doctor.
There's a vial, a bottle.
And the doctor said, there's a blue Jew on the floor of your kitchen.
Why are you even calling me?
Why aren't you calling the paramedics?
And when my wife tells the story, I get the willies at this point,
because then she says, she hung up the phone.
She thought about it.
She thought about it.
She cleaned a little, a little cleaning.
And then she called another doctor for a second opinion.
And as Sharon said, seconds and inches.
And the other doctor screamed at her, you know.
And by the time I got to Alcoholics and Honest on April 22, 1985,
Micah had been diagnosed as functionally retarded.
He was six years old.
He could barely read or write.
He had these involuntary clicking noises that he couldn't stop making in his throat.
His small motor skills were all screwed up.
And there was nothing organically wrong with him.
He was just so distracted from being so scared all the time.
That's what had happened to him.
Jesse was three.
And his preschool was so alarmed by his behavior,
they alerted us to the fact that he couldn't stop playing certain games.
He was playing these war games and these robot games that he just couldn't get out of.
There's nothing wrong with creative play.
But for him, it was safer to be made out of metal.
It just was safer to be a robot.
It was a better place than where he lived.
And I didn't know that we had alcoholism.
I didn't know that this is what alcoholism had done to our children.
And on April 20, 1985, I crossed the line that I swore I would never cross again.
My career was gone.
My family was insane and destroyed.
We were completely isolated.
And I put a needle in my arm again.
And I crossed the line I swore I would never, ever cross again.
Now, I don't know why I didn't turn the world that morning to make it okay.
I've done it before.
I could do it again.
I could just move the whole universe that little couple of degrees so that that would be okay.
I don't know why I didn't.
I called my therapist of record at that time.
I told him what I had done.
He was my first Jungian therapist.
And he said to me the exact same thing.
He said, Carl Jung told the man who 12-stepped the man who 12-stepped Bill Wilson.
Although I didn't know it.
And subsequently, I found out I don't believe that this guy knew it either.
He said to me, there's absolutely nothing that can be done for you.
I can't help you.
I said, what?
He said, the only thing I can suggest is you attend the meeting of Narcotics Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous, or Rehabia Institutionalized.
Now, why I went to that AA meeting, I don't know.
Most other days, I would have gladly chosen the nut hut.
I would have gladly chosen the mental institution.
That's an uninterrupted source of narcotics.
That's a chance to be with my people, colorful and adventurous people.
Good place for a sensitive guy like me.
Why I went to that AA meeting, I couldn't tell you.
But I woke up at 5 o'clock in the morning, put my best clothes on, got a bad check to write you,
and went to Unit A in the San Fernando Valley, the edge of the known universe.
I walked into this room.
I looked around.
Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God.
How did I wind up in Alcoholics Anonymous?
Alcoholics Anonymous.
How lame is this?
This is beyond church, beyond synagogue.
This is some plateau of lameness I never even imagined was available to me.
Alcoholics Anonymous.
And you should have seen this room.
It was the product of a thousand years of inbreeding.
They had identical twins carving their initials on each other's feet.
I mean, it was...
Do I bring my own bib overalls next week?
Am I issued a pair?
It was unbelievable, unbelievable.
And I'm waiting for the Jew hunt to start.
I know that's going to happen any minute.
Come on, Jaime, strap these antlers on.
Poke him with a stick.
Knock his beanie off.
Let's see what he does.
These Jews are fun.
And everything was a miracle.
Miracle, miracle.
I'm a miracle.
You're a miracle.
This coffee and furniture are miracles, too.
Miracle.
When do we hook a rug?
I hated everything about AA.
I walked into the perfect room for me.
You know?
And I don't know why I stayed.
The only reason I can imagine that I stayed is that I was out of plans, man.
That's the only reason I can come up with.
If you're new here, I pray for you that you are out of plans.
If you've got a plan, it is probably a beaut.
Don't use your plan.
Grab one of us after the meeting.
Tell us your plan.
We want to know the plan.
And my favorite newcomer plan to this day, and it is the single most popular newcomer plan I have run into in these years, is the one more dope deal to set myself up financially for sobriety plan.
That's a hot number.
That's going to wind up on the soft literature rack, I guarantee you.
I stuck around AA.
For six months and enjoyed the gift of step none.
I did nothing and received, in kind, nothing.
And in the meantime, my wife had reached out to the Al-Anon family groups and had started to pursue her miracle.
And one of the most hurtful and confusing things to me in my first months in AA is I went to some meetings where I heard people telling jokes about Al-Anon from AA podiums.
I'm not talking about good nature jokes.
God knows we tell good nature jokes about drunks.
I'm talking about not good nature jokes.
Until I stuck around long enough to know it and found out about the work that was being done in the Al-Anon family groups to know that those people were just ignorant and hurtful people, although I judge no man.
But until I did that, I found it very hurtful and very confusing because I was so proud of my wife for reaching out and pursuing her miracle because it was the only demonstration I had of the power of God in my life.
And so if you're doing that on a group of people, you're going to have to do it.
And so if you're doing that on a group level, you're casting your vote that it's okay to do that.
I used to have all the votes.
I've been whittled down to one by good sponsorship.
And my vote is that it's not okay because there might be a newcomer out there lucky enough to be involved in a family recovery.
Nancy and I will be married 24 years on June 19th.
And that's not because God likes us married.
No.
That's not because God likes us more than the people who got divorced.
That's just what happened in our house.
That's just the demonstration in our house.
For some people, the demonstration is to get the divorce.
I don't put any premium on us staying together.
I'm just saying that's what happened in our house.
And I used to go to Nancy's sponsor's house, Ruby and Milton's house, and I used to stand there and watch them with their children, good friends of Claire who I love.
And I'd look at them and I'd go, you know, this is really nice, but the boys are just so busted up.
They're so broken up.
And Nancy and I are such a mess.
Right before I got sober, I put my arm around my wife while I was getting into bed, and I guess she felt my accelerated heart rate.
And it wasn't even on purpose.
It just came out of her.
She just said, you disgust me.
And it wasn't deliberate.
It wasn't said to hurt me.
It just was the truth.
And then two people knew it, you know.
And I used to stand in Milton and Ruby's house and watch this incredible, all these AAs and Al-Anons hanging out.
And they're two gorgeous women.
They're two gorgeous daughters.
And I think, this is great, but it ain't going to happen for us.
And when I reached about six months, I knew I was going to drink, because I had seen the AA drill hundreds and hundreds of times.
People either came in and did the work and changed, or didn't do the work, got sick, got sicker, got to the podium, shared their gift with us,
and shared the rest right out of the door, or stayed here and became columns of human sewage and sexual predators, although I judge no men.
Because, again, I'm just too spiritually developed to do that.
Because, again, I'm just too spiritually developed to do such a terrible thing.
And so I knew I was going to drink.
And my kids had become a little less frightened.
And my wife had reached out and started pursuing her miracle.
And I asked a guy to sponsor me.
He's a great guy.
And he had made sure that I had done some reading from the big book of AA.
He invited me over to his apartment and spent hours with me for fun and free.
And I didn't know what the hell he wanted.
He read chapter five to me.
He took me through the first two steps.
We reached step three and said a prayer together, which I thought was profoundly weird.
And then he went back and he gave me instructions on how to do a fourth step from the big book of AA.
I believe that if you do the whole thing, the book doesn't say write a little, read a little, write a little, read a little.
It says if you can do the whole thing, if you can write the whole mess, I'm resentful at them.
I'm resentful at me for resenting them.
I'm resentful at them for watching me resent them.
All right?
And I've had sex with all of them.
All right?
And I'm scared of all of them.
If I can read the whole thing, I might just be so crushed under the weight of it, so decimated.
The problem might reveal itself in such an unbelievably putrid, unsolvable way.
I might try to, I might give up trying to solve it and turn myself into AA.
That might be the result.
And I'll tell you, it was the result for me.
But it would have had little lasting effect unless I had moved on and done the rest of the work.
And I went and I read my sponsor, my inventory at nine months.
I did step six and seven for the first time, which had really become my working template for my relationship with my higher power.
And then I had to do my eight-step list.
The best reading of step eight I have ever heard in my life, and I try to share this any time I talk, took place at my old home group many years ago.
I was brand new when I heard this guy, and I've never seen him since.
It was probably a year since.
I was probably a year sober.
His name was Tino.
He had a heavy New York accent, and he had never read chapter five before.
And he was at this men's group with hospital plastic on, and he was asked to read chapter five that night.
He had never done it before.
And he got up to step eight, and he read.
Made a list of all those we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
Jesus Christ!
And he looked out into the room as if to say,
Have you seen this?
Do you know what is in here?
It was so beautiful.
It was so pure.
It was the purest reading I had ever heard, because it's the only thing I saw on the list.
I saw nothing else.
Not those people.
Not that money.
I would not have taken that much money if I knew I had to give it back.
No way.
I'm not saying I wouldn't have taken nothing, but not what I did.
If you're new, don't worry about it.
It's eight steps from where you are anyway, for God's sake.
And eight's really not the annoying one.
It's nine.
So I wrote up my eight-step list.
My kids and my wife were down there, and my pop was down there, and I didn't know what the hell I was going to do about any of it.
And I was blessed with a sponsor who refused to tell me how to make amends.
He said, Do your job.
I said, I don't know what I can do.
I can't go to the grave and apologize.
I went to the grave and apologized to my father.
It's not working for me.
He said, Do your job in AA.
I said, I can't.
I've heard guys talk about writing a letter.
I can't do it.
He said, Do your job.
See what happens.
I knew I couldn't sit down and apologize.
What am I going to do?
I'm going to sit down with Nancy and go, Hey, hon.
Sorry about this eight-year journey to Hades.
Okay?
I couldn't even say I'm sorry.
I'm sorry were the two most useless words in my vocabulary.
It was like a mouthful of ashes.
My kids were a wreck.
What am I going to do?
Do your job.
Do your job.
I resented myself for being a piece of crap as a father, for not showing up, for not doing anything, for not spending dope money on the right thing.
I love that story about the drunk who comes up to his friend.
He says, Look, I've got to borrow 50 bucks.
My kids don't have food.
The guy says, I'm not going to give it to you.
You're going to spend it on booze.
The guy goes, No.
I got it.
I got booze money.
I'm all right.
I'm okay.
I need food money, not booze money.
This is my story.
So I had to start doing a lot of lame crap, like showing up at Little League games and coaching flag football.
I had to, like, start going into...
My sons were having a very hard time in school.
And I went in, volunteered to be a class dad and run a reading group.
I had to go in and sit down with the teachers and say, My sons have been terribly ill because they've been living with me.
And I've been very sick, and I'm doing something to get better.
Can you help us?
Very embarrassing.
Very painful.
This one teacher said, You know, because they were so smart, but they couldn't function.
And this teacher said, I just want to grab him and shake him sometimes.
And I said, You know what?
He's all shook.
He doesn't need any more shake.
We really need something else.
And I want to tell you something.
I have yet to genuinely ask for help as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Not ask for help to be an opportunist and to bully people.
But I have never asked for help in AA and not received it.
And I went into that school and said, Can you help us?
And they went, Sure.
Yeah, absolutely.
Let's test them.
Let's see what resources are available to them.
The teacher said, Get him an immune system.
He said, Get him into music.
Because the small motor skills were so screwed up.
Get him into sports.
So I went and I spent 12 bucks of dope money.
Jesse wanted to play drums.
And I went and I bought him a $12 drum pad.
A piece of wood with a little pad on it, a pair of drumsticks.
And I went back to my men's meeting, which was my home group.
And I told the guys I was really proud of myself.
So within a month, the AA drum set showed up at the house.
And there were like a lot of burnout drummers in my home group.
At that time.
And like guys were showing up going, Dude!
With like cymbals and hi-hats.
Jesse was so small.
He would sit behind this drum set and disappear.
You just, you couldn't even see him.
I started showing up at Little League games.
You know, I go show up to my first Little League game.
And Nancy comes to the game.
Looks over at the first base stands and just falls on the floor laughing.
Because there's all the people in the first base stands.
And there's me in the sun alone, pissed off.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm doing my job.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
Going up and down two hat sizes in the sun.
Just psychotic, you know.
The kids were thrilled to see me.
Mr. Redman's going to blow up, man.
Look at him.
Look at him.
He's got a vein pumping like a garden hose on his forehead.
Wow.
Looked like an outtake from Scanners, you know.
And it took me a couple of years for the voices to diminish in volume and number to go and
sit in the stands.
To just be at my sobriety station.
To just be with the people, you know.
And I did that for a couple of years.
And my son Jesse received one of the great compliments I believe a human being can receive.
He was intentionally walked.
Now, if you're not a baseball fan, that simply means they're scared of you and they want
to get to the weenie behind you.
Now, you didn't want to be a geek.
You can't jump up and down and scream and yell.
You got to be cool.
So he just laid his bat down.
Shrouded up the first base stand line.
And on the way up the first base line, he looked at me.
I'm at my sobriety station at the first base stands.
And he just looked at me and just shot me.
Just a little bit of stuff.
Don't want to be lame.
It's the old man.
Don't spoil him.
Just a little tiny bit.
And then moved on to first base.
And by a second and an inch, I could have missed the whole thing.
And I'm not telling you that Jesse got intentionally walked because I'm sober.
I don't believe that.
There are kids who come from worse circumstances than my children and our successes.
I'm telling you I was at my sobriety station.
Because I'm sober.
And I got to tell the guys in my home group.
And I got to be with guys who were drunk on their kid's birthday again about the day that my kid was walked.
And I was there.
My children have received 15 birthday gifts.
Appropriate birthday gifts on the day of their birthday.
Gifts that they wanted.
Not once in 15 years have they received day after radioactive guilt gifts from the only place that would take a hot check from me.
Here, boys.
Here's some drywall.
All the kids are loving the drywall.
Why, it's Pokemon drywall, as a matter of fact.
You'll love it.
The result is I don't feel guilty on my kid's birthday anymore.
I was driving to an A.A. function on Halloween a couple of years ago.
And I got nailed.
And if you've been around the program any appreciable amount of time and you've done the work,
this has happened to you many times and many times.
Many times in many different ways.
But I was looking out of my window at that great scene.
Kids running through the streets with their capes streaming behind them.
You know, with their bags of candy.
That great Halloween thing.
And I was blanketed with that feeling of not looking at life through the windshield like I was looking at some movie of a strange planet.
But that incredible feeling of feeling connected to it.
And I know why.
The reason why is for 15 years I've spent a couple of dope dollars on having a little candy for the neighborhood kids.
And when my kids would let them, I bought them a costume that they wanted.
I've exercised the Halloween muscle for 15 years.
That's why I feel part of it.
That's why I feel relaxed on my kid's birthday.
Because I took good orderly direction and I exercised those muscles.
So that when I hear somebody talking about,
I hear somebody talking about the Little League,
I can listen to it instead of one more time taking a trip down loser lane.
So much of Alcoholics Anonymous is not some woo-woo bizarre.
It's not an idea.
It's not an idea.
It's an action.
And I believe again that because I did an inventory,
I found out what my job in AA was going to be.
And because I went about doing that.
Now, I've got plenty of problems.
You know, I don't know a lot of people here.
My friend Ron is here who I just adore,
who I've known since he first got sober.
I didn't find that out until later.
And the people who I know for a long period of time are the other speakers
who are very valuable people to me.
And I'll tell you why.
Because they've talked about difficulties they've had in sobriety.
And I've watched them go through loss,
through success,
through difficulty.
And they've talked about,
how they've applied this bunch of spiritual tools,
not spiritual weapons,
spiritual tools,
as a bromide to these things.
People who don't have problems in sobriety,
I'm real happy for them,
but I don't really learn anything from them.
Because I'm not here to learn how to not have problems.
I'm here to learn how to turn,
match calamity with serenity.
And get through it.
And we've had plenty of problems.
We got nailed in the Northridge earthquake.
Really whacked bad in it.
This was about five years ago.
And shortly after the earthquake,
we were at an AA function out of town,
and this woman at this function came up to me and she said,
she used to live in L.A.,
she said,
I'm so glad God got us out of L.A. before the quake.
And I said,
Oh, so he likes you?
He likes you, but we're crap, but he likes you.
And she said to me,
Well, I guess he just felt you had some lessons to learn.
I'm out of here.
I'm just telling you.
If I got a guy up there saying,
Get him. Get the Redman boy.
Get him.
Get him.
No evacuation plan for you, Jew boy.
Get him.
I'm out of here.
I don't want to have anything to do with it.
I could never live in a world
where I saw the deliberate hand of God
in the suffering of other people.
I know that God is keeping her sober.
It wouldn't keep me sober
for ten seconds.
As I said before,
we're having success in our relationship
right now.
Other people are getting divorced.
I don't think it's because God likes us more.
I don't think it's because God likes the people
he got out of the earthquake more.
Today, for me,
there's a difference between spirituality and geology.
There's just a huge difference.
And for me,
it's the only way that I can continue
to be sober and involved
in a higher power that adores me.
Our older son,
I came home from talking at an AA meeting one night.
I think I saved everyone in Covina
that particular night.
And I said to Nancy,
How are you?
She said,
I'm fine.
Unfortunately,
your son's having a badass trip.
What?
He was 14.
I didn't know that he had…
I went into my room
and I said a prayer
and I went back outside
and I put my arm around the camera.
Put my arms around him.
I said, this is a pill.
It's going to wear off.
I love you, and I'm not going anywhere.
And I called the psychiatrist, who's a member of Alcoholics Anonymous,
and he prescribed some medication for Micah.
And another member of Alcoholics Anonymous went and picked it up and brought it back.
And I said to the psychiatrist, thanks so much.
Good night.
He said, oh, no, I'm not going to sleep until Micah goes to sleep.
This is the kid who I couldn't find anybody to watch him the night that his brother was born.
You guys didn't tell me that my children wouldn't be having difficulty.
You told me I'd never be alone again.
You told me that you would enter my heart and my mind and my life,
and you'd stay as long as I let you.
And sometime after this, Micah graduated high.
And we put him in an outpatient drug treatment program.
He tested clean for a year.
I mean, we just went with him, nose to nose.
And then he graduated high school and decided to go down to,
to work with the Zapatista Revolutionaries down in Chiapas, Mexico.
And Chiapas, you know, with the black ski masks and stuff.
And I couldn't believe it.
I couldn't believe he was going to do this.
And, you know, during the 60s, I talked a lot of long crap and couldn't get out of the living room.
And he was just out there.
He was doing it.
He was part of these installations of Westerners that were bearing witness
to make sure the Mexican military didn't abuse indigenous peoples.
And the Mexican military is depicted as such a kind, loving group of people
that I'd get these pictures in my head that I couldn't get out of my head.
And my sponsor asked me to start taking the third step in the morning
and giving God the Mexican military.
So I say, Pop, you take it.
You take the Mexican military.
I can't handle the Mexican military.
And one morning, I just was overwhelmed with it.
It just kept, the waves of fear just kept coming in.
And it just beat me to a pulp.
And I called Paul.
And I said, I can't bear this.
And he said to me, you know what?
This might be the greatest thing that ever happens to him.
And I said, kiss my ass.
I said this to myself.
I'm not a fool.
I said, sure, not your kid.
Easy for you to say.
You know what?
It's the greatest thing that ever happened to him.
He came back from that experience fully cut cloth.
Went to college.
He's having a successful time, except for an occasional overdose.
And six months ago, my son Jesse and my son Micah,
who wound up playing that AA drum set and the AA piano that wound up at our house too,
played the main stage of the House of Blues in Los Angeles about six months ago.
And they burnt the dump down.
And it was a hip-hop crowd.
Packed wall to wall, this hip-hop crowd.
All these people and a big gaggle of middle-aged drunks over to the side weeping.
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
And, like, guys are going, what is with the old guys, man?
They're like, what are they crying?
And just, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Because they brought my kids up.
They raised my kids.
They wouldn't have missed it for the world.
Wouldn't have missed it for the world.
Three weeks ago, my sponsor, who I absolutely adore, went and got a test.
And, uh...
For his heart and, uh, his doctor said, uh, it was Tuesday, his doctor said,
see you Thursday for quadruple bypass.
And, uh, went for quadruple bypass and came out of it.
And I went down to the hospital and we spent a couple hours together.
And, uh, I felt the presence of my father so powerfully there in that hospital
because I don't, I'm not scared to go to hospitals anymore.
I don't mind hearing heart machines anymore
because I've developed a relationship with my father in sobriety.
Because I've gotten to show up for other guys the day they die.
And I've gotten, I see, one of the things I realized in sobriety
is my children had no relationship with my father
because I wouldn't keep a picture of him in the house.
So I started putting pictures of him.
And I started talking to him and developed this relationship
and telling my son stories about his grandfather.
So when I went to see Paul two weeks ago and we sat,
his blood pressure went up and he pointed to me.
He said to the nurse, he excites me.
That's why my blood pressure...
I said, it'll go back down after he leaves, I guarantee you.
And, um, we got to, uh, just have such a grand visit together.
And, uh, what an incredible demonstration of the power of God working in my life.
And tell each other how much, how much pleasure we took in our relationship.
And a couple of days after that we were on the phone
and, uh, we were making jokes.
He had been, uh, he was over 81 years old
and he had been, uh, was being discharged the next morning.
He had this just lovely talk on the phone.
He had wound up back in ICU right after I visited him.
I told him it was kind of making me look bad for him to get sick again after I was there.
And, um, he told me what he thought of that.
And, um, uh, and a couple hours later he took his light into another room.
And, um, uh, an extraordinary human being
who, uh, was another...
He, he's 81.
He got his first tattoo a month and a half ago.
And, um, what the tattoo was is he used,
he used to use his hands a lot when he talked.
And he got a, uh, beautifully scripted L, uh, tattooed on his hand
to remind himself to listen while he was talking.
And, uh, I turned 15 a couple of weeks ago
and he was kind enough to come up to my house
and attend my, the party I was having.
And I said, uh, Paul, please show him your tattoo,
which...
He did.
He showed everybody the tattoo.
And I said, that's what I want.
I want my first tattoo when I'm 81.
That's what I'd like.
And, um, I can't tell...
You know, four years ago, the last time I spoke here,
I was changing home groups and changing sponsors and...
I'm changing sponsors and I'm changing home groups.
And, um, my sponsor did not keep me sober for one second.
I've never had a sponsor who has.
It says in our book, no human power.
No human power.
No human power can.
But I sure would rather be doing it with him.
I just adored him.
I miss him terribly.
And I'm brokenhearted.
And I'm not inconsolable.
I'm being consoled all the time.
I'm allowing myself to be taken care of.
Because if I don't allow myself to be sponsored,
I'll be a circuit drinker.
I'll be dead.
I once asked Paul who his favorite speaker was
and he mentioned a guy who I'd never heard of before.
And I said, who's that?
And Paul said, oh, he gave a great talk right up until the day he drank.
Because the guy had become unteachable.
And, um, I, it's a pleasure for me to be here tonight
to celebrate his life with you.
And, uh, if you knew, I'm sure you're thrilled for Paul and I.
And, uh, I want to welcome you to Alcoholics Anonymous.
And, um, I can't write.
I can't rob you of one minute of your agony.
Even if I want to.
I can't work a step for you.
Sharon talked about it this afternoon.
And I can't cheat you out of one minute of your pain.
Just like I can't cheat my kids out of one minute of theirs.
I turned 48 this year.
I know I don't look it.
And, um, at my birthday party, I started to say something.
And my younger son, Jesse, said to me, uh,
let me talk, Dad.
You talk.
All the time.
Just let me talk.
He said, Dad, I just want to tell you that you make me excited about life.
And I will tell you, I told you tonight the shape that my kids were in
and where we were when I got sober.
If I could be the architect of the thing that would most thrill me
to hear from my child, it would be that.
But I know why.
Because you have made me so excited about life.
You put my hand in God's pocket and my kid put his hand in mine.
My sponsor.
I used to say all the time that this is the only treatment from a fatal illness that he knew about
that actually leaves the sufferer in better condition than they were in before they caught the disease.
This is the only text about recovery from a fatal illness that contains the sentence,
we absolutely insist on enjoying life.
There's no, there's no, there's no book about recovery.
There's no book about cholera that says, cholera's a hoot.
You'll love cholera.
It's fabulous.
You'll meet other people with cholera.
Oh, and then you'll meet people who just caught cholera.
It doesn't get any better than that.
And that's because of the good news.
The good news is our problem mainly rests in our mind.
If that wasn't so, then our answer wouldn't be this great joy.
And the bad news is our problem mainly rests in our mind.
Some years ago, I was talking to this drunk in a meeting.
And he called me when he got home that night.
He talked to me for an hour.
I said, uh-huh, four times so that he would know I wasn't dead.
And he told me about he had been stalking several women.
He had a restraining order taken out against him.
But it's all different.
He's two weeks sober and it's all different now.
And then at the end of the hour, he said, I feel so alone.
And I said, what do you mean you feel alone?
I hardly even know you.
I just listened to you for an hour without interrupting.
What are you talking about?
And he said to me, well, I don't have a woman.
I said to him, what exactly would you be bringing to a relationship right now besides stalking skills?
What are you bringing to the party?
People two weeks into remission from leukemia are not having dating problems.
None of them are.
Alcoholics are.
Because our problem.
Mainly rests in our mind.
My son, Micah, paid us one of the most beautiful compliments I've ever heard for you guys.
I want to share it with you tonight.
He was babysitting for this couple in the program.
And the guy said to him, what do you think hearing your dad talk in AA?
And my son said, oh, really, I'm not a member.
That doesn't really mean that much to me.
He said, all I can tell you is since I'm a very, very little boy,
the men and women of Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon have taken very, very good care of me.
And never once has any of them demanded that I believe what they believe.
What an extraordinary statement.
What a remarkable expression of what Dr. Bob said you will wind up with
if you distill all of our 12 principles down to their essence.
You will wind up with service and love.
And what a beautiful expression of it.
And that was based on Micah's knowledge as a member of an AA Al-Anon family for 15 years.
What a beautiful expression.
What a beautiful expression.
What a beautiful expression.
What a beautiful expression.
What a beautiful expression.
What a beautiful, I mean, especially in this time of spiritual propriety,
of so much bullying, of using spiritual tools as spiritual weapons.
That is truly attraction and not promotion.
But our problem mainly rests in our mind.
A couple of years ago, my wife Nancy was walking through our bedroom.
I was talking to a new guy, and she heard me say into the phone,
let's say the aliens are coming.
She stopped short.
She ain't missing a second of this.
I said to the guy, look, I'm not telling you the aliens aren't coming.
They might very well be coming.
But that's an outside interest.
I have one question for you.
Why you?
Why are they coming for you?
Why have they traversed the galaxy for your sorry ass?
You live in North Hollywood.
You have no life.
Don't you think they'll call a cop, go to a post office?
Why you?
Plus, he's sleeping with the Bible on his chest to ward them off.
They're going to traverse the universe, walk into his room and go, oh no, the Bible, let's go home.
So I'm sharing this story at a meeting some years ago,
and the guy I'm talking about walks into the meeting.
So I'm watching the guy, right?
And I'm telling the story, and I watch the guy go like this.
Holy shit.
And I see the horrible memory come sliding back in.
If you're new and the aliens are coming for you, welcome to AA.
Welcome home.
Thanks for having me, guys.
Thank you.