Self-Will and the Lie That We Are Like Other People – Bob O.

He got off the ground, got in the air and they pulled the airplane back into the airport and that was the end of our speaker. So I called him and I said you want to try this again? He said, do you? And I really had to stop and think about it. But I said, look, it's happened once. I can deal with this. So yesterday as I was watching the Ohio State-Michigan game, I got a call from his wife, and I thought, oh, no. Well, Bob had been – he'd gotten at least to Chicago, and there he'd had to circle for hours, missed his connecting flight, and then had to sit on the runway for quite a long time. But perseverance does pay off. I'm most pleased, and a lot of you know, but help me welcome Bob O. from Littleton, Colorado. Hi, my name is Bob Oltz, and I'm from Aaronine, the alcoholic. Yeah, I am from Lilleton, Colorado, Actually, my home group is the Happy Lake Group in Englewood, Colorado. I didn't name it. I don't know where they got that name, but I guess it's all right. By the grace of God and the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, I haven't found an eater, an excuse to take a drink today, nor have I found an eaters, an excused to take drinks since May 28th of 1973. And for that, I'm truly grateful. A couple of people that were down at Cincinnati Breakfast came up and said hello. They have an old-timers meeting with their breakfast, and I was really happy to see the gentleman was 42 years. There was a guy down there in Cincinnati that was sober 45 years that had sobered up when he was 52. too. He was trying to pick up my wife. He kept coming up to her and going, what are you doing hanging around with this old guy? God bless him. God bless everybody that's been sober. I really travel all this way and went through the Chicago airport once again to come here and talk about recovery. I hope you didn't come down to hear drunk stories because you aren't going to get any. I think the only worthwhile thing for me to do to come away from my family on weekends like this is to share the message of recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous, and that's what I intend to do. I want to describe one drunk. The drunk isn't even me. I think because it's important. I knew this guy. He'd been a drunk since he was in his early 20s and chronic. Had been married somewhere between seven and nine times. Women just thought this guy was great until they got him home. And then they couldn't get rid of him fast enough. I don't know what his deal was about women, but I figured he had something in there that told him he had to marry him, which is why he had two children, a boy and a girl from his first marriage. And he drank chronically all his life, never found this program. When he was in his early 60s, he was living in a tar paper shack in Savannah, Illinois, right on the Mississippi River with a cocker spaniel and an old pickup truck. And one day, a couple of his drinking buddies went out there and found him. And he had had a massive stroke as a result of his alcoholism. And they took him to Clinton, Iowa to see what they could do for him and eventually transferred him to the Grand Army home in King, Wisconsin to spend the rest of his life. He was paralyzed, and he couldn't speak. Well, actually, he was half paralyzed. And so they put him in a wheelchair. And in the ensuing 15 years, not one of his ex-wives ever came to see him. His son or his daughter would come to see them occasionally. and he had a brother that lived close that would come and see him occasionally. A couple of years ago, he started developing gangrene in his extremity. He didn't get gangrene. He lost the blood flow in his extremities and so they went to his brother and they said we're going to have to amputate his foot otherwise he'll get gangrene and he'll die from it. And so his brother said, well go ahead and so they cut his foot off and it wasn't very much longer where the portion of his leg that was remaining started to turn black and his other foot was turning black and the doctor came back to his brother and said we're going to have to take his leg off up into the thigh somewhere, and we're going to have to take his other foot off. Let me tell you what else is going to happen. As soon as we do that, he's going to start losing circulation in what's left of his extremities, and at some point there's really going to be nothing left to do. So the option is to go ahead with the surgery or just let him die. And it's your call. And his brother decided that the best thing to do was to let him die. Well, he knew that. And in his despair, when people came close to him, he would scream. You know, the four horsemen of alcoholism are terror, bewilderment, frustration and despair. About a year and a half ago, he died of gangrene. And he's buried up there behind the hospital. The reason why I tell you this story is because he's my father. And people in my family have been dying like that for generations, and I don't have to. I wish that he had found what I found, but unfortunately an awful lot of drunks don't do that and he didn't. I drank a lot for a long time. I drank 1 5th a day or roughly that. I mean, I'm not sure that even makes any difference. I drank it for a longtime. I was a daily drinker. I drank every day. I drank out of control, I had blackouts, I abused all those people around me. I did everything that drunks do. I did it for a long time and I despaired of it. In 1967, I started looking around for a solution. I've always known that there's a solution in Alcoholics Anonymous, I've known it intuitively. I started going occasionally to meetings in 1967 and from that point forward to 1973 when I got sober and stayed sober. And I would go in there about half hammered or half looped up on some kind of tranks or whatever, both or whatever. And I'd go in as some sort of poor pitiful drunk and people would stroke me and say I was going to be fine and just between me and you that's the biggest lie you can perpetuate to a drinking drunk because they aren't going to be fine. I was in no position to listen and finally, in 1973, I was so wasted and burned out by alcohol that I really didn't have any other options except just to die. My family had left. I was living in an empty house, and the last day I drank, I really got torn up. And the next day a couple of people came and 12-stepped me and put me in front of a priest that ran a halfway house, and he asked me some interesting questions. He said, are you through? You know, it's a good question to ask a drunk. Are you all done? That's the first thing out of my mouth when I see a drunk. I mean, I really don't want... My life is so good today, I hate to waste a lot of time. I mean it really is. It's pretty incredible. And that's the first thing I want to say. That was the first one out of his mouth. Are you off through? And I was off through and I knew it. I couldn't live one more day like that. I just couldn't stand to be drunk one more time. He said, do you want what we have? And, you know, I really didn't care what he had. I just didn't want what I had. I would have taken anything else and trade in and given a few bucks to boot. and he said that there were some things that I was going to have to do to sober up and the first question that he asked me is do you believe in God and I told him no and he told me that I had to go home and try and figure one out which I think was a sweet thing to do the book says we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we are alcoholic, this is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we're like other people or presently may be has to be smashed. You know, I'm really not ever going to be like other People. I'm always going to Be an alcoholic. The book has some interesting descriptions of alcoholics. When people come into the program and they say, well, I don't really know if I'm a drunk, there's some descriptions in there. if when you honestly want to, you find you can't quit entirely. Okay? That means that if you say, I'm never going to do this again, do it again. Or once you start, you have a little control over the amount you take. Which means, I'm going to go have two drinks on the way home and I don't get home and I'm not going to and I've got to and I know I don' t have two drinks. It says if those things either or of those things is going on in your life, you're probably an alcoholic. There's a description in the book of it mentions casually social drinkers. I always think that's funny. I have two older sons that are social drinker. They drink a beer and they leave half of it sitting there. It just drives me nuts. You know, I go, aren't you going to drink the rest of that? And they go, I don't think so. The book talks about a heavy drinker. This is a heavy drunker, not an alcoholic. It says that that person can wind up in a hospital for alcoholism. They can wind in front of a judge for divorce or accidents or whatever. They can have all kinds of problems with relationships and jobs and things like that. But if there is a sufficient enough reason, they can stop. And they use the example of a doctor telling them they have to quit or a loved one saying stop now or I'm gone. If there's a sufficient reason, then they can start. But what about the real alcoholic? The real alcoholic can't stop and at some point he will lose all control. I belong to a group that does the work over and over again. We believe in steps and incidentally, that's really what I came here to talk about. This is what I believe. I believe that 12 steps are spiritual exercises and they're to help me get closer to God. We are at some disadvantage because every alcoholic that I've ever met feels that if If three is good, 12 is better, except when it comes to steps. My sponsor told me that if I would follow the directions in the big book, that I never had to drink again. But he said, when you follow the directions, follow the directions. And there is no room for poetic license. That means you do it just the way it says to do it. And then you don't have to drink anymore. And I found out incidentally that following someone else's directions that I didn't agree with had some real spiritual value. Because I never had to drink again. When I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, it wasn't difficult for me to see I was an alcoholic. I knew it in no uncertain terms. I mean, I'd just been living with it. But what happens today? I'm 18 years sober and I go back through the work and I don't start at four. So what's my perspective today on the first step? Am I really an alcoholic? It always makes people a little uneasy, but I have to take a look at that. You need to do what you do, but it's important for me to consider that I may not be because if I don't have a solid first step, I don�t think I have anything. So I go back when I'm in that process and I look at it again. And I see myself with my wife and two young sons, and she's asking me if she can please have some money for groceries because we don't have anything to eat. And I'm telling her no, I can't. And she'd say it's only two bottles of booze. I'd tell her I'm sorry. Or that my sons needed clothes to go to school, and I couldn't give them to him because I had to drink. And it was only a bottle of booze. And when she said I'm going to leave you because I can't stand to live with you anymore, I asked her what was keeping her. When the doctors in Minnesota told me that I would be dead in four years from a heart attack or a stroke because my cholesterol level was way over 400, it didn't even slow me down. There's nothing. I don't care death, abandonment. There is absolutely nothing that an active alcoholic's afraid of in my estimation. That's why you can't scare a drunk. You know, if you want to go tell them war stories, that's great but you aren't going to scare them. We all got our own war stories and they're all going on in here. Well I'm a real alcoholic and I'm willing to look at it and that's what I do every time I go through the work. Step two in Alcoholics Anonymous talks about being even willing to believe. When I came into AA, and this priest asked me if I believed in God, and I told him no, and he suggested I go find one. I was willing to go find One, not because I wanted to find One. But because I didn't want to drink anymore. And so, I remember going home and sitting there having hallucinations, incidentally, and really hairy ones. I've never seen anything like that on Saturday morning cartoons yet. And trying to figure out how to communicate with God. I was trying to touch him somehow, and I didn't know whether you had to speak in Old English or New English or be on your knees or your back or your stomach or sitting or or what to do and so I tried them all hoping that he would listen if he was there the book says if we're even willing to believe upon this simple cornerstone a wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built and I believe that's true that whole spiritual structure is based on a willingness to believe. It talks about power. That stuff's wonderful. You know, it's really a great book. I have to tell you that. You really ought to read it. It says lack of power is our dilemma. I think when Bill Wilson wrote this, he had this just Just wonderful attempt at understatement. Lack of power is our dilemma. Go to a new drunk who's sitting there slobbering on his shirt and say, tell me about all the power you have in your life. Do you have the power to get a job? Do you Do you have the power to stay in a relationship? Do you power to put money in the bank? Do you enough power to have other people want to be around you? Do you the power just to take care of yourself? And then you see that lack of power truly is our dilemma. You know, lack of the power, the fallacy in that is that I always thought the power was mine. You know, a lot of us grew up on that kind of Jack Armstrong bullshit where it was just like, I'll do it. And so we go out there and do it and fall flat on our face and wind up in an intensive care ward. I don't have any power. I don'T have any Power today. You know? I am sure glad God can do for me what I can't do for myself because I can'T get up here and do this. it talks about power it describes the power it says that power which is God so I know what the power is I know how to do it I know where to plug into or what I'm plugging into it talks about once we make this decision about willingness to believe that we feel new power flowing in and then it talks about people where the central fact of their life is the presence of God. And it says that those people have power, peace, happiness and a sense of direction. Okay? That's wonderful. That's everything I ever wanted. Power, peace happiness and sense of direction. That means I know I feel good and I know which way to go. And then it talks about what you can do with it in the family afterwards. It talks about people laughing at sort of, well, inopportune times. You know when you hear some guy saying, and then I broke my leg and fell under the truck and got squashed. And then my wife spit on me and I went to the hospital. And everybody goes, ha, ha. And it talks about having a good time? Why shouldn't we, it says. We have recovered and we've been given the power to help others. To the best of my knowledge, there's no place in that book that says I had the power to help myself. When I was sober about three months and I was still sitting on my hands and sweating and carrying on, I was afraid people were going to ask me something and afraid they weren't going to ask me, and you know how confusing that jury it is. And my sponsor says, why are you sober? And I've always been in sales or marketing, and so I gave him the sales and marketing answer which is, it's because I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. And he said, horse manure. You hung around here since 1967. never got sober before. What's the difference? And I really didn't know. He said, is your diet different? I said no. And he said, are you exercising? And I said, No. And they said, Are you going to work every day and now what's different? Are Are you praying? Yeah. Did you do that before? No. Do you believe in God? I really don't know. And he said, would you consider that you're sober today by the grace of a God you don't even believe in. Yeah, yeah. And I still do. You know, I believe in God today, but I don't know what he looks like. I hear his voice in you and I see him in you. And I know that he's way down in here because the book says so. Because the book says that ultimately God is deep down within all of us. And so, let me suggest something to you. If that's the truth, and I haven't any reason to believe that anything in the big book is not the truth. And God is truly inside of us, then instead of being outside trying to get in, he's inside trying to go out. And so, my responsibility is to take all those things that obscure him away and to let him shine out. In the book it talks about God in all of us but he's sometimes obscured by calamity and a whole lot of other things. And so what I truly want to do is to remove that. And actually, that's part of the third step. The book says in the second step, it says, Crushed by a self-imposed crisis, we could neither postpone nor evade. We had to fearlessly face the proposition that God either is or he isn't. He's either everything or he's nothing. And then it says, what's your decision to be? There's a decision there. I have to decide that. What's God? What's Gott going to be for me? My self-imposed crisis isn't just my alcoholism. My self imposed crisis is that I can't fix myself. My crisis is that I have alcoholism and I can stop it. It'll kill me and I can't stop it. Unfortunately, the book says no human power can relieve my alcoholism, which means you can't fix it either. Okay? So if I can't fix it and you can fix it, who's going to fix it? The next line in the book is here we're squarely confronted with the issue of faith. You better believe it. Because if If I can't fix it and you can't, that only leaves one person to fix it, and that's God. The book starts talking about what alcoholism really is in the third step, and it says selfishness, self-centeredness, that we think is the root of our problem, and then it starts talking about the actor. And it starts talking about alcoholism, what alcoholism really is, that it's all these manifestations of self which kept us from the sunlight of the spirit. And that's what my alcoholism is. And my sponsor's telling me this and it doesn't seem connected. He said, you know, once you make a decision to live by spiritual principles, which is what the third step is about, you're going to be faced with selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. And that's what your alcoholism is. And if you go about removing that with God's help, you don't ever have to drink again. You don't even have to want to drink it again. And then we got to the third step prayer and he said, I want you to consider that. Where it says, God, I offer myself to thee to build with me and to do with me as thou wilt. May you leave me of the bondage of self that I may better do thy will take away my difficulties have victory over them may bear witness to those I would help with thy love thy power and thy way of life. May I do thy will always. He said, I want you to consider that well and I want you to take a week to consider it. And here's the deal. It says, I offer myself to thee to build with me and to do with me as thou wilt. That means you get to do anything with me you want. Anything. Kill me, let me live. Sick, well, alone with someone, here or there, anywhere, anyhow, anyway. It's your deal. Relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do thy will. My bondage truly is self. I'm so focused on me, I can't see you. You know, I spend my whole life cobalting over mouse turds. The problem is that when I look at my own problems, all of which are of my own making, I want to lend drama to them to apparently lend credibility to my life and it doesn't make any difference it was interesting because I was telling Diane she was asking me do you get nervous when you do this and I went it really doesn't make any different it really does I think that God thinks that this is all a pretty big joke if you want to know the truth But it's just not necessary to put all that drama in your life. I'll tell you, at some point in your sobriety, you'll start looking at your energy and what's available. And you'll look at some things that you've done in the past and you'll say, I really don't have to do this anymore because they just absorb an enormous amount of energy and they make me tired. And let me just throw something in here. When you're working with somebody, I'll give you a good barometer to tell whether they're trying to get well or not. When you walk away from someone that you'reworking with and you feel less energy than when you started, they're probably yanking your chain, okay? And if you feel energized when you walkaway from them, they'reprobably trying toget well. And why don't you see if that works? You know, I used to work with people and I'd walk away from them and I just feel like somebody yanked me through a keyhole. It was just like somebody stuck you through a ringer and you'd come out of there and you just wasted it and they'd go, oh, this is great. Well, you can tell where they got all their energy. But if you've got somebody really trying to get well, they'll walk away with as much energy as you do. You'll both walk away energized. And it's because you're not across purposes. the business in the third step prayer about bearing witness to those I would help as I love thy power and thy way of life means being an example let me be an example let people look at me and see that 19 years ago this guy was all burnt out and had nowhere to go. And today, through your love, my life is really significant. I mean, it's better than anything I could have ever dreamed about. And let people see that, that there is hope, that there truly is hope in this. There's a line in the book that says, and go on about the business of living. You ever see about it? People in Alcoholics Anonymous, they'll get sober, but they won't do anything. I mean, they just sort of vegetate. Well, I'm sober. That's great, but what are you going to do about it? God gave us this wonderful gift of sobriety. And at least in my estimation, if we don't go on about the business of living, which is what the direction is in the book, it's just like slapping God in the face. I mean, we've all been given all of these gifts and all these abilities. And if we just go park somewhere, we're never going to find out what they are. One of the greatest gifts that I have here is the ability to risk. I'm not afraid of things. I found out that you can fail all you want to when people don't shoot you. You can risk all you wanted when people are just amazed at what you do. It's because you don't have to be afraid of it. And you don�t, you know, you're not too old, you�re not too young, you�r not too newly sober, you �re not two anything. If you� re sober and alcoholic synonymous, God works in your life and I would strongly suggest that you go on about seeing what you really are capable of. if God truly is at the bottom of this program why don't you get out and find out what you can do I mean don't be standing at the end of your life saying I never took a chance because we've been given the freedom to do that and it's exciting and if you treat if you're not afraid to risk life can be a real adventure and I will make these suggestions to you and if you want to try them and if don't want to, don't but I can tell you it's pretty exciting to try and the only trick is that you have to walk through your own fear and that's really not that big a trick sometimes it's getting one foot in front of the other but you can do it go out and see what you're capable of God didn't give you all this sobriety just so you could park in an AA clubhouse for the rest of your life. I should have never got off on that. Well, as long as I'm off on it. You know what Alcoholics Anonymous likes to track? All the people who want to get well hang around with the people who want to get well and all the bullshitters hang out with the bullshters. You ever notice that? Always look and see who you're sitting next to. And as long as I mention that, this guy used to come up to me and he'd go, what step are you on? And I'd go well I don't know. And he would look at me and he would say – he would always accuse me when I was first in the A of only having three steps in my program. And he'd say, if you only have three steps on your program, don't call it Alcoholics Anonymous. And we had this sort of tough love in our groups where people just – people want you to live. You know, it's simple but it's not easy to follow all this stuff. This is a real spiritual regimen to live by the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous. And it's a wonderful and just immensely rewarding way of life. But it's just simple. It means that we constantly have to walk through our egos and we constantly have to walk through our fear. And as a result of that, our lives become immeasurably better. That we don't live hidden in the corner anymore. You know, if God gave me the gift of sobriety, I do not have to hide out in the closet. I went and took the third step with my sponsor. And it really was scary for me because he He told me my life would change if I made that decision and he said that I had to get down on my knees with him and hold his hands and say this prayer to him. And he said, if you do that your life's going to change. And I believed him and I was afraid of him. I don't want to let go anything that I have. You know every once in a while God will say, let go of that Bob, I've got something a little better for you. And I'll go, no, thank you. And he'll say, no kidding, Bob, let go. And I will go, stay away from me. And he will go let go now, Bob. I want you to have something better and I will go, I don't want anything better. I want what I have and just leave me alone. And he would go, let it go now or I will to take it away from you. And I'll go, no, you won't. And then he'll rip it from my bloody fingers and give me something better, which shows you how grown up I am. I've always kind of wondered if I would ever get to a place in sobriety. I'm going to go ask a guy with 42 years down there, if you ever get to a point where you can stop doing this stuff. And if I ever do get to that point and it works, I'll give you all a call. And I know I won't have to do that. My sponsor told me I had to write an inventory. And I said, well, there's all these guides around and stuff. And he said, no, you have to go through the book. You have to get to do this out of the big book. And there are instructions in there for writing it. And he says it's just a grudge list. And it has to do with people, institutions, and principles and why you're mad at them and what they affected your self-esteem, your security ambitions, personal or sex relations, or your pocketbook. And then I want you to go back through each one of those resentments and see where you were selfish, dishonest, self-seeking, or frightened in each one of those instances. And so I did that. Took me a couple of months. Those are the instructions. It comes down in four columns. The first one is what you're mad at. Second one is why you're mad at them. You don't have to spend a lot of time there because it doesn't make any difference. The third one, which says how it affected you is interesting and the fourth one is really an eye-opener. And then that's what, and that fourth column is what am I up to? What is it that I'm afraid of losing or what am I trying to do here? And that's usually where you find your amends also. So, I wrote that and then I came back to him and I said, I'm done. And he said, no, you have to write a fear inventory. And I said no, I am not afraid of anything. And he said really? And I say well, you know my history. I was a bill collector on the north side of Chicago, and I'm absolutely fearless. And he said, well, how about snakes? And I said, what kind of snake? And he says, rattlesnakes. And I said, I wouldn't want to be in a closed space with one and he said well just for the fun of it write down snakes and I said okay and he how about spiders and I said you mean like black widows and he yeah and I wouldn't want to get bitten by one and said we'll write down spiders and so I wrote down spiders and he said, how about failure? Oh, cheap shot. Yeah. People always, you know, when I was a kid, I don't know why it wasn't. Maybe I was just a bad apple or something, but people would come up and take this shot at you about you're going to wind up just like your dad. I mean, that's a hell of a thing to tell a 10-year-old kid. And he said, write down failure. How about inadequacy? Yeah, you know, I never really thought I was as good as other people. Even in sobriety, incidentally. and then I found out that my first response to everyone is to compare myself with them and that's one of those energy reducing exercises I am me I am what God made and I am a little different than you in some respects but we are truly all the same and I'm no better or no worse than you God has no grandchildren we're just all the same we just look a little different we're a little different age and we're a little different this and a little different that but we are truly all the same and he said what about women ah geez yes I had always been afraid of women. How about little children? Well, just the real small ones because I'm afraid that I'm going to drop them. How bout homosexuality? Well you know, I didn't know much about it and it scares me. He looked at me and he said, is there anything you're not afraid of? Well, I don't think so. It's interesting and look at a drunk and see this. I mean, I would encourage you all to test everything that the big book says. Here's what it says about fear. It says, fear is an evil and corroding thread. The fabric of our existence is shot through with it. It's true. Every drunk I ever met lived in just abject fear of everything. We live in fear. I don't want to live that way anymore. And it talks about placing our reliance upon God and at once we begin to outgrow fear. People say, well, really why aren't you afraid to stand up in front of groups? And I will give you the exercise and then you will have the benefit of it, okay? And it will probably work for you just as well as it works for me. Before I get up and talk, I say, God, please make me an instrument of thy will and help me to carry your message even if it makes me look like a fool, which is my worst fear. And I always feel like a child because I have this view of God as a father. And I feel like I have one arm around his leg, and he has one hand on my shoulder. And that I am in his presence, and that nothing can touch me that he doesn't want to touch me. And his interests for me are only the best. And it's It's real hard for me to be afraid under those circumstances. I'm not up here trying to protect my ego and I'm not up her trying to entertain you. I'm really just trying to share with you that God wants us all to be sober and if we're willing to participate in some spiritual growth which only requires us to follow the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and their directions, that our lives will become better. And it is my experience that if I can learn the stewardship required to handle the gifts that God can give me, he will give them to me. But he will not give me something that will kill me. Now when I got sober, I wanted a million bucks, a Ferrari, an infomaniac and a mansion. one of which would have killed me on the spot. Thank you, God didn't give me any of those things. The last part of the inventory is called a sex inventory and it's really about relationships for me. It says, when I've had relationships with other people, are they selfish or not? Did I unjustifiably arouse jealousy, suspicion, or bitterness? You know, the first time I wrote an inventory, excuse me, I looked at it and I went, yeah, I did. I unjustifiantly aroused jealousy, suspension, and bitterness. And all my relationships were selfish. They were really just to see what I could get out of them. It asked me where I was at fault and what I should have done instead, and I was a fault by using them like that, and what should have been done instead in many cases was not to have done anything with them or not ever gotten into them because my motives were bad from the very beginning. You know when I was about I think like 12 years sober, I was in the middle of an inventory I write an inventory almost once a year. But when I was about 12 years sober, I was going back through that. And I was gone. Do I unjustifiably arouse jealousy, suspicion, or bitterness? And it hit me just like somebody dropped an anvil on me. You know, that's how I know how to have relationships. I always thought that if you were in a relationship with me and you ever got a good look at me, you were going to be out of there. and so what I had to do was to keep you off balance and I can do that with jealousy, suspicion or bitterness. If I'm in a relationship with a woman and I want her off balance I'll tell her about what some other woman taught me or I'll come back at night and have some lipstick on my shirt or something like that or smell like perfume or whatever and just make no big deal out of it. Keeps them right back on their heels or bitterness. Just say, hey, and I used to do this and I'm not proud of it and I use to say if you don't like this relationship there's no anchor on your ass out the door. You don't want to get out. suspicion why don't you tell me you love me I don't know maybe I don' I don'' I was 12 years sober and I was divorced and I met a woman that I really wanted to be with a woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life and I didn't have the vaguest idea. I didn' t even know where to start. And I went to a person that I believe was really knowledgeable about relationships who was a, and this will get you up in the air, a therapist, because my 11th step told me to do it. because I asked in my 11 step every day to teach me how to have a relationship. And I went to this woman who was this sort of Mother Earth type who was an old RN and a doctor of psychology, and she was saying, Bob, you have some interesting ideas about relationships. Screw it, I'm out of here. It's not the primary issue. She said, Have you ever learned how to communicate? And I said, Well, I don't know. And she said, will you ask your girlfriend to come over here? And she would sit us down across the table and say, Laurie, tell Bob what you think. And she'd go, well, Bob does this and this and that. And then she'd say, Bob, tell Laurie what you thing about that. And I'd go well, Laurie I just said da-da-da. And then should go, and Laurie, what was your intent in there? And Laurie would go da-ba-da and Bob how do you feel about that? And I'm sitting there, and I'm just dying a thousand deaths. And she said, that's communication. She said, the other thing is that every relationship you've ever been in in your life, you've had one foot out the door. Whoa. Why don't you get both feet in the door? And really participate. And so that's what I did. I got both feet in the door and said, I'm not going anywhere. And if there's a problem in this relationship, then we need to sit down as difficult as that may be and talk to each other about how to resolve that. And if we can't find resolution in that, we need go find someone who will moderate this conversation and help us find resolution. And that's what I do. Yeah, I really don't like to be or didn't like to be 12 years sober and not know a damn thing about having a relationship. That's embarrassing. I mean, when you're 10 years sober, you figure you know everything in the whole world. There's a thing on the end of the inventory that we always call take it to the grave stuff. It usually has something to do with sex. There's only so many ways you can do that, folks. And your sponsor probably knows all of them. If you're going to go fifth step and be embarrassed about it, get that stuff out of the way first so you can enjoy the rest of your fifth step. Otherwise, you will worry about it all the way through. And it's unnecessary. I have a good friend who's a priest, and I said, You know, when you listen to confession, have you heard anything new? And he said, Not after about the fifth one. And I think that's true. You know, human behavior has a lot of parallels, and it just, you know, how many things can you do? My fifth step with my sponsor I was afraid to because he was the only guy I'd ever let in very close. And when I was done with it, I believed that he was going to get up and tell me how bad I was and that I never wanted to talk to me again, and instead he put his arms around me and told me he loved me and that I was glad that he was glad I had done that. I went home to do my sixth and seventh step. It says, taking the book down from the shelf, we review the first five proposals. So I put the book up on the shelf and took it back down because I don't want to miss anything. I thought maybe there's something magic in that. You know, they really impressed on me to follow the directions, and that's my intent, and it works. And it works for everyone, incidentally. It says that we ask God that we become willing to remove all those things which he's found objectionable. And then we ask him to remove it in the seventh step prayer. Which I did. Eighth says we made a list of all persons we'd harmed became willing to make amends to them all, the next line in the book is we did it when we took inventory. It's always a surprise to people. If you've written an inventory out of the book, you probably have the majority of your amends list. Then all you have to do, and this is what my sponsor taught me, I mean, nothing up here that I say is original, by the way. This is all something I've learned from someone else. He said, And go through that amends list and see what the harm is, okay? So I had to go through each one of those resentments and see where I harmed someone and what the harm was. And in particular because when I go to someone to make amends, I have to know why I'm there. I'm not going in there and go, I think I really hurt you but I don't know how and would you give that some thought and tell me what I can do about it. People are going to go, right, what did they teach you there? So I had to know what I was doing before I went there. I had go see my father at the Grand Army home and when I talked to my sponsor about it, he said, why isn't your dad on your men's list? And I said because he's the guy that did all the harm. I was just a kid and he was the guy who abandoned me and he's the guy used to call me up drunk on my birthday and slobber all over the phone. I just don't think I ever harmed him. And he said, well, what did you do when he called you up? And I said, I'd hang up on him. And he says, you know, as drunk and as out of control as your dad was, he always tried to touch you every year on your birthday. And he was trying to communicate with you and tell you that he loved you and all that. Even in as bad a condition as he was, he always trying to touch me. He always tried not to touch him. What did you doing? I just hung up on him and he said, well, you owe him an amend for not allowing him near you because of his alcoholism. And I said, Well, he's already had this stroke and he's not capable of understanding any of this stuff. And he said what difference does it make? When we make amends, we clean off our side of the street. We don't clean off someone else's side of the street, we do ours." And he said, I don't care if he understands or not, go make ammends to him. So I got in my car and drove to Wisconsin to make ammens to him, and when I went to see him, he was in a wheelchair, and I walked in and I said, is Bob Olson here? that's his name also. And they said, that's him over there. And I went over there and he just sort of looked up at me for a minute and I said, hi, I'm your son Bob. And I'd like to talk with you. And we went off in the corner in his wheelchair and I said, I am an alcoholic, which is what the book says I should explain when I am about making amends. I said, I'm an alcoholic and I want to talk to you about some ways that I've harmed you. And when I told him that I was an alcoholic, he got very sad and I'm absolutely certain that he understood. And I said but I have found a way of life where I don't have to drink anymore and I found it in Alcoholics Anonymous and he became very animated and I said, I believe I've harmed you because I've held you at arm's length because of your alcoholism and I didn't understand it until it was our alcoholism. And I regret having done that and I am willing to do anything that's necessary to balance the books. It wasn't long after that that he was unable to understand but I knew he understood and I'm glad. I'm really happy that I had the opportunity to do that, as difficult as it was. When I got sober, I owed a lot of amends, financial amends. Big ones. Back then, you know, as in 1973, I owned $14,000 and two and a half years later, I was still trying to pay it off and I was on a regular schedule where I was paying out so much every payday. and I got about $2,500 left and I was down at York Street which is kind of the AA mother house in Denver and I told everybody what a big damn deal I was and how good I had been about paying off my amends and everything. Anyway, they had a boat show in Denver. I've always been nuts about boats and we rarely went anywhere during those years because I had to pay so much off in amends and anyway, we decided to go to this boat show on the Bassmasters where they were having a raffle on a bass boat and it was like three tickets for ten bucks, I think and they had ten bucks of my money before I remembered pulling it out of my pocket and I was cursing myself for having given that money away and the next day they called me up and told me I won it. And I went down to the sporting goods store where the boat was and asked them, asked the Rebel Bats boat dealer how much that boat was worth and he said $2,400. And then this Texan came up to me and he says would you like to sell the boat? Well now I had my two sons with me and they were crawling around in the boat going gee is this ours daddy? Are we going to have this boat? We're going to go fishing. Isn't this wonderful? Gee, this is just really great. And this Texan's going, you want to sell that? And I said, for how much? And he said, I'll give you $2,500 for it. So what do you do? Huh? You take the boat and continue to pay your amends? Sell the boat, pay off your amens, and hope you get a boat? I can tell you what I did. I sold the boat, and I wanted that more than anything in the world. You know, it was probably a year later I got a 17-foot cobalt. You could troll it with that boat at about 60 miles an hour. It had a V8 Ford in it. Oh, jeez. Let me share something else with you about that. Last winter, my son, although he thought he did it right, didn't take all the water out of the motor and it gets very cold in the mountains in Colorado and it broke the block. He was afraid to call me, my oldest son. And finally he did and he said, dad I broke or I cracked a block on the boat and I'm really sorry. I don't even know what to tell you. I'll take care of it. And I said, don't worry about it. And he said why not? And I say because the day that I allow something to get in between the relationship that you and I have is the day I've forgotten everything that I ever learned in Alcoholics Anonymous. I don�t care about things. I truly don't. I know it's nice to have them, but I can't attach my ego to them. This is about me and God and booze, okay? Five years ago, I had a business that failed. I was the guy that sold the toasters to the savings and loans. Boy, did the wheels come off of that deal. I wound up wanting a quarter of a million bucks and I'm going, now what do I do? I'm 13 years sober, I'm in debt up to my ears. I had started a little silk screening company and I was doing some t-shirts for people. What I did was I became willing and I started to pay, and a year and a half later it was gone. The little silk screen company is now a contractor for Ocean Pacific and Bugle Boy and Gitano And I print 40,000 shirts a day. And I don't know anything about the screen printing business. I mean, a guy named Olsen from Wisconsin in the garment business is strange enough. But I went to my sponsor and I said, Don, you know, I remember how tough it was to pay off that $14,000 when I got sober and here I got saddled with a quarter of a million bucks and it was gone in a year and a half. How do you explain that? And he said in his customary response, it doesn't require explanation. And I said no tell me how can that happen? He said, it's very simple, Bob. God's got all the money he needs. God's got all the money he needs to do You know, I've been talking too long here and I'd like to tell you about 10, 11, and 12 but I would much more like to tell you about today. When I was in the depths of alcoholism, active alcoholism. I used to every once in a while be able to dream about how I truly wanted to be and where I wanted to live and how I wanted my life to be. And on those occasions when it would work, and those were few and far between, I would sit there and think about myself living with a woman that I lived in a nice clean house with a couple of sons, that I could teach how to hunt and fish, and that it would be nice and clean and quiet. And that there was love and understanding and communication and things like that in that house. And maybe I could be in business for myself, and my peers, that I would have the respect of my peers. And maybe even a sports car or something, you know. But that my life would be quiet and meaningful. And my life is like that today. You know, I live in a real nice house. It's nice for me. With a woman that I'm absolutely nuts about. That I will talk to even in the toughest of times. And that we will sit down and try and repair our relationship on an ongoing basis. You know it's truly alright to love your significant other. It is. And it is truly all right to try and help them make their life as meaningful as possible and to make their lives as happy, joyous, and free as you can. And that the greatest joy comes from helping others, not helping ourselves. And that is the truth. And if you don't believe it, compare them. I have five sons, 28, 23, 3, and 2 that are 10 weeks old. Well, you don't think it falls off when you're 50. I'll tell you what the twins are named Andrew and Alexander and I'd show y'all a picture but it'd take too much time uh and people are coming out and going Andrew and Alexander how very tricky AA we never even thought about it Anyway, they are the joy of my life. I have a wonderful relationship with all five of them. What I really want to share with you is that this is about following the directions. When Bill Wilson sat down, he took a lot of stuff from the book of James and Emmet Fox and he took a lot of different stuff and they were all these old spiritual principles that had been working for people for millenniums. These are things that have made people's lives better, not just alcoholics, but people's wives for thousands of years. The basic same principle and he just put them in an order to make sense to alcoholics. So, there's a description in the second step and they're called the bedevilment. And it talks about people who make heavy going out of life and people who have trouble with relationships and they can't seem to be of real help to other people and their prey to misery and depression. And see the difference is, and then in the page before that it talks about these people with power, peace, happiness and a sense of direction. And the difference between the people who have the power, the peace, the happiness and the sense of the direction and the people making heavy going out of life and who are or prey to misery and depression is the consciousness of the presence of God. There's a line in the book that says willingness is the key. When I first came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I always wondered why. What's to do? I mean, what's that about? It's a willingness to practice those principles the way they're laid out. Now, you may not believe what I have told you here today. and you are welcome to do that. But if you have even a fragment of curiosity, why don't you start at the forward to the first edition? It won't hurt and it wouldn't take any more than six months if you only work at it an hour a week and do exactly what it says and see what happens in your life. The greatest gift that I can give you is what I have received. I live a life that is so significantly better than anything I would have ever given myself that I cannot even begin to tell you the joy I have in that when I have enough presence of mine to see what I have. So if you have some curiosity, try it. And thanks for inviting me here.