Scott T. at the Depth and Weight Speaker Meeting – 2023

And now I'll read the speaker's choice reading, which begins on page 275 of the big book. AA is not a plan for recovery that can be finished and done with. It is a way of life, and the challenge to contain its principles is great enough to keep any human being striving for as long as he lives. We do not, cannot outgrow this plan. As arrested alcoholics, we must have a program for living that allows for limitless expansion. Keeping one foot in front of the other is essential for maintaining our arrestment. Others may idle in a retrogressive groove without too much danger, but retrogression can spell death for us. However, this isn't as rough as it sounds. as we do become grateful for the necessity that makes us toe the line and we find that we are compensated for a consistent effort by countless dividends we receive. A complete change takes place in our approach to life where we're used to run from responsibility we find ourselves accepting with gratitude that we can successfully shoulder it instead of wanting to escape from some perplexing problem we experience a thrill of challenge and the opportunity it affords for another application of the AA technique, and we find ourselves tackling it with surprising vigor. The last 15 years of my life have been rich and meaningful. I've had my share of problems, heartaches, and disappointments because that is life, but I've also known a great deal of joy and a peace that is the handmaiden to inner freedom. I have a wealth of friends and with my AA friends an unusual quality of fellowship. For two these people I am truly related first through mutual pain despair and later through mutual objectives in newfound faith and hope and as the years go by working together sharing our experiences with one another and also sharing a mutual trust understanding and love without strings without obligation we acquire relationships that are unique and priceless there is no more aloneness with the awful ache so deep in the heart that every alcoholic had that nothing before could ever reach it. That ache is gone and never need return again. Now there's a sense of belonging, of being wanted and needed and loved. In return for a bottle and a hangover, we have been given the keys of the kingdom. Please remember to silence cell phones and keep distractions to a minimum during the speaker. Tonight, we are excited to have Scott from the Outsiders Group of Herkimer, New York. Let's give him an enthusiastic welcome. Hi, everybody. My name is Scott. I'm an alcoholic. Oh, I love the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and I love the people and I always start and say it has not always been like that. Thank you for the invite. This is, you know, I live in New York. I love Buffalo and my home group is the Outsiders Group in Herkimer, New York where we believe in the program of action that's outlined in the big book. We believe in sponsorship, the traditions, the concepts. And I joke sometimes and say they didn't know that until we moved there 21 years ago. But that's a joke. I got sober in Southern California where we had a lot of structure, pockets of enthusiasm where we carried this message, not Scotty's message, but the message of hope and the promise of the freedom of the bondage itself. And learning about that program of action that's outlined in that book is paramount and I think a lost art in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Instead of talking about my crappy day, my crappy week, and my crappy life and just don't drink and go to meetings, I heard that stuff back when I first got introduced to AlcoholicsAnonymous in 1972. too. I've been in Alcoholics Anonymous over 50 years and I was not looking for a solution to a soul sickness I didn't think I had, you know? I just had some bad luck and if you just leave me alone, I'll be okay. If I could get probation off my back and my mom off my back and so forth, you know, I'd be...I just had some bad luck, okay? I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Not understanding that even at a young age I was in an absolute fight for my life, you know, that alcohol wanted to rob any goal, dream, aspiration, the things I wanted to do and the things I wanted to become, and that there was going to be a terrible price to pay. I didn't know that when I put that alcohol in my body I was trying to overcome an obsession I had no control over. I really didn't now that. Do we have any newcomers here today in their first 30 days, 60, 90 year? You're all old-timers? All right, welcome. Welcome guys. For a second here, I thought that this was a different group because we all have customs. and I thought all the women sat on this side and all the guys sat on his side until that young lady got up and moved over, and I though, oh, okay. You read people and stuff, but I think I'd like to start and tell you guys that raise your hands, you're never going to have a better sobriety date than the one you got, so you might as well keep it. You're never gonna have the best story in AA, so you're might as will keep that one too. I didn't hear that back then. I thought I had to keep adding to my story and I didn't understand what surrender meant. I didn' t understand what a bottom meant. I would sit in these rooms and people would say, you've got to hit your bottom, you've got to get your bottom. And I would say to them, I'm going to sit there where you are and say, well, I didn''t kill him or this didn't happen or that didn'''t happen. And I really didn'''t understand what a bottle was until years later when I took that prescription myself and learned what surrender really was at depth. You know, Dr. Tebow wrote, he was a friend of Alcoholics Anonymous And, you know, he explained it pretty eloquently in paraphrasing what he said. It's when our egos get deflated just enough so that we can experience that psychic change or some people call that a spiritual experience so that мы don't drink again, you know. He said the problem though is that the ego has such a tremendous capacity for resurgence that we get our rights back and that happened to me every time, you know, where I would make a decision sitting where you are that I just didn't want to drink again. See, I know what it's like to sit where you are and have 10, 11, 17 days and make a decision. I'm done. I don't want to drink anymore and walk out the door and get loaded anyway. You know, the book refers to it as this type of thinking that when it's fully established in the alcoholic, he's probably placed himself beyond human aid and that unless locked up, he may die or go permanently insane. And that's what kept happening to me. You know? The whole 70s for me was a process of detoxes and halfway houses, recovery homes and programs that shaved your head and made you wear dunce caps and sit on the bench and clean dumpsters with toothbrushes and scared straight programs. I'm from Boston, born and raised. That's why that guy out there was talking about wearing the Tom Brady shirt. There you are, yeah. That if you ever want to mess with this group, wear a New England Patriot Tom Brady, Brady shirt, you know, and but that's where I'm coming from and that's where I grew up and, you know. Coming into these rooms, the misconception that I had with Alcoholics Anonymous they had customs it's like let's say James is my sponsor and I was going to take a medallion tonight he would get up here and tell you all about me and then I would get up and say a few words now this is when the second edition was out Bill Wilson one of our founders had just passed away and I don't say some of this stuff to disrespect the program of Alcoholics Anonymous I'm well versed at the steps the traditions the concepts and our primary purpose, our singleness of purpose. But back then you did not mention drugs from the podium of Alcoholics Anonymous. That's an outside issue. A lot of people that I knew in AlcoholicsAnonymous smoked marijuana and did Darvon, Librium. These are some of the older drugs. And that was okay as long as you didn't drink. That was sobriety. And this guy got up. I had been in Alcoholic Anonymous for about four years at the time and paying the price, paying the prize. And you hear things like get a sponsor, someone you can relate to. And this guy, I was at the Young People's Group in Quincy, Massachusetts, and the youngest young person was like 33, you know, and they were old. They were old, and this guy was getting a four-year anniversary medallion, and his sponsor got up and said all this wonderful stuff about him. And then he got up, and I'll never forget because he stood there at the podium and he had his medallions. He goes, you Know, I Was Really Nervous This Morning When I Woke Up Because I Knew I Was Going To Have To Get Up Here In Front Of All You People. so I smoked a joint to take the edge off and he got done and everybody clapped and I loved what he had to say his name was Fred so I went right up to Fred and asked him to be my sponsor that was my first experience with sponsorship in Alcoholics Anonymous now when I went over I'll never forget I went to work the steps at his house and he had the old octagon table with the light thing hanging down, and he got a bowl of weed, and he rolled a joint, and he was going to start taking me through the steps. Now picture that in your mind, okay? Now make no mistake here, Dr. Silkworth closes all those loopholes when he talks about we can't take alcohol in any form and that the only treatment we have to offer is complete abstinence. That's a little marijuana maintenance, a little social heroin, a little rock cocaine. Whatever your trip is, that's not sobriety, okay. didn't know that though and so you know i believe i i believe what i came looking for in alcoholics anonymous i came working with okay and i was not looking for that solution i was looking for relief i wasn't looking for recovery and when we really break things down that's really why people come in here it's one of two reasons one's for relief and one's für recovery and uh we can go about that a couple different ways and come around these room for years and wondering why i drank and what came first, the chicken or the egg or whatever, or we can take a good look at ourselves, where the alcohol is taking us, what it does to us and for us, and make a decision that we don't want to live like that. But then we have to get on this path and we have to start doing these steps. And I didn't understand that. I wasn't involved with groups like you are that focused on the big book in that program. It was just go to meetings. And you had to have 90 days in order to share. You couldn't even talk if you didn't have 90 days, okay? They had commitments where your group is the depth and weight group. Mine is the outsider's group. You would come to my group and lead the meeting. We wouldn't even share at our own meeting. It was just like really strange like that. And as a young man, I had a lot to share. I could just never get that 90 days. Okay, because I would get that cotton mouth. Okay, and you know what happens is a bear passes in front of you. And the book says it. We can't bring to sufficient force the pain, the misery of a week, a month ago. Right? We can'T bring that to our head and we succumb as so many of us do one more time. We take that drink. And I heard a saying in 1972 that the man takes a drink, the drink takes a drink, and the drink take a man. And that was it. I took that drink and then the drink took the drink. And I'm a blackout drinker. Any blackout drunkers here? Yeah? Any projectile pukers? Yeah? Because I can drink more, right? Yeah. I loved it. I was talking to my sponsor one time. He was, his name, he's been passed on a couple years now. His name was Ted Summers and he used to talk and his sponsor was Chuck Chamberlain to begin with and then Clancy after Chuck died. And he talked about how he had never done any, he was a blackout drinker and he had ever had sex with another man and that's the only thing that he could actually stand up here at the podium and say he'd never had one of those encounters. And at the end of the meeting one time I went up to him and I said, Ted, I thought you were a blackout drinker. And he goes, I am. And I said how can you honestly say you never did? And he says, and the next time he was given a talk he says and then I woke up out of my blackout and I say please let it be a woman this time. And he turned it into a joke. And his big thing was laughter. And he'd point out in the book that outsiders are sometimes shocked to when we burst into merriment over seemingly tragic experiences out of our past. Why shouldn't we laugh? We have recovered and been given the power to help others, and that's the thing is being given the Power to help Others, not what I would have me be but what this Power would have my be. See, and I never was given the facts. When it talks about the spiritual tools that are laid at our feet and where to pick them up and do the work, I had never known that. And so it caused a lot of heartache, And that's why it's so very, very important if you're sitting in here when you hear things about sponsorship and structure and these pockets of enthusiasm that we see in different parts of the country. I see it here. I saw it when I pulled into the driveway and I got out and you had greeters here, okay, and people that stuck their hand out. And I saw the enthusiasm when this young lady said if I talk too long she was going to cut me off, okay. She did. It's like, yeah, all right. she did she goes you said that yeah i did so uh where's my point so they list the different types of alcoholics i love it and then they when i finally read the book says and then we have the manic depressive type which is probably the least understood amongst us or which a whole chapter could be written and when i finally read that book i was sitting in the penitentiary in california i had just gotten 22 years sentencing and uh you know those of you that have been in prison know it's nothing but a human kennel that breeds violence, and I let it breed the violence in me. I became an absolute animal. And I had tried all the AA things and misdiagnosed here and there, and I love it because it says that we're maladjusted to life and full of life from reality and outright mental defectors. My friend Wayne Butler would always say, and those are some of our finer quality traits, right? And not understanding and being in that blackout drinker, waking up in a blackout in L.A. County jail and you're wondering what the heck did I do I never hurt anybody but the insane strangely insane things that we do and I ended up between three counties got 22 years and I'm sitting up in the penitentiary and wondering my life is just what do I do now I had already destroyed a marriage I had уже we share little highlights about up here and I am thinking what do i got to do and I end up making it up to this institution And they invited me to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I went. And I had been in AA 10 years at that time. And they opened the book, and they read a portion of Chapter 5 from the big book on how it worked. I had never heard how it work. I had bee in AA ten years. Now, picture that in your mind, okay? In Boston, in Massachusetts, they didn't read any of these readings. Chapter 3, more about alcoholism, that many of us will pursue this into the gates of insanity or death, okay. and they're talking about me and they are reading this stuff and I'm going where are they getting it and this guy from Southern California his name was Eddie Miracle and he started talking sort of like a little preacher and he's saying if you're new you've come home you need never be alone again you're like the prodigal son who had to venture out there and now you're home he talked as our glasses being half empty or half full that this is a disease of perception that we're all children of God for me to love you for your color you not for your colour that there's no room for hypocrites in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Either we're all God's kids or none of us are. What was my choice to be? And I'm simply telling you he was talking spiritual truths. His sponsor was Chuck Chamberlain, okay? And, you know, I believe luck and chance was passing me by and I reached up and I grabbed onto it. That's the bottom line. And they ended that meeting. I don't know how you end this meeting, but they ended it with a vision for you talking about our book being meant to be suggestive only. We realize we know only a little. that god will constantly just go i'm not going to recite it to you but it goes through this whole thing and i'm sitting where you are and i've got oh my where are they getting this right this is a real experience where are THEY GETTING THIS and and that meeting got over and uh you know that those thoughts were through my head and i the fundamental ideas i have now is that if you ever want to hide something from the alcoholic put it in the big book right they'll never find it it was the least read book in the rooms that i went to aa and i jumped into my life and to AA like my very life depended on it because it did, you know. And I asked Eddie to be my sponsor and I worked all 12 steps and I became a gentleman, a gentleman and stopped affiliating and my life grew. What I thought was really my worst day ended up being my best day. You know, what I thought Was a punishment for my drinking, Alcoholics Anonymous turned out to be a reward for my bad behavior, okay, because that's what it was. And, you know, and I would sit there and going through the steps and the amends process and looking at the havoc and the things that I had done in my life because I did good. I wanted to do good. You know, I was a Boy Scout and saved a kid's life and got honored by the House of Representatives. And that was good. And, uh, you Know, some of the scars that I had growing up, the mental scars, you know, seeing my dad in AA in the 60s and stuff and he had, in a blackout, hit and killed a woman. And as a young man, seeing my mom and brothers crying in the kitchen and how to process that, he's in AA, you know, but he's drinking and driving and Darvon and Librium and, you Know, he hits and killed this woman. That destroyed that man. He ended up dying when he was 49, my dad. And I think today with the knowledge and the sobriety that I have today is the demons that he had to deal with and how, you know, I hear people say that, you know, if you drank for 15 years, it's going to take you 15 years to get well or you got to, if you walk five miles into the forest, you got to walk five Miles out. And, you know, we have debates on that and stuff. And my own personal belief is you're only 12 steps away. Okay. That's all you got to take is that those 12 steps out and you can be free. And I didn't know that. And I know that today. and I know he could have been free, but the information sometimes that we give around here, we're not even qualified to give. And we become marriage counselors and bankers and all these other things, and we're Not qualified to do that, and I wonder sometimes how many people we kill. I really do. Those are just thoughts that go through my head because I saw it with my dad, and I saw some of the collateral damage of things that happened and the not understanding and the misperception, the false perception or reality that I had in my head caused me to make a lot of poor mistakes. You know, it talks about our souls getting really dark and there'll be those of us that choose to make the supreme sacrifice and to continue the fight. It's talking about suicide. And I started becoming very suicidal before I went into prison and I had a couple suicide attempts, really serious ones. Cut my wrists all the way down, stuck my head in a gas stove. A couple of the highlight ones that I like talking about to show the cunning, baffling, and powerfulness of alcoholism. November 14th, 1979, anybody ever been to Cape Cod, Massachusetts? Okay, so there's a bridge that goes over the canal. It's called the Bourne Bridge. It's 169 feet up. And November 14th, 1979, I parked my car on that bridge and I climbed up. And I just didn't want to live anymore, you know, and I was just so very, very lonely. And they say that this is a disease of loneliness deep down that nothing can touch. And that's why that reading says there's no more loneliness, okay, aloneness. But I was on this bridge, big drama, four-and-a-half hours up there, and the Corps of Engineers Coast Guard blocked off the bridge. You know, they had spotlights on me in the suicide prevention leagues talking to me on bullhorns. And it was a big drama, and I got resentment, you know. Number one offender for people like us. And Latin word, recentare, refill, rethink, replay. And that's what I'm doing on this bridge, replaying my mind, my life in my mind. And that self-absorption, I got me on me, andI can't get me off of me. And I just can't see the forest from the trees. And delusional, you Know. I would have been a great gangster I was thinking this stuff up there I would've been a Great Knight in King Arthur's Court I was an alien, they dropped me off that's why I like ancient aliens today because I was thinkin' that stuff back then but I'm on this bridge and underneath is this campground called the Born Scenic Park and all the campers came out and I'm up on this ridge and they're yellin' at me jump you mother... and I look down at them and go man they're crazy don't they know if I jump I'll die And, yeah, that's what I'm thinking. So four and a half hours into this, I had that moment of clarity that we get, you know. I don't want to die. I don'T want to Die. There's got to be something out here for me, right? That's whatI really thought. Something I didn't do, something I didn'Try. And so I got up to get down, and this is where the cunning, baffling, and powerfulness of alcoholism took over because I had another thought, and I had an honest-to-God thought. The thought that jumped into my head was, you know what, Scotty, if you get down, you're going to look like a pussy to all these people that have waited all this time for you to jump. You've got to jump." That's what my mind told me, so I jumped. I turned and I jumped, and I don't remember hitting naturally. The only bone I broke was my sternum bone, my chest cavity. That was from them giving me the pericardial thumbs, bringing me back to life, and I was black and blue from my head all the way to my ankles in the hospital for several weeks, but that's another whole story. They say I died. I was dead for like 12 and a half minutes. And, you know, a couple of side stories here real quick. Maybe 22 years ago, I was giving a talk in Middleborough, Massachusetts, about 20 miles from this bridge. My mom was still alive. Brother or different brothers were there, family. I told that story. And the meeting got over, and this guy comes busting through the crowd. And this was him, not me. Oh, I owe you an amends. I owe your amends! I look at the guy. I said, dude, I don't even know you. he goes no you wouldn't he goes we were at the bar and it came across a scanner that they had a jumper he goes so we wrote some we got some jack daniels he goes and that was me yelling at judah he goes in you did he was a sober member of alcoholics anonymous and i'm my mom my mom and i'M SAYING SEE I TOLD YOU BECAUSE WE CAN'T CORROBORATE HALF THE STORIES WE TELL UP HERE BUT I'M LIKE SEE I TOLED YOU RIGHT SO OH I DON'T KNOW MAYBE 15 18 YEARS AGO I WAS GIVEN A TALK IN palm springs and keith carpenter some of you older guys and girls may remember keith and sally carpenter but i was giving a talk out there and that got over i told that story and this guy comes through the line and he's in a suit and tie he goes i always wondered what happened to you and i go i'm sorry sir i don't know you he goes no he goes I was the captain of the state police barracks in buzzards bay that called out all the rescue vehicles on you he says I was a practicing alcoholic at the time I'm a sole member of alcoholics anonymous 20 years now and so it was like, you think of weird things like that. Three different people, three different walks of life also remember as the Alcoholics Anonymous at that event. But, you know, that didn't stop me. I tried everything and I tried the United States Army. That didn't work. Now as I said, I'm in the penitentiary. I hear the solution as outlined in the book. I'm getting someone that's properly armed with the facts about themselves. Okay, someone who is not speaking to me i like it because we're called speakers are you speaking tonight are you speaking i used to think of that i used to think about what they call a circuit speaker and um my friend keith said scotty it's one alcoholic talking to another you know no lectures to endure no axes to grind we're not here to speak to you okay we're here to share a little bit about ourselves and our experience strength and hope what we were like what happened to us and what we're like now and uh i hadn't heard that at that time and so i i grew i did several years in the penitentiary i ended up um getting my custodies lowered lowered lowered and i went on um i was self-supporting through my own contributions i made 20 cents an hour and uh I got put on this I went for this underwater diving program and and I got accepted and then they uh excluded me out of it at the last minute because I had a broken neck twice, fractured C2 vertebrae. That's another alcoholic story. I broke my neck twice and they said I couldn't handle the depths of the underwater diving that it could snap my neck. And so they put me on this fire crew in Tehachapi and I was up at this campground and I, uh, was clearing brush through this camp ground town center campground. And up on the Hill, there was this tent trailer and you could see two women getting dressed in there, like not see them but see the outline with the sun coming up and I was up by there and the door opened and this young lady come out long dark hair very cute and I said hey how you doing and she was mad and saying you think you can make any more noise we're up here trying to sleep and I say well we'll be here all week if you'd like to leave a wake up call so she slams the door and goes in and I knew she wanted me come on guys she looked at me, right? She talked to me, right? So I went into the cell that night and I wrote this letter and everything and I was perfectly honest that I had been down for a little over four years at that time. I was a poor Bostonian and I wasn't sure if I was going to be and I said, I was wondering if she could do me a favor and meet me in the bathroom for a quickie, right? There was no love involved in this. It's strict, you know, strict honesty here and lust and so I laid it all out to her and I snuck the letter out and And she got the letter, and she went in and locked herself in the camper and never came out. Now it's like, oh, no, you know, if they find out, right, I'm screwed. So I'd like to introduce you to my wife, Kim, here, okay? This is Kim here. She's like – yeah. So she comes out and says, I can't do that, right? And I said, so the next thing is, well, let's write, okay. And so we started writing, and we became friends. And, yeah, it really happened. And so when I paroled – so I thought she was a normie, And so when I paroled, I went out and I was told that I owed myself a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, not a hotel with her, not this, that, and the other thing. And that's what I did. And very first night out, I Went to the Raptors in Newhall and then an AA dance and a breakfast meeting. And my first panel into a rehab was that Monday, and that's how I started my walk in AlcoholicsAnonymous. And I ended up marrying Kim when she had 30 days sober. See, I thought she was a normie and she had lied to me, okay? That's her story, though. And she's just celebrating 38 years sober now. Yeah, and so all you newcomers that say you can't have sex in the first year, some of you may have heard of Joe and Charlie. And Charlie said that that's not quite accurate if your sponsor tells you that you can have as much sex as you want in the First Year, okay ? it's the second year that you can have it with someone else okay that's what he said so I got some good stories about Charlie but that's another story God rest his soul and and that's how I started my walk in a you know and all the dreams came true you know the commitments the home group the structure chuck chamberlain had died eddie miracle uh died i didn't get another sponsor i i um i know aa you know i know the steps i know the history and stuff and i'm extremely active with commitments and h and i and and everything i had multiple businesses i i got married on the program i became a circuit speaker and i started traveling all over the country sharing what you could become if you were honest and willing enough to try this thing i joined a rock and roll band i became a lead singer in a couple different bands out and out on the west coast in la and the money property and prestige flew my way and had houses on the east coast and west coast and cape cod built a custom home i would fly between la and boston four or five times a month and take limousines and chauffeured wherever i wanted i mean this program really worked after making 20 cents an hour for years, and now I'm making more money I could shake a stick at. The happily and ever after though that when people talk and they get up here it rains on the just as well as the unjust, and good things happen to bad people, and bad things happen to good people. And we work the steps in order and my friend used to say the elevator to sobriety is broke, you must use the steps and they're in order for a reason and they are uh and i'm here to tell you tonight that you can give them back in order too you know because having had that spiritual awakening as the result of these steps we carry this message right and i started not carrying this message i started carrying the message of me look at where i came from look at who i am now you know and i i used to joke about the you know me me me mean me me all right enough about me let's talk about you what do you think about me right that's what i'm doing and i gave that 12th step away you know this 11th step where we saw through prayer meditation to improve that conscious contact i'm not doing that anymore i remember my first five years of sobriety um getting on my knees every morning getting onmy knees every night you know this um today good friday you know one of the most important dates in Christendom most important weekends in Christindom the process of getting on my knees it was explained like humbility where we don't crawl before any man except God and the humility that we try to learn from realizing that we're not the power and submitting ourselves and I lost that and I started listening to different things and compromising those spiritual things where you can talk to God anywhere, and you can. You can talk to him in the shower, driving, whatever. But I stopped getting on my knees because I figured I didn't need to. And I stopped becoming a seeker. Sought is an action word, and I stopped seeking. And i gave that step away. Continue to take personal inventory. When we're promptly wrong, we admit it, right? And I owe you an amends and you'd come to me And I'd say hey I owe your amends And you'd say thanks Scott and walk away And in my mind I'd said I owe ya one I'm not going to give you one And I started judging you I'd come into these rooms and I'd start saying Gee can't she say anything different She's a liar she's cheating on her husband This whatever and I'm judging you I wouldn't say anything of those things I'm just keeping them in my mine And I'm no sponsored And I am not sponsorable Okay because that self absorption Is there again and I know and we hear it all the time. I know, I know I wanted to get shirts made I know and then you turn around and say no really I know right because that's what we do and I gave it away you know 8th and 9th I started having little secrets in Alcoholics Anonymous and you know they say we become as sick as our secrets. I started compromising the spiritual principle. It's like a knife going through me but I'm a circuit speaker I'm not gonna drink right. I sponsor all sorts of people got home groups this that and the other I've got a home group, this, that, and the other thing, right? Mr. A.A., and I back myself up. And I love it because the 12 steps and the 12 traditions talk about that there are a set of principles that are spiritual in their nature that if I practice them as a way of life, it's going to expel the obsession and leave the sufferer in me usefully and happily whole. And I'm not usefully or happily whole anymore. And I know it, okay? And step six and seven, the step that separates the men from the boys, the perfect objective which is being of God, into my objective i'm back into my objective without even knowing it it says cunning baffling powerful right subtle foe sneaky bastard that's what it is it's sneaky and it comes at us socially sexually security instincts these are all god-given instinct they're all got good but we tend to miss the mark and now i'm playing this i call it mental masturbation in my mind okay and coming in and not knowing that step six and seven in the book two short paragraphs the big book their lifetime okay and i'm just brushing over them okay the the shortcomings and the character defects are coming back in the bottom line here as i just back myself up to the third step where we made that decision to turn our will and our lives our thoughts and our actions over to this power you know that's what we do and um you know in the second step where he came to believe that not in but that the power can restore us to sanity i used to think that it was talking about the sanity of the world when in actuality is talking about the insanity of that first drink when this mind convinces this mind to get loaded again that's the insanity there and when we work those steps in order and get up to that 10th step or by this time sanity will have returned that quiets that down and i don't pick up i don'T GET LOADED AGAIN but now i've relit that beast in the the mental aspect and remember it says that that uh we drink and then get insane we don't get insane and then drink i mean we get just the opposite okay and that's what happened to me okay is my mind convinced my mind and i said f it and i just took that drink and uh before you knew it uh i was off and running and i lost absolutely everything you know as a multi I'm a millionaire with properties. I lost it all. Lost it all, restraining orders, better divorce. And I love Bill's story because he says, one who had thought so highly of himself. You know, and I knew all the players in AA out there. I had direct connections to, you know, Jimmy Burwell, which was AA number three in New Jersey through Phil Stone, part of my home group, the Rafters, and Chuck Chamberlain Chamberlain and Norm Alpe, a lot of the icons of Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon, and went to meetings with them. And Hugh Douglas, where he constantly talked about the principle that's the contempt prior to investigation when we think we know, when we thank we know. and so all of a sudden i can't stop i can's stop you know bill's story where he says one who had thought so highly of himself and that was me and uh that confidence began to be replaced by cocksureness because i knew and then i was drunk and i and the bottom line here is i could talk about all the insanity of coming back into aa and having those 10 11 days and going out getting loaded and well-meaning, well-intentioned people. Are you done now? You got enough arrows in your ass now? Are you serious now? Can I be your sponsor? I sponsored people with 30 plus years and they're like can I be your sponsor now? And I'd say no and I'd walk out the door and I get drunk. And I couldn't shut it off. And on Christmas night 1996 I took a .25 automatic and I shot myself in the head. Boom! And bullet It went in and blew the top of my head off, and I came to on full life support systems at the Antelope Valley Medical Center. And I remember my wife Kim there, we were in that bitter divorce, and she had said that our relationship was so damaged that she didn't even think God could fix it. You know, and I'm here to tell you that God can do absolutely anything, okay, if we make ourselves available, you know. My sponsor told me, Ted Summers, who I got a sponsor when this, Part of my chapter ended, you know, basically said God's a gentleman and he doesn't go where he's not invited. You know, and little key things like that. And my story wasn't done though. And I joke sometimes because this is where my story gets a little weird. Because the state of California stepped in and they charged me with ex-felon with a gun for shooting myself. and before that and before that ordeal was over 26 years ago this very time I'm sitting in Chino State prison again, they're striking me out giving me 25 to life for shooting myself and they developed a three strike law and I had a thought my thought was I want to be sober now I'll work those steps now I'll get a new sponsor now we get spiritual real quick when we go into those places you know i'm no different and um i knew how hard it was going to be uh for someone with such a tremendous ego and arrogance that i had displayed towards spiritual principles coming back into this program you know and i uh i was in the hole for 28 days this just one particular time uh 20 25 years ago and um i got a hold of a piece of paper and a pencil and i how many people have tried aaa this is not your first time right so you've tried different right how many people came in aaa got sober and their state's over all right guys this is the way it's supposed to work it's not the way some of us do but that's the way i wrote this thing that when one who has wandered far into selfishness and self-centeredness seek to return to the fellowship of alcoholics anonymous he will encounter criticism and distrust there will be those that whisper he's a newcomer again. I don't think he'll make it this time either. These wicked ones are doing not the work of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous or of their higher power, but of their own selfish, self-centered interests. They seek to drive the returning member still farther from hope and from sobriety. Let the returning number contemplate the rejoicing in heaven over the return of the one that was lost. Let him in no way be disheartened by the suspicion and scorn of others. He can again walk in the sunlight of the spirit because that's what I felt. This program was found it off love and tolerance not the judgment condemnation we give each other around here sometimes you know and uh i jumped into aa again inside the walls like my very life depended on it and being this most important week in christian gym if you ever read the bible and you saw peter and the light coming on and the chain you know coming off and the gates open that's my story because on october 7th 1997 judge chelsea mckay and the lancaster superior court pulled me out a state prison. That relationship that was so damaged started a letter campaign that people all over the country, business, AA, professional people wrote to this judge and they pulled me out of state prison and he stood me in front of him. And long story short, he didn't know why I did this. He said, I don't know how you did this. How could you do this to yourself? You seem to have helped a lot of people. How Could you do that? See, he doesn't understand the alcoholic. He didn't understand how we can build this pretty picture to our loved ones the boss right what at this time please give me another chance i'm i'm gonna do it this time and we're such good actors okay that they believe us and then we get loaded again and we tear the house down and if we're honest we don't know why we did it and he didn't understanding that behavior of alcoholism but god touched them that's the way i like to look at it and uh he struck two of my strikes he released me the next day with a five-year tail of which I completed I didn't know if there was any possibility of working things out with my wife and my children because of the terrible damage that I had done but through sponsorship through that program of action through work in those steps making the amends it happened I I got another opportunity, and I jumped into AA like my very life depended on it. And through that experience, I've had the opportunity and the privilege and the honor to get to try to carry that message of hope and that promise of the freedom of the bondage of self and to go where God wants me to go and say what he wants me to say, not what Scotty would have me be. See, the last time, and some of you may remember this, but you've got Bill and Bob, and your picture's going to float up in between as the tri-founder of a you know because you're gonna rewrite the book and you're gonna become a drug counselor or alcoholism counselor you're going to write a book because our stories are different right we all do that stuff in our minds and now it's like no I just got a I got a share I got uh I got to be honest okay you know and some of the wonderful things that have happened in In the last 25 years of my sobriety, as I've got to travel the world again, I'm a member in good standing. I have a sponsor who's sponsored. I have an old friend who's been with me for a long time. We're a home group. You know, my wife and I, we moved here to New York to upstate up in the Adirondacks 20 years ago, 21. You know LA was getting pretty wild and stuff. And I'm in the restaurant business. I got a nice little restaurant there and she came to me one day and she had an opportunity and she ran for office and not office but judge. I'll just tell you, she got elected as a judge in the state of New York and she became a judge and that really helped our sex life. Come on guys, that black robe I'm telling you That's a joke She hates that one The only two words my sponsor said That I have ever heard God say Is ha-ha Ha-ha So Yeah You know, and then she did that for a few years And then had to give that up And get appointed by the legislature She holds a position in the state And that's good That's her business Not my business, okay But I was present for it And I was there to support And I'm very, very proud of that Because, you know She stayed sober through all this insanity Okay You got to understand that You know When we're alcoholics and we're the tornado roaring through the lives of others. It talks about the warped lives of blameless wives and children, the sweet relationships that get deadened. You know, it talks about that there's a, you know, yeah, we joke about this and there's assert and levity, but underneath is this real serious earnestness. Alcoholism wants to kill you. It wants to killed you, and I hope you understand that, that we have a solution in Alcoholics Anonymous. We have a way out. You know I have five children. I have that first relationship that I lost. I have a, Jason will be 44 this year. I got to make amends to that kid and he's part of my life with grandchildren now. The other children, you know, when I say good things happen to bad people and bad things happen are good people. You know, I remember about 12 years ago my wife calling me crying and I came home, and all the family was there. My little 12-year-old son Tommy, you know, was crying. It was a big drama thing, and the bottom line here is that he had gotten diagnosed with a brain tumor, inoperable brain tumor. And we didn't know what that meant, and it didn't look good. And she's crying, the family's crying. He's looking up at me, Daddy, and am I going to die? And you're trying to be strong for your family, and it's going to be okay. And then you walk out by yourself, and you call your sponsor, and your cry. And you hang up, you go in, and then you get ready, and you go into Herkimer County Jail because you have a commitment. And you've got to carry the message to the people that can't get out and get a message. And I've learned to do the footwork regardless. And good things happen, and bad things happen. And that little kid is 24 now, and he's doing well. My other children are different parts of the country. My son Michael, he went into the United States military and went over to play soldier over in Afghanistan and all those places and came back a different kid, you know, totally destroyed him. Totally destroyed him, you Know? And the thing that I get to do, that my wife gets to do That we, you, get to be there for our family members And to offer a little bit of that love and support Maybe some sound judgment, some sound advice Because we had that same stuff happen to us As it describes as the ocean liner We're in that boat together And that's one of the things that people seem to forget when we start getting into some of the political stuff that has no business in our rooms, and we start endorsing and opposing different causes that has No Business in Our Rooms, when we get into inclusivity and different things like that that have no business. Because if you suffer from alcoholism, that's the only requirement for you being here. Forget all that other B.S., okay? The baseline here is alcoholism, okay? It doesn't matter your race, your creed, your color, male, female, black, white, nothing, okay, nothing matters. When we get into our 10th step and we can really start not getting into any of these things, it allows us to live the full implications of the third step, which is basically our thoughts and our actions. we have a new employer and if he's the powerful one and he's the one handling this stuff what do we got to get caught up in it for and i really try to stay out of all that stuff because there's a lot of misinformed members of alcoholics anonymous today and it's up to you to find the people that are properly armed you know they say that the steps are for us so that we don't commit suicide and the traditions are for us so that we don't commit homicide and that the concepts are designed so that as an organization, we don t commit genocide because it's really important and we have a charge and we a responsibility. And I was told that responsibility is simply responding to the ability within me not within you. That s why I respond to the abilities within me and we all have different attributes and assets and it s what are we going to do with it. My friend always used to say, hey, it's like that body. We've got the eyes and the buttholes and all that, but it takes all of us to make up the body, right? And it does. And it does. I'll tell you a couple quick stories so that I don't run out of time. I've had the opportunity to really be blessed with a lot of not what I think I deserve, okay? It's with that unmerited blessing. I remember telling my sponsor one time, Ted, I said, Ted I don't like the way she's talking to me. He goes, what? And I go, I don' t like the Kim's talk to me, you know, she doesn't understand. He goes Scott, he goes what do you, he goes I don''t deserve that. And he goes would you like what you deserve Scott? And I say no, not really. And he says, no, we come in here for mercy. We don't come in her for justice. You know, and I've never thought like that since then on things I deserve and don't deserve. But there's a lot of women over here, and I always try to share this when it is cuz I was at a food pantry in Virginia, Fredericksburg. And she was 85, and she was taking a 30-year medallion, and she talked about what it was like growing up in the South. and this was many years ago, and she had this medallion and she talked about this woman she called Mammy and Mammy was a big black woman that all the kids in the neighborhood would come and sit on Mammy's lap and she remembered a little five-year-old girl sitting on MamMY's lap and she was rubbing MamMYs arm and MamMY looked down at her and said, Child, child, my skin is as dark as the night but my soul is as white as snow just like yours and she's a little 5-year old girl and runs off And 50 years later in the scripts of this disease where it talks about us waking up to the terror, the bewilderment, the frustration and the despair, the hideous four horsemen. That's when we're coming out of it. That's not when we were in it. That's what we're looking at. And that's when that surrender happened to her at death. And she looked at her skin and she remembered Mammy and she cried out to God. She said, my God, my god, my skin is as white as the snow, but my soul is as dark as the night. Help me, Father. and he did she was getting 30 years and that's one of the things about our program it's it says deep down in every one of us is the fundamental idea of god may be obscured by the calamity the pomp the worship of other things but it's here and it's only here that he may be found it was so with us and that'S what it was with me you know i was in akron ohio with art hoffman and art had started um the kenmore group with bill dotson which was the man on the bed aa number three and ed had 50 years 59 years at the time and we were talking and and uh he said how long how long you been around kid and i said uh four years i had four years sober at the same time he goes is that four years he goes no no how long have you been a year and i'm like i've been a around and i says oh like 30 and he and he started laughing he goes what'd you learn and so i start telling him about ego and arrogance and honesty right and uh look he goes come here And he took me over to this round table, and this guy was sitting there. His name was Steve. He says, this is Steve. He had 25 years. He drank. I said, wow. And he was an old guy, and I said – you know, Mr. AA, right? Oh, you can do it? You can come back? Right, because I did, right. So I started telling him, and he held up his hand. He goes, kid, he goes, I thought I didn't need you people. He goes – I stopped coming to meetings. He goes I started isolating. He goes and I ended up drinking. Now Art Hoffman's standing next to me. He goes, ask him what he learned, ask Him what he learned. He elbowed me. I'm a quick study so I said, can I ask you what you learned? He goes I learned not to take the first drink. We can pontificate and tell wonderful stories up here but what have I learned? I've learned notto take the first drink. That's my hope for you is that you've learned not to takethatfirstdrink no matter what. Today's the day we stay sober. Period. Tomorrow's a different day but today I can stay sober and I'll leave you with this because I can really talk forever I really can I got so many wonderful stories I mean as far as Egypt and the land of the gods and giving talks there in Congress and baby you know I mean just unbelievable stuff that I just blows your mind and I don't say that stuff to impress you I really don't it's to impress upon you that I don'T care where you are right now you can become whatever you're capable of becoming and I read this poem sitting in the penitentiary that absolutely changed my life and it said that when you get what you want in your struggle for self and the world makes you king for a day just go to a mirror and look at yourself and see what that man has to say for it isn't your father or mother or wife whose judgment upon you must pass the fellow whose verdict that counts most in your life is the one staring back from the glass he's a fellow to please never mind all the rest for he's with you clear up to the end and you've passed your most dangerous difficult test if the man in the glass is your friend. Some people may call you a straight-shooting chum and call you wonderful guy, but the man-in-the-glass says you're only a bum if you can't look him straight in the eye. You may fool the whole world down the pathway of life and get pats on your back as you pass, but your final reward will be heartaches and tears if you've cheated the man on the glass. I tell you that because I cheated myself for a long time both in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't like my booze watered down. Didn't like My Drugs Cut. What do I want the program of Alcoholic Anonymous watered-down for, right? this is the real deal. If you're an alcoholic, I'd like to welcome you to Alcoholics Anonymous. Thank you.