Self-Delusion and Denial – Workshop – 2023 – Part 5 of 6 – Bob D.

Could you crush him up and snort him? That's what I'm thinking. Yeah, I'll try. Yeah. So there's been something. Our book talks about self-delusion, not denial. Self-delution. And there's a big difference between self- delusion and denial. Denial is like a conscious lying, denying something. but self-delusion it's it's psychotic wishful thinking when silkworth says we can't differentiate the true from the false self- delusion is i don't even know that i'm lying to myself i it's i'm selling bs and i'm buying bs at the same time and i believe it um and i started coming to alcoholics anonymous in 1971 it was before i was old enough to take a legal drink and i was an institution and I was in there. And if you would ask me, why are you here? I'd say, well, because I got too deep into heroin. Are you an alcoholic? Oh no, I'm not. No, I do enough heroin. You don't have to drink. Um, no, i'm not an alcoholic. And then later it was, yeah, I would have admitted that I probably have this thing called alcoholism, but I have so many other problems. And I i'm here cause every time I quit drinking, I get depressed. I need to fix my depression. I'm here because of loneliness. I am here because of anxiety and worry, almost anxiety to the point of feeling like I'm having a nervous breakdown at times. I m here for all these other reasons. And the truth is, even into my sobriety, I don't know why I'm her. It reminds me of this story. This was this guy. And he wants to he wants a bear rug for his house. So he sets his trip up to go hunting for bear up in Alaska And he goes up to Alaska, and he's out in the brush looking for a bear. And he sees this little black bear. He's excited. He draws a bead with his rifle on that little black beer, shoots it dead. He's going to have his rug. He goes over, and He starts getting ready to skin that bear. And there's a tap on his shoulder, and turns around. There's the biggest brown bear he's ever seen. The brown bear says, you killed my cousin by right side of kill you, but I'm not going to kill you. I'm going to rape you, and it's not going to be good for you. And that bear jumped on him, tore him up. Oh my God, it was horrible. Ended up in the hospital, couldn't walk for a week. Gets a resentment, I'm going to go back to Alaska and I'm gonna kill that bear if it's the last thing I do. And he goes back to Alaskan. It took him a week and a half in that bush. He finally finds that brown bear, draws a bead on him. Shoots him dead. Ha! Gonna skin that. That's a better rug. Goes to start skinning it. There's a tap on his shoulders. Turns around and there's this big grizzly bear. The grizzly bear says, you killed my cousin by right side to kill you. But I'm not, but I'm going to have my way with you. You're not going to like it. Sure enough, that bear jumped on his ass. Oh, my God, it was horrible. This time he's in the hospital for two weeks, raised his voice an octave, for God's sakes, couldn't walk, gets out of there, heals up. He's going to go back and I'm gonna kill that grizzled bear. It's the last thing I do. Goes back to Alaska, took him three weeks in the bush. Finally, in a little thicket, he sees that grizzle bear and he draws a bead on him and he shoots him dead. right through the head goes over to skin him and he tap on his shoulder he turns around there's a big polar bear polar bear says uh you're not here for the hunting are you just saying maybe you're not here for the hunt neither but maybe you the reason you think you're here isn't the real reason you're Here you just haven't found it yet you haven't found the real Reason You're Here I think people come to alcoholics on him is for relief to feel better to get her off my back because I got a drinking problem I got a drug and drinking problem. I got an employment problem. I got a money problem. None of that's right. I didn't know why I was here until I followed enough of my sponsor's directions that I was doing 12-step work and I started to sponsor people, and I woke up to something that is very important. if you if you have done and i don't think this happens in your first dozen hni meetings your first dozen sponsees but somewhere along the line if you persist two things happen if you persist in helping others the one thing happens before you realize it and what that is is you're You're getting intermittent times of being relieved of the bondage of self when you feel free. When you have got come up off of you and you're able to be right here, right now. And then the second thing and the most important thing is you wake up to that. Because that happens, and it happens to most new people. I sponsor guys. One of the directions, if you have a car and I sponsor you and you're new, you're picking people up. You're going to the halfway houses. You're picking them up. You're bringing them into my home group and they don't like doing it. It's inconvenient. I'll tell you something. When it comes to spiritual growth, inconvenience has high value. Self-serving has low value. It's anti-spiritual. And so these guys, they'll be driving a guy a half hour to a meeting and a half hour back from the meeting, and they're talking to him in the car. And because they want it, it's the right thing to do. They're trying to say things that are hopeful to the guy, et cetera, et cetera. And they wake up to something, but they don't understand the connection. They'll tell you things like, what did you think about giving that guy a ride? And they'll say, well, I just don't know. How do you feel now after you're there at the meeting, you just drove him over here. It took him a half hour to get here. How do you feel? You know, I feel pretty good. And they don't make the connection that that trying to help that guy did something for them and it changed them because it's the antithesis of a selfish nature. Selfish people only want to do for themselves. And in our 11 step prayer in the 12 by 12 prayer of St. Francis, there's a great term in there that talks about self-forgetting. And Alcoholics Anonymous is asking a selfish, self-obsessed, obsessively self-concerned person to push himself aside and serve a purpose greater than himself. A purpose that ultimately, and you don't realize it at first, is more freeing than anything you've ever done. Our primary purpose. Our primary purpose is not ourselves. It is when we get here. I think universally every alcoholic I've ever met when they've come to AA in the middle of a burnt-to-the-ground life, their obsession is to fix themselves. His relief is to feel better, to get my life in order, to get things right. As it says in the book, we're victims of this delusion that we can rest happiness and satisfaction or this world if we only manage well. We all come here obsessed with ourselves. Don't know it. I don't know what. You could have said that to me. I said, no, I'm not. What do you worry about? Me. Right. So I come here with the primary purpose of myself and you guys are pushing me. And one of the things that Wilson talks about and two of the traditions, is the things that divert us from that. When I was about 11 years sober, I started to have some material success. And God was so good to me because I struggled financially my first eight, ten years of sobriety. I mean paycheck to paycheck. I mean, I couldn't afford a car, a nice car. I'd buy these old used, you know, I had nothing. I didn't even, I could not buy a house. People in AA, I cannot go to the first couple of internationals because I could NOT afford it. I was sponsoring, I am making five bucks an hour and I am sponsoring guys making 12. You kind of realize the unfairness of that, don't you? And God was good to me because if I started making $100,000 a year in my first couple of years of sobriety, it would have fed things in me that should have been starved. I'd have gone out to some saloon to tell everybody how smart I was. See, if you're selfish and self-centered by nature, then self-gratification, self-enhancement, self security, self-righteousness all the self crap is the primary purpose of your life the gratification and fulfillment of self but i made a deal with the devil when i got my first sponsor to do anything he asked me to do and he started pushing me into 12-step work and i you know i've been going to vegas is an unusual city i really like living there because not only is it a target-rich environment for 12-step work, but if you live in Sacramento or Grass Valley or Seattle, Washington or Toronto or Miami and you're 20 years sober and you drink again and you got a whole bunch of money in the bank, Vegas often will call you. It's like, all of a sudden Vegas seems like the place I need to go. You know, they got hookers, they got gambling, they Got drinking, they I mean, oh my god, it's seductive stuff. And I'll tell you, Vegas is a funny place. I've met people that retired, drank again, came to Vegas and they had about two to three million dollars in their IRA Vegas took that away from them so quick it make your head spin between the hookers the gambling and the drugs and alcohol Vegas will take that from you quick and they end up they end up where I go a couple times a week they endup in one of our skid row detoxes people that had big lives and so you know the i started hearing things i'm trying to because i i don't have another recovery in me i i believe that with everything in me my last time out i tried to kill myself i know what's waiting for me and so i want to know what happened to them because whatever they did that they shouldn't have been doing, I don't want to do it. And whatever they weren't doing that they should have been done, I want to make sure I'm doing it because I don t want to go down that road. This is life and death for me. This is not self-help. This is life-and-death. And so I start having these little conversations with the people that are sober over 10 years of drinking again, looking for the common denominator because hear a lot of things in AA that don't prove to be true experientially. Well, people drink again because they stop going to meetings. I've met people that have drank again with many years of sobriety that went to two meetings the day before they drank. They say, well, they don't have a relationship with God. I haven't met clergy that drink again, that have a better a relationship with God than I do. So I am looking for a common denominator and I found it. You go to a detox and you find someone who's drank after 10, 20, 30, 40 you had one guy 45 years you can ask him this question and you'll uncover the reason. Just say man I am so sorry you're here if you'll uh give me a list of the newer people and their phone numbers you've been working with i'd be glad to call them and help out until you get out of here if you give me a list your of the committees and the aa commitments maybe your home group i can notify people in there you're not going to be able to show up i'll be glad to pitch in for you they won't give you nothing because their life had shifted unbeknownst to them from helping and being a servant in Alcoholics Anonymous to being a self-server in Alcoholic Anonymous. You know, AA is the only organization in the world because of our second tradition in the short form where you come in a big shot and if you're lucky, you'll work your way up to servant. It's the top of the food chain here. It's not big shot. it's not boss, it's not manager, it is servant. Matter of fact everything we do in the steps, everything we do in Alcoholics Anonymous is to serve that end. In the third step the last part of the prayer was asking God to take away these difficulties with this bondage of self. Take them away for one reason. So that victory over them would bear witness to those I would help. And then I come back after looking at all the stuff that is blocking me from carrying out that decision. And I come back in step seven, and I'm not asking God to remove the things that stand in the way of my health, my happiness, my relationships. I'm asking him to remove the things in me that stand between my inability to be useful. That I'm really trying, that the steps are trying to take a selfish, self-serving person and craft them into becoming a servant but because of the chronic nature of aa guys like me unfortunately we can go from being such a great man i mean i've had days in alcohol exonymous that i was such a servant that they should be building a statue of me at the general service office and then i've got other days where i just want to hang my head and go around and just apologize for being so selfish and so self-obsessed um but the goal a goal that wilson reminds me i'll never completely reach once and for all when he says no one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence these principles none of us And I've known some pretty amazing people in Alcoholics Anonymous. I was very, very close to Sandy Beach, one of my best friends, Clint Hodges. I met and got to spend some time with Chuck Chamberlain. Some of these great people, and they had their bad days. Clancy. Clancy was one of the greatest servants in Alcoholic Anonymous, yet I've watched him go off on people. especially if you did something that he interpreted as disrespectful for the a.a oh he just he humiliates you and then he'd come back 10 minutes later because he's spring-loaded he'd put his arm around your shoulder and he'd tell you what that was about and how this is you got to put a.e before you kid he did that to me several times you know something he was always right he always would slam me because of my own selfish behavior in Alcoholics Anonymous I could never argue with that because I knew he was right I could tell you some funny stories but I couldn't do that so here I am I'm 11 years sober and I went through my first divorce between 10 and 11 Now I'm single. Now I am single and I'm starting to make a lot of money all at the same time. It's the perfect storm for ego, perfect storm, money, property, prestige. And I'm working out a lot. I'm like buffed. I got a custom Harley. I'm a chick magnet, right? I'm getting laid a lot, buying all these toys. I mean, oh my God, it was like, I have arrived. And I started to get really sick. When an alcoholic of my type starts to fill up with himself, he gets sick. My mother said that to me before I ever, when I was just a little kid. She'd say, you're full of yourself. I didn't know what she meant. she used to say you know a person wrapped up in their selves makes a very small package when your life is all about you it becomes an abundant but small life and so I start getting sick by the time I guess it was somewhere in 13 14 years sober I started dating a lot of really amazing women and started having a lot of amazing things i i got to it by the time i was 18 19 years sober i was making like seven figures stupid money ego feeding money when wilson says money property and prestige he he nailed it you know he knows how i am inside and it's diverting me from my primary purpose now if you have the kind of ego I have. You're not going to quit going AA because my ego not only demands self-gratification and self-justification and self grandizement, but it also demands having the bragging rights of a good AA member when you really aren't. So I still went to some meetings and I got to be 19 years sober. And it was the year I probably made the most money that I will ever make in my whole life I ran out of things to buy stupid stuff I mean just I was living a life didn't know it but I was a life on Bob gratification and Bob enhancement and Bob grandiosity and didn't note I didn't know that I because when you're get when you build a house of cards based on self as long as you're getting self-gratifying things and you're get in your way, it feels kind of good. And then Chamberlain used to say something that really hit me. He said, if you don't remain surrendered, what will happen is you'll get to a place where you will run out of things that you can put between you and you. And there you are. And there you are and at 19 years sober I the year the most abundant year materially in my life I sunk into a horrible frightening depression kind of depression that can take guys like me out and I didn't know what it didn't make any sense to me because why now when I have everything I want you'd think if you were going to sink into a horrible threatening depression would be when things were bad I never imagined it would be when things were externally good and I sunk into this horrible depression, I couldn't get out of it and I went to a meeting, I didn't know what else to do you know, I just, thank God I've always had a meeting habit and I was like, and I went to a meeting some guy that I got sober he actually was sober a few months a little bit longer than I was was there And I just opened up to him. I told him what was how I felt and what was going on. And I think that God spoke through this guy to me. And the reason I think that is I don't think he's that bright to have said what he said, but he what he's said to me, he said well. You know, you still go to meetings and you sponsor a few people and you run your mouth a lot. He said, but I don't think your primary purpose is helping God's kids anymore. He said I think your primary purpose is you and it pierced me and it hurt because it was true and it shocked me it was like somebody threw a bucket of ice water on me I'm asleep in my own life and being soothed by the material stuff and the sex and all that. I'm being soothe by that stuff and it was like he threw a bucket of cold water on me. It was like I came out of there and I'm like, God, what am I doing? This lifestyle I'm living today is not the lifestyle that has been given to me by Alcoholics Anonymous. It's the fruits. Some of it is the fruits of practicing spiritual principles at work and in the job. Some of it is the fruits of living a different lifestyle, but I'm taking the results of my recovery and using it to serve self. When it says in step 10 that it's easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels, oh my God, Wilson nailed it. I get seduced by self-gratification, self-grandizement. You know, a lot of accolades, a whole bunch of stuff. A lot of, you know, self, self self stuff, I get seduced away from my primary purpose. And as as I move away from that self moves in. Now, my primary purpose is Bob. And I didn't even I honest to God, I didn t even know that was happening to me. It's i justify every inch of the journey away from my primary purpose into self just and this guy said that to me and it shocked me and i just i recommitted to alcoholics anonymous i i started to go back through the steps but more importantly i started filling my car up with new guys i started jacking i went i started going back to the level of service that got me through my first divorce where I was going down to the detox you know four or five times a week six times sometimes I was back on I got back on the 12-step list I started taking commitments that that I had grown too uppity to take and I started throwing myself back into alcoholics and I said and it just, it shifted. The shift was dramatic because the problem is the bondage of self and the problem is that the only way I can't wish these things away any more than alcohol. I have to have God's help and here's what I think Alcoholics Anonymous does. AlcoholicsAnonymous is not the power but AlcoholicsAnenomous is an environment and a set of actions that puts me in a position to receive the grace. But I have to take the actions. When I was a kid, right before my 16th birthday, I ended up in juvenile court system again. And it was my third time in juvenile court. My parents are in the courtroom trying to fight to keep me from being sent to a place with a horrible reputation. for kids. And instead, they made a deal with the judge and I would go to this disciplinary school upstate New York on the Finger Lakes. And I would have to stay there. And it was supposed to straighten me up. Well, I went up there and it's on the lakes. It's a nice school. But if my parents and the juvenile court judge would have known that this school was a gathering of deviant kids from all over the east coast they wouldn't have sent me there it was like it was i love this school i mean this is where i was introduced to drugs it was amazing so we're the dormitory we're staying in is on one of the finger lakes now the finger lakes are unusual they're long lakes that aren't that wide but they're real long. And there's a current of air, a wind that goes down the center of those lakes that's so extreme that they have ice boat races there in the winter when the lake's freed solid. Some of those ice boats go 80 miles an hour, 100 miles. I mean, they're fast. Well, it's about October, my second year there. And me and my buddy, my running partner, we got a some wine and some reefer so we're smoking pot and drinking wine and i don't know about you guys but you get me half stoned i know some things and next to the school's dormitory there's a resort on the lake that has a like a fleet a small little fleet of sailboats and motor boats and stuff like that, that they use for tourists and stuff in the summer season. And there's a, we see these sailboats and when you, I just knew, I've never been in a sailboat, but I knew I was a sailor. You know, you just know that stuff, right? So me and my buddy, we steal one of these little sailfish, a little two man sailboat. And we don't know what we're doing, but there's a paddle. So we're paddling up, get out to the middle of that lake where that wind is. And we set that sail and my god that wind catches that sail we're shooting down that lake like whoa this is amazing and it was amazing we were having a hell of a time it was good and then we saw the bottom of the lake the shoreline with rocky rocks and trees and stuff coming it's kind of coming at us and we realized to our dismay that there's no brake pedal in this sailboat we don't know what to do and it's all of a sudden it's like whoa what and my buddy he says oh i saw this in a movie we got to come about we don'T we DON'T KNOW WHAT WE'RE DOING and that wind that had the power to take us down that lake at probably 35 40 knots i suppose also if you don't know what you're doing and you're an idiot and you try to come around and shift the shale says the sail it also has the power to turn you upside down and here we are in october upstate new york hanging on to the hull of this sailboat this keel up sail down and we're in danger of hypothermia because this water temperature is probably probably 50 55 degrees it's it's serious but one of the teachers has been up on that bank with binoculars, looking at his two idiot students. And he gets the motorboat from the lodge next door and he comes down and he saves us. What's the point of that story? Well, I think God's grace is much like that wind. It's available to anyone who knows how to set their sail. it'll take you into a life beyond your wildest dreams it is the most amazing thing you'll ever discover the problem is when I first approach the wind my sail is full of bob it don't catch much I don't know how to sail so when the currents and shifts happen I don' t know how to reset my sail because it's all about me And I think Alcoholics Anonymous is often about sailing lessons to enable me to position myself to catch God's grace. AlcoholicsAnonymous doesn't heal alcoholics. Now, I know it looks like we do, but what I think we do is we create an angle of approach and a stature so that we can receive the grace and the power for what really will change us it's god's grace and sometimes it works through people sometimes it uh sometimes it works through meetings sometimes it works through the amends you didn't want to make you know the one that scared the crap out of you sometimes it works through surrenders but I have to put myself in the equation I got to take the sailing lessons to catch the wind and the wind is amazing and so what diverts me from my primary purpose what takes a guy like me who is given a rich and abundant life And at 19 years sober, I got so lucky. I was living a lifestyle that takes people out and I dodged the bullet and I ended up back in the saddle again in AA. And many people don't make it. Many people, because self is defended and it's resilient. and oh my it's so defended I just had this is embarrassing this just happened to me two days ago I had a a conversation with my wife that ended up being an argument now I don't know what her part in that was but I'll tell you what my part is I don' t want to be wrong and I I will feel better if she admits that she's wrong and the idea of admitting that i'm wrong and making amends i mean that's a nice in theory but when you know you're really right you can't do it and i hung on to that i hung onto that like a like your puppy when he gets a slipper in his mouth he can't get it away from me and i just oh that it caused a terrible fight because the ego is so defended i think there have been times in my in my life where my ego is so powerful that it doesn't care if it kills me it doesn'T care if i have sleepless nights if I ruin relationships, as long as, even if it kills me, if after I'm dead, people walk around and go, yeah, but that Bob was right. You know, he was dead, but right. That's a strong force. I mean, normal people who are not extreme examples of self, they won't go that far with this. They just won't take it to the way we take it. how I need to be right. And even, I've caught myself this in sobriety, where the evidence has piled up and become overwhelming that, okay, I was wrong. But I'm like the guy in the courtroom that says, he asks for a plea and he goes, guilty, Your Honor, but with an explanation. You know? And the minute I start explaining myself, I'm wrong, right? The ego is so strong in guys like me. And maybe there's some people sitting in this room that you think, oh, this is crap. I don't have any of that. I don'T have an ego. I remember thinking that. But if you're a chronic, now, if you'RE a problem drinker and you just drank a little too much and now that you'RE sober, you'RE fine, this doesn't mean much, does it? but if you're plagued with a with mind and emotion that can torment you and separate you from people in your life sober and it seems at times to be so extreme that you caught it costs you things of great value and maybe you have what i have and maybe the answer is surrender maybe the answer is to shrink you so I start going through these traditions at over 20 years sober trying to apply them I applied them in my business one of the things that saved me from this argument with my wife is that we value and try to practice imperfectly the 12 traditions in our marriage that our common welfare should come first. I think it should come second, that Bob's welfare should comes first. But the tradition says our common warfare should come first. And that's to come back to that and realize that you know, I had a friend used to say something. I say it to myself sometimes when I get aggravated with somebody or something. Frank used to say, is this the hill you're prepared to die on? Are you that selfish and self-centered you're willing to die in? Are you willing to die on this hill to be right, to get your way? Is this the hill You're willing to die on? No, it's not. I love my wife. We have a great marriage. She doesn't always mind. That's all right. And neither do I. You know, you get two people that both have admitted insanity in the second step, admitted selfishness and self-centeredness in the third step, admitted defects of character, and it's a miracle that they can stay together. But I tell you, we both have strong sponsors. and our willingness to come to our sponsors and take their direction seems to adjust. I get out of line, and then I make the adjustment. I get Out of Line, and I make The Amends. I get OUT of LINE, and surrender my will. Because what's my will? It's nothing. You know why that delusion in Chapter 5 that has become a big piece of business in my sobriety. It says that we're victims of the delusion that we can rest with a W, I can wrestle. We can rest happiness and satisfaction over this world if I just manage well. If I just get them to understand. If I'd just get their attention. If I get them see. If I'm just getting my ducks lined up in an order. If I got everything, if I get properly financed, if I get appreciated, if I get everything right, surely then I will have rested satisfaction and happiness because I got my way out of this world through that management. The reason that's a delusion? If we step back from ourselves, I don't think we can find a demographic on the planet that has ever spent more money on self-gratification and happiness. That's ever spent more focus, more time, more energy in making ourselves happy and satisfied as we have. And for some of us, the end result is, would you sponsor me? A complete failure, sober and manage in my own life. So here we are, fighting the battle with self so that I can keep enough of God in my life and enough grace that I, I can, I can survive me. And that's, that's a big piece of what, what happens here. I've been very lucky that no matter how selfish I get, no matter self-centered I become, No matter how far out there I may get at any given time in the last 44 plus years, I've always had a sponsor and I've always tried to honor the ethic of being sponsored to listen. You know what's really fueled that for me is when I, not initially, but after a while of sponsoring people, I started to wake up to something that I didn't really want to wake up to, but I woke up to it anyway. That all these newer guys and these people that are sober a few years that I sponsor that even though I didn' t want to be in this position, I am in the position of being the main source they look at on how to live your life sober. And I'll tell you what happens to guys like me you can't fail but to fall in love with the people you sponsor. You can't help it to fall in love with AA. It's a funny thing. Anything you continue to serve, you will fall in loved with and anything you serve, you'll fall in luck with anything you continue to serve. You'll stay in love with some of you know that from your children. And so I start to fall in love with some of these guys I sponsor. What's that mean? It means I want I want for them better things than I even want for myself. That their well-being is important to me. And when you realize that you're the example they watch, I'll tell you, I found myself looking at some of my behavior and being ashamed of myself. Sober. I don't want to be that example to these guys. Because new people, they're like ADD kids. They'll emulate your worst stuff. They don't emulate the good stuff. You know, it's like, have you ever had a kid and you can say, you can have great conversations around this kid, talk about love and forgiveness and kindness? Use the F word once. They'll grab onto that and they'll use it all the time. It's because it's got power, an illusion of power. And so I don't want my sponsees to... I want to be a good example for them. Not perfect, I'm never going to be perfect. But I want them to know how much I value the principles of alcohol and synonymous. How much I love AA. And how much I care about them. Am I always a great example? No, I am not. But I am in the game. I'm in the game. You know, one of the things that it talks about in step 10 and the 10-step promises is something that's very important. It says, it talks about being placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected. Now, they're saying that in the context of how we're not tempted by alcohol anymore etc etc but i think it's even deeper than that do you know that voice in your head that that you don't know is a voice in her head because it's your voice the the seductive voice you know the voice that's more reasonable than your sponsor's voice the voice says things like you know your sponsor said to stay away from the new girl but He just hasn't been laid in years. What does he know? You know, the voice that argues, you don't have to pay all your taxes. The government's doing some horrible stuff with their money. The voice that compromises the negotiator. That voice is very seductive. Very friendly. Not like the voice of your sponsor. is so I sometimes I'm with guys new guys I sponsor I got a guy right now he's just he's I love this guy but he's an idiot I mean he just yeah I have to I think I have to be on him all the time else else he'll be cross-talking in the meeting he'll be on his phone he'll it'd be hitting on the new girls in the meeting he doesn't know you won't put any money in the basket and he makes a lot of money it's just so self self and i have to keep keep as my sponsor had to do with me you know you put put put some change in the basket sit still just sit and try to try to pretend like you're listening even if you're not try to be respectful my my second sponsor used to say something he said it's pretty hard to be transformed and helped by something you're not willing to show respect for. So one of my jobs when I get a new guy is I have to teach them how to show up in AA and not feel separate. Because if you come to Alcoholics Anonymous and you serve yourself and you're doing whatever you want to do, you'll find that some of the old timers in AA are kind of like this because you're exhibiting the behavior of someone who thinks we're all full of crap, that you're above what we do. So I try to help them to fit here. My first sponsor said to me, I was complaining to him. I said, you know, everybody seems to know everybody in AA and I don't feel like I fit. And he said, well, if you want to feel like they feel, you got to do what they did and are doing. When I feel like a connected member of AA, you got to act like one first. And the concept for a selfish guy like me, that I take the actions first, hoping that the feelings and results come later. I want the results first. And then if I like the results, I might do some of the action. And it's here. Here's the other way around. You take the options. And a guy in AA, I was I was only out of detox maybe a week. and I the only there's only one place in town outside of the meetings in the treatment center that I really felt okay it was it was called the Alano Club it doesn't exist it went out of business I think in the early 80s but it was in the one of the worst sections of town and it was like where all the the prostitutes are and all the homeless guys and right in the middle of that And it was on one side of the Alano Club was the first topless, bottomless strip joint. And the other side was a pawn shop. It was kind of spiritually nestled in there between those two. But I felt comfortable. Now, some of the fancier AA meetings and some ofthe fancier buildings and churches and clubs, I felt squirmy there. I didn't feel like I felt uncomfortable, like I don't fit here. I felt like I fit there, the Alana Club. And it was the kind of deal, and those of you that were sober back then before a lot of the treatment centers came along, it was not uncommon to be in a meeting and have somebody fall out of their chair and have a seizure in the meeting. Back in those days, they didn't even stop the meeting, the guy sharing wouldn't even stop sharing, he's going to say, I got to finish what I'm talking about. The guy's flopping around like a fish out of water, and it was just so common, somebody might stick their wallet in the guy's mouth to hope he doesn't bite his tongue off or something like that, but nobody got that alarm because it was part of the deal. Most of the low-bottom drunks, the people who have been physically addicted to alcohol know what it's like to have a seizure. I've had seizures. It's horrible for the people around you, but if you're actually the person having a seizure, it actually gives you some relief. You go from like you think you're gonna lose your mind to the next thing you know you're coming to and you feel a little better where am i who am i it's like a pressure release and so we used to see this all the time and this guy i'm like a week maybe out of detox i'm going to two meetings a day there because i'm always better when i'm with you than i am when i'M alone with me and I this guy this old timer came up to me and he he said I need your help with something I was I'm amazed the guy's talking to me because I felt so worthless and he said help yeah what do you need he said well he said you're brand new you just got out of treatment didn't you detox I said yeah I'm pretty I'm real new and he he said you're just who we need we get a lot of new people in this club and you know myself and the guys i run with we're sober a number of years and we try to reach out and help these guys but i don't think we can convey to them that we know how they feel losing burning their life to the ground recently coming to alcoholics anonymous the awkwardness of not fitting where you feel that separation of all the people in AA and then there's you, but you know what that feels like. I said, yeah, yeah, I do. I don't feel like fit here. He said, good. What we need you to do is we need you to watch for these new people and we need to go up to them and just, you don't have to, there's nothing profound about it. You just go up and you let them know that you feel that way and you understand how they feel. And you have a little bit of hope here that if you do the things that people in AA do, you'll eventually feel like they feel. I want you to make them feel welcome. And I thought, well, I can do that. I can't take them through the steps. I don't know how to do that, but I can be a part of it. I can go and do that and I started doing that and I decided to show up to the noon meeting and the night meeting there and I'd show up early and I would watch for the new people And then when a new guy came in, I'd start talking to him and I'd start doing that. Just trying to make them feel welcome. And looking back objectively, I don't know if I ever made anybody feel connected at AA except me. And in no time at all as a result of those actions, I started feeling connected. Matter of fact, I took it a little too far where this was, these are my meetings. But I started, I got vested in Alcoholics Anonymous through my actions. And I didn't know that it would happen like that. I thought that I eventually, if I came to enough of these stupid meetings, I'd feel like a fit and then maybe I'd do the things the old timers did. You wanted me to do the thing. Do the things they did and wait and see what happens. And the results were spectacular. And that's true to this day. You know, one of the things that my wife is better at this than I am. Don't ever tell her I said that. My home group has a couple big meetings. Our Monday night meeting is one of two larger speaker meetings. I go there, I show up an hour and 15 minutes before the meeting. I put on a coat and tie. We don't have to, but I do it, you know, because I want to be a greeter and I'm on the steering committee and I want to make, if you bring your grandmother to the meeting, I want AA to look good to her. She may know nothing about us. So I try to dress in a respectful manner. I show up an hour and 15 minutes early and I stand by the door and I am a greeter and I stay there and I try to make people feel welcome and I tried to remember go back to the time when I would walk into being in the, you know, the loser bus from the treatment center when they take you to the AA meetings and you're walking in there and you feel so horrible and so depressed and so alone. I try to remember what that felt like and assume that everybody walking in here that I don't know is like that. And I watch my wife and she will zero in on, she, there's not a new girl that comes to that meeting that she's not having a conversation with what happens to me unfortunately if i don't catch you at the door when when they ask for the show of hands of the people in their first uh 30 days and we've been talking about changing it to 90 because 90 gives you a better window but the first 30 days you know there's always a bunch of people raise their hands and i sit there with and i watch i look at some of my i'm gonna go talk to that guy I'm going to talk to that guy during the break. I'm gonna talk to these guys and inevitably the break happens. They thank the 10, we thank the ten minute speaker. And then I'm looking for the guy who I was going to talk to and maybe I'll see, maybe I won't see him. Maybe he's out smoking. Maybe I don't see or maybe I see him and I'm trying to get to him and i got two or three sponsors that need to talk. And I never get to my wife on the other hand tells the girls she sponsors if they try to get between her and a new girl they're going to regret it you should be doing what i'm doing we'll talk to you after the meeting go look she's really she's much better at that than i am and uh so consequently in no time at all she's sponsoring a lot of women and i'm proud of her membership in alcoholics anonymous this. And you can learn something from everybody. Watch what they, the good they do. Isn't it odd that my mental slant is always to see the negative in people? I don't by nature meet someone and just see good in them. I do, my head does continual threat assessments to see the problems because my head is fear driven self-centered fear driven and consequently it's looking for things that i have to deal with and possible threats and it's true to this day i i can walk you know i can walk into a strange group of people in aa and my first response is to check out the threat assessment you know i can i can tell by some of your body language oh you're going to be hard you're gonna be difficult oh you're judgmental aren't you look at look at that thing look at that way you're sitting there i can't tell you've you've already found fault with me you stupid you know I can I just take that that's the natural position I take but to come into a room and see myself in you, to see how you're just like me, how we all have this awkwardness, this social anxiety disorder, this feeling that we're at odds sometimes with people we don't know. You know, one of the promises in step nine is the fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us and it leaves me because of the actions i take because i'm a greeter i try to push past my own self-centered fears and my clamoring of my ego to be a servant and to be helpful and it works and it worked and the only thing that doesn't work in aa is me the only flaw in the Alcoholics Anonymous I will ever find is Bob so I love AA and with this Mark Twain said something one time that I've come to revere a lot he said that the two most important days in any person's life is the day you were born and then the day you realized why. If you claimed your primary purpose here, you know why you're alive. You know what's real and important in your life. And it's such a blessing to have purpose, to know who you are. And good, bad, and ugly, I know who I am. I know the defects I ride with. I know the manifestations of my ego that I have to defend myself and protect myself from. I have a sponsor. I have commitments. I sponsor guys. There's accountability in both ends of that. I remember many years ago I went to a conference up in the Rocky Mountains and I was with a guy and we were driving around and he took me to this lake that was up in the mountains and it was beautiful i mean this this lake was so pristine and so clear you could see the rocks on the bottom of the lake that's how clean this water was and the reason it was so clean on one side of the Lake there's a rapidly flowing stream bringing water in then the other side of Lake was a rapidly-flowing stream taking water out so that it could never gets stagnant and I think that's what Alcoholics Anonymous is about. I got a sponsor, I got meetings, I've got a book, I got stuff that brings stuff into my life and equally important is that I give it away. Matter of fact I don't think the adage that you can't keep it until you give it away is as true as you don't get it until you give it away. It's in our primary purpose that we find ourselves. It's enour primary purpose that we become ourselves. It'senour primary purpose thatwefindourjoy. Let's break for lunch. We hope you enjoyed this recording. If you're interested in other speaker tapes or CDs from AA or Al-Anon, please contact us at Sound Solutions toll-free 1-877-893-2777 or visit us on the web at soundsolutionsrecording.com. We are also available to cover your recording and sound system needs. Thank you for allowing us to be of service and carrying the message. Thank you.