Self-Centeredness Isn’t a Character Flaw — It’s an Addiction and You Can’t Choose Your Way Out of It – Russell S.

Good evening, everybody. My name is Russell. I'm an alcoholic. I'm a member of the Carl Gables Group. And as always, it is great to be here. I really enjoy coming up to the 12-step room. I get to do this once a year. And it is, now I didn't know this. I got to tell you prior to this, this is the second, this is, what do you want to call this, step two? I don't know that we'll do step two. I don't know what step we're going to be on, but this is the second one. And, you know, I didn't know before I started this series, even though I've been coming up here, this is really one of the oldest groups in South Florida. Now, I learned it's 61 years old. This group is 61 years old, and I'm 61 years old. So I was thinking, you know, this really wants you, this really, if anything, it'll make you believe in God. It's the fact that a group was founded when I was born. Obviously, since the Lord sees, you know, into the future, with the intention that, so I'm grateful that this group was formed, I'm sure, partially because of me. And, of course, I'm also grateful that God, the Lord's finally lifted my self-centeredness. I don't think about myself anymore that much, you know. You know, one of the great things about not preparing that much is you have the ability, you know, I think about what I'm going to say. You know, the problem is when you're 61 years old, I haven't found necessary to have a drink since January 17th, 1981. So if I don't drink in January, you know, I'll have 30 years. I mean, you never know. I could be drunk an hour from now. I know that. That's true. You know, I believe that. I don't even know how. I can't even explain. I'm not worried about it. You know, I don't necessarily believe it's going to happen, but I believe I would never. I don't think I've ever said, you know, I've seen people have said it hasn't worked out. So I've never said, well, I won't drink again or I can't possibly drink again or I'll say, I mean, I have not. I am powerless. Every minute goes by. Every year goes by. Every decade goes by. I get the understanding as to how more powerless I am than I thought I really was. You know, the T.S. Eliot, one of the quotes I remember from like 40 years ago, not even having to do with it, I just remember the quote. It just becomes more and more real to me. All the time it says we will not cease our exploration, you know, and when we're done with all our exploring and all our searching, we will finally come back to the place where we started having known the place for the first time. And so at 61 years old, working on 30 years sobriety, I see things that are going on in my life right now. I see the steps going on in my life right now. I almost don't even see them as steps. I just see the way I am right now. And I understand I understand these things in a different way. Than I've ever understood them before. Not in the way I understood them when I first came in. And I'm not even sure I'll be able to explain that. I mean, one of the great things is, is sometimes I think I don't really have to explain it. That's one of the great thing. I don't have to, in a sense, carry the message. It's not my responsibility. I only have to try to carry the message. Try to base. Sometimes the explanation just comes in the story. The more you try to explain it, the more confused I get. Sometimes I just tell a story and it sort of explains a lot of things because I was telling somebody on the way up here or driving up here. Jeff, thank you for that. Congratulations, by the way, to all the birthday people. You know, the reason why I've gained about 100 pounds since I've been sober is because my sponsor. I told them immediately when I immediately when I came in, Talfox and Anderson, I put the plug in the jug and I stopped drinking. You know, I immediately recognized that my real problem was I needed to lose weight. I mean, you know, I mean, about as far as I get in superficially and, you know, don't laugh because I think a lot of us are like this. Is that this is all about fitness. Is that this is all about fitness. Is that this is all about fitness. Is that this is all about fitness. Is that this is all about things about gathering up things, putting things in your life and vanity. It's all about new cars, a woman, a job and getting slimmer and maybe another haircut or a better suit. You know, and, you know, if I can only get that stuff going for my life, I'd be OK. And I told my sponsor, I remarked to him. I said, you know, I'm going to lose. You know, I come in, I'm shaking. You know, like I said last time, I had two neurons working. They were waving goodbye to each other. I was I was fighting. And all of a sudden I want to cut out sugar, you know, you know, and and every five seconds. My sponsor was telling me to drink more orange juice or stuff like that. And so I was talking about how I had already decided after one week's sobriety that I had to lose 30 pounds or go on a diet or something like that. Just make things just a little bit more difficult on myself because, you know, alcohol. Sorry. It's like the psychiatrist, you said, Carl Manager in his book, Man Against Himself in the chapter on alcoholism said alcoholics are men. Women are out to destroy themselves. You can trust an alcoholic to use his best thinking to figure out how to sabotage anything. And he'll be absolutely sure of it. You know what I mean? So but of course, I had these wonderful men, you know, and one of the one of the men that sponsored me, the first man was Bob Solomon. And I announced to him, I said, you know, I'm going to lose 50 pounds and stop buying whatever the heck I was going to do, because I'm sure I had that tied into money and females and stuff like that. And which was, of course, a female was always the answer to my problem. And and, you know, I've been married for 29 years. I got three daughters. Believe me, females are not the answer to your problem, guys. They are not the answer. But I will tell you what females will do for you. It's an incredible way to work on your program of recovery and build character. And by the way, women, while you're laughing, guys, women, let me tell you something. I am a guy. I sponsor guys. I've been sponsored by guys. I know a lot of guys. I like guys. Guys are not the answer to your problem. You know, you know, you'll see sometimes people want to say men are dogs. But that's an insult to dogs. I know dogs. I like dogs. Men will not be the answer to your problem. You know, I got come up and says, you don't understand. I don't get along with women. I need a man sponsor. I said, that's your problem. You know, but that I don't know if you understood that deal. So in any event, the problem was I told him I was going to drop 50 pounds. And he said, Russell, he says they can't arrest you for driving while fat. And so here I am, you know, unfortunately. So I was driving up here with Eric, Eric somewhere in the room. And what we do is we, you know, after this, I'll do the 12 steps some way south and someplace else. And we always pick a diner. We usually go to Lester's diners before this when we have the one on one club. We'll go some other place at a different club. We'll go back on track. We'll go to a different diner, a different place. And so for 12 weeks that we're eating and we eat, you know, we like alcoholics. And so Eric was there shoveling the food in. He walked. He's a young guy. He's thin. He's young, you know, and he walked out. He said, I got to walk this off. I said, you got to get used to this. He said, because I said 30, he's like 31. I said, because 30 years from now, you're going to look at yourself in the mirror and you'll say, oh, my God, I've turned into Russell. I was looking at myself in the mirror and I said, who's that old guy? You know, I said, oh, my God, I look like O'Keefe, you know, O'Keefe or my sponsor, Joe Sullivan, Joe Snyder. You know, you guys, wonderful guys, just wonderful guys. Just go out and eat all the time. And that's just one of them. Beauties of this thing, you know. But one of the reasons I'm going to read this poem. Just like I just like there's different poems and different stuff I like to read. They're meaningful. They mean stuff. I probably read this before. If I'm going to read it again, this is one of the ones I like to read. The man in the glass. This is kind of good on the second step. I'm not going to tell you why. You'll figure it out or not. When you get what now health. Some of you guys have heard this. Health, P-E-L-F, old English word. It means stuff. It means stuff. You know, the stuff they talk about in the seventh step. If you haven't done the seventh step, they said we don't want to deprecate material achievement or prestige or romance, you know. And then they go on to say it's the worst thing that ever happened to you, you know. That's what A does. They tell you. What A does is like a brain. I said to my sponsor, this thing is like, I know what this is. This is brainwashing. He said, well, Russ, maybe your brain needs washing, you know. And it's great. You know, they tell you stuff and they lure you in. You feel safe. We're not going to take away your toys. We're not going to take away your hobbies. We're not going to take away the things that you love to do. We're all in favor of that stuff. And then you step through the door and they take it all away. They start beating you over the head. You can't go there. You can't go here. You can't go, you know. That's what they do, you know. We're just con men, you know. But we can be forgiven because we deal with alcoholics. And alcoholics, our chief characteristic is we're defined in the extreme. So you can forget. You can be forgiven. We can be as bad as we are in AA, as tough as we are in AA. We're a lot less tough than alcohol, you know, because it's either us or, you know, 50 days in the Dade County Jail. I mean, there's a reason why people prefer this kind of torture than the torture they can get outside, you know. So I don't get down on myself for being tough on guys because no matter how tough I am on somebody, I'm not going to kill them like alcohol. I'm not going to abuse their children like alcohol. I'm not going to abuse their wife like alcohol. I'm not going to get them arrested. I'm not going to ruin their life like alcohol. So, you know, if it takes being slapped around and hurt and being told things you don't like to be hurt, like to be told, in order to somehow get this stuff, or be jarred into a sense of reality, because nobody came into Alcoholics Anonymous or stayed here because people were nice to them. You came in here because you were desperate and there's no other place to go and you're sick and tired of being sick and tired. So one of the things that would get torn away from us in here, if you knew, don't even pay attention to this part, is stuff. Is stuff. Because what we learned, what I ultimately learned later on, this is sort of like advanced AA. It's not so advanced. You probably learned it after the first year, but you don't really understand how, you don't understand these things, how true they are until you live them. Until you go through, there is, what happens is, it's one thing to hear the steps. It's another thing to try to figure out the steps. It's still another thing to struggle with the steps and the principles of the steps. It's still another thing to try to apply the steps to your life and try to figure out how the steps are working in your life, year after year, day after day, month after month for 30 years. It's another thing trying to get through, not drinking and working the steps and working the principle, you know, when you're being treated unfairly or when bad things are happening to you and tough things are happening to you. It's one thing to try to figure this stuff out and try to, and being on the borderline, like that gentleman was saying. And it's another thing to start living the steps. Not thinking about them, not struggling with them, not trying to figure them out, but just living the steps. And then it's just another thing, to becoming the steps. Where it's not a matter of explanation, it's not a matter of figuring it out, it's not a matter of trying to figure out what you're supposed to do, you're just living your life. But you're not living your life the way you used to live your life. You're living your life, there's been a transformation, not that anybody gets perfect. And all of a sudden you find out you're not getting into a whole lot of trouble anywhere. And not arguing with anybody. And not getting upset about a lot of things. Because it's just not happening. Because none of it is, none of it, none of it is ever that important. As a matter of fact, most of it is not important at all. At all. And what happens is you start understanding words that we sling around in here, but nobody really, but we understand them at different levels. Because somehow, someway, living life and getting pummeled, and even getting hurt and having bad things happening to you, over a period of time, being in the oven for 30 years, somehow when you throw that amalgam into the pot altogether, you're not getting hurt. You're not getting hurt. You're not getting hurt. And you let it boil up for 30 years and 40 years and things like that. And you go through the experiences that God throws at you so that you can persevere, like in the book of James, which is one of the basic books that they use, in the book of James, so you can persevere and have more and more faith and get stronger and stronger and concentrate what's important and what's not important. So when they rip the car away and you realize, you realize that you're going to die without a car, and they rip the car away and you don't drink and you realize the car wasn't that important anyway. And the person you're married to, that you've been married to for 40 years, they rip them away and you know you're going to die and you realize, well, it wasn't. It wasn't her anyway, or it wasn't him anyway. And they rip the job away and you realize you had no control over the job. And they rip everything away from your life and you start realizing over a period of 30 years, but you don't drink and you go to meetings, that none of that stuff was ever permanent. You never had any control of it. And there's life on the other side of it. And in fact, there's even a better life. None of it was important. So somehow you get to the end of the thing and you realize there's only one thing that matters and that's God. And you said, man, I think I've been hearing that in A-rooms for the last 30 years. I think that's what they've been trying to tell me. I've heard that. I've heard that somewhere before. There is one who has all power. See to it your relationship with him is right and great events will come after you. And you know that you've heard it all before. It's all about God and it's only about him and it's only about one thing. There is one who has all power. That one is God. You can't manage your own life. No human power can relieve you. Only God could if he saw it. And you listen to that and you think about that and you walk out of A-room and say, what am I going to do about my car? What am I going to do about my cell phone? Where am I going to live? And you struggle for 30 years on all the other bullshit, all the stuff you think about 98% of the time that has to be ripped away from you when all of a sudden at 30 years you say, hey, it's all about God. And you go into an A-room and you say, hey, it's all about God. And they say, we don't want to hear that crap. Tell us about the program of recovery. Okay, let's talk about stuff. You know what I mean? That's what you want to talk about. So this is about health for stuff. When you get what you want and you struggle for health and the world makes you king for a day, then go to the mirror and look at yourself and see what that guy has to say. For it isn't your mother or father or wife, whose judgment upon you must pass. The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life is the fellow staring back at the glass. He's the 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 guy in the glass is your friend. You may be like Jack Horner and chisel a plum and think you're a 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 can fool the whole world down the pathway of years and get pats on the back as you pass, but your final reward will be heartache and tears if you've cheated the guy in the glass. One of the things I, you know, when you don't really prepare a lot, you know, what I really wanted to talk about here was, I did want to talk about the second step. I actually want somebody that's possibly on my talk about it. Of course, all my meetings are about the second step and the third step, some of it in there, but no matter what I say my meetings are about, you're going to get out of it what you get out of it. If you walk out of here and say, you know, this is the meeting, remember what I mean about the fourth step, then that's what it meant to you. You know, I mean, it is what it is. It is, but I was thinking about it differently. We use terms in here, terms that are in the book. I somehow think and believe, and I don't know why I think this way, that when I say self-centeredness, it means the same to me as it means to you. Or when I say happiness, it means the same to me as it means to you. Peace of mind, it means the same to me as it does to you. You know, free will, it means the same to you as it does to me. And God's will, I think that we're talking about the same thing. And I may have, and 90% of these words, if you put them down and say, what do you mean? I'd have to think about it. I'm not even sure what it means. I read it in a book somewhere. I'm just making statements. And if I asked you what you meant, you'd sit there and you'd sort of try to figure out what the heck it was. You don't even know what it means. And you don't even know what I mean. I told that little joke last time we were here about the guy who was sitting down after a meeting. He had about three or four days. Went to a meeting, he felt good, he liked the meeting. I was sitting there at the Denny's with him. We were having coffee. And I was drinking coffee and we were talking about whatever alcoholics, a couple of alcoholics talk about when you're drinking coffee. I guess I had about 10 years, 12 years, whatever the heck I had, you know. And he looked at me and he says, you know, this stuff is great. What do you guys do for fun? And I, fun. And I didn't have the heart to tell him I was having a great time. He used the word fun and I used the word fun and I'm not even sure I use the word fun anymore. I'm not even sure I have fun. I sit around, I laugh. I feel great about my life. I feel great about where I'm at. You know, I chased around the world to have fun. I figured if I had fun, I'd be having a good time and I was miserable. And now I don't have any fun at all. And I feel great. And I don't even understand that. And if somebody said, you must be having fun. I said, I don't think so. But maybe, maybe this is what fun is in Alcoholics Anonymous. Speaking of Amy, we're a bunch of people. So, you know, we talk about this stuff. We don't even know, but we see, we sense. And we look at people and we say, I don't know what that guy has, but he has it. I'm not sure. Maybe it's fun. Maybe it's happiness. Maybe it's serenity. Whatever it is, I don't have it. I'd like to have what he has. You know, and then that's all. That's really the step-by-step. If you want what we have, and you're willing to go to any length to get it, then you're ready to take certain steps. If you don't have a we, if you don't have people you're looking at that have that deal that you don't have, that you were chasing, that's why you're drinking the booze. I was drinking the booze to get that thing that I couldn't get from anything else that that other guy had that I wanted and I didn't even know what he had. And it led me to all sorts of areas. You know, getting myself bankrupting myself on credit cards and everything. Spending money to buy things that I didn't even need to impress people I didn't even like. You know, I mean, all sorts of stuff. Putting myself on time. Getting myself in all sorts of jams. Hanging out around people that I didn't even like to hang around with. Putting myself in uncomfortable situations just to chase that deal and I didn't even know what the deal was. And at least I have some idea what the deal is today. And what, and I started thinking about the second step and I said, well, what can I talk about the second step? You know, obviously God's a great part of my life right now but I don't want to get too far into the God thing right now. You know, anybody who knows me who's been through the steps know I can get pretty preachy. You know, I'll start reading the Bible. I'll quote you all sorts of, that's probably going to happen later on. You know, I can't control myself. I'm out of control when I get stuff. I don't want to go up here. I want to say, well, how can I get into the essence of the second one? You know, what do I want to talk about? You know? And I found myself somehow wanting to talk about, I was reading the Bible and I was reading the big book and some things and I said, well, what really is the problem? And I started thinking about, you know, one of the problems you have is when you're 61 years old and you've got almost 30 years of writing, it's not that easy remembering exactly how you felt 29 and a half years ago. I mean, I've sort of kind of felt the way I feel right now about God and my relationship with God for so long. That it's kind of hard to put myself in the position of how I felt when there was no God or my faith was weak. Now, what will happen, that's why newcomers are so important to old timers and to constantly put myself in the position of newcomers because when newcomers talk and they're looking at me, you know, especially when they're crazy, which is all the time, by the way, all of a sudden I remember. I get it. I understand the thinking. I can be with them and all of a sudden it all makes sense to me because I remember I said, I'm looking at me 29 years ago. I know how they're thinking, why they're thinking and all of a sudden by being with them I understand how far the Lord has taken me. You know, to be where I am right now I can't even claim, you know, I can't even say I did this, you know. How the power of God through the book of Alphonse and the fellowship of Alphonse Anonymous has taken me to that deal. And I start, and I start, all of a sudden start thinking about different things which may or may not mean anything to you but I got to tell you one thing and so I wanted to talk about that. I want to talk about something which I will but I got to tell you something. One of my, if you call it a ministry, one of my greatest reasons for carrying the message or doing what I do is I have a real heart for guys with a lot of time that are going through struggles. I've said this many, many times from the podium. I mean, I love newcomers, I love working with newcomers but I sponsor a lot of guys that have a lot of time that are going through struggles. So I have a real heart when the gentleman came up and forgive me I forgot his name and said he was picking up a 19-year-old. What was his name? Leslie. Leslie. I don't know whether he's still here but when he picked up the medallion he said he's on the borderline. You know, first of all, you know, when you pick up a medallion and you tell a group of people you're on the borderline you're no longer on the borderline. I mean, I don't even know how to explain that so I won't even try, okay? Because one of the most important things to get off the borderline is knowing that you're on the, one of the first, hey, first step in getting out of jail is you've got to know you're in jail in the first place. So we bullshit people so much, we bullshit ourselves so much to be able to say, look, I need help is a big deal to announce to a couple people. So you're already taking two steps away from the borderline. But you know, the jumping off place, you know, if you remember, this is like the big book coming alive. In the big book, In Vision for You, they say every once in a while some guy comes in and he stops drinking and he says, I feel better, I look better, I'm having a better time. And they don't say whether the guy has six days or not. Or six months or 16 years. And it says, we laugh at such salad. We know that he would do anything to have just a few drinks. You know, and he will try the old game again because he's not happy with his sobriety. So even though the goal, I'm convinced the goal is not happiness. Happiness is a byproduct of true emotional sobriety. Not just physical sobriety, emotional sobriety. You can have 19 years physical sobriety and pick up a medallion and we'll clap for you and emotionally and spiritually you can be in the pits. I'm not talking about Leslie. I'm talking about anybody in here can go through emotional low points and have problems which will ultimately lead to a drink. And if you ask them why they drank, they won't even realize that the drink happened eight months before they drank. And they won't see the connection because the drink happened eight months before they drank. And so, what happens is you have this somehow, someway, although happiness isn't the goal, happiness or lack of happiness is a symptom of a deeper deal. Just like everything else we have in here are symptoms. What does it say in the big book? It says our alcohol, we came in here thinking I have a problem. I'm an alcoholic. What do you mean? I can't stop drinking. I said I can't stop drinking. I'm an alcoholic. I can't stop drinking. I stopped drinking and then they told me that that wasn't the problem. Men and women drink because they like the effect produced by alcohol. They're restless, irritable, discontent, let's get an experience of ease and comfort which comes in once by taking a few drinks. And then somewhere in the book, somewhere along the time they said it has to do with selfishness and self-centeredness and I don't even know what that is because I'm not a selfish guy. I'm just like a wonderful, nice, sweet, great guy. And then somewhere along the line I learned that I'm a bastard. I don't even know how that happens. You know, if you watch out if you tell me that right off the bat, you know what I mean? But somewhere around, around year 10, you know, I'm thinking I wasn't that great a guy. I'm pretty bad right now. And I start seeing myself in a different way. And apparently selfishness and self-centeredness has to do with thinking about yourself all the time. And it's all about you. And all you care about is about you. And it's about, and apparently I'm addicted to that way of thinking. And apparently if you go through life addicted to that way of thinking even though you don't know you're addicted to that way of thinking because you know what it says? An alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot. Self-will is always thinking about yourself and having a will, a will to do anything and everything that as long as it will help you. As long as it's about you. Even when you sometimes look like you're doing things for somebody else, back there in your mind, what do they think about me? Six months down the road when something else happens you'll say, I can't believe they're doing this to me when I did this for them. Everything is tied into something you're going to get back. It's all selfish and self-centered and I don't want what human being wants to hear that. And here's some book that tells me that and you know something, here's the crazy thing, I read that, I hear it in meetings, I listen to people talk about it but I may not actually even see it or admit it or accept it until 25 years sober. At 10 years sober I may get a sponsor and he may start trying to explain to me this stuff and I'll say, you know, go screw yourself. This guy's obviously the wrong sponsor. He doesn't understand the problem. My real problem is this girl over here. You know, what I have to say is as an alcoholic, one of my chief characteristics is not only defiance but to get angry at people that are telling me the truth and walk away from them because I'm smart. Because I'm smart. I mean, I got all sorts of biblical references about smart people. Listen, I've got diplomas on my wall to prove to you how incredibly brilliant I am. Every outlaw, well that's no big deal here, every outlaw who's ever walked in the room with outlaws and I'm just know that they're smarter than anybody else. Especially when it comes to them and their life. Because not only are we absolutely brilliant when it comes to us and our lives, who knows better about us than us? Who likes us more about us? Who cares more about us? Who's going to watch out more for about us? I mean, somebody can act like they care about us but you and I both know when push comes to shove it's all about you. If you don't do it, nobody really gives a crap about you except you and you're the only one who cares about you. And besides, how could they possibly know about you? You're different. We're unique. We're all different people. That works for you but it doesn't work for me. And I think if you knew all the nuances of my life, all the little pieces, all the little molecules, if you knew about my divorce, if you knew about my ex-wife, if you knew about all the times I tried to do the right thing and it blew back in my face, if you knew everything, then maybe, possibly, you might understand but you couldn't possibly know that so I kill you with the pieces you don't have which is everything. So I never get nailed down. I never get told the truth and I'm brilliant and I'm smart and here's the problem. The smarter I am and the more I believe that, the less shot that I will ever be able to get rid of this disease. Because what I don't realize is I'm addicted to self. I'm addicted to that self-centeredness. It's not like I have a choice. It's not like I say, I think I'll be a bastard. I think I'll be self-centered. I think I'll think I'm the smartest in the world. I think I'll be constantly thinking about myself and comparing myself with other people. I'll think I'm constantly worrying about myself. It's not that I have a choice. That's just the way I am. I can't stop doing it. I can't say, I will not be scared. I will not be fearful. I'll be humble today. I cannot do it. I'll self-centred. I'll self-centred. You know what the book says? It's a mere philosophy of life or a better moral character. If following the rules, if it worked, we'd be sober long. It doesn't work because we're addicted and that's what it says. The outbox is an extreme example of self-will run rider. They might as well say self-addicted to self-will. So when my wife, like I told you last time, said to me, you come home drunk and what time I'm leaving you? And I came home drunk and then she left me and I walked out the door and I said, I'm free. I'm free. I was never free. No matter how much was on the line, I was never free to do the right thing. I was never, how many times have we done things in our lives before we got here and we finally see it? That was totally self-destructive, so totally crazy, bankrupted us, got us in jail and when we're asked, you know, why did you do that? We can't even come up with an answer. We can't even, it was crazy when we look back on it and we can't, and the reason we did it is because we could not not do it. Try telling that to the judge. Why did you go back there when I said you shouldn't do that? You shouldn't go back there and the defendant looks and he says, uh, uh, uh, why did you go back? I told you right here not to go back. Why did you go back? Well, uh, uh, uh, you know, it's like you make up something that sounds stupid and you don't even understand it. So why don't you just tell him the truth? He says, well, because judge, I know you told me that. I know you told me not to do it, but you have to understand I suffer from a disease where I could not do it. Well, thank you for that remark. That'll be 10 years. But you're so stupid, you know, no, no, ask Russell. He'll tell you, you know, I guess no matter what you tell me when I do it anyway, because I'm crazy because it's part of the disease of alcoholism and I just don't do, I don't understand it. I don't, I didn't think he was right anyway. You know, I agree with you, judge. I'm just mean and evil. So the, you know, the bottom line is, so I've got this disease and what does it say? It says we must get rid of the selfishness. We must, or it kills us. God makes that possible. Now here, God makes that possible and the whole answer to the disease is we've got to quit playing God because He is the Father. We are His children. He is the director. We are the actors. That's what the big book says and here I am saying, but I'm God because when they say we've got to quit playing God, if you're thinking about your life and you're managing your life and you're making your own decisions, what do you need God for? You're God. You're the one who decides. God doesn't decide. So then you're left in this real quandary. What the hell do I do now? I don't even know what God is. I don't know where He lives. I'm not even sure I believe in Him. I've always thought, this is, I don't know of any other way of thinking other than thinking the way I'm thinking, doing what I'm doing. They talk about free, they talk about our will, self-will. Then they talk about one day maybe we'll be able to do God's will. We can align our will as long as it's God's will. So apparently there's these two wills going on. There's our will, which has to, and there's something called God's will. And we're supposed to try to align our life with God's will, whatever that is and I don't know what that is. And I can't align myself with God's will because I'm addicted to self-will and the only way I can even make the choice to choose for God's will is I've got to have free will and I'm not even sure what that is because I've never experienced it before. But somehow there's some place where you can get in where you can have free will where all of a sudden the situation puts itself at your disposal and instead of going here, you actually say, I think I'll call up my sponsor. You actually call up another human being. Can you imagine that? Or you go up to a group and you say, I'm on the borderline or you do something which is so out of character for an alcoholic and you say, I think I'll call up and say, what do you think you ought to do? Knowing that somehow this thing is self-will, this is probably bad, there's probably something better and the sponsor says, why don't you go here instead? And then you go, okay. And you do it and it's no big deal and it's wonderful and your wife works out and you just do a series of that for about 25 years and you don't even realize you're participating in the miracle. The miracle's already happening. You don't know what's happening. All you're doing is picking up the phone and calling up your sponsor and you're already involved in the second step, turning your life over and you don't even understand because all you're doing is picking up the phone and calling up the sponsor. And so I'm sitting in there and I was thinking about this story. You know, the funny thing about stories is I told a story I don't know how many times, a gazillion times, to get a certain meaning across about something. And I'm going to tell the same story and it's a true story because our story's really important. They're the ones that disclose in a general way what we used to be like. It's our stories are the ones that do it. And I was thinking about this story, something that happened to me, but I was thinking about it in terms of the second step. You know, sometimes, you know, it's funny when you go to different rooms and they talk about the second step and there's so many different ways you can talk about it. Some people like to talk about insanity, you know, they get upset when they're called insane. You know, I mean, you know, I never got upset. For some reason, that never upset me, being called insane. You know, I was nuts, you know. And then other people think about other things, come to believe and everything. Like, I was talking about a guy I sponsored who's got, he came to A, he's now got 25 years. I remember, I remember he got sober for about, this is the only thing I'm going to say about insanity. He got sober. Has anybody ever gotten, you know, been sober and been crazy at the same time? Am I the only one? You ever lie in your bed and you're like 18 months sober or two years sober or three months sober and you haven't had a drink but you're crazy? You're crazy. You know you're crazy. You might as well die. You want to kill yourself. You know what's going on. You're absolutely nuts, okay? You know, if you felt that way, you'd suffer from the same kind of outfalls as I suffer from. So, he called me up one day because he was about two weeks sober. He hadn't been drinking for two weeks and he was crazy. He had, you know, what happens is when you stop drinking the stuff that's chasing away the thing that's going to kill you, that when you stop, when you stop using the medicine, the scotch, to kill the pain of living life with alcoholism, you start experiencing alcoholism. And alcoholism feels like depression. It feels like fear. It feels like you're going crazy. It feels like you want to kill. It feels horrible. It's horrible to be sober and alcoholic unless you got something else going for you, which is what the second step comes involved. And you want to be living that, you know, that dry sobriety. So, he was experiencing alcoholic craziness. You know, the 15,000 voices all saying bad things about him and other people and he's, you know, impending doom. Something terrible is going to happen. Something had happened. What am I going to do about this? What am I going to do about that? All coming at him at light speed. A million miles per hour all about him. So, he had determined with his great thinking ability as alcoholist, he was a very bright guy, that he was not alcoholic. Well, you can understand this because he was sober for two weeks and he was crazy. In other words, it hadn't worked. It hadn't worked. He realized, I'm not alcoholic. I'm crazy. And then a great fear set upon him. And the fear was the only thing that ever worked that he could do was to drink. And the only thing that he really liked was the meetings and the people. And he thought that if it got out that he was just crazy and not alcoholic, he'd have to leave AA. So, he called me up. And he said, he said, Russell, I'm worried. I said, I said, what is it, Tom? He says, he says, I don't think I'm alcoholic. He says, I think, I think, I think I'm just crazy. And I said, Tommy, I said, what? He says, listen to me. You can be both. This is, this is, this is a lawyer. This is a college bachelor, postgraduate. He said, he said, really? I said, absolutely. He said, oh, thank God, you know. Oh, I thought I had to leave. I said, no. We got a seat for you. You're going to be right at home. Don't worry. Well, we only have one minute left. But I'm going to tell a one minute story. Maybe it'll be two minutes. Whatever. It'll work out. Okay? This, this story has to do, I'm going to tell, tell the same story I always tell, but it has a different slam to it. Because I think it has a second step. I think it had, I think it has to do with the second step, but I haven't figured it out. So this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to tell you the story. And I'm going to let you figure out what it has to do with the second step. And maybe between all of us, by the time we get home, we'll figure out, well, that's what it has to do with the second step. We'll figure it out. So I'm sitting, and I know a lot of you have heard this story. I'm a bar drinker. So I used to drink in bars. And I used to sit with guys that drank in bars. Now, when sitting with guys that drink in bars, and you're drinking, what you do, what I generally did, was I talked about other people behind their back. And, you know, people I didn't like, or people that I was envious of, or people had things I didn't have, people I was jealous of, you know, just people I didn't, whatever. I talked about people, and it was always bad stuff about other people. Because I always thought bad things about other people behind their back, even though I thought I was a nice guy. And the greatest thing that can happen to you, if you like to talk about, you see, if you're self-centered, and feel like a piece of crap, and you have low self-esteem, the only thing that used to make me feel good is if I could talk to you, and say something bad about somebody else who wasn't there, and get you to agree, that somehow made me feel better. Now, you're laughing at this, and this is what I did all the time. Other than drinking, this was another hobby of mine. This made me, I did this, yeah, you don't know what it's like, you know, because you didn't, yeah, but, and I did this all the time. Now, sitting here right now, talking to you, I realize how crazy that is. I would have never understood that this is part and parcel. This is the real alcoholism. This is the stuff that goes on even whether you're drinking or not drinking, all the time. This is the way I think, and this is the way I act, and this is the stuff that made me want to drink, because I felt like such a piece of crap, because my thoughts were always crap about other people. So, no matter what, what did I ever do to deserve to feel good? If all you're doing is talking crap about other people, and thinking crap about other people, why did I deserve to be happy? Why shouldn't I wind up a self-centered, sick, suffering, alcoholic, who had to drink himself to death, if that's the only way I thought about things, and that's how I thought about people? Why don't I think I deserved anything better? So, I'm in AA now, and I'm sitting at a table, just like you guys are sitting at a table. I'm talking to my sponsor around, so what do you think I started talking about? Because this is just the way I am. Because I'm addicted to this way of thinking. I'm addicted. I can't help. If I'm with a group of people, and they're talking, I'm going to eventually turn to somebody and say, do you believe Joe? I'm going to start talking shit about other people. It's just going to happen because I'm addicted to it. And I start talking that stuff, and my sponsor turns to me, and he says, you know, he says, you know, Russell, this is out of all synonymous. He says, we don't talk about other people behind their back, and we don't say bad things about other people behind their back, so unless you have something good to say about somebody, why don't you just shut up? That's what he said to me from about three or four people. And, you know, I was an alcoholic, so I was sensitive, you know? My sponsor said, no, no, great artists are sensitive. You're touchy, Russell. You know, and I, you know, he embarrassed me. He humiliated me in front of other people. You know what the 12 in 12 says is the way we get a new perceptive is from a hundred forms of humiliation, the final crushing of our self-sufficiency. We got a new perception about alcohol because we get slam dunked and we get a, we don't get a new perception about alcohol because our loving wife or husband who's been begging us for ten years to stop you're killing the kids. We don't get a new perception. We got a new perception because we got hit over the head with a billy club or serving divorce papers because of humiliation. So he humiliated me. You know why he was able to humiliate me? Because he had reached that point in alcoholism where he didn't care what I thought about him. He was more, he was not selfish. See, a selfish person would not humiliate me because he would say, well, Russell won't like me. He was selfless enough to say, I need to hurt this kid to help him. And he may walk out on me and he may hurt him, he may hate me, but at least he won't be dead from alcohol. He's got a shot of making it. So he said something to me, he hurt my feelings. He made a point that I couldn't, I couldn't not forget. You know, I walked out of the room and you know, when you get hurt, has anybody been humiliated or hurt before when they're sober? It's hard to forget. You know, you're thinking, how do I kill the guy? You know, shooting him, his wife, cutting up his poodle into pieces, you know, all that sort of stuff. So in any event, so I'm thinking about it, but here's the deal. The deal, is this. Here's what happened. Somehow, now, you ever hear somebody in AA say something like this? Well, if they had said that to me, I would have walked out the door. Well, listen, I'm not going to tell you my true opinion about that. I told you that last time because I had stuff like that happen to me in AA and I didn't walk out the door. So if you walk out the door because your feelings are hurt, you obviously didn't drink as much as I drank or you didn't, you obviously didn't suffer from the same disease I suffered from. So maybe you need to walk out the door so you get to the point where when your feelings are hurt, you ain't walking anywhere. You're just going to sit there and maybe change your attitude. Because what happened to me, and now I remember it, he hurt me badly and I've gotten hurt hundreds of times in AA after that by people putting me down to meetings and saying things and all sorts of stuff, you know, happening in here. And you know what I did? I came back. Because somehow in the back of my mind, maybe I didn't have a connection with a higher power at that point, but he was my higher power. Even though I might not have admitted it, they'd say, well, why did you say this is Bob? Where are you going? I've got to move Bob. Everything was Bob. All of a sudden, I was thinking about him, what he would think. Maybe it wasn't God's will, it was just Bob's will, which was good enough because I think he was pretty much locked into God's will when it comes to me. And he had a pretty good shot of knowing what God's will when it comes to me was than what I had because I was addicted to self-will. And somehow, some way, at that point, even two, three weeks, four weeks in sobriety, I realized that my not drinking had something to do with my relationship with him. And that if I lost that relationship with him, I might drink again and I didn't want to drink. So you know what I did? I humbled myself and I went back. And you know what I did? Whether I understood it or not, and I promise you I didn't understand why. I promise you I didn't think I did anything wrong. You know what I mean? I thought it was too hard on me. I thought it was unfair. But you know what I did? You know, I did what Alkies do. I played the game. I never talked about other people. You know, I never talked about other people. When he was around, certainly. But really, I honestly tried. As a matter of fact, I was scolding other people for talking about other people. I stopped doing it. Or I tried to stop doing it. I was mindful of it. And I stopped. And you know, as I stopped talking badly about other people, I started thinking badly about other people. And I started feeling better. Now, that whole thing I described to you, how I acted, what I did, how my thoughts changed and what happened to me, which is part of my sobriety and why I'm here, all that has to do with not drinking. That all has to do that whole mindset has to do not with my way of thinking because it was up to me. I'd be talking shit about that guy today. It was all about his will. And he was locked into another will. So somehow, now that's not the God thing yet. But of course, he was locked into that deal. He's the one who handed me the big book. He's the one who handed me Sermon on the Mount. He's the one who, pretty soon I started learning because I wanted to be like him. I hung around him, you know, and he was hanging around other people that were not locked into another deal and he was following something else. And so, if you're following somebody because you want to be like them and they're following somebody else, you start looking, they start pointing you to that other thing too. So somehow, some way, my coming back to him, even after he humiliated me, has something to do with step two. Has something to do with that willingness and open-mindedness, you know, and not being defiant. So thank you very much.