Sponsorship and the Pedestal – Step Study – Part 3 of 4 – Scott R.

I like this and I want more, and I take action based on more because it's fun. It's like that thing we were talking about, that wonderful question about putting your partner first in a relationship. It's fun, it's a delight, it is not a selfless act. Not for me, not for me. It's not a selfish act. People are born asleep, they get married asleep, have children asleep, and they die asleep. Waking up is a joyful experience and sometimes very uncomfortable. It's not fun to wake up sometimes. There's this great old story about his father wakes up his son, says, I don't want to wake Up. He says, you got to go to school. I don'T want to go TO SCHOOL. The kids pick on me. I DON'T WANT TO. His father says, well, you have to. You're the principal of the school, you know? And you have TO wake UP and GO. And it's time to wake up. So these areas where I have had the repetition of these difficulties, and I've gone back to the first five propositions of the book through the tenth step, I've had to wakeup in these areas. And that's what happened to me with money. And it is not because I am a nice guy or a good guy, but I will tell you this. I can honestly tell you that since that surrender four years ago I have not suffered with money I'm not telling you I haven't had a difficult time I'm telling you I haven' t had problems I'm NOT TELLING YOU ANY OF THAT STUFF I'm Not Telling You That It Hasn't Been Difficult When I've Had To Like NOT BUY CERTAIN THINGS I'VE WANTED TO BUY AND NOT BEEN THE GREATEST DAD IN THE WORLD BECAUSE OF THAT MY KIDS DON'T GIVE A CRAP ABOUT THAT THEY REALLY DON'T I DIDN'T RAISE KIDS LIKE THAT They just really, they like stuff. They're not anti-stuff, but it's not emblematic of success or a successful relationship or love with them, you know? So step ten has been a remarkable expansion and fuel for my experience of the first five steps. I mentioned before briefly something that really is part of my experience. Without 10, there's no 12 for me. I will not remain part of Alcoholics Anonymous if I don't examine my resentments and my fears as applied to Alcoholics Anonymous. I do a lot of speaking, and it's highly overrated. And people sometimes start making an object out of you. they start treating you like a spiritual Pez dispenser, you know. And, you know, I, my sponsor again said at the end of the day this should be pleasurable and enjoyable and comforting at the end of it. At the end of the day. And if this podium becomes a barrier between me and AA, I will die. My sponsor who wrote Dr. Alcoholic Addict was He was very close with Chuck Chamberlain. And Paul was two, three years sober when he got that written in the book, and he became an A.A. luminary immediately. I mean, huge reaction to this. Traveling with him was like traveling with a rock star. And people used to come up to him and say, please bless my chips. Bless my chips! I had somebody ask me to bless their chips. And it's very hard to not be sarcastic, and they don't deserve that treatment. They don't. They deserve love and kindness and tolerance. I'm not going to bless your chip, but I love you. I held the chip, but I didn't say it's blessed. At any rate, Chuck pulled Paul aside and said to him, we kill people like you. We kill you. We're going to put you up on a pedestal where you can't reach anybody. And we really can't reaching you. And then we're going love you, and then we'll make you pay the price for our love. Because then we are going to get pissed off at you. Because you're not going to act like the object that I've made you. What a great thing to look at a sponsor and have a teacher and not make an object of them. To not make and object of the sponsor who's doing the right thing. They're doing the right thing. Then when the sponsor doesn't do the right thing, whatever the hell the right thing is, you know, then they've they're outside the box. They're no longer acting like the object that I've made them. I do that in my relationships. I can do that. In a marriage, I can do that with my teachers. One of the things Pem and Children talks about in a gorgeous way is the beauty of taking on and leaving a teacher. I had to after After I left my sponsor of 10 years in my home group, one of the things that happened was something that had been happening to me my whole life. I had a terrible separation from him. This is the guy who was my best friend I ever had. When they asked me to have an emergency number at work or something, I gave them his name and his number. It's the first thing that came to my mind. And he carried the Torah at both of my kids' bar mitzvahs. It's a big deal. And I had one of the worst separations I've ever had with anybody. So here I'm left with this thing I've felt many times in my life. Because of the nature of the horrible separation, now I'm thinking, oh, so you aren't great. I didn't really have a good relationship with you. We didn't Really Have a Good Time. And I'm making this colossal mistake. I'm letting the horrible seperation, which is a separate activity, color the fantastic relationship. I'm taking it, I'm gathering evidence and mind reading again. You know, I am so bad at this. And the evidence-gathering process is so absurd. But I'm applying that and using it to sort of be vengeful about the whole thing. And what it drove me to, because in this case I couldn't accept it, the evidence of the wonderful relationship, there was too much there. There was 10 years of action, of carrying the message, starting groups, starting meetings, having grand sponsees, having potlucks, doing all this stuff. It was impossible to vilify all of that experience based on the horrible thing. And I said, you've got to take a look at the quality of separation in your life. You seem to have very successful relationships, and you have some terrible ones too, but you certainly have some very, and this has been extremely successful. So I had to look at the fact that what my idea of a separation was, kill everyone in the village, kill them, poison the water, and slaughter the livestock. Bye. I'm ready to go. The village looks like an ashtray. I can leave now. Everything is annihilated. And that's the way I'm, that's my ideaof separation. I have a much different idea now I've just separated with one of my dearest friends One of the guys I had one of the deepest fellowships with in AA And I have had a separation And for me it's been so sad It's been such a hard time It's so heartbreaking And it's a good separation By the way, part of the definition of a good seperation Is not that everyone is happy that can't be part of it because then it's people pleasing so is everybody happy here? no I'm not happy I don't think he's happy it's a good separation I told him the truth and I told them how much I loved him and I said and I also told him that certain things just weren't going to be okay for me and he wasn't able to express to me what's going on and so now and this is very much pertinent to that wonderful thing I read about forgiveness, when Fox says when it appears in your mind again touch it like a feather on a bubble, bless it and say oh I'm forgetting that I forgave you. I need to remember that I forgave you, I'm forgetting. So now when stuff comes up with this guy and it's painful, the fact that I'm not going to see him, that we're not going to do, we used to do retreats together and all this stuff, that that's gone. You know, Huda might be back, but it's gone, you know. And what I do is I say, and oh, it was great. And then I start, I deliberately, now I want to talk about deliberate action in this session. I deliberately think about some of the wonderful experience we've had. What I mean by deliberate action is, I don't hear if anybody here ever lies on the couch and spends the time on the couch, let's say 90% of it cursing yourself for sitting on the couch. Sounds like fun. Great way to start an afternoon. I'm going to stay on the couch. I have a worthless lump of protoplasm. I am a piece of crap. I should be doing X, Y, and Z. I hope the following list of people do not catch me on the couch. Relax. What one of my teachers has suggested is to act deliberately. And what I mean by that is I'm going to sit on the couch. I'm not going to try to talk myself out of going on the couch. What I want to do is instead of squandering my time on the couch, I would like to deliberately sit onthe couch instead of being sucked into the black hole of the couch and tied by my sloth and agony and low self-esteem to the couch I want it deliberately declare I am sitting on the coach I am going to enjoy doing nothing I might watch stupid, stupid television, but I'm going to be on the couch and I'm gonna give myself a certain amount of time to do it. When I act deliberately, it is an incredible gift. My mother is a very, very troubled woman. Very troubled woman, I had to have back surgery, I had a really invasive back surgery two and a half years ago. They put screws and cable in my back, they drilled two and half inches, four and a half inches down into my vertebrae at six different locations. The insult to my body was gigantic. It took me a year to even get out of the tall grass. So I call my mother and I'm telling you I am not exaggerating. This was the conversation. Hi mom, I need back surgery. Really darling, isn't that the surgery that leaves you paralyzed? And I said actually there's a gray area now in between the paralysis and not getting the operation. There's this whole other spectrum of experience. And I was telling people at lunch, my mother lives in a world, the best metaphor I can come up with is anyone ahead of her on the freeway is a moron and anyone who passes her is a maniac. A hand went up in the back. So she lives in a world populated by morons and maniacs. That's where she lives. So when I talk to my mother, I talk to her deliberately. And this is what I mean. What I used to do is talk on her and wait for the first mistake. And wait for the evidence to pour in. That she's just still acting like her. She just acts like her, she has never not acted like her and now I'm going to call her and let's just see when she starts. Usually starts after hello. So if I make a judgment I'm calling my mother who is a disgusting woman who should not be allowed to talk to other human beings. She is the dark side of the force. She just, you know, lives in a world. She's a shit magnet. Anything, if there's any shit in the universe, it just finds her and attaches itself to her. And if it doesn't, she'll go running after it and grab on. So what I do now, and I have very successful conversations with my mother is I call my mother and I say, oh, mom, I love you so much. I am willing to accept the fact that you are spiritually sick i know how difficult life is for you i know how troubled you are and and i know that and i'm gonna i am going to speak to her deliberately knowing that i'm going to ask how people are and what i'm going to get is a litany of rashes ointments mental disorders um financial problems and potential accidents i mean that's what i want to get that's the list. I'm not going to get... Now, here's the deal. If I'm groundless, if I don't take a fixed position, if i don't ferociously defend my agony, okay? Now if I ferociously defend my agony, I need my mother to continue being an awful person. I will deliberately talk to my mother knowing that she's a very troubled person and I'm open for a surprise. I am available to be delighted and comforted. That's what you've asked me to do, no? Be available to be delighted and comfortable because at the end of the day that's really what I want. I want to stop suffering and I don't want to be afraid to die. So step 10 for me is the engine, I can say, that has been the source of my success as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous my reinvention and reinvigoration of the first five steps in the big book and it's so funny because it's interesting to me because 10 and 11 you know are butted up against each other in the book and there are these these one of the things one of my teachers talks about which is very interesting to me many people do visualizations which they get which are very helpful to them And she says that a visualization is a tacit denial of where you are right here, right now. Saying that I'll kind of be, you know, I want to be in this different place. It's kind of an interesting thing. And I'm not putting down visualizations. I can't imagine that anything we're doing to encounter God that you could say, don't do that. No, don'T do that, it might get you close to God. Don'T do THAT. You know, we all, it's like different applications and ways of working the steps. I can't imagine that there would be anything bad or wrong in there unless it's I can eat sugar myself, but if I can drink your blood if you eat sugar, that's probably not a good idea. But it's kind of interesting to me right now. At any rate, in step 11, it says the occasional hunch of inspiration will slowly have become a working part of the mind. and it talks about some stuff to do when I wake up and when I go to sleep and then it talks about opening that door the one book that I'd like to give my children the doorway to the world the book to take you to all the other books and one time my son Jesse was a little boy he was about three and my wife was holding him and he was touching her cheeks and he just looked like he wanted to crawl into her face And he said to her, Mom, you are all the words. And imagine if you had a mother who was a vigorous, vital person who spent her time finding ways to reinvent and reinvigorate that vitality. Imagine if you Had a mother like that who showed you that thing. And some of you might have, and some of You might not. I believe I can find that in God. I believe that I can find that in the spiritual democracy of Alcoholics Not Psy. I believe I have found it. I don't always do it but I believe I have founded it. Has anyone ever invited you to be a grown intelligent connected person who belongs in the world? If no one has ever invited you to be that I'm inviting you to do that. I'm invited you to do right here right now to be grown vital vigorous person who has a place in the world. I want to challenge your idea, if it's one of your ideas that you're willing to believe the worst about yourself and I believe the only way that happens for me is through connection and through experience of you I need to know God and firmly my experience tells me that my only way to know God is to know him through you to know it through you The Buddha that little adorable cutie the Buddha says that pain or suffering arises through desire or craving to be free of pain we have to cut the bonds of desire all cravings are the mind seeking salvation or fulfillment in external things and in the future as a substitute for the joy of being. As long as I am my mind, I am those cravings Those needs, wants, attachments, and aversions. And how terribly, awfully true for the alcoholic who sees their success and succor and failure and comfort in a spirit, in the spirits that they're drinking and the drugs that they'RE taking, who make a life, make an attachment and make an identity of these resentments, this self-loathing or this self or this grandiosity, these fears and this sexual misconduct. where I become so attached to this spiritual illness and the way that I have arranged my life to accommodate this spiritual sickness, it is my attachment. It is my craving. It is what I'm living. And in AA, this incredible war of attrition, this what is the process of sobriety to me if it's not to rearrange my life to accommodate sobrietry? I mean, I know that I rearranged my life to accommodate alcoholism. I know you do. I know, that's what I did. I did it for years. I did things I swore I'd never do, and then I did more things I swear I'd never do. And then I didn't do anything I swored I'd ever do. Then I did that were not even within the realm of possibility that I would ever do right before I got sober. I reached for something across my dinner table and my arm came near my older son and he went like this and he did it like that. It was there was no guile to it. He was a six-year-old boy who was so repelled by my presence that when my arm came here him he recoiled as if from a hot flame and I said how did this happen how did this happen I love him I love him more than I've loved anything how could such a thing happen it happened in the middle of the night in between sentences when I wasn't looking it happened as I had to survive as I was alive as I had to rearrange it a couple of months ago my son Jesse emailed me and the email from this 25 year old man was quote I was just overwhelmed with how much I love you because I've rearranged my life to accommodate sobriety. And that doesn't mean that my kid's going to love me. That's just what's happening at my house. That's not because I'm doing this better or more goodish than the people whose kids are ill or the people who have been annihilated. That's what's happened at my home. When I had to pay emergency room stuff for my kids during their adventures, that's just how it was happening at home. I want to talk about 10 and 11 in connection with my kids for a minute and then we're going to take our last break and we'll drive this sucker home I came home from talking at an AA meeting I believe I had stamped out alcoholism that particular night I saved a lot of people that night I just blessed a lot of chips and oh my god and I said I came home I said to Nancy how are you doing she said I'm fine your son's kind of having a tough time he's on a bad acid trip he was 13 I said what he was on a bad acid trip I didn't know he had smoked a cigarette so I went in and I said a prayer I came back out I went into my son I looked at him in the eye and I said sweetheart it's a pill and it's going to wear off and I'm not going to leave you until it does he said oh god dad thanks and then I called a therapist who's a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and the therapist prescribed some medication another member of AA picked it up and brought it over to the house and I asked Bob goodnight and Bob said I'm going to sleep until Mikey goes to sleep he stayed up and he talked to the boy and I was a guy who couldn't show up for my dad the night he was dying I was all alone and now I don't know if my kids are going to make it or not but I know what the demonstration I've been part of already just in that moment so what I did was I did what you've done with me I didn't try to crush him I didn'y have a sponsor who ever tried to crush me never tried to deflate me I never tried to engineer that deflation that without, I would die. He was an interested observer, a loving observer, and didn't protect me from it, but didn't try to do it. And I did the same thing with my kid. I said, I'm not going to get ahead of you. What's happening now is you're going to go into therapy now. You're goingto go get therapy. I didn't ask him if he wanted it. I said this is what's happened, and now this is going to happen. He was in a very privileged program in public school that very few kids got into. He started therapy, and a couple of months later he was busted for selling drugs in school. I said, okay, here's the deal. You're a teenager, and I understand you're going to experiment. But now you've been busted for drugs. You've been thrown out of this program. You're now going to Starsky and Hutch high. Now he's at the gangbanger school now because nobody wants him. He's a drug dealer. And I said I'm not going to get ahead of you. I'm just going to stay with you. But here's is the deal, you're working your way into the system. system. So now you're on zero tolerance. There's no experimentation. You're going to go to an outpatient, and you're going to have random drug testing. And if it tests dirty, you're gonna go away. Because that's what's happening. That's the reality of what's happening. So he goes to, and he never tested dirty. And the drug program, it was a joke. It was like half of these drug programs. They're ridiculous. Not all of them but a lot of them are just crap you know and he's going to this thing and he saying and he's got random drug testing if he if it gets dirty he's done I'm gonna send him to a 30-day program but I'm not getting ahead of him I'm just staying with him and and and mirroring the reality of what's going on so um I pick him up at this thing any goes dad this sucks I said I completely agree because he's told me what they're doing i said i think it's a complete crock of crap and i looked at him and i said look where we are and he said yeah didn't blame me he knew it wasn't something i had done it's just where we were talk about overcoming a fear of confrontation and just telling the truth and being together and he succeeded and he got through it and he's not he's no he's allergic he had an overdose after that but at the end of the day he's not allergic. In two weeks, I will go to Ithaca, New York, and I will watch him graduate from Cornell University Graduate School for Public Policy. And he engineered that all by himself. I didn't have anything to do with it. It didn't cost me a penny. I didn' t have to go into debt because of it, you know? But I easily could have gone into debt, you know, buying him socks, really expensive socks that I was positive he needed that were run by nuclear reactors. I had written the resentments against him for having this mistake. I wrote the resentements against the school for throwing him out. I wrote a letter and I wrote the resentions against the people that he was hanging out with that I blamed for his behavior. I wrote the resentings against myself for being a bad father, fancied or real it has the power to actually kill and I thought I had really screwed up. I told this story at lunch which is one of the beautiful perception things. I was with some Al-Anon friends and one of them said my son is missing and the other Al-Anon friend said, oh no he knows where he is. He knows exactly where he ist. You just don't know where he iss. So he's not missing, he knows where he hiss but you just don' t know where hiss. And that' s a better thing to know. That's a better think to know rather than he's been enslaved on an island in China or something like that. He's just wandering around downtown. So at the end of the day I never got ahead of him I never got behind them. I just stayed with them, and I loved them. And that's what you guys have always done for me. You've stayed with me, and you've loved me. And it's been, for me, propelled by 10 and 11. The golden chalice is 12, which we'll be spending. I'm going to spend a little time on 12 and on the traditions to end off our session. And again, I just want to thank you guys so much for the generosity of heart and your attention. You guys are just such a pleasure to be with. So thanks so much. We'll take a little break, and we'll finish it off. My name is Scott Rithman. I'm an alcoholic. Would you all join me in the serenity prayer of God? Grant me the sereny to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things that I can't. What typically happens to me in a lot of times is that I don't know what to do. In the last session, one of these things, I get a little frantic trying to make sure I say everything. So I'm going to commit to you that I'm not going to do that. So when it ends, it might really fizzle. I'm just not going to try to come up with a big wow. You know, I'm not going to take my clothes off like I did at the airport. That's right. That was the introduction. The king of Babylon, conqueror of the world. And he was the conqueror of the word. He knew it. His name was Nebuchadnezzar. Owning everything, fearing everything, understanding nothing, he went mad and died. The king of Babylon, conqueror of the world as he knew it, Nebuchadnezzar. Owning Everything, Fearing Everything, Understanding Nothing, Went Mad and Died. I don't want to live that way. Bill Wilson could have owned Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, he really could have. But one of my favorite stories, humility stories about Bill was some of you might have seen some years ago. I thought it was just a terrific film called My Name is Bill W. I really liked the film. I thought they did a really good job and it really could have sucked, you know, and I thought It was really well handled and well made. And the writer, interesting guy, became very close or certainly spent a lot of time with Lois Wilson while he was writing it. Lois was alive for some time after the release of the film But in his research, he found out that Bill was offered, the story that is in history, he was offered the cover of Time magazine. That's kind of man of the year or something like that. And he turned it down. And the writer commented to Lois, wow, what an incredible thing to turn it down, and Lois said, oh, you think it's incredible, do you? And the guy said, yeah. He said, well, let me ask you a question. How many people have been on the cover of Time Magazine? The guy said well, thousands. She said, yeah. And how many people have turned down the cover? One. And he told the story as often as he possibly could. I really love that a lot. People talk sometimes about Bill's sort of mythical five-year depression. One of the things that's really interesting about that, which is discussed by Ernest Kurtz in Not God, is that Bill's depression, deep, deep depression, started right after he finished off a press junket for Alcoholics Anonymous where his name appeared and his face appeared in newspapers. It was about the time that a catcher for the Cleveland Indians and a woman named Marty Mann were out in public breaking their anonymity. We had no traditions at that time, and we didn't understand that anonymity was actually going to be the spiritual foundation of all these principles. I believe that when someone engages in crosstalk at an AA meeting and uses their privilege to share as a way to directly talk to me, that they're violating my anonymity. I should have the expectation of sharing happy, joyous, and free at a meeting and not be signaled out, addressed, and having a one-sided conversation with me. I believe that's a violation of my anonymacy. And it's not a big deal. It's just the source of all the spiritual principles, my anonymality. I believethat when I have a certain familiarity and I love fellowship And I also feel that when there's a lot of familiarity in a group, sometimes we exclude the newcomer. I believe that when some people get up to take a 30-day chip and the whole room goes nuts and then somebody gets to take the 30- day chip and nobody says anything, by not giving the person we're excited about anonymity, we're injuring the person who we're not excited about. Now, again, I don't think we need to be nitpicky about this, but it's an interesting thing for me to look at. This went so far. I have a bad habit of starting groups and then leaving them. What's happened is I was on the phone with my sponsor, my present sponsor who doesn't really want me to call him my sponsor but tough crap. And he just as a rule doesn't sponsor guys who he doesn't attend meetings with but I use him as a sponsor. And when I first started working with him a couple years ago, there was this area in my life that I was getting no movement in at all. And he said to me, okay, this is what I want you to do. I want your to throw yourself to the ground and scream for God's help. I said, what? He said, I don't want you do it so godly, but I want to do it that you'll hear yourself screaming. And I started doing it, and it was great. That's what I needed at that time. And then I had this other thing that was hurting me, and he's an old Marine, he's a Marine pilot. And I had these things that just wasn't moving for me. He said okay, here's what we're going to do, I want you to go into God's ready room, okay? It's like going in with the pilots before a mission. You're going to God's already room and you're gonna be sitting there with the rest of the pilots and then God's gonna come in with his little clipboard and he's gonna say, okay, I need some guys for pain. Who's in for pain? And I want your arm to shoot up and say, I'm in. Count me in. I'm In For Pain. So I start doing this meditation that I'm God's Ready Room And what I started in my prayers, I started saying, I'm available for pain. I am, Brent, what's that phrase? Do you remember the phrase? I'm volunteering for the pain of change. Thank you. And I started ending my meditation saying, I volunteer for the paint of change two years later, I'll talk to them. I said, you know that God's Ready Room thing? He said, what? I said the God's ready room thing, the volunteering for the pain of change. And that's what he said. He said I'm in. I volunteer for the Pain of Change. That's what we did. He said what the hell are you talking about? I said you don't even remember this. I've made it a religion, right? I franchised it. I've got churches called God's Ready Room, you know, I'm selling leather jackets and clipboards. You don't know what the Hell I'm talking about, right? It's just something he just well that works for the guy. Never repeated it, didn't remember it. The man, the only thing he's retaining is water, you know, he doesn't And I make a religion of this stuff It's like what the Buddha said, stop He says, the Buddha said be like a goldsmith Take my words, cut them, melt them polish them, distill them rub them see how good they are, real they are see how they come out of your mouth see howthey fit into your brain What a gorgeous thing. A lot of people, and this used to happen with my sponsor, they wanted him to run for head drunk. It's great having a head drunk, takes the heat off me. Well, the head drunk said it. You know, I went to God's ready room, didn't work for me anymore. You know that nutty God's Ready Room thing. Bill Wilson could have owned Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, and he would have probably, I guess, smothered it in the crib, right? And one of my favorite things in any of our writing is in, if you haven't read A.A. Comes of Age, it's a pretty dry read, but it's very rewarding. It's not the easiest book in the world for a lot of us to get through, but its gorgeous. And in it he talks about this scene where he's seeing the first international, it's 1950. He has, the traditions are being ratified and Alcoholics Anonymous is being taken from the hands, lovingly taken from the hands of the framers and it's being moved into the Alcoholic Foundation which became the General Service Office of Alcoholics Anonymous and he writes as I spoke again I felt the tug of that desire to set back the clock and for a moment I dreaded the coming change as much as anyone but this mood quickly passed and I knew that all worrying concerned as a parent was now at an end the consciousness of Alcoholics Anonymous as moved by the guidance of God could be depended upon to ensure AA's future and here's the beauty part clearly my job henceforward was to let go and let God, AlcoholicsAnonymous was at last safe even from me to have my children safe even from me for him to say that AlcoholicsAnalymous is safe even from me is one of the great birthing statements I've ever heard. It's extraordinary, you know? And it must have been fun just to continue to be Bill Wilson for a while. That must have had been a lot of fun. I believe that I was starved of the traditions when I was new in Alcoholics Anonymous. I was part of an AA culture. I was part of one of the oldest groups in AA in Los Angeles, and they had not made a contribution to central office either in L.A., California, or in New York in 25 years. They were suffering from what I refer to as club-itis. And what I mean by that is they had become a club that were more concerned with the continuation of the bureaucracy of their club than being connected to AA. And I believe that that's pretty, that's unfortunate. First of all, it limits the possibility of your newcomer to find out how you're part of the deal, how you are part of a big laughing love of Alcoholics Anonymous, you know? And it doesn't allow them to see our beautiful corporate pyramid, unlike any corporate pyramid ever. If you look at it, the top rung is rank-and-file member of AA And the lowliest member is the Board of Trustees. That's the lowest functioning member of Alcoholics Anonymous, you know. And people don't understand how we work. The sociologists have been studying us for years. They can't figure it out. The original board, which didn't have any alcoholics on it at all except for Bill, used to say you've got to make more rules, and Bill would say the thing that we know is true. They don't need rules. They have alcoholism. Believe me, the alcoholism will work just fine. And it is enough of an ass-scalder to really, really make sure that they have no choice. They have no choose. Isn't that the truth? And because the traditions were not part of the AA culture I was brought up in and because I didn't take the initiative to go and learn about them, I was starved of them and I got sick in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I didn�t understand anonymity. I thought it was okay to call out and make comments while people were sharing. That's a violation of anonymity, I believe. People should have an expectation of anonymety when they come in here. The group comes before the individual. I thought that you should have the right to share anything on the podium of AA. No, I don't think that's true. I'm not going to tell you what you can share or not share, but I am going to engender and encourage and be involved in AA culture that doesn't welcome that, It doesn't welcome that. I have been part of groups where the patients have become part of, you know, running the institution, and it's not fun. It's not funny. It's dangerous, and it'S scary for people. And I don't think people should be in danger or scared when they come down and call Ex-Anonymous meetings. I think that's a big mistake. And I've included a traditions checklist. If you're not involved in the traditions, and I think That the vast majority of you are, take a look at it. It's just fascinating, and I give that to you. It's available on the web, but I just want to present it to everybody and give it to you because it's a wonderful document, and it's kind of a checklist on each tradition. And it says stuff, you know, that annoyed the crap out of me when I first saw it because, you Know, it says things like, Do you sit in the same seat when you go to your meeting with the same people? Yeah, so it's my seat. and what they talk about is closing off and becoming myopic about your participation in Alcoholics Anonymous and it's a fascinating, fascinating checklist in the packet also on the second page there's 1, 2, 3, 7 and 11 I just wanted to share with you the way I start my morning if it's something that will be helpful to you on a prayer level it's just something I wanted to offer the group I'm powerless, my life is unmanageable I know that you will restore me to sanity I turn my will and my life over to you then I take step 3, then I takes step 7 and then I say I made this list of things that I think are kind of enumerated in step 11 Father I forgot it anytime I try to say it out loud in front of a group I can never hold on to it but if I start I'll be good please direct my thinking today show me all through the day what my next step is to be give me whatever I might need to overcome such difficulties please keep my thoughts especially divorced from selfish dishonest and self-seeking motives please keep me from self-will and self pity hold me close to you reveal your work to me and give me the power to carry it out hold me closer to you and keep me sober just for today so that I might better do thy will thy will be done not mine and I've got to keep this from becoming a hastily mumbled set of prayers that I start in the morning while I'm doing something else. And the only way for me to do that is to not continue to examine that language to find something new, although that might happen. It's to take a moment afterwards and say, Pop, what do you got? What do you get? What's going on? Let me tell you, my boss has been yelling at me, and I want to be free of the defects of character, of fear, and people-pleasing and fear of financial insecurity, what can I do this morning? And I listen for the voice. And sometimes the voice is go in, make him coffee, and launder his socks, you know. And some days it says, stay the hell away from this guy. He's very troubled. I had this boss who actually hauled off and punched an employee in front of the head of H&R and didn't get fired. That's how sick this organization was. and he finally yelled at me and I had done my work I had run my morning meditation and I walked into his office and I put my hand on his shoulder and I said the yelling thing is not going to work for me at all and he said what I said the yelling things it's just not something I'll be able to participate in and I walked out of his office as he had been struck by a stone and he never yelled at me again. I don't think he knew what the, I thought he, I think he thought this guy's like crazy and he's going to bite my face, you know. My boss today is a very troubled guy and I've done a lot of work on that, done some work on it. So I'm out at an appointment with him last week and we're talking to this lawyer. The lawyer closes himself off to me physically, doesn't engage me in the conversation. So, I see what's going on. I go, well, I'll Just wait. I'll be fine, you know? And my boss, he says, tell him, Scott. And I went, no, no. I don't want to. My boss goes, what? He said, no I don' t want to talk to him. I don''t want to talked to him and my boss kind of went on and then slowly but surely the guy kind of opened up to me and then sort of solicited me and asked me and I went oh okay. And I talked to them. I'm not going to dance anymore. I'm a trained seal. I don't owe these guys anything. I'm going to show up and I'm going to give them a dime for their nickel, and I want to be a good employee. And I don' t have to bow under that kind of consideration. I really am pleased with what I know. I'm a really good professional. I'm very good at what I do. And I'm not going to talk to people who are not interested in what I have to say. And it comes from the model for me at the end of the day is step 12. It's sponsorship. I'm not going to try to sponsor someone who doesn't want to be sponsored. And I know that part of the big secret of my success as a student in AA is I'm willing to be sponsored. I allow myself to be sponsoring. You don't have to do that. I know the guys I sponsor who vigorously, what's the word I'm looking for, aggressively seek sponsorship, ask questions, want to know what's going on, what do you got? I always bring my new spiritual tools to them because I know that they're hungry for them. I have certain guys who don't want, you know what? Glad you're doing Pem and Children. Glad you do an Anthony DeMello. Leave me alone. And you know it eventually I do leave him alone. And not out of anger. I'm just I'm doing my thing, you know, so it's a it's it's really interesting part of my experience with the traditions now is I want to know how to utilize the traditions with newcomers. I never did that before, I never did it before. Now I'm focusing on the traditions on how to implement them in my personal life, treating my family and my friends and children as a group and applying it to them as a Group. I'll give you an example. It says in the third tradition, I'll be two examples, that the only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking let's say I apply this to my marriage as a group so the only requirement to be a part of my marriage is a desire to be married well the times when my wife is a moron who should die in a flaming car crash I'm not willing to be I don't want to be Mary I need an upgrade to wife 5.0 we we need the soul you know so I've lost the right to share If I'm not a member of AA, I don't have a right to share at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. If I don'T even have the desire to be sober, I'M NOT going to be asked to be a speaker. I'VE LOST THE RIGHT TO SHARE. And believe me, when I'M in that state, there'S A LOT OF SHARING I WANT TO DO. But I DON'T EVEN HAVE THE DESIRE TO BE PART OF IT. SO I'VE GOT TO WAIT TILL I WANTS TO BE MARRIED AGAIN IN ORDER TO SHare IN THAT SITUATION. WHAT A GREAT GIFT THAT IS. SEVENTH TRADITION. I have to be self-supporting through my own contribution. So if I need you to do certain things in order for me to be happy, I'm not self-upporting from my own contributions. If I need your help, I need to be able to do X, Y, and Z. And if you don't... My son Jesse, when he was, I think, four, tipped back in his chair. I asked him to stop. He wouldn't stop. I asked Him day after day. He continued to tip back in His chair. I asked HIM. Then I screamed at HIM. Then I punished HIM. now I'm reduced to screaming at a four-year-old, you think I'm a moron, you think I'm an idiot, you thinks I'm crap, because you won't listen to me. After getting some direction and discussing it with some people, I got some books. There's a wonderful, wonderful early childhood development. There's Magda Gerber, who I hold in very high regard. She's a proponent of the Rye method of child development. And there's a wonderful doctor, who some of you might know, named Barry T. Brazelton, who just has written extraordinary stuff about toddlers. And he has a list in one of his books of age-appropriate behavior. So I look up four-year-olds, and the third thing on the list says, we'll tip back in chair despite all pleas to the contrary. So now I'm an idiot. But I was not working the seventh tradition in my relationship with my son. my peace of mind and my well-being was contingent on him doing A, B, C, and D. So what a great way. And I want to tell you there is a way for me to personally apply every single tradition in my relationships as a group, you know, in a wonderful way. And I used to think that, you know. I don't want to bother the newcomer with traditions. It's, you now, too complicated and it's important for them to get on the steps. And I wanted to tell ya, I think it's a gigantic mistake. I don't make that mistake anymore, and I'll tell you why. Most of the complaints for most of the newcomers that I know are complaints about AA. Why does he get to do that? Why do they get to doing that? What the hell is that group about? How come that yo-yo gets to tell me that crap, you know? And it's just absolutely fabulous. I can go in and say, well, actually, that's against the traditions. What they're doing is against the tradition. Well, how come they're allowed to do it? Well, we don't, you know, they're traditions. They're not laws. But what a wonderful thing to know that their impulse is right or their impulse isn't really wrong. But the traditions for me, one of the things that is just so gorgeous about them and about the steps and about examining resentments, fears, and sexual misconduct is it gets it off me. I stop being the arbiter. I stop being the ruler. What a disservice I'm doing to that newcomer if I make it about me, then they can blame me. And it's bigger than that. It's bigger Than Me. I love Al-Anon and Al-Anon has been a great help to me. One of the ways it's been a Great Help To Me is as a sponsor because I sponsor men who come from alcoholic families. And I will tell you this. It is my experience that many people, not all, but some people who come from alcoholic families have a little something extra on the table, a little some extra. Is it an excuse? No. Is it in explanation? Yes. Is it something good to be mindful of? It really is. And if I take a look at what happens to friends and family, you know, when you grow up in a house where if you're just smart enough, just pretty enough, just good enough, the sleeper will awake, where you grow up with the notion that they're going to trick me. It's going to happen. Believe me, it's going to disappear. It doesn't matter what they say. It doesn't mater what they said. I'm going to get tricked. When you live a life convinced that your problems are outside of yourself, when you live in a world where your problems or outside of you, man, you've got to be braced all the time. And it's impossible to resolve things that are arbitrary and outside of you all the time. You don't have any control. There's no sense of well-being. And how many times can a baby bear getting in between the drunk and the drink and vanishing before they believe that they don't exist? And they're either pointlessly aggressive en route to a goal that never gets achieved or they just throw in the towel and say, what the hell is the use anyway? Why is this good information? Because it's real. So what do you do with a guy who's grown up in an alcoholic home who is angry and injured and hurt to be mindful of it? Some of the guys I've sponsored who grew up in alcoholic homes, it's very hard for them to sponsor because they're sure that they're being lied to and they're going to get tricked. So we discuss this, we do the inventory about it, and then they've been able to sponsor. Ninety percent of them have been ableto turn the corner. And it's been the product and part of mindfulness, of mindful examination, you know, of the inventory process, of putting it on the table. Nothing can bear the light. I believe that the chapter to wives is just a terrible piece of writing and an awful document. It was not written by a member of friends or family of alcoholics. It was written by, by a drunk. If you read it, it's alarming. It tells you to do things you would never suggest to an alcoholic. It says, you know, if he injures you or if it's trouble, just be patient. It's just crazy. And I don't know about you. I have personally never used it. I've never guided a member of Allen on to it. The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous is not conference-approved literature in Al-Anon, and I'm glad it's not because if no other reason, it contains the chapter to wives. Now, the chapter of the wives has some great information for alcoholics, I believe. And I'm not saying that it's never helped anybody. I'm sure it has. I think it's a bad idea personally, although, again, I judge no man because, as I've told you already a number of times, and I expect you to believe it by this time, I'm too spiritually developed. Also, you know what's really an interesting thing, which I think is unfortunate and a mistake? The long form of the traditions is actually non-conference approved. It was never adopted by GSO, by the conference, only the short form, which is really unfortunate because the law – isn't that weird? I was shocked when I found that out. It was never formally adopted, just the short form, which I think is really too bad because the long form, I mean some of the long forms don't even look like the short form. And the long from of the second tradition is actually two words shorter than the short from. But anyway, I need to get a hobby or something. So if you're doing 12-step work and you're dealing with people who have friends and family who have been affected by alcoholism, I would urge you to find out about Al-Anon, if for no other reason than to help you with your 12-stepper. If you are sending them to the chapter to their wives, okay, that's fine. I'm suggesting that you get a few more tools in your kit bag. So I put together a little checklist of questions you might ask yourself about this portion of your 12-step work. Here's some questions for you. Do you know anyone who has been affected by the alcoholism of a friend or member of their family? Second question, do you try to help alcoholics who have affected other people? Do you Know members of Al-Anon? Do you talk with them about Al-Alanon? do you ask questions about Al-Anon? Have you ever been affected by someone else's alcoholism? Have you never been to an Al-Alan meeting? Have you heard an Al Anon speaker? Do you know what the 12 steps of Al-anon are? Have you read any Al-a-nan literature? Do you now what conference Al-ana approved literature is? Do you have a way to help families of alcoholics you are involved with? I think that these are so, so helpful. And if you are dealing, if you are trying to help alcoholics who have affected the lives of other people who are living with non-alcoholic people who have been affected by alcoholism, what a great thing to have some tools in your kit that you can guide them to, even if it's to a website. Here's some Al-Anon conference approved literature. Blueprint for Progress, The Alcoholic Marriage, Courage to Change, The ODAT for Al-Anon, which is the one day at a time for Al Anon. And Lois Speaks. All of these are wonderful, wonderful books, conference-approved Al-Alanon literature. I'm not telling you to join Al-Alanon. I'm that telling you be a member of Al-Allanon and get an Al-Lanon home group. All I'm suggesting that you do for your 12-step work is to arm yourself so that you have some helpful suggestions to make to newcomers whose families are suffering. Not so that they can use it as a weapon or beat them over the head or anything, just so that they will have these tools. They have this literature. I just did an Al-Anon 12-step in Turkey. This woman in Turkey, a friend called me and they're suffering and you get the literature in Turkish and you go to the website and see the Al-Alanon meetings in Ankara. It's unbelievable. We did the same thing with a Japanese friend. We made one phone call to Al-Alanon Central Office And this woman had Japanese Al-Anon literature like that. I mean, it's just absolutely extraordinary. Some of my favorite Al-Anon speakers are Beverly B., Beverly R., Karen A., Winnie E., Ajit. These are just some of my favorites. There are fantastic Al- Anon speakers. I want to tell a tale on Winnie Y, which I love. It's not on any of her CDs, but I love this story. winnie e has i think the single best third step story ever told by anybody about turning it over really is it involves laundry if you ever get a chance it's she's just fantastic one of the things she says is she didn't want her husband to stop drinking she just wanted them to mind which i i love winnie went to visit one of her nutty kids with another one of our nutty kids. He lived in Germany. So she went over there. Germany apparently is not the heartbeat of Al-Anon. There are not a lot of Al Anon meetings in Germany, apparently. They're a little behind in Al-Anon. And her kids were driving her crazy. She was getting nuts and she needed a meeting because all she's hearing is her. And she finally finds an Al- Anon meeting at an American Army base. She travels five hours like on public transportation to finally get there. You know, when you're radioactive, your brain's just blowing up and you've got to get out of self. And she's going, oh, my God. She gets to the base. She walks in, and just as the meeting's starting, and the secretary says, you know, we have our monthly speaker meeting, and he turns on a tape recorder to play a speaker tape, and it's a tape of her. And she goes, oh no, not me, not me. That's all I'm hearing is me. So she said to herself, OK, maybe I said something that'll help me. And so she started listening. And this is the beautiful part. This is the traditions part. Her demonstration at the end to get out of self was she decided to not tell anybody there that it was her, you know. It was like Bill being at that meeting where no one knew who the hell he was and working with that new guy, you know. I just love that. I love it a lot. So I wanted to share that about Al-Anon. I wantedto share thatabout the traditions. step 12 there's only one difference in the 12 steps of Al-Anon and the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous in the original writing of the 12 Steps in the Original Manuscript of the Big Book of AA the 12th Step reads having had a spiritual experience as a result of these steps we tried to carry this message to others especially alcoholics and that was changed thank goodness And now our 12 steps says we try to carry this message to other alcoholics. And in Al-Anon it says we tried to make, try this message so others see only difference. It's that word. Every other step is exactly the same. It's about suffering from alcoholism and encountering a power greater than yourself that can bring about a personality change that can make you connected to people again. And part of the big laughing love that's here. Again, for me without the 10th step, There is no 12-step. My personal experience is that this good sponsorship, getting a sponsor who refused to play God with me and was willing to walk through all of the things that I've described today in terms of working the steps and his sharing with me his experience, strength, and hope with the steps, I got from this man who refused to play god with me and just kept walking closer to the light. There is no greater assurance against drink than intensive work with other alcoholics. Remember that they are very sick. I, you know, my experience with new guys is that they act like themselves, you know, and one of the things that's happened to me on a personal level in sponsorship and has mirrored itself on the group level and in my house is entrenched power in Alcoholics Anonymous and entrenched power in my home group is a very dangerous and odious thing. I don't want to have to quit AA to join my homegroup. I know it becomes a very, very small world. And I can honestly say that the same thing can start happening in my house. When my son Micah was five, before I got sober, my father-in-law who's a tease and a difficult Micah was blowing out the candles on his birthday cake, and he said to Micah, do you know the tradition of smacking someone once for every year they've been alive on their birthday? And without pausing, my son turned to him and said, do you Know the Tradition of Killing Your Grandfather? When my older son was 12, he made a mistake. My father was a right-wing Republican, and there's nothing wrong with that. There's something wrong with trying to beat up a kid with it. That's not good. And Micah made a mistake. He got into a political conversation with my father-in-law. Micah comes from – I met my wife. I got her on the rebound from a Marxist commune. And then my son went down to Chiapas with the Zapatistas. So I'm from like a hotbed of pathology. These people are nuts. They shouldn't even be allowed to talk to each other, really. They're just crazy because they go do it. They don't just, you know, you have a talk, you leave the room to go to the bathroom, you come back, they're gone. You know, they'RE off doing it. And he's working in the labor movement now. I mean, it's just, it'S who he is. But he got into a conversation with my father-in-law and he's too smart and he humiliated my father in law, not aggressively, but my father said a lot of stuff and Micah had the information, and my father-in-law was wrong. And then he did what a lot of bullies do. He lied. He lied because he couldn't bear it. And he looked at my son, and he said a thing that was indefensible. He said to my son,"You know what? I used to think what you think, but I don't anymore, and you won't either." And I saw the air go out on my kid. He just put a pin in him. And he lied to him, and they bullied him because he doesn't know that that's true. And I waited until he left because I try to be as kind as I can to him, and I took my sons inside, and I looked at them, and I said, boys, I'm just going to tell you, your grandfather just lied to you. He lied to ya. Cuz I not only feel the same way that I did when I was your age, but I feel it more now. And because of my thing in AA, I actually do a lot of stuff because of it. I give money to the organizations I support, and I do that stuff. And that was a direct gift and a direct result of being sponsored in Alcoholics Anonymous. That was the big loving truth after the scalpel, you know, that scalpel. This was the anesthetic of love. I used to sponsor a guy called Mike, and Mike was a great guy. And he was one of those guys who came to our group, and he just was one OF those guys whose just – he was sleeping on his crack dealer's floor. He looked like he had been fired from a cannon, you know. I once sponsored this punk rocker who was wearing a coat. He came to my house. I was going to go give a talk. He was wearing an coat that said blank you on the back. That's what the coat said. And he looked like, you Know, he just looked devastated. And I came, my wife was in the living room, and I came down with a coat and tie to go talk, and he looked at my coat and die and went, You know, that tie isn't right with that shirt at all. we really are remarkable. The guy's wearing like an adult diaper, you know, and he's giving me... Adult diapers could have kept me out there a couple of years. I'm glad they didn't really come up with those. So this guy Mike came to the group. We got very excited about him. He was a really sweet guy. And he was sober about two years. I used to pick him up for the home group every week and drive him over there, and I'd pick him off one week. And he said, you know, a couple months ago I met this girl and she's pregnant. We want to get married and have the baby. What do you think? And this guy is not a sexual predator. I had no resentments against him. I had nothing blocking him. And you know what? I don't know what the right thing is. I know that I could have thrown a lot of stuff I've heard at him, but I took a breath and I said, I don'T know, what do you want to do? If you don't want to have the Baby, I'll support you. And if you want to have the baby and want me to be your best man at your wedding, what do you want to do? And he said, and they had the baby. And I was the best man in his wedding. And the group, you know, we were that kind of group. We had a big shower for them. It's just so great, you know. And the group was excited about the baby, and the baby got born, and the baby was at death's door. She was very, very sick. and she got rushed to this special hospital in L.A., and they just saved her in the nick of time and put her on some awful, intrusive, invasive machine called an ECMO machine. And it actually surgically attaches the kid's blood because the lungs aren't putting oxygen in the blood. I mean, I'm not going to go into much more detail. I'm just telling you, it was awful. And if you've ever been involved with a sick baby, when a baby this tiny gets disrupted, it's just awful. And in neonatal intensive care, the only people that come in are the family. So her family showed up, six-foot-six Ethiopian men, small Asian women. And, you know, and after a while the nurses at the station would say, don't pause to lie, just go in. You know, people are just showing up of every shape and size. I'm a cousin. I'm an uncle. I'm their mother. No, I'm there mother. You know? And then the call goes out for blood. And, most of us can't even give blood because we're either ex-hypes or we've got fresh ink. But we just go to get pissed off that they won't take our blood. So two weeks after the baby's home, they called Mike and they said, They're still coming with blood, man. They're like dropping it off in jars. You should just tell them that it's okay. And there was a little baby in the next bassinet to her named Rachel Wang. And I hope I never forget Rachel because Rachel died. and uh and cassidy didn't his daughter didn't die and i want to tell you i don't have a god who decides which baby he does who doesn't i have a God who's pure love i don' t have a God who is a baby killer and it's for a reason that I'll find out maybe sometime that to me is just a crazy idea my God loves Cassie and loves Rachel and Rachel was sicker and moved on and her family came in and their priest and they had community and Cassidy's AA family and Al-Anon family came and she had community and here's the deal I might have been able to stop that entire thing if I told this guy what to do did that marriage make it no it didn't wow a marriage that didn't make it there's a shock They've done an incredible job raising this kid. The family is a very loving family. They've been very successful raising this girl who's like 12 years old now, big, robust, gorgeous kid. The thing is in sponsorship, in terms of the 12-step, if I had decided that there were certain rules that had to be adhered to, this is a demonstration that hundreds of people were involved in where people still talk about she's got my blood in her. who the hell could I suppose that I would be to do that? What a crazy, limited idea that I wouldn't have. Now, I understand people get scared. We get scared, we want something to rope us in, we want someone to make sure they're keeping a lid on it. Keep a lid, keep a lid. Keep a lit on it, help me out, kick my ass, pull my covers. It's just a bad job. I mean, if you enjoy it, that's fine. You should live and be well. I ain't signing up. It's not something I want to be involved in. I want to stop suffering and I like to not be afraid to die. Part of Step 11 that has helped me walk that path has been this invitation. I'm just going to mention a few of my spiritual teachers. I've mentioned a fewof them already but Eckhart Tolle has been a big help to me and one of the things in The Power of Now that he talks about in his last section of it is about dying. And he talks about turning toward the portal instead of away from it, of being so afraid of fear that you're willing to make a transition. And one of my sweet sponsees, another guy who I got to show up for, we did that together. We did that portion of his teaching together. We talked about being vigilant about turning towards the light instead of turning away from it. When I held him and said goodbye to him, he had a spiritual ease and a determination to present to the light whatever that meant. And I want to tell you my experience of him was that he was not scared. My experience of Him was that He was willing to surrender to the mystery of step two, to expose himself to the truth despite the consequences, to turn towards the light instead of turn away from it, and to present himself to the possibility of change. That's a far cry from my idea about this. So I don't know what's in the offing. I don' t know what' s in store. I'm interested. I'm curious. I'm getting curiouser. One time when we were in New York when my son Jesse was a little boy, He said, Dad, New York makes me so curious. That's such a great thing. So my dear, dear friends, I want to thank you so much. I'm not going to ask you to say the Lord's Prayer because some of you might not be able to say it because you have not forgiven. And I don't want to put that pressure on you at the end of the workshop. So I wantto thank you. I'm really quite serious when I say this. Sometimes I do this and it's not particularly pleasant. sometimes I do it and it's a great comfort I feel very delighted and comforted and a generosity of heart that I have felt so powerfully so if we'll just why don't we rise and join hands and let's say the serenity prayer together and then we're going to have some announcements