Page 52 Describes Exactly How I Felt at Ten Years Old Before I Ever Took a Drink – Joe H.

My name is Joe. I'm an alcoholic. It's good to be here. I had some fun this weekend. Being an alcoholic, one of the definitions of alcoholic insanity is lack of proportion and the inability to think straight.
I get invited to come here a few months ago, and I automatically see how early I can leave and how much we can do while we're gone.
I left on Thursday to be here on Sunday. That wasn't driving. That was flying to San Francisco, then to Lake Tahoe.
Day and a half.
Day and a half in San Francisco. I could really tell that the guy that Jim asked for a glass of water and he brought me a glass of water, you ask an alcoholic for a glass of water, you get three.
I understand that. I want to thank the committee for asking me to come.
It's both a privilege and an honor to be able to do this as long as I understand who gets the credit, and I hope that that's not me.
When I try to do that, I get in a lot of trouble.
I guess the only reason I'm here today is to share with you the grace of God in my life and the miracle that has happened.
I got sober August 17, 1982, and I've been clean and sober ever since.
I don't know how a guy like me has that happen.
I would like to say I don't know how a guy like me does that, but the very best a guy like me can do is drink.
He can take drugs and destroy everybody around him and his own life.
So I really don't know how this happens, this gift of sobriety.
I've tried to learn to be grateful for that, and I think gratitude is an expression rather than a feeling, although I do feel grateful.
I believe like what I learned a little bit about love is that love is not only a feeling, but it's action.
And I think gratitude is the same thing for me, and the way I express my gratitude is to give freely what was given to me.
I think I woke up this morning a little early.
I was excited, and I was really reminded of an alcoholic's mind, or at least mine.
And I thought of a story that I heard one time I'll share with you about how we think.
And it's about a man who's drunk.
And it's about a man who's drunk.
And it's about this guy who's been sober forever.
God bless him, and God forbid he's on his deathbed.
His wife is there.
He looks up at his wife, and he says,
Honey, after all these years, I've realized something.
She says, What's that?
He says, Well, you were there when I had my first stroke.
And you were right there.
And you stood by me.
And you were there that time I got shot.
And you were right there.
And you stood by me.
You were there.
You were there when I lost all our money in business.
You've always been right there.
You've always stood by me.
And after all these years, I've realized one thing.
You're a friggin' jinx.
You're a friggin' jinx.
When I heard that, I thought, you know, that's just how I think, you know.
There's a part of me that refuses several things.
There's a part of me that refuses to take the responsibility unless it's something good,
and then I take the credit.
There's a part of me that has to blame somebody or something for why I feel the way I do.
And there's a part of me that wants to grab onto something that I can do.
And I believe in this program we call that ego.
I could bore you with a long story of 17 years of drinking and a lot of drugs.
Confusion.
Pain.
Good times.
But there's another story that I think tells you most about my 17 years of drinking.
And it's also for you new people.
It's a riddle.
And the riddle is, which one's the alcoholic?
And it's about these two identical twin brothers.
Identical in every way, but one.
And they're growing up across the street from a house of ill repute.
This is the Sunday morning me.
I usually would say whorehouse, but I won't.
And they're growing up across the street from this house,
and they're watching men come and go.
One of them really wonders what's going on in there,
and one of them doesn't really care.
Five, six, seven years old.
One of them thinks about it a lot,
and one day he talks his little brother into saving up 50 cents,
and they're going to go over there,
and they're going to ask one of these men what's going on in there.
And they wait for one of these guys to come out,
and he's all smiles, and one brother says,
they walk up to this guy, and they say,
what's going on in there?
He says, well, I'm not going to tell you, but I'll give you a hint.
It makes you feel really good,
and you have to pay for it.
So they go a couple more years,
and one brother thinks about it a lot,
and the other one doesn't think about it much,
and one day the brother that's been thinking about it
gets the other brother to get 50 cents,
and they're going to go over there,
and they're going to buy 50 cents worth of what they're selling.
And they walk up to this house,
and this little old lady answers the door,
and she says, what do you want?
And one brother says,
we want to buy 50 cents worth of what you're selling.
She grabs him by the collar,
and she pulls him in this house,
and bangs their heads together for about 10 minutes,
and throws him back out on the side,
and they're walking down the sidewalk,
and one brother looks at the other brother,
and he says, I sure am glad we didn't buy $5 worth.
And the other one kept going back for more.
Which one's the alcoholic?
But when I do get a chance to do this,
to share with you,
or to sit in my living room
and listen to another alcoholic,
when I get to listen to one of you at a meeting,
when I get to talk about my alcoholism,
personally I believe the most important part of my alcoholism,
because it's also the reason that I'm here today,
is the first 13 years before I ever took a drink.
I took my first drink when I was 13 years old,
because I needed something.
I wasn't right.
I didn't fit.
And the 13 years that preceded that drink
were in the middle of a family
where I shouldn't have felt that way.
And I don't know about any of you,
but age 10, 11, 12,
I can remember thinking that if a spaceship
would land in my backyard,
and a little green man would get out and say,
you weren't really born here on this planet,
this has been a dream,
this has been a test.
I would have said, yeah.
That explains it.
Because I feel different,
and I feel separate,
and I feel out of place.
And there's something not right about me.
And how come my brothers and sisters
can do this and that?
How come my sister can yell and scream at my dad,
and the next day they hug and they make up?
I get mad at my dad and I go to bed
and those feelings just churn around.
And I can't do anything with him.
It doesn't get better.
How come she can do that and I can't?
I was always comparing myself to the world,
and I just didn't quite fit.
And I came to this program
and I left my last treatment center.
I heard that we have a mental
and a physical and a spiritual disease.
And I knew a lot about the symptoms.
I'd been a therapist.
I'd been a therapist
in a treatment center drinking
with the director of the program
that I worked for.
And I used to give great lectures
on THIQ and neurotransmitters
and chemical enzyme reactions.
I knew about these symptoms,
but no one ever talked to me
about a spiritual malady.
And I heard this term,
spiritual malady,
and my alcoholic ego,
that part of me
that wants to keep me separate.
That part of me
that wants to make me different from you.
You see, I'm either the wellest person
in the room
or I'm the sickest person in the room.
That there's a part of me
that has to keep me different
and separate and apart.
And that part of me said,
spiritual malady,
that must be really heavy.
You know, probably at the moment of birth,
the sky opened up
and a lightning bolt came down
and struck me as I was coming out of my mother.
If I can only find out why that happened,
everything will be alright, you know.
It's got to be Freudian.
It's got to be heavy.
And the people that worked with me
when I came to this program
that still work with me today
said that it was very simple,
the spiritual malady,
and that it was described several times
in our big book.
And unfortunately,
I started reading this book
when I was pretty new.
In the doctor's opinion,
it said we were restless,
irritable, discontented.
My God, the first time I read that,
I thought, you know,
that's how I felt before I ever took a drink.
I thought, you know,
I'm not going to drink.
I'm not going to drink.
I'm not going to drink.
I'm not going to drink.
I'm not going to drink.
I'm not going to drink.
I'm not going to drink.
And that's how I felt
when the alcohol and the drugs
were not working.
And that's how I felt
six months sitting around this program
waiting for this to happen by osmosis,
thinking I was in Alcoholics Anonymous
because I was going to meetings.
That's me.
That's the very best I can do.
Another part of his chapter
said that a part of our disease
differentiates us and sets us apart
like a distinct entity.
And I thought, my God,
that's how I felt when I was a kid
before I ever took a drink.
Another part of the book
in the chapter to the agnostic
talks about untreated alcoholism
and the unmanageability of my life
and the spiritual malady.
Today, I don't see any difference
between those three things.
If you're curious at all
and you want to see
whether you still suffer
from untreated alcoholism,
go home and read page 52
and see how you're doing
with personal relationships.
It says we're having trouble
with personal relationships.
We can't control our emotions.
We're prey to misery and depression.
We have a feeling of uselessness.
We're full of fear.
We're unhappy.
And I thought, my God,
that's how I felt before I ever took a drink.
That's how I felt when the alcohol
and the drugs weren't working.
And that's how I felt
sitting around this program
dying of untreated alcoholism.
That's me.
That's the very best I can do.
I heard George Carlin a few weeks ago
and he talked about language.
What we do as humans,
especially in America,
with language.
He said, you know, in World War I
they used to call it shell shock.
And that's pretty graphic
and it's pretty descriptive.
And nowadays, after several wars,
they call it post-traumatic syndrome.
You know,
that sounds much nicer.
Sounds nice.
And I thought, you know, my God,
that's what we do in Alcoholics Anonymous.
Rather than say to you
that my friend so-and-so went out and drank.
We like to use little terms like
he slipped.
He stepped off the podium.
There was a banana.
He fell on the floor.
There was a bottle of booze.
It fell into his mouth.
You know, slip.
It sounds much nicer.
You know.
Rather than tell you that I suffer from lack of power
and that spiritual malady is my problem,
I'd rather tell you that I suffer from low self-esteem.
You know, and I started thinking about that
because that's one of the big things in Southern California
they tell me it means is
what your problem is really is low self-esteem.
I was given the grace at Christmas this year
to celebrate my seventh sober Christmas
and for the first time,
the first time in my life,
my family came to where I live.
The first time in my life,
they came to where I live for Christmas.
And here's a guy that wasn't invited home for seven years
a long time ago.
And I was in the hotel where my family was
and I was waiting for them to come out
and I saw a guy from the program.
We've never talked, but he recognized me.
And he came over and we were talking
and I was trying to tell him about the grace of God in my life.
And I said, you know,
I'm just in awe of this power
that my family would really come to where I live
for the first time in my life for Christmas.
And he says, why?
Don't you feel like you deserve that?
And I wanted to say to him
what my sponsor told me a long time ago.
Thank God it ain't about justice.
If everyone in this room got what they deserve,
probably none of us would be here.
It's about grace and mercy.
I said, no, I really don't feel like I deserve this.
And he said, do you know where that feeling comes from?
And I said, no, because I wanted to hear what he had to say.
And he said, that comes from low self-esteem.
You know, here I am trying to talk to somebody
about the grace of God in my life
and he's telling me that I suffer from low self-esteem.
I have probably had more esteem for myself
than anybody ever will for me.
I have probably loved myself
more than anyone will ever love me.
And I drank.
And I have probably hated myself
more than anyone will ever hate me.
And I drank.
But you see, there's a part of me
that wants to grab onto something
that I can work on.
I can do it.
And if I can't do it,
there's somebody in this room
that can do it for me.
I can believe in the group.
I can believe in my sponsor.
I can believe in this book.
If I only work the steps.
Because it's got to be something that I can grab.
See, self-esteem I can work on.
I know how to go take courses and books.
I know how to have you pump me up
with all the self-esteem I need.
See, that's something that I can do.
But if I tell you that I suffer from lack of power
and really admit that,
there's not much that I can do.
And I think a lot of times,
in Alcoholics Anonymous,
we take the words
that normal people out there in the world can use.
Because see, they don't understand us.
I meet people all the time
and I tell them I'm seven years sober.
I always exaggerate a little bit, you know,
because I'm in my seventh year.
I'm well into my seventh.
I just had my sixth birthday in August.
I'm well into my seventh year.
And they say, great job.
You've done a great job.
And you want to say to me,
I haven't done shit.
As a matter of fact,
I've done everything that would probably get most of you drunk.
But for some reason,
God has seen fit to keep me sober.
I tried to explain to my mother
the first time she heard me speak in Alcoholics Anonymous
that the day I showed up at my dad's funeral drunk
and couldn't do anything about that,
but I really didn't want to,
that I had no choice.
And the second time she heard me speak in Alcoholics Anonymous,
after I had made amends to her,
and told her about this program,
she looked at me and she said,
you know, I really understand
that you really didn't have a choice
about showing up drunk at your dad's funeral.
And sometimes you sit in your living room
and you try to talk to another alcoholic.
And sometimes they're in that place where it clicks.
And sometimes they understand
that they can't do anything about it.
And sometimes they still think
that there's something that they can do.
And I don't know how that happens.
And I don't know what beats us into that state.
Except my book tells me
that there is only one great persuader.
Something that beats you into a state of reasonableness
more than any therapist, mother, father, child, husband, wife
will ever be able to beat you into.
That's alcohol.
And all I know is that I drank every drop that I could
until I woke up one day in August 1982
and the miracle happened.
I couldn't drink.
And I don't know how that happens.
And I was in a state of reasonableness.
But there is a part of me
that would like to tell you
that I suffer from anything
but something that I can't do anything about.
It's low self-esteem.
You need to love me until I can love myself.
That assumes you can love me enough to keep me sober.
Of course we love each other.
Of course you love me until I can love myself.
But neither one of those things
are what's going to keep me sober.
And I forget that.
Because it's got to be something I can grab onto
and do something with.
So here's this kid, 10, 11, 12 years old.
Baffled.
Because what they're saying to me
doesn't match what this is saying to me.
And they're saying things to me
like the one that used to baffle me
more than anything else.
I don't know if any of you ever heard this,
but I heard it from teachers.
And coaches and counselors
and mommy and daddy.
They used to say to me,
you have so much potential.
And I used to wonder, where is it?
And I used to get those moments of clarity
laying in bed and I used to say to myself,
where is this potential they keep telling me about?
Because I know I need an edge.
And I found potential.
I found potential in a bottle.
Of stuff that made me feel really good.
All of a sudden,
I heard about some stuff that makes you feel good
and I was interested.
And I took a drink of that stuff
and something happened.
It took away that stuff.
It took away that thing.
It took away that thing that you all told me about.
That I never knew what it was.
I explored it in psychology.
I explored it in college.
I explored it as a therapist.
There were idiots when I was a therapist
that actually thought I was interested
in helping somebody else
rather than just finding out about
what's wrong with me.
You know that question that some of us have
most of our life
and for some of us it never gets answered
until we get here.
What's wrong with me?
And the funny thing is,
a couple of years after I started drinking
and when I discovered drugs,
all of a sudden their question
turned into my question.
And we matched.
But it was still confusing
because they were saying,
what's wrong with you?
They didn't say you have so much potential anymore.
And I had found some.
And it was never in sync.
When I didn't know where the potential was,
they said I should have.
When I finally found something
that gave me potential,
then they wondered what was wrong with me.
What I think and what I feel
and what they say and what they feel
never really seems to match.
And I don't fit.
And I search out people where I fit.
And I search out those people
that have that same problem
and they're walking around
wondering what's wrong with me
but they're all afraid to say that.
And we look around for it.
We heard that it was in San Francisco.
We all got in a bus
and we went to San Francisco.
It wasn't there.
Every time I got somewhere,
it had moved.
We heard it was in Boulder, Colorado.
We got back in the bus
and went to Boulder, Colorado.
It wasn't there either.
But once in a while,
you'd find it
and you'd want to have it again.
And you'd want to have it again.
And you'd want to have it again.
I found it in a bottle.
I found it in a syringe.
I found it in a woman.
I found it in a pile of money.
I found it once in a while
in a new geographical location.
I found it once in a while
in another group of people.
And when it didn't work anymore,
I moved somewhere else
to some other thing,
to some other woman,
to some more money
or less money.
The last place I ever looked
was the first place you ever told me.
Imagine the grace in that.
The first place you told me
was the last place I ever thought to look.
And that's deep down
within each and every one of us.
My drinking and drugging
took me to all the right places.
What I'm going to share with you
has nothing to do
with why I say I'm an alcoholic.
I think a lot of times
in Alcoholics Anonymous,
we spend too much time
talking about our common differences
rather than our common problem.
I think our preamble says
that we should share
our experience, strength,
and hope with each other
so that we can solve
our common problem.
And I think a lot of times
we spend a lot of time
talking about our common differences.
Because you see,
I went to the penitentiary
when I was 19.
I went to 10 treatment centers.
That has nothing to do with virtue.
That has to do with having
a great Blue Cross Blue Shield card.
I have a Blue Cross Blue Shield card
that I don't need anymore.
But I used to use it.
I used it for 30 days once a year.
Because that's what they allowed.
Some of you go on summer vacations.
I go to treatment.
I need a little rest,
I go to treatment
or a county jail.
One time they put me
in the penitentiary
and I said,
this is not what I signed up for.
It's a little longer
than my ego needs.
My ego needs about 5 or 10 days
to get a plan.
Every time I left treatment,
I always had a plan.
I started going to treatment
when I was 19 years old
because I didn't know
what was wrong with me
and I wanted to quit
for somebody.
It didn't work.
And I wanted to quit
when I was 21
after they let me out
of the penitentiary.
And on and on and on
and nothing,
none of that has anything
to do with why I say
I'm an alcoholic.
Because you see,
if I'm an alcoholic
because I went to
10 treatment centers,
what does that do
to those of you in the room
that never went to
treatment?
Does that mean you're not?
Of course not.
I'm not an alcoholic
because I went to
the penitentiary either.
Because if you didn't,
that doesn't mean
you're not either.
I came to this program
and I had spent so much time
trying to find out why
by looking at the results
of where my disease took me.
Thank God for a guy that said,
why don't you take all the drama?
Why don't you take all the results
of where your disease took you
and find out why
rather than looking at
the results?
Because see,
some of you have never been
to the penitentiary.
Some of you have never
been to jail.
Some of you have never
had a 502.
Some of you have never
been to treatment.
And you're full-blown
alcoholics.
But you've got to be given
the right questions.
I used to think the big book
was filled with answers.
And especially when you're
looking at the first three steps,
you will find no answers
unless you look within
your own experience.
The questions are in the big book.
The answers are within me.
And I came to this program
and thank God some people
started to talk to me
about a common problem.
That I don't care if you're
a 70-year-old little woman
sitting in my living room.
If you're an alcoholic,
you and I can talk about.
And I had days and months
and several years
filled with those common symptoms
that I had.
That common problem
in my drinking.
And I'll share two of those days
with you.
One of them was the day
of my father's funeral.
And I was brought from
a little white room
in a sanitarium
where I had been detoxed
from drugs and alcohol.
And I don't need to
embellish on this.
And I don't need to exaggerate it.
But at that time,
I was 19 years old.
And I was on 125 milligrams
of methadone a day
for a year and a half.
I was taking between
40 and 60 orange
pharmaceutical quaaludes
a day,
15 at a time,
three or four times a day.
I was shooting heroin
on top of that
that did nothing.
And drinking vodka
all I could.
And I had cashed
$25,000 worth of checks
in one week
for a guy that wanted
to help me out.
I'm still afraid
of those guys.
Let me help you out, brother.
You know?
And they had told me
not to cash anymore.
And I woke up one day
and I was sick.
And they told me,
they told me not to cash any
and I had no choice.
And I went and I cashed a couple.
And a security guard came up
and put a gun at my head.
And they put me in the
Kalamazoo, Michigan County Jail.
And my brother came and got me out.
And he said,
you can cold turkey here in this jail
or you can go to the
Battle Creek Sanitarium.
Well, once again,
there's no choice.
Take me to the sanitarium
because I know what's in a sanitarium.
Doctors and drugs.
And I know how to talk to doctors
to get drugs.
So it'll be comfortable.
It wasn't.
They gave me 10 milligrams of methadone
one day and then locked me
in a little white room for 36 days.
On the 34th day,
my father died in that same hospital
in the intensive care unit
from his third stroke.
And they took me to his room
to watch him die
from my little room.
He didn't know I was in that hospital.
He didn't know I was dying
and I didn't know he was dying.
Talk about delusion.
And I got to watch my father die
and I got to watch my family
point their fingers at me
and say,
you killed him.
And then I got to go back
to that little white room
and live with that for two more days
without any drugs or alcohol.
On the 36th day,
they took me out of that room
and they brought me to his funeral.
And before I went to the funeral,
they took me by my mother's house.
A guard.
A guard brought me.
And my mother said something to me
she never said to me
in the seven years that I'd been drinking.
She said,
please don't show up
at your dad's funeral messed up.
And with all the love
and all the intention
and everything that I could muster,
I said to her,
I will not show up
at my dad's funeral messed up.
And I meant it.
And I meant it when I asked him
could I go across the street
to say hello to a friend.
And I meant it when that friend asked me
did I want to have a beer
just to calm down.
And I meant it when I said
I'll only have two.
And somewhere between the second one
and the twentieth one,
I lost the power of choice
over how much I was going to drink.
And I showed up messed up
at my father's funeral
to the point where that guard
chained me to a tree by my ankle
at my own father's funeral.
And I didn't want to do that.
I didn't want to do that.
A lot of times in Southern California
they say this thing
that just baffles me.
I'm searching California.
I'm searching California
to find out the guy
that made it up
so I can talk to him.
And what they say is
just don't drink
no matter what.
You know,
someone that I love
more than anybody in the world
used to say that to me
and I couldn't pull it off.
Just don't drink no matter what.
And I'm a guy that drinks
no matter what.
You know, as a matter of fact,
if you're a person
that can just not drink
no matter what,
you're probably in the wrong program
because you're not drinking.
You're probably in the wrong program.
You're probably in the wrong program.
You're probably in the wrong program.
Because we are people that drink
no matter what.
And where I got sober
in Denver, Colorado,
they told me,
you probably will drink
no matter what
unless something major
happens here for you.
And I don't know how a guy like me
doesn't drink no matter what.
But for the grace of God.
About two years later
they let me out
of the Michigan State Penitentiary
for forgery
and I was like,
I reported to my parole officer
and he told me what they'd do
if I drank or drugged again.
He told me what it had done to my body.
He told me what it had done to my life.
He laid out about 20 reasons
why I shouldn't.
And I walked out of his office
and I felt great
and I had a plan
and this is what I was going to do.
And on my second report,
28 days out of the penitentiary
with every sufficient reason
in the world not to drink,
I walked out of his office
after my second report
into a bar
to buy a pack of cigarettes,
picked up a drink
and woke up six days later
120 miles away.
And I didn't want to do that.
And I didn't know why I did that.
And I don't know why I do that.
And I came to this program
and you told me two simple things
that tied those days
and a lot of other days together
for why I do that.
Because you see,
the day of my dad's funeral
I put some alcohol in my system
and I have an allergy to alcohol
that's stronger than anything
I can bring to mind.
Even the love for a mother.
And on the 28th day
out of the penitentiary
they told me about
an alcoholic mind
that given every sufficient reason
in the world not to,
does.
You see, I have a body
that has an allergy
and a mind that tells me I don't.
And this time I can eat strawberries.
You know, if I eat strawberries
I break out with a rash.
Well, when I drink alcohol
I don't break out with a rash.
I break out with a screaming,
meamy craving for more alcohol
that's beyond anything
I can think of.
That's the only thing I can do
until that goes away.
And sometimes it lasts for an hour
and sometimes it lasts for a week.
And sometimes that craving
goes away with two drinks
and sometimes that craving
doesn't go away with 20.
I still want more.
And I can't stop that
until it decides to stop.
But I have a mind that tells me
this time it'll be different
and you can eat strawberries
but you won't get a rash this time
even though you've gotten a rash
every other time you ever ate them.
This time you won't get a rash
but you won't.
I have a mind that doesn't remember
with enough force
the memory of what happened
last time ago.
And the pieces started coming together
when I got here.
And people started talking to me
about our common problem.
See, because it doesn't matter
if I've ever been to the penitentiary
to identify that.
And it has to do with two points.
Can you control the amount
once you start?
And can you control the stop
once you stop?
And that's all I had to look at.
As a matter of fact,
they told me to take all the drama
and skim it off the top.
And look at those two points.
Can you control the amount
once you start?
And can you control the stop
once you stop?
And I saw that that's me.
In August 1982,
I woke up in a motel room
in Denver, Colorado.
And circumstances weren't that bad.
Out here.
There was nobody banging on the door.
There was no lover threatening me.
There was no family on the phone.
There was no landlord.
There was no police.
There was no lawyers.
There was no P.O.
They'd all gone.
There was me and a bottle of alcohol
and some stuff down the street
that I could go and get
and a phone that I could pick up
and get some money.
And all I know is that
the night before that,
something must have happened.
Because I woke up that next morning
and there was some alcohol in a bottle
and there was a phone
and I could get in the car
and I could drive down the street
to go get what I wanted
and I couldn't.
And I had been to a treatment center
about eight weeks earlier
and left after three days
because I felt better.
I think one of the most dangerous things
for a new alcoholic in this program
is to do things for him
that make him feel better
before that magical thing happens.
When you can't imagine life
either with it or without it.
But I woke up that morning
and I picked up the phone
and you know all I could say to that person
that I used to get money from
was I can't lie to you anymore
and then wonder why I said that.
And then I picked up that bottle
and I couldn't drink.
And I went to get in my car
and instead of going to where
the stuff was that I wanted,
it turned and went back
to that treatment center.
And I walked in there
and I said help me.
And you know for the first time in my life,
I didn't have a plan.
And about 35 days later
they let me out of that place
and I was scared to death
because they didn't pump me full of sunshine
and they didn't give me a diploma
and they didn't pat me on the back
and tell me everything would be alright.
They told me the truth.
And those are the kind of people
that I learned about love from
in Alcoholics Anonymous.
Because when I got out of there
and I started to go to meetings,
it got better out here.
But that ain't where it is for me anymore.
The family was behind me.
I got a new place to live.
Making some great friends
in Alcoholics Anonymous.
There was a little period of a pink cloud.
And one day I woke up
with five and a half months of dryness.
And I said if this is what sobriety is about,
I don't want anything to do with it
because it is worse.
And what is it?
It is restless.
It is irritable.
It is discontented.
It is full of fear.
It is having problems
with personal relationships.
It can't control its emotional nature.
It's full of misery.
And I hit a bottom.
Sober.
And I hope that place happens for everyone here.
Because when that day comes,
you don't have to work the program anymore.
You don't have to work the program anymore.
Because you finally see
that lack of power is your dilemma.
And then what you can start to do
is to seek God.
Because everything else you ever tried,
even managing your own life on your own power,
without drugs and alcohol,
even that doesn't work anymore.
You see, I think I left my last treatment center
still thinking that alcohol and drugs were my problem.
Until I met up with some people that said
alcohol and drugs, if you were like us,
were not your problem.
They might have gotten you in a lot of trouble,
but they were probably your only solution
to make the pain go away.
And that made sense.
Because I used to go to these treatment centers
and they would tell me two things.
Alcohol and drugs are your problem,
and if you just put them aside,
everything will be alright.
And after about the fifth or sixth treatment center,
I wanted to say to those people,
what do you mean they're my problem?
Yeah, they get me in a lot of trouble,
but they're the only thing left
that takes the pain away.
And let me tell you something,
every time I put them aside,
it doesn't get better.
The further away I get from my last drink,
the worse it gets.
And it is that spiritual malady
that I suffer from
that was there before I ever took a drink.
And thank God I met some people
when I hit that place at five and a half months dry
that said, you know, there's a solution to that.
And you don't have to sit around
dying of untreated alcoholism
in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous any longer.
And I had heard that man in my very first meeting
while I was in treatment,
and it took me five and a half months
to ask him to be my sponsor
until I got to that place
where there was nothing my ego could grab onto
and say, this is what you can do.
There wasn't anything.
In the program,
and I was going to a lot of meetings,
and I was picking up ashtrays
and picking up chairs.
As a matter of fact, I hate to admit this,
but there was a time in Denver, Colorado,
they used to call me Joe Osmosis.
Because I thought I was going to get this thing
by sitting in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous
next to you old timers
who was just going to rub off on me.
And I used to get angry
when I hear the promises on page 83.
Because I would say,
they're not happening for me.
And you know, a man said to me one day,
the kind of men that I learned about love from,
a man said to me,
you know how you get the promises on page 83?
You do what's on page 1 to 82.
Now that's too simple for me.
You see, I'm a guy,
you tell me this is a textbook,
I go to how it works.
And forget the rest.
And I went to that man
that I'd heard in my very first meeting
and I asked him to be my sponsor.
And I told him where I was at.
And he said he only knew one way to do that.
And he said the way that he knew how to do that
was to start on the title page
and to go through the first 164 pages together.
And you know, since that day,
I've never felt that way
as I did when I went to his house that day.
Now every day hasn't been great,
but I have never been that hopeless,
that miserable,
that full of fear
since that day.
And we started doing that
and some amazing things happened.
I found out why I did what I did
the day of my dad's funeral,
in the doctor's opinion.
And some of there is a solution.
I found out why I did what I did
the day that I was 28 days out of the penitentiary.
And I never knew why.
And all of a sudden,
and doesn't it make sense,
if we all come here with this question
in the back of our mind,
what's wrong with me?
That that should be the first question
that gets answered when we get here.
And you know that's the first question
they started helping me answer.
What's wrong with you?
What are you really powerless over?
Are you really an alcoholic?
Maybe you're not.
I heard a man not too long ago
and he talked about three ways
to approach the first step.
And he's worked with hundreds of alcoholics.
And he said there's really three types of people
that approach the first step.
And one of them is the bigot.
And what the bigot is,
is the man that knows.
And he knows that he is,
or he knows that he isn't.
It doesn't matter.
But he knows.
And that man is filled with contempt
prior to investigation.
He said then there's a man
that's even harder to work with.
The hardest one to work with
in Alcoholics Anonymous.
And that's the believer.
The pious man.
And he not only knows,
but he believes.
And he's filled with acceptance.
He just accepts everything.
He reads page 449
before he reads anything.
And he thinks that not only does he need
to admit the first step,
but he needs to accept it.
And I'm here to tell you,
if you're new here,
you do not have to accept
being powerless over alcohol
and that your life is unmanageable.
Because maybe for the first time in your life
you're here because that condition
has become entirely unacceptable.
If you need to accept the first step,
there's no reason to go to God
in the second step.
I do not accept being powerless over alcohol.
I admit that.
I concede to that.
And there's a big difference.
This guy said then there's the people
that need to approach this program
from the way of consideration.
With an open mind.
And as a matter of fact,
they gave me a prayer to use.
Please God, let everything I think I know
about myself, what's wrong with me,
this program, these steps,
let it all be put aside for an open mind
and a new experience.
And I started looking at maybe I am,
maybe I'm not.
Maybe I can control alcohol.
Maybe now that I'm sober,
I can manage my life.
And they gave me the grace
and they gave me the dignity
to really help me find out
what's wrong with me.
Now I'm not a guy who wanted to change
the words in the first step,
but I'm a guy that wanted to fill in
the little blank between the first half
and the second half.
You know, it says we admit
that we're powerless over alcohol
and that our lives have become unmanageable.
And there's a little dash there.
And I wanted to read it this way.
I admit that I'm powerless over alcohol and drugs
and that's why my life is unmanageable.
Until I really had some time around here,
about five or six months,
trying to manage my own life
on my own power without drugs and alcohol
to see that the second half of the first step
has nothing to do with the first half
of the first step
unless you're still drinking and drugging.
And I started to see
that about the best I can do
trying to manage my own life on my own power
is the description on page 52.
That's what I'm left with.
I'm having trouble with personal relationships.
I can't control my emotions.
I'm prey to misery and depression.
I have a feeling of uselessness.
I'm full of fear.
I'm unhappy.
And they took me through two little exercises
that really helped me see that first step.
And one of them was,
make a list of the ten craziest things
you ever did.
And this was to see the insanity.
And I made this list
of the ten craziest things I ever did.
And you know what?
Every one of them
were under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
And this kind, loving, gentle man
looked at me and he shook his head
and he said,
I'll bet you ten thousand bucks
that the number one thing on your chart,
the most insane thing you ever did,
was absolutely bone dry
with nothing in your system.
And I said, what do you mean?
He said, the most insane thing
that you've ever done
was to pick up another drink
based on your history with alcohol.
And you did that
with nothing in your system at all.
To see the unmanageability of my life,
they asked me to make a list
of what drugs and alcohol used to do for me.
Not to me, for me.
And I made this list about
takes away the pain,
makes me feel strong,
courageous, funny, lover, fighter,
all these things.
And they said,
now ask yourself one question.
Can you on your own power
sit in a chair
and make those things go away
or make those things happen?
And I saw that the unmanageability
of my life is within.
And you know there's great freedom in that
to stand here today
and say that my life is not unmanageable
because of what goes on out here anymore.
Because you know what they told me?
If she makes your life unmanageable,
if the boss makes your life unmanageable,
if the car makes your life unmanageable,
if the money makes your life unmanageable,
you're going to have to go out in the world
and fix the world to get well.
And I had tried that.
They said the unmanageability of your life is within.
And it's described on page 52.
And all of a sudden I started to see
maybe lack of power is my dilemma.
Maybe I don't have the power
to control the amount once I start.
And maybe I don't have the power
to keep myself sober.
And maybe I don't have the power
to manage my own life now that I'm dry.
Maybe lack of power really is my dilemma.
And maybe I suffer
which only a spiritual experience will conquer.
You see, the way they used that big book with me
was to turn every statement into a question.
And if I could share one thing with any of you
about how to use that big book,
is every time it makes a statement,
you turn it into a question for yourself.
Can I do that?
Is that me?
Is lack of power my problem?
Do I suffer from this kind of disease?
And then all of a sudden that big book
comes alive for you.
And it's you.
It's not just some story about Bill
when you're reading Bill's story.
It's not just some opinion of some doctor.
It's not just some opinion of some psychiatrist.
It's not just some hundred people
that maybe started this program
whether they stayed sober or not.
All of a sudden it's you.
And if the problem is you,
then maybe you'll see that the story
and the solution is for you too.
And then maybe you'll see that you're willing
to go to any length
and that you want what these people have to offer.
Then you're ready to take certain steps.
And I started to look at my problems with God.
Doubt.
Prejudice.
Old beliefs.
What I was raised with.
And you know they gave me some real freedom
when they said I could choose my own conception.
And I remembered a therapist when I was in treatment.
My therapist.
My therapist.
He didn't have any other clients.
I was the only one.
No, not really.
My therapist in treatment had said to the group one day.
He said that he believed within each and every one of us
was something that we were born with.
Whether we wanted to call it.
He's a very confused man.
He's a therapist during the day
and he's a monk at night.
And his name is Father Felix.
And he said to the group one day
that he believes each and every one of us
has something within us.
And that I could call it whatever I wanted to call it.
A gift.
A jewel.
The essence of life.
The power of God.
The spirit of the universe.
And that day in treatment I chose a jewel.
A jewel.
And he looked at me and he said,
Joe, you know for 30 years you've thrown mud on that jewel
in the form of pride,
ego,
intellect,
selfishness,
dishonesty,
self-seeking,
fear.
And I said, yeah.
And he said, you know I believe there's a process you can go through
to clear away the mud
that stands between you and the jewel you were given at birth.
And all I know is about seven months later
when I got to the second step in our program
the book said the very same thing
that deep down within every man, woman, and child
is the power of God
and that it is only there that he can be found
but it might be blocked.
It might be obscured by calamity,
pomp,
worship of other things.
But it's there.
And it told me where and how to find this power.
Yes, God comes to me through you.
Yes, God comes to me through the group.
But thank God there were some people in those groups
that said, why don't you look within yourself
to find this power that we have found.
So if it's three in the morning
and the phone's off the hook
or you can't run to a meeting,
maybe God will be able to be there for you.
If you're in the middle of a business conference,
if you're on the phone with somebody,
if you're sitting in front of your boss and you can't say,
I need to pause for a minute and leave the room
so I can get in touch with God.
Or call somebody.
Maybe God can really be there for you.
And maybe you can find a place deep down within yourself
where you can find God.
And they asked me a couple questions.
Was I willing to believe?
I said yes.
And then they asked me to make a choice at the second step.
And I don't know how a guy like me gets to a place
where in his life,
with the life that I had,
where he really gets to choose
whether God is everything or is nothing.
Where he really has a choice about that.
And I don't know.
And I made that choice that day
that for me, God will be everything.
Because if He's not, I'm nothing.
And I made a decision to go for that power.
And that's all the third step is.
But I remember sitting in a meeting in North Denver
when I was doing the old AA shuffle.
You know, I turn it over and I take it back
and I turn it over and I take it back.
And this old guy looked at me,
one of these guys that loved me enough to tell me the truth,
and he said,
if you're still doing that,
you haven't turned it over.
I said, what do you mean?
He said, well, there's a difference
between a decision and a commitment.
The third step by itself is only a decision,
but there is one hell of a commitment
if you follow it through with the program of action.
I said, what do you mean?
He said, well, if you tell someone to go sit in the corner
and pray for ham and eggs,
and then they just sit there,
they'll probably starve to death.
I said, I don't get it.
He said, well, if you tell someone to go sit in the corner
and pray for ham and eggs
and then show them how you got up
and made one hell of a commitment
and put one foot in front of the other,
they'll probably eat ham and eggs.
I said, I don't get it.
He said, well, it's like a chicken and a pig
walking down the road
and they come to a sign on a church
that says, help feed the poor.
And the chicken is filled with virtue
because this is a wonderful, lovely thing to do.
And he says to the pig,
he says, we ought to do something about that.
And the pig says,
what could we do?
And the chicken says,
we could feed them ham and eggs.
And the pig had a little more sense than I did
when I took the third step
because he said to the chicken,
for you that's just a simple decision
to lay some eggs
because that's a wonderful thing to do.
But for me, that's one hell of a commitment
because we're talking about my life.
And they started to eat.
And they started to ask me,
are you a chicken or a pig?
And they started to tell me those stupid riddles
about three frogs sitting on a log.
All three decide to jump off.
How many are left?
I said none.
They said three.
Now what are you going to do?
All they did was decide.
And several months later,
you know, when I had really looked in our book,
how many times,
how many times did I heard how it works?
A thousand.
How many times did I hear
that the description of the alcoholic,
the chapter to the agnostic,
and our personal adventures before and after
make clear three pertinent ideas
and I had no clue
what they were even talking about
until I looked in the book
about the description of the alcoholic
and took step one.
And looked in the book
and the chapter to the agnostic
and took step two
and put those things in relationship
to my personal adventures
before the first drink
and after the first drink.
And you know what?
It made clear three pertinent ideas.
That I'm an alcoholic
and I can't manage my own life.
That no human power can relieve my alcoholism.
And that I'm willing to believe
that God can and will for me
if I seek Him.
And I made that decision.
And how many people had ever told me
that there is a requirement to the third step?
My God, I thought you just read the wall.
You read the steps off the wall.
You do some stupid prayer.
You write an autobiography.
And you wait for the promises
on page 83 to happen.
And they didn't.
But you know what?
When I fully conceded to my innermost self
and there's a big difference
between fully conceding to your innermost self
that you're alcoholic
and saying that you're powerless over alcohol
because of all the drama
and the trouble you got in.
But when I fully conceded to my innermost self
that I am an alcoholic,
bodily, mentally, and spiritually.
And that my life is unmanageable.
Sober.
And that no human power has ever been able
to relieve my alcoholism.
And that I made a decision
that I was willing to believe
that God could and would
if I seek Him.
How many of us have ever been told
there's a requirement to the third step?
And they told me there was.
And that that requirement was
that I be convinced
that my life run on my will
could hardly be a success.
And then they gave me a page and a half
to see how I try to run my life on my will.
I'm like the actor.
I'm always ever trying to arrange the lights,
the ballet, and the scenery,
the rest of the players in my own way.
I mean, I hate reading that page.
I especially hate reading that page
if I put myself in there.
If it's you or the girl I'm involved with,
then it's okay.
Is He not a self-seeker
even when trying to be kind?
Is He not even in His best moments
a producer of confusion rather than harmony?
And all of a sudden I saw that was me
trying to run my life on my will.
And then they told me
what the third step decision was.
I always thought it was the prayer.
And I always thought
if I got on my knees
and did the prayer with my sponsor,
I'd made the decision.
And they said no.
The decision is that from hereafter in this life,
God is going to be your director,
your principal, and your Father.
And that decision comes way before the prayer.
And I did that prayer.
And I had some idea
that when I did that prayer with my sponsor,
the sky was going to open up
and there was going to be a big boom.
We would probably do it
on a mountain top in Colorado.
And we sat in His living room
and got on our knees and did that prayer,
and the saddest thing that could ever happen
to an alcoholic happened.
Nothing.
And I said,
Don, there was no big boom.
He said,
Thank God.
They damn near killed you.
You don't need one more of them.
And I asked the magic question.
I asked the magic question
that I wait for everybody
that I work with to ask.
Then how do I turn my will and my life
over to the care of God?
And it was so simple.
He said,
The way you turn your will and your life
over to the care of God
is 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9.
Acts against the will,
contrary to the way
you have lived your life.
And I'm here to tell you,
to write an inventory
the way it is in that big book?
No wonder there's so many
new fangled ways to write inventory.
I would rather write an autobiography
from now until I die
than write an inventory
the way it is in that big book.
Because the way it is in that big book
asks me to look at something
that without God in my life
I can't even see
because I never have been able to.
And that's the fourth column
of the resentment inventory.
My God, what's the fourth column
of the resentment inventory?
I never heard of it.
I never heard of that.
My God, you're lucky enough
if you get to look at
who you're mad at,
what they did,
and how it affected you.
Then it says we turned back
and looked at where we were at fault.
Where was I selfish, dishonest,
self-seeking, and afraid?
My God, with every resentment
I've ever had in my life,
I make this giant list of people,
institutions, and principles.
Not only it's hard enough to put,
it's easy to put down
why I'm mad at them.
I've been doing that up here
for about 30 years.
She did this and this
and didn't do that
and said this.
And then in my self-centered way,
I love to look at
how that affects me.
She affects my self-esteem,
my pride, my ambition.
I would love to keep blaming people
for affecting those areas
of my life until they help me
start to see the belief system
behind those seven areas
of my life.
That's really what screws me up.
You know, so-and-so told me
I was full of shit.
That's why I'm mad at him.
It affects my self-esteem.
I would love to keep saying
that the guy in the first column
and the guy in the second column,
what he did is what affects
my self-esteem until I realized
the reason it affects my self-esteem
is because I believe
I'm such a hell of a guy,
nobody should talk to me that way.
Especially somebody I sponsor.
And that it's my belief system
that hurts, threatens, and interferes
with those areas of my life.
And then to have to look at
where I was to blame
and that I was selfish
and that I was self-seeking
and that I was dishonest
and that I was afraid.
The freedom that comes in that.
There's a statement in our big book
just before inventory
I think is the greatest statement of hope
in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
But if you can't look at it the right way,
you'll beat yourself up with it.
And that statement is
our troubles are of our own making.
Thank God.
Because you know what?
If they're of your making,
I'm screwed because you're gonna have to change
for me to get well.
And then to write a fear inventory.
Looking at all my,
and behind every resentment there was a fear.
I show you resentment but I'm really afraid.
To look at an honest sex inventory
that has nothing to do with sex.
Has to do with my motives and relationships.
I'll tell you what,
that's an act against my will
contrary to the way I lived for 30 years.
And then to take that to one man
and read the whole thing?
I don't know about you
but I'm not sure
if I'm the kind of guy
that takes a little bit over here,
tells him a little bit if it'll help me,
shares a little bit with you
if it's gonna make me look good,
whine a little bit in a meeting,
tell you some kinky stuff I've done.
I've never laid it out for one person in my life.
I've never laid the whole thing out for one person.
And you know what?
I was given the power to do that
from the first four steps.
Never worry about the step preceding the one you're on
because you don't have the power to do it.
You will get the power to work the step
that's coming up from the one you're on.
I love when I'm working with somebody
that says, I'm having trouble with step two.
You're not having trouble with step two.
You're having trouble with step one
because once you see step one,
you'll quick hurry up,
choose a conception that'll work for you.
I'm having trouble with step three?
Forget it.
You're not having trouble with step three.
I'm worried about making amends
in the middle of an inventory?
Forget it.
You ain't got the power to make amends
in the middle of an inventory
unless something happens in five, six, seven, and eight.
And you know what?
I was given the power to look at something
other than me to remove that stuff in six and seven.
And I was given some questions to ask myself.
Not only can he, but will he for me take this stuff?
And I did that seven step prayer
and I made a list of people that I'd harmed.
And I was given a way to make amends.
You see, I have a hard time reading that book by myself.
I need to read it with somebody
who's had experience doing it.
Because what I would like to do
is to go to everybody that I ever hurt,
if it's convenient for me,
and tell you that I'm sorry.
And I tried to do that
before I got to amends with my brother.
And he said,
You are.
You have been all your life.
But when a man told me
to go to the people that I had harmed
and lay out for them the harm that I had seen
and ask them if there was anything else
I ever did that harmed them,
and then ask them the magic question in amends,
what can I do to make it right?
I was given some real freedom in my life.
Some amazing things started to happen.
People came.
One story.
I went back to Michigan
for the fifth time sober.
To make amends.
And every time I'd gone back,
I had gone to this nightclub
after an AA meeting
with a friend of mine.
We'd always gone to this club
four other times,
and I maybe saw one or two other people
that I had known.
When I went to Michigan to make amends,
I had this list of about 20 people
in Michigan I owed amends to.
And they were mostly old friends.
And I sat in a nightclub one night
when I was prepared to make amends,
and 13 people on that list
walked into that club
in chronological order
that I knew them in.
And I'm sitting there,
my God,
this thing really works.
People that I never thought
I'd be able to find
were put back in my life.
Relationships that I never thought
would be able to be mended
were mended.
Amazing things start to happen.
The promises on page 83 happen.
Thank God they're not the only ones.
Don't ever let anybody tell you
the only promises in this program
are on page 83
halfway through the ninth step.
There are promises after the fifth step.
There are promises
before you even do the third step prayer.
There are promises
if you don't go on from there.
Please don't start this process and stop.
Please don't start inventory and stop.
I can say that until I'm blue in the face
because all of you will do that.
Because that's what we do.
We take it to the limit.
We get a little relief
and we suck that dry
until we're back up against the wall
because most of us don't do things out of virtue.
I am not here today out of virtue.
I'm not here today
because I'm a wonderful, lovely person.
I am here today for the same reasons
I drank and drugged.
I am here today for the same reason
I drank and drugged.
I drank and drugged because it worked
and it made me feel good.
My motives haven't changed.
I'm here today because this works
and it makes me feel good.
There is no virtue involved in my recovery yet.
Maybe I'll get to that place one day
but I hope not.
I hope I'm always here for the same reason
that I saw I was in when I got here.
Desperation.
Because I don't ever want to drink again.
And more than that,
I don't ever want to be in that place
I was in five and a half months
sitting around this program
dying of alcoholism in the program.
I would rather drink than live like that again.
My life makes sense to me today.
Most of the time.
When it doesn't,
I have things that I can do.
I do not go to meetings anymore to stay sober.
But without you people,
I'm a dead duck.
There are spiritual paradoxes in this program
that make no intellectual sense
if you're new
and you're trying to figure this thing out with this.
Imagine going out there in the world
where you came from
and walking up to one of these guys
you used to hang around with
or your favorite booze salesman
or your favorite dope dealer
and saying to him,
listen brother,
if you really want to keep what you got,
give it away.
That doesn't work out there.
Why do we understand that?
Why does common sense become uncommon sense?
Because we start from a place of reasonableness
because we've been beat into a state
by alcohol and drugs
where we now understand
if I don't give it away,
I ain't going to keep it.
Imagine going back to some of the jails
that some of you have been in
and some of the people
that some of you have hung around with
and say, listen brother,
if you really want to win,
surrender.
You don't do that
in the Michigan State Penitentiary in the shower.
But I've often imagined taking a new guy
and just saying these strange spiritual paradoxes
that we have to him.
He'd probably run out of here
and blow his head off
because they don't make any intellectual sense.
One guy says, hang on.
One guy says, let go.
One guy says, don't make any judgments.
Another guy says, but stick with the winners.
How do you do that?
You know?
How do you do that?
One guy says, try hard.
Another guy says, quit trying so hard.
How do you find out the truth?
My sponsor told me a long time ago
to use the bullshit sifter.
This is the bullshit sifter.
I get to have fun in my life today.
I live on the beach in Santa Monica.
I moved to Santa Monica
about two years ago from Denver.
I had to leave my sponsor,
my home group,
the people I was working with,
my service commitment.
I served on the state committee
as the H&I chairman
when I was four years sober,
when I was three years sober.
When I was three and a half years sober,
I spoke in Montreal at the International.
And I don't know how that happens
to a guy like me
because when I got here,
I couldn't talk.
I couldn't hardly talk to one person.
The first time my mother heard me speak,
she said, I've never heard you talk that long,
ever, or like that.
And I don't know how this happens
to a guy like me.
I heard a story that pissed me off.
And I knew that when it pissed me off,
there was something I needed to look at.
And this guy said,
imagine if you took a hundred of us
from Alcoholics Anonymous
and put us back in the bar.
God forbid.
But he said, you know what you'd find?
He said you'd find about 20 or 30 of us
belly up to the bar,
wallowing in our beer,
crying in our whiskey.
And the sad thing about that is
that some of us wouldn't know
there's anything more to find in alcohol,
and some of us would dig it.
He said, then you'll find about 20 or 30
come in the bar,
drink till they feel good,
and then they go home.
He said, then you'll find about 30 or 40 mad dogs.
In and out of the bar,
going here, going there,
getting in fights,
doing it to the max,
going for the gusto.
Won't just settle for sitting up at the bar,
wallowing in their whiskey,
crying in their beer,
because they know there's more to find in alcohol.
Won't just come in,
drink till they feel good,
drink till they feel good,
because that's just where the night begins.
Mad dogs.
He said, now take those hundred people,
put them back in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous,
and you'll find they settle for about the same thing
they did when they were drinking.
And I'm here to tell you,
I will not settle for coming in here
and wallowing in my big book,
and crying in these rooms,
because I know one thing,
there is a solution.
I will not come in here and settle for doing enough work
till where I feel good and then go home,
because when I've done that,
my own gratitude starts to choke me,
because I'm not giving it away.
I was a mad dog then,
I'm a mad dog now.
I want it all.
My book says a man is unthinking
who says sobriety is enough.
The way I see this program
is a story that my sponsor tells,
and I just absolutely love it,
because it's how I see this program also.
And he talks about a man
who saw the statue of David
and saw that it was actually,
it breathed.
And he went to Michelangelo and he said,
how did you do that?
And Michelangelo said,
I took a hunk of stone
and I chipped away everything that didn't look like David
and that's what I got.
And that's kind of how I see this program
with God as the sculptor
and these steps and these traditions
and you people and these meetings as a chisel.
They've taken a willing hunk of stone
and chipped away everything that doesn't look like Joe
and so far this is what they've got.
Thank you very much.
This will conclude the Young People's Talk
given by Joe Hawk of Santa Monica, California.