Session 1 – Russell S. – Simply the Steps Group – 2025

My name's Russell Spatz. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Russell. And I'm a member of the South Dixie Virtual Group, and it's good to be here with you guys. This was like a short one. This is like only an hour from where I come from, but I was doing Boca for 12 weeks, like two hours. Whoa. And I literally fall asleep on the way up here doing that. And I have that. You know, one of the first things I remember, one of my mentors used to say to me, and I'd go up to him and I'd be, you know, doing what young alcoholics do, talking 78 RPM. You know, these days this is one of the problems with growing old because I say 78 RPM, and you know what that means, but most of these guys don't know what I mean. They've never seen an LP record, you know. And, you know, they come up to me and they're going 78 RPM about something that happened to them in their life or whatever it is. And while I was doing that, he'd say, Russell. And he'd quote the Bible. He'd say, be still and know that I am God. Be still. And then later on, as I got a little bit older, you know, he'd say, Russell, be still. And then finally, after a while, he would just say, just be. You know what I mean? And now you see what happens is if you don't drink and you go to meetings, you get to a point where be still. I mean, that's. That's my. That's where I'm at. You know, I mean, you just be still. You don't have to do anything. You just don't want to move. And this guy one day went up to me. We were doing the meeting. Where were we? We're doing something. We were in Boca. Boca. And I was on stage. Just before the meeting, I was in deep meditation. I was taking a nap before the meeting. And he came up to me. He says, can I ask you a question? I said, sure. What is it? He says, you ever meditate? I said, yeah, I meditate. He said, when do you meditate? I said, when I'm not talking to you. And you know, that's a true story. So if I fall, if it looks like I'm napping anytime during the meeting, it's not napping. It's deep meditation. I'm just meditating. The deepest form of meditation. And so I haven't found necessarily. I'm in my 45th year. I haven't found necessarily to take a drink. And you can tell by looking at me, I've been somewhere for 45 years. I mean, I'm 76 years of age. And I haven't found necessarily to take a drink since January 25th, 1981. Right. So it's good to be here. So we'll talk a little bit about something. I think I'm going to have a first step in there somewhere. You know, Bill Wilson wrote the big book. In 1939, it was published in 19. He had like three and a half years sobriety. You know, before he wrote the big book, all they did was read the Bible. If you read Dr. Bob, the good old times, which I encourage you to read. So you can find out what a really about. But you need to find out about founders. You know, what happens is when you get old, you get opinionated. Well, when you're younger, opinionated. And so there's nothing wrong. Being opinionated. You just have a bunch of bullshit opinions, you know. But hopefully if you get old, you've been around here for 45 years, you have opinions. But it's usually based on on watching people drink or kill themselves or stuff like that, or just going through life and going through hard times. You get that that change of perspective. Right. The way how do we get a change of perspective by repeated humiliations in the final final crushing of ourself. So the only thing that 45 years means is that I've been I've been crushed a little bit. More than somebody with 20 years. You know what I mean? You know, the crushing is what changes you. You're sort of walking around. You're you're what they say when you're when you're gliding, you're you're resting on your laurels and you're headed for trouble. You do. But you don't think you're headed for trouble then. And then somebody takes away all your money or your wife leaves you or you get cancer or something happens. And all of a sudden, all of a sudden you thought you had it all together. And, you know, you you go to shit. And. And then you're down and then you're not such a big shot. And then you're worried and you're a thumb sucking crybaby. And you got 10 years and all of a sudden you got to do a game changer. You either drink or you change your game and you probably run into somebody. Tell you to go to church and they tell you to do something you don't want to do. But you're so scared. You got no place else to go because don't drink. You go to me. This doesn't work because you're not drinking. You go to meetings and you want to blow your brains out. So you end up doing what they're told to do and your whole life changes. And then you're wonderful again. Until you start coasting and resting on laurels and playing God. And then all of a sudden, you know, the cancer comes back or the IRS, you know, audits you or something happens and you go crazy. And so the only thing that 45 years means is that I've had 45 years of repeated humiliations and crushing on my self-sufficiency. That's sort of like fine tunes you. You know, I fine tunes you, you know, where you and what happens, you get fine tuned enough, you start dealing with the real problem because you don't even know what the real problem is. You really don't know what the real. That's OK. It's standard. You know, you're not your brains all befuddled. You don't know what the real. So I can tell you this. I'm not going to tell you anything. None of this may apply to you. I got some really I got to tell you, I got some weird shit. I'm going to hand out some shit you're not going to hear in some other places. But but you know, that thing that they say in the big book where they say you lose fear of people and that can opt in security. You know, that thing where you worry about what other people think you worry. About what other people think about you. You know, you can always see alcoholics worry about what people think about. I know that because I'm an alcoholic and I've worked with a lot of alcoholics. And, you know, like we have we speak. We don't we don't tell people. We worry about what other people think about. We live a life in bondage to fear of what people are going to think about us. We don't know we're like that because when you've been like that all your life, you don't know you're like that because you're just like that and you hang around people that are like that. So you don't know about it until you mess up and you go crazy and you get some sponsor that you respect. And he sort of like somehow through. Well, if it's if one of my sponsors through sarcasm, you know, let you know, like, like, you know, they say, well, you're going to do the meeting tonight, Russell. I says, uh, you say, I'm not really ready to do that. I said, oh, you're scared. I didn't say that. I said, I'm just not ready. I said, no, no. Say this. Say, I'm scared to do the meeting because I'm going to screw up and people are going to laugh at me. Why don't you tell the truth? See, that's how you learn about you learn about shit like that. Like, I'll come in your office. I'll come in your office and he'll talk about how he's worried about this and he's worried about that. And he doesn't know what's going to happen to his job. He doesn't know what's got his wife. And he'll just talk for 15 minutes about how worried he is. And. I'll say, oh, yeah, I understand. You probably can fix that. He says, yeah. He says, yeah, you're just you're just scared. You're afraid you have fear. He says, no, I didn't say that. I'm just worried. You know, he said, he says, I said, that's another word for fear. You see, that's how bright we are. You see, we don't even understand half the time what we're talking about. It's all about fear of the corrosive threat. So he Bill Wilson wrote this book called The Big, you know, the books that they read were first. The were the books that they found. The old time is. Found I called the founders because that's what I deal with these days. Something called founders sobriety. So I read all that cops approved stuff. You don't come to prove, you know, there's no conference this group. Did you know that people use that to try to keep you in an AA box? They try to keep you in a box so you don't grow up and do six step and become an adult. They keep you in a box. Oh, that's not conference approved. Well, I don't know how to explain this to you. But back in the good old days when they were really doing this. Yeah. Thing all they read was conference. Like, you know, cops approved means it means a publishes it. So they make money off of it. There's nothing conference disapprove, but they use it these days to keep people sick. But, you know, that's just my opinion. You don't have to believe me. I want you to discover this shit on your own the way I discovered it. You'll discover it when you get to be about 10 or 15 or 20 years sober and you'll discover when you keep on drinking and keep on drinking. You don't know what's going on because you go on. You'll discover. When you're about 20 years sober and you got cancer and you got no place to go. And whenever you go to me and all they're talking about is not drinking and going to meetings and you're not drinking and you're going to meetings and you're scared shitless and wake up at three o'clock in the morning and you're worried about losing your house and you're worried about a child dying or something. You'll discover. You'll discover them and you'll start saying, well, where am I going to go now? And maybe you'll go to a psychiatrist. They'll give you some Xanax or something to chew on or something like that to fix you up. And then you'll end up drinking again. And. You'll say, what's the answer? And you'll you'll remember that what Dr. Young, one of the greatest psychiatrists in the world, said that Roland has said, he said, the answer is God. It's not hidden. It's just it's not hidden. It's just that alcoholics want to do don't want to do that. You just learn to you just learn if you hear Bill Wilson writes this book. So the books that Bob said were absolutely essential were first Corinthians 13 Sermon on the Mount in the Book of James. So that's the Bible. He said you want to. He said. He said, what's this? First things? First, that's something Dr. Bob quoted. That you said Dr. Love said, that means seek you first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all things will be added unto you. They said, well, what's this program all about? He says, read the Bible. That's Dr. Bob. If you don't believe that you got to read Dr. Bob. The good old times. That's what he said. But we'll get in more of that lady later. But in any event, so he writes this book called The Big Book, Alcoholics and Oz. He's got three and a half years. You know, now listen, I believe the big book was divinely inspired. I don't put down the big book. I got sober on the big book from the 12 and 12 and all that sort of stuff. So don't don't make this sound. Don't don't mistake what I'm saying for some new saying. It's no good or anything like that. All this stuff is good. It's good. But what you find out is age like a giant funnel. Everybody comes in crazy people, psychos, you know, atheists, agnostics. Yeah. But you guys ever seen a funnel? You see what happens is it gets narrower and narrower and then all of a sudden it becomes a narrow way. And you go to these, I get to go to these conventions, speak at some of these convention things, and they do these things called countdowns. You guys ever seen a countdown where they start, they start saying who's the oldest guy there and who's the youngest, you know, and they go, how many people have one year, two years, five years. And you got 50,000 people or a thousand people. And you're like, oh, man, that's a lot of people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like a thousand people or a thousand people or 3000 people and everybody's sober. Everybody's sober. No, maybe how many people have five years, a hundred people stand up? How many people got six, seven, a hundred, 200, 300 people. And then they say, okay, they get around 20 years, 25 years. How many people and three people stand up. 26, two people stand up, 27, nobody. 28, Nobody. 29, one guy. 30 nobody. 31, nobody. 33, nobody. there's a 33 34 one person another person you know what i mean and they say then there's one guy who stands up he's got like 45 or 50 years you know and he says where are they they all died of heart attacks and you realize you start then you start realizing that all the every time you hear somebody in the room say uh i've been around a for 30 years or they they they say this he says well i had three years and then i had six years and then i had five years or where you see somebody with what you might term as long-term sobriety with 10 years pick up a white ship or 20 years but you start realize that you never really keep count of those people you only look at the people that are staying sober and then you start realizing that all this stuff you've been seeing over the time with people picking up again and picking up again or maybe committing sewer to stuff like that it counts you start realizing that there reaches a point in alcoholics anonymous where if it's just about don't drink and going to meetings and just about doing the steps and just about intensive work with other alcoholics that uh that has a half-life because you start realizing you start reading the sentences in the big book how's this for a sentence there is one that has all power that one is god may you find him now that's a sentence is that a sentence what do you think they meant by that there is one who has all power that one is god may you find him now here's a sentence for you if uh if if uh if the better philosophy of life would have would have solved our problems we'd be sober a long time ago but they didn't solve our problems you had to find the power by which we could live and therefore we had to talk about god of course and he says here's the problem with alcoholics atheists and agnostics because alcoholics have a problem with god and when they say that thing about uh there is one who has all power that one is god you know what they do after that they talk about here's the how and why of it not only do we have to stop playing god making decisions for ourselves and not following god or trying to do what the sixth step says you know the sixth step says growing the image and likeness of god we have to actually do that stuff unless you want to remain in the spiritual kindergarten you got to do that that means you've got to do what they say in the you know what they say you know he said in the last page of the big way he says we have to do that you know what they say in the last page of the big way you know but a little you have three and a half years no not but a little it's bill wilson he says god will reveal to you see your relationship with him is right then it says on the last page it says he says but we won't know you bill we won't know you or bob what are we gonna do he says hey he says that's not important that's that's he says your real god will determine that your real reliance must be on him he'll show you how to create the fellowship you crave probably a godly fellowship and then you'll get to join something called the fellowship of the spirit i mean you may think that's a fellowship bay it's not the fellowship of a this ain't exactly i don't know how to explain this to you this ain't well people's anonymous if you haven't figured that out you haven't been to enough meetings you haven't sponsored enough people you know there's another fellowship somewhere around here it's actually out there too it's called the fellowship of the spirit spirit now you have to believe any of this i'm not trying to sell you anything i'm just telling you my experience is what you learn a lot between you learn a lot if you've been around a while you know it's like that guy in that farmer's commercial we know a lot because we've seen a lot you hear all the you're all you know like bill wilson said hey bill wilson said in the big book he said you know what he said it's right there you can look at he says he says here there once in a while a former drinker a former drinker said come say he says feel better look better having a better time he says we laugh at that we laugh at that salad we know he's going to try the old game again because he's not happy i never understood it he's going to try the old game again because he's not happy i never understood comes to aaa he stops drinking says i feel better i look better and why would you say we laugh at that stuff you know i didn't understand that sounds like a good thing doesn't it and then i started sponsoring people who came for about three weeks or a month or two months saying how great they're doing how wonderful they're doing and then they'd come back and they'd miss meetings and they'd be drinking and you start realizing that that's what they saw they saw people that would get sober and then they drink again and they would say how great they're feeling they drink again and they'd say how great they're feeling they drink again and the guys that were doing terrible who were coming to a because they said i needed to meet him doing terrible they were doing okay you know so he says in the beginning he says he says uh he says what is he saying he says feel better look better we're having a better time we laugh at such sally we know he will try we know he will try the old game again because he's not happy with his sobriety soon he'll know loneliness as few do he'll wish for the end he'll be at the jumping off place that's what bill wilson said three and a half years and that's what he prophesied for in three and a half years 20 years later when he was 23 years sober he was going down the tubes the conference met when he had 15 years the oldest guy at the conference was bill wilson he had 15 years everybody else had less than 15 years you guys ever been to a business meeting imagine a business meeting you're going to be in a business meeting where nobody has more than 15 years bill wilson had 15 years i ain't putting him down but i'm just telling you truth two years later he was sucking on lsd he went to a doctor just to experiment whether that would help him hey listen i've been around long enough for some of my best friends they're not feeling good so they just go to our famous psychiatrist and he says well i know what your problem is it's not narcotic don't worry it won't be try some of this xanax shit or whatever the heck i don't even know what are they pushing these days i don't know what they're pushing these days they're pushing something they got some sort of pill that'll help you roland hazard went to dr young one of the greatest psychiatrists in the world at that time roland hazard he drank again after going he says he says i can't help you this is what the greatest psychiatrist we don't have many we don't have too many dr young's around dr young said hey you can check on this it's in our book it's just the sentence you gotta just read he says he says i can't help you you have the mind of a chronic alcohol i've never been able to help somebody with that state of mind exists and he said well what do i do he says you have to have god's help he says well he says listen is there no hope he says here and there once in a while these things we call them phenomena that's that's a scientific word for miracle we call them miracles phenomena but that's what you have to do and that's what he did and it worked for him and it worked for me we're always looking for the easy road out and then so bill wilson got past the lsd thing he never drank again you know and what i give him credit for is about three or four years later he started going down the tubes with depression and he was going nuts and everything he writes about it in a uh in a volume that essay that most people do not read it's called uh the next frontier emotional sobriety you ought to read that thing see what he has to say you know what he says he says i've noticed that and he had about 21 years at the time he says i've noticed that many of our old timers he calls them oldsters who have successfully managed the booze the view the booze cure booze is enough for youngsters booze is another name for alcohol otherwise they got through the boost here they're sober they're picking up those medallions you know 21 years and have medallions still lack emotional sobriety otherwise at three and a half years without knowing it he was saying i noticed he said that we'll come a time in alcohol life but he'll have no defense against first drink has to come from god and he says and he says he uh the way he said is he says he you'll find an alcohol will find that he will get to the point where he won't be happy with his sobriety and you know you can get really heady about this thing when you got three years or five years ten years you're not drinking you're going to all these conventions and you're helping all these people and it's all a good thing because that's what happened to me mr you know traveling around and everything but i'll tell you something you get about 20 years and 21 years and life starts hitting you and you know you because i'll tell you something hey it's great you know some life never stops the hits never stop coming i don't care how long you're sober you've been 45 you know something there's always something to end that goes 24 7 you know i mean 24 7 it comes at you and uh there's only so many meetings you can go to and oh so many people you can sponsor before one day you know you're not paying attention you're looking someplace else and all of a sudden here comes the irs and there goes your bank account and here comes i like when they come in threes you know the irs your bank account your wife leaves you and you forgot your fucking password you know what i mean and that's it time for a drink you know what i mean and going nuts you know and uh and yeah you're laughing at me now you don't know what it's like you'll see a few years now when you're sucking on the muzzle of a gun you'll say i used to laugh at that idiot russell you know and now i know what it's all about what's the deal is and you'll learn about what this alcoholism is all about you'll learn about this deal you know and so bill wilson actually started experiencing at 21 years that which he wrote when he had three and a half years and you know what he said he said we got these old timers we got me and everything and i'm going no nuts and i wrote the book and i don't you think i know how to do a fourth step and a fifth step don't you look like i don't you think i wrote the book and i can't figure it out you got to read that thing you know what he says he says i got it all wrong he said i got it all wrong that's got to make you feel good after you've been reading this book and worshiping bill wilson you know all your life and then all of a sudden he writes this thing says i got it all wrong and what he says is he said i got it all right dr bob knew that because dr bob was one of these people who was in the deal you know what the last words dr bob said to bill wilson was the last words he said bill because he used to talk to him all the time dr bob was solid he said bill let's not screw this thing up keep it simple it's a simple thing trust god there is one who has all power that one is god so you can do this you can do the 12 you can do all 12 steps if you don't get the one thing if you don't get the one thing you're going to be out no what does it say god is god is either everything or he's nothing that's a sentence you know he's everything or he's nothing there is no middle of the road solution or any of that stuff i'm just going to point out to you that some of that stuff is there you know if you find yourself you got five years you're like six years you got 20 years you got 25 years and you're not happy with yourself and you're still not happy it's like that old song remember the song is that all there is just don't drink and go to meetings almost sounds like uh a sentence almost like like you're a lifer don't drink go to meetings just just just do all this and you'll do okay other words although all you have to do is do the work and everything will work out what if you do all the work and it doesn't work out so you learn a lot let me tell you something you learn around the 10 years i hit a second bottom that uh and i had to do you learn a lot bill wilson where did he write the uh he wrote he's he wrote uh the uh the thing about emotional sobriety which is what i like to talk about the most you'll hear about that when he had 23 years it was published in 1959 in the grapevine so it's conference approved by the way you know you know what he said he said but i see that some people some people beat this thing get rocking in the fourth dimension they they it works for them and he called them you know what he called those people the benighted ones he said perhaps listen this is the statement bill wilson made if you liked it about three and a half years he said perhaps they will be the spearhead for the next major development in alcoholics anonymous did you guys read the book on the about the next major development yeah you're gonna have to figure that out on your own you gotta figure that out on your own you gotta understand census to figure out what the next major development in a i pray that uh bill wilson got it you know i'm not sure hinted at it but he didn't come right out and say it but he said the next i'll tell you what he did say he said you know what my problem was dependency i depended too much on people places things and i depended too much on alcoholics anonymous i got so enamored with alcoholics i got anonymous you know i did you know you know they say uh they talk about organized religion you know did you know that for many people aaa is like religious it's like a religion it's a religion but not necessarily one that believes in god not not a religion that has a god it's a religion you figure out your own deal it sort of leaves you there that's not the way they did it in the old days but hell i just uh digress so let's talk about the first step shall we so listen you learn a lot between one year and ten years don't you i mean you guys been around for a while you know if i if i said uh you know so so regina how much time you have three years so you have three years do you think you've learned a lot in the last three years i mean if if i was to look at you and ask you questions or see your brain at at one month uh do you think you learned a lot you've changed and you see things differently when you had like six months from one month what about from six months to two years what about from two years to three years you think you've learned really like every day right would you want to go back to one month no you don't want to go back there but when you had one month you were feeling good right but now you got three years but you don't want to go you want to go back how about like you want to go back three months ago no you don't you want to yeah so i wonder what you're going to be like in three more years what about 10 more years what about 30 more years what about 40 more years you know you know you learn you learn a lot you see a lot you know things happen to you you know one of the things you gotta in order to change an alcoholic you need two things number one you need an alcoholic you got to start off with an alcoholic that's like the recipe number two you need the steps you need the fellowship you need all this stuff we have we surround stuff and then you know what you need you need time in the oven you got to take that cake and you need to start with the next one you know what i mean you got to put all the ingredients in there and you got to throw them in the oven and turn it up to 350 degrees for 40 years now i know you want i know what you want to do you want to throw it in the oven and turn it up to 10 000 degrees for six seconds you know to sort of rush the process but then we just get crispy you know what i mean it's just it doesn't work that way you got to put in the time so that's the deal so what is this about so my idea is if you ask me about the first step years ago years ago you know i i would say something like this because i've heard the said meanings i believe that's true i believe it's true i would say um you know there comes a time and if you're an alcoholic there comes a time in your life where you pass over an invisible line where you weren't drinking alcoholically you understand what i'm saying you weren't drinking alcoholically that's damn right how do you pass over this line it's you you can't see it as you're passing over it but sometimes you can look back and you can see that line you know what i mean you can see that line and you say man that's when i passed over that line you know and and and you say and then i pass over the line from non-alcoholic drinking into alcoholic drinking youngs they're saying you see that line that's what i would have told you then a few years later down the road i over that line when I took my first drink and that would have been true for me then I would decide to pass on my line when I took my first drink and now I know I passed over that line when I was born because my concept of what alcoholism is is different it's changed because now that line in the big book where it says drinking is only a symptom there's only a symptom of the disease the real disease centers in our mind so here's the deal so my mom my mom was an alcoholic she was horrible she's a bad alcoholic I love my mom but I also hated my mom and I swore I was 14 years old 13 years old and I swear I would never be like my mom drunk all the time lying on the front lawn in the middle of daylight in her negligee you know and I'd never be like my mom I was not gonna drink like my mom but what do you what do you do if you're weird I know what I did I had a drink I drink a cold 45 malt liquor and got laid that's what happened to me you know what I mean it was off to the races that was me so here's the here's the deal here's here's the deal let's let's do it this way let me just tell you the truth you ever you ever you say you ever say to yourself if I only had this this whatever this is a new a new girlfriend a new boyfriend you know a new toy a motorcycle whatever this whatever what is going on over here I mean really keep going keep going keep going like feel like I'm in uh Grand Central Station here so you keep hitting the table and it shows up on the record oh so now it's my fault aren't you an alcoholic I think you're an alcoholic I think you're an alcoholic I think you're an alcoholic I think everything's your fault you ever you ever wake up in the morning or say to yourself if I only had this one thing everything would be perfect and you think about that one yeah you ever do that you ever do that you know I used to do that I'll bet I did that when I was 13 man if I only had that bicycle I'd be okay if I only got this for Christmas I'd be okay you ever uh you ever do that I'll bet I did that when I was 13 man if I only had that bicycle I'd be okay you ever feel sorry for yourself I can't believe this is always happening to me this is bullshit always happens you ever do that you know I did that when I was I've done that all my life I'm not sure quite frankly I emotionally emotionally I'm not talking about intellectually I got smarter and smarter and smarter school-wise academically you know what I mean I got more degrees that can possibly imagine that proves that I've been educated far beyond my capacity to know anything okay but I mean I knew everything but that's all I knew I didn't know anything I didn't know anything I didn't know how to keep a marriage together I didn't know how not to cheat on my wife I didn't know how to be a decent person I didn't know how to treat everybody like they have a broken heart cuz they probably do I didn't know how to love people I didn't even know what love was but you know I mean yeah yeah yeah have that thing like yeah you feel sorry for you know you're feeling sorry for you why is this always happening to me you ever envy anybody else you ever jealous of anybody else you ever you ever say I got you know yeah you ever you ever just say I'm sorry I'm sorry I want to marry you I don't want you I want to marry you you ever tell yourself you're so wonderful you're so great and nobody nobody appreciates you how about you ever tell yourself you're a piece of shit and you might as well kill yourself you ever do that yeah yeah you ever find yourself all of a sudden yeah you ever find yourself like in the car and all of a sudden you hear this you hear this voice you're such an asshole you're never gonna understand this look just such a jerk it's such a phony yeah you ever have this voice You know, telling you bad things about yourself and other people. I mean, you can turn on TV and you can text, you can do all the shit we do to ignore it, but you ever have this constant voice somehow where you're second-guessing yourself? The teacher says, does anybody have a question? You have a question because you don't understand, but you don't raise your hand because what if it's a stupid question and people laugh at you? Anybody have the answer and you have the answer, but you don't necessarily raise your hand because what if you're wrong? You ever worry about what people think about you? Or what they're going to think about you? Or what they did think about you? Hey, you ever tell yourself, I don't give a shit what other people think. I don't care what they think. You ever tell yourself over and over again you don't care what they think about you? You ever say it out loud? You ever turn to me and say, you know something? I don't give a shit what they think about me. You ever have a couple drinks and say that, you know? Listen, let me tell you what I found out. This is in my own life. People that are constantly telling themselves, they don't care what other people think about them. All they do is think about what other people think about them. That's a bondage worse than drinking alcohol. Alcohol, what's going to happen is you'll die. You'll kill somebody else. You'll go to jail. But live in a life where you're always second-guessing yourself. You're always worried about what other people think about. You're always trying to conform to other people. You're always trying to whore yourself out to the world like a whore. Never wanting to be your own man because you're always looking to see what everybody's looking at and what they want. Always worried about what you're going to say in AA because you don't want to mention God's name because you know somebody's going to say you're killing newcomers. Always worried about that kind of stuff. That's not sobriety. You know what that is? That's bullshit. I've lived that entire life, all my life. I didn't come in here to live that life. For two-thirds of my life, I'm 76 years old, I've lived that way. I ain't living that life. I ain't living that life. I ain't living that life. I ain't living the last third of my life that way. This is about being rocked in the fourth dimension of existence. Experiencing much of heaven and knowing peace. How about that deal? How about knowing peace? How about experiencing much of heaven? What's that all about? You know what that's all about? I don't know. So let me tell you. So here's the deal. All those thoughts and 50 more that I haven't even said about the anger and about the lust and about the envy. You know, about the pride. The false pride. All the stuff, you know? That goes through your brain And you know the other thing about alcohol? You can't stop thinking, can you? You ever say to yourself I gotta stop thinking about this crap? This thing is driving me crazy. You ever say to yourself, I gotta stop thinking about this crap? You know maybe it's money. I'm worried about the money. I'm worried about money. I'm worried about the money. I'm worried about. And he says, I gotta stop thinking about this stuff. You see? It's not putting a dime on my bank. I gotta stop thinking about this stuff. And then for 2 nanoseconds, Two nanoseconds you stop thinking about it, then you start thinking about it again? You ever find you can't stop thinking about it? You ever find that you're always thinking about bad things about yourself and other people? You ever find yourself populated with people? You ever cross the street because you see something and somebody and you hope they don't see you? You ever rip up your mail before you open up the envelope? You ever look at the phone to see who's calling you and you don't answer it because you don't want to speak to them? You ever do? That's just the tip of the freaking iceberg. Now let me tell you what the deal is with that. I thought those things a decade before I started drinking. That's my thought process. Years before I had my first drink. You know why I drank? Because no woman, no car, no amount of money, no new suit of clothes, no haircut, no Botox, no nothing ever worked quite as well and quite as fast as just a few drinks. Not that that other stuff doesn't work, by the way. Money works. I spent more money I don't have buying shit I don't need to impress people I don't even like so that I'd be accepted and they'd think I'm great. I spent more time worrying about losing this or losing that. I spent more time saying if I had that car I'd be okay and I'd get the car and like a year later, I mean I have a scratch in the car and it would cost $300 to fix and I had to fix it because it was driving me nuts because I'm driving around with a scratched car and I don't have any money. All I have is that $300. But I'll spend it on the scratch because I'm worried about what people think about me with a scratch in my car. You know what I mean? That's what alcohol, that's, you know, here's the deal. And if alcohol did for me, what it did for me when I was 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, I'd still be drinking it. But alcohol stopped working for me. It stopped working for me. And the sad thing about my life is it stopped working for me about 10 years before I realized that alcohol stopped working for me. And I hurt a lot of people. I hurt a lot of people. I broke a lot of people's hearts and I hurt myself, but I hurt a lot of people. And so I don't drink it anymore. So I stopped drinking the alcohol, which is a symptom of my disease. And then you know what took over? The disease. The thing that was bothering me when I was five years old. I was a little bit sick. I was a little bit sick. I was a little bit sick. I was a little bit sick. I was a little bit sick. I was a little bit sick. I was a little bit sick. When I was 10 years old. When I was 13 years old. The thinking, the thinking doesn't stop. Everything in AA, the meetings, knowing people, getting sponsored, it's all about putting a bandaid on and somehow stopping you from committing suicide, from killing yourself. When somebody comes to a meeting, you ever say, man, I needed that meeting and mean it? You ever run to a meeting to a meeting because you really need a meeting? Well, let me ask you this. You're not drinking, right? Why the hell do you need a meeting? Why do you need a meeting? See, people never look beyond the obvious. They think picking up a chip or doing this or doing that, and maybe they feel better for five minutes or something like that. They never ask themselves, why do I need to do this stuff? And you need to do this shit because you have alcoholism. And if you stop drinking, it doesn't even come close to stopping the alcoholism because it centers in your mind, not your body. And Dr. Young was right. He says, you have the mind of a chronic alcoholic. I've never been able to solve that problem. That's why you keep on drinking. You don't drink because you crave alcohol. You see, the craving is real. The obsession is real. The craving is real. Once you have that first drink, you got to have another one, another one, another one. But before you took that first drink, you ready for this? You weren't drinking. It's not because you crave alcohol. It's because you're fucking insane. You're crazy. Which, by the way, brings me to another point. Right? Right after you realize that, then you get into something called the second step. And I think it has something to do with being restored to sanity. Did I get that right? Because I am old and I have dementia. I think they then start talking about the insanity. And some people get upset because you tell them they're insane because they don't believe it's that bad. If you're an alcoholic, you're crazy. And you could, you could deal with. You can deal with that step. You can deal with the step. You, you know, they say the one thing you have to do 100% is the first step. They tell you stuff like that. I think it works. I think it helps. You know, you just, that makes the importance. Here it is. So what do I do when I see a guy with 30 years pick up a white chip? What do I do with the guy who started the car room? Or if the bathroom, we walk, somebody picks up a white chip because after 30 years he drank, I say something stupid because I only five years old. That guy. Obviously didn't take, do the first step. Guy with 30 years started the car room, did steps. Obviously he didn't do the first man. I wish that was the truth. I wish the stuff that they tell you was the truth. You're going to learn what the truth is. I mean, if all it was, was doing the first step, a hundred percent, you don't even need a big book. You need a bumper sticker. You know what I mean? You're going to find there's a lot more to this disease. It, you know, something it feeds on people who. Think they, they've given on the first step and that's all they need to do. Or they think they've done a good fourth step and that's all they need to do. It feeds on people. This is a 12 step program. You know what the 12 step program is designed to do? Well, if you read the book, if you sort of get it, it says there is, it says there is one that has all power. That one is God. May you find him. Now, now, not 20 years from now, not 30 years from now, but now. And then they say, this is the how and why, but this is how we do it. We do these steps. The steps are designed to get you to the point where God becomes the central fact of your life. Not only does it become the central fact, this is what's called the great fact in it. Not only does it become the central fact of your life. Because. Because these are the two things you have to have. The great fact. And the great fact is this and nothingness. It's nothing less than this. That God is the central fact of your life. And you are convinced. You're not unsure about this. You are absolutely convinced that he lives in your heart and mind in a way that is miraculous. Doing for you what you can't do for yourself. And by the way, kids, that isn't my opinion. That's the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And so what does it profit a man? What does it profit? What does it profit a person? If he does all the steps semi-perfectly and he's got the steps and I did them five times. If he doesn't believe in God. If his life doesn't center on God. When the whole reason you worship the hammer. I mean you build the house with the hammer and the nails and the saw and you build the house. And then you spend the rest of your life worshiping the hammer. What does it mean? What happens to you where your life is all. You know what happens to you when you don't believe in God? You get sober. You get sober. And you know what happens? You start making your own decisions and come to your own decision about yourself. You don't need any help. You don't need to ask other people. You certainly don't hang around those God people. You understand? Because every alcoholic knows that if you're an alcoholic, they have this antipathy about God. You hate God. That's why in the big book, by the way, they say we lose prejudice even to get all prejudice even against organized religion. But we know that's not true in AA. Because if you start talking about God. Like I talk about God. Somebody's going to come up to you and sort of pound you and say, don't be talking about that crap. You're going to hurt people. You're going to kill people. You know, I don't know if you guys know this, but in 1937, 35, 36, 37, 38 and 39, you couldn't go to a meeting unless you got on your knees in front of everybody who's already in AA and gave your life to God. Did you know that? Did you know that? It wasn't no white chip stuff. It wasn't no, well, pick up the white chip. Oh, and if you're shy, we'll put it over here and you can come at three o'clock in the morning. Well, that was in AA. AA was you go into a room and you get on your knees in front of everybody who's already in AA and you give your life to God. And, and well, you probably said, well, some people probably didn't go. You're probably right. The meetings were probably a little different. Don't you think? You probably didn't have those guys in the back of the room saying, well, if they had told me to do this, I would have left. You know what I mean? You didn't have those guys there. Now I'm not putting down AA the way it is right now. I'm just telling you that I, I was brought into AA. The way it is sort of like now, you know, I mean, when I came there, what, 45 years ago. So it's been around for 90 years. So, you know, it had already been watered down. It had already been pasteurized, homogenized, sterilized so that nobody would get offended and nobody to get upset. I like, I like what Clarence, the brewmaster said when Bob Smith, 12 stepped him. And he said, the first question was, do you believe in God? One young fellow. He says, what is. He says, what does that have to do with it? And Dr. Bob said everything. He says, he says, well, I guess he says, guess nothing. You either believe in God or you don't. And he says, okay, I do. He says, great. Get down off the hospital bed, get on your knees. And we're going to say a prayer. I don't know how to pray. I guess you don't. You just do what I tell you to do. And you know what, you know what Clarence said? This great line. It's in Dr. Bob McGovern times. He said, I did what I was ordered to do. There were no suggestions. And I'll tell you something. If you can't tell an alcoholic what to do to his face, you have no business sponsoring an alcoholic. Because all you're doing is you're going to lead them to disaster. Because I'm going to tell you something. I don't give a shit what alcoholics say about don't tell me what to do. You know, you don't have to do that. I do. This is my program. You do. Let me tell you what, you know what alcoholics really need? Direction. You know what they come here for? Direction. If you can't give somebody direction, you know what that means about you? It means you may think you're helping them. What it means is you're scared to give them direction because you don't want them not to like you. It's all about you. You're scared to walk out the door, tell somebody and say, you know that Roxanne, she's stupid. That guy Russell, she's stupid. It means that you're so worried. You're so worried. You're so worried about what other people think about you that you don't want to be tough on people when they need to be tough. You love them when they need to be loved. But some people need to hear some, some guys with 20, 30 years when they come up to you and start whining about whatever the hell they're whining about. You need to tell them, you know, how much, how old are you? 40 years, 40 years old. Let me ask you something, Bob. When the fuck are you going to grow up? Some men need to hear about growing the hell up. Some women who come in to see you and say, well, at least I'm a good mother, need to hear you say, you know something, you're a shitty mother. Is that what you tell yourself to make yourself feel good? My mother was an alcoholic. You choose booze over your kids. You're a crappy mother. Is that what you tell yourself to make yourself feel good? So you somehow feel good? Well, let me tell you something. I had a mother like you. You don't give a crap about your kids. That's the stuff you tell yourself to make yourself. Some people need to hear the truth sometimes. And the fact that you can't tell them the truth has not, even though you know that's the truth, but you can't say it, is because you are more worried about yourself and whether somebody will like you than saving somebody's life. Because I'm going to tell you something. The chief characteristic of every alcohol corner is defiance. And sometimes, I don't know whether you ever know this. But if you sponsor a few hundred people, you're going to get a lot of people who are going to say, well, I'm not going to do that. But if you sponsor a few hundreds or a thousand people, if you sponsor people, you realize every once in a while as you're talking to them that they're not listening to you. Now, trust me. You can talk to an alcoholic, say the same thing five times, and at the end of the talk, you'll say, did you hear anything I said? You say, yeah, I heard anything. So what was the last thing I said to you? I said, I don't know. I can't remember. They're not listening to you. As you're talking, they're already thinking you're full of shit or what they're going to say or something like that. Many times, they come to you. Look, they act like they're asking you a question, right? You actually think they care about what you have to say. They don't want to get well. They just want attention. And you start talking. And before you finish your sentence, they interrupt you and say, well, no, you don't understand. I've been told, I mean, how can I go for this long a time and never understand anything? I've been told so many times I don't understand by people that are telling me their problem because they don't understand it. And they come to me seemingly because they don't understand. They don't understand. They just want to know what their problem is. And before I even finish the first line of the first sentence, they said, no, you don't understand. I said, well, why are you talking to me? I mean, obviously, I don't understand. And obviously, you do understand. So just do what you want to do. He says, will you sponsor me? He says, yeah. He says, let me tell you what my problem is. Oh, you're going to tell me what your problem is. He says, well, yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He says, I think I got to start at the first step and the second and third step. Well, wait a second. Didn't you do the first step? Well, he says, yeah. Well, didn't you do the fourth step? He says, yeah. Well, you were sober five years. Didn't you do all these steps? He says, yeah, I did them all. I said, well, you drank. He said, yeah. I said, so you just want to do the steps over again that you were already willing to do? He said, well, yeah. He says, well, why don't we do this? Why don't we try to figure out the steps that you did? He said, well, you did the steps that you didn't do. Maybe it's not what you did. Maybe it's what you didn't do. Did you go to Bible study? Did you pray to God? Did you hang around people that believed in God? Well, no, because that's not my program. I said, well, maybe I'm not the guy for you. Maybe you just thought, why don't you just keep on doing what you did when you drank? I'm sure that'll work for you this time. You get it? I mean, this may not be making any sense to you. Alcoholics are very, very sick people. You know? They'd love for you to let them just do, continue to do what they've been doing and get sicker and sicker and sicker. And then they can say, it's my sponsor's fault. It's AA's fault. I went to AA. I did all that. It didn't work. And they can say because they're different and they're unique. You know? And so the bottom line is, is that this disease, this idea of worrying about what other people think about you, being so self-absorbed and everything like that, that you're not willing to put yourself and yourself on the line. You're not willing to even have somebody reject you. You know, let me tell you something. You know, you may think this is weird. I told the gal one day when she came to see me that exact same thing. I said, you're a crappy mother. You're a terrible mother. And I feel sorry. I don't feel sorry for you. I feel sorry for your kids. You know what she did? She got out of my office. She said, I didn't come here to see her, hear that shit. You know what I mean? I don't need that crap from somebody like you. And she walked out the door. And then 15 minutes later, my secretary said, that gal is on the phone. And I said, yeah. She said, can I come back? I said, sure. She said, yeah. I said, sure. And she's sober today. And she's sober today. I mean, you know, you got to understand. Once you start understanding alcoholics, understanding yourself, you start understanding alcoholics. You know? You got somebody that pisses you off and tells you shit that, let me tell you something. You throw a rock into a pack of dogs, the one that yelps the loudest is the one that gets hit. You find somebody that's telling you shit that you don't want to hear, let me tell you, we have a spiritual axiom. Whenever you're upset, no matter what the cause, there's something wrong with you. There's something wrong. You try to find people that are saying shit that upsets you. You find, because you know something? If you don't deal with the stuff that upsets you, there's nothing that's going to go on in here that somebody's going to say in here that's as bad as what you're going to get out there. If you don't learn how to be un-upset-able by some of the stuff you're hearing there, they're going to kill you out there. Because out there, they really don't do shit. You know? It's going to be much rougher out there. So that's, to me, that's the first step. The first step, once you stop drinking, that's when you deal with the real first step. Realizing you're powerless over your sick mind and instincts and the way you are and your brain. You know? This idea that now that you're sober and you can use your brain and think well and do okay. You know? You know what I mean? As long as you're not drinking, that's when the disease has a party going on. That's when the party starts. You know? You know, that's the deal. So thank you very much.