Sponsorship as a Divine Distraction from Your Own Mind – Steve L.

Steve Lamb, alcoholic. It's good to be here. It's great to be sober. If you're new, welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous. My sobriety date is July 27th, 1996, so I've got 22 years and some change. I've been consecutively sober since that time, and that wasn't by plan or by design. It's just my story. It's what happened to me. If you're new, you're here to have your experience, not mine, not your sponsees, not your sponsors, not the guy or woman next to you, but your experience. And I got my experience through the steps, but that's not how I started out. And I want to thank Colleen and Stephanie for inviting me out here, and it was great. I had dinner with Stephanie and Kai and Stevie, and that was wonderful. I've been here a number of times, and it's always good to be here. It's an honor and a privilege to share in Alcoholics Anonymous. I really enjoy coming here, but frankly, I'm at a stage where I'm glad to be anywhere. And part of that is because I turned 60 this year, but part of it also is a little over three years ago, on May 22nd of 2016, I got shot. And I've been shot before. I was in the Army for 13 1⁄2 years. I got shoot, but it was kind of a lower leg wound. It was a through-and-through. My team sergeant called it a minor flesh wound. He was not impressed with it at all, but this time I got shot. It was pretty significant. I got shoot in the chest, and what happened was I was up in Badger, California, which is right outside of Sequoia National Park. It's a beautiful area. I was at the Seven Circles Retreat Center. We'd had breakfast that morning. It was Saturday morning. I'd gone back to my cabin. I was sitting on my bed. I was minding my own business. I wasn't bothering anybody. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. And the gentleman upstairs from me decided it would be a good time to clear his Glock 9mm. Which is generally not a problem, but he missed a rather critical step. And instead of dislodging around, he jacked around, he pulled the... It ain't that funny, sir. I mean, you had to be there. And he shot the bed that he was on, which was the ceiling above me. He went through the floor and it entered right above my heart and my chest and it buried lodged itself in my sternum. It's still there. It'll get your attention, I'll tell you. And, you know, in Alcoholics Anonymous, we read the serenity prayer before we started. We're looking to be serene and spiritual and all that stuff. But I've got to tell you, when you've been shot, that wasn't my first thought. You know? The first word out of my mouth, I kind of yelped it, was a shortened version of fire truck. I won't repeat it. I had quickly checked to see if there was an exit wound. There wasn't an exit wind. I put my finger in the entry wound, which sounds a little odd, but you're trying to find if you can see where the round is. But the round had embedded in my sternum, so I couldn't see it. But I'm obviously not bleeding out. I wouldn't be here tonight. I went in the bathroom. I got a towel. I stopped the bleeding. And in the meantime, the gentleman from upstairs comes running downstairs. He runs downstairs. He goes, what happened? I'm like, you shot me. That's what happened, right? And he starts freaking out. I mean, absolutely freaking out, and this is, I'm 19 years sober and changed at this time and I immediately start trying to calm him down which is not my general nature. If this would have been 20 years earlier I'd have been 10 different shades of pissed off. I mean, this guy shot me, you know but I'm trying to Calm Him Down and that's Alcoholics Anonymous and I tell him, I said, look, you got to take me down to the hospital. It's in Visalia. It's normally about an hour away. We got there in 35 minutes. At one point in time, I looked over at him and I said, man, just slow it down a little bit. I really don't want to survive this gunshot wound and die in a car wreck, right? So we get down to the Cahuilla Medical Center. I walk in the emergency room, and I got this bloody towel on my chest, and they say, can we help you? And I'm thinking, well, it's pretty obvious, but okay. Yeah, you can. They say, well what's your problem? I said well I've been shot. Now when you tell them you've been shocked, you go right to the head of the line. There's a lot of people in the Emergency Room. There's some broken wings, maybe a broken leg, some stuff. forget it they bring out the gurney they got 12 13 people working on me they take me back they take an x-ray they locate the round and they realize it's buried in my sternum it's not moving the round has come within millimeters of my heart it hasn't hit any arteries hasn't hit my heart looks like i'm gonna live there's a cardiac thoracic surgeon that's attending over me and he says look i don't know how this happened but you know you're you're not gonna die it looks like you're gonna stabilize but he said we did notice when we did an ekg that there is a problem You've got this thing called an atrial flutter, which is like atrial fibrillation. My heart is just spasming, which isn't that surprising because a bullet just came this close to it, right? So I'm sure it wasn't happy with this situation, right. And the doctor says to me, he says, well, you know, it's not necessarily life-threatening, but sometimes it causes a stroke, and if you have a stroke you could die. So you need to, when you go back down where you live, you need check in with a cardiologist. And so I go down to Redondo Beach where I live, and I go to Torrance Medical Center, which is the nearby medical center. And I see Dr. Carlson. Dr. Charlson hooks me up, and he does an EKG. And he says, yep, you've got an atrial flutter. He goes, but look, it's not that uncommon. And, you know, we've got a procedure which is a solution for this. It's called a cardioversion, and it works most of the time. And basically what we're going to do, you're seeing in the movies where they take the paddles and they shock you. well, that's barbaric. We are not going to do that. What we're going to do is we're gonna tape these pads to your chest and then we're going to hit you with a jolt of electricity and that will stop your heart. But we will keep your heart stopped for five to seven seconds. And then we will hit you in another jolt of electricity that will restart your heart and hopefully it'll be in sync. So I'm like doc, I'm not that quick on the uptake here, but that, that sounds like you're going kill me. And Dr. Carlson says, no, no we don't like to look at it that way. It's a controlled procedure. I've done it hundreds of times. I never lost anybody. I'll be there. I'm the attending physician. You're going to be in the hospital. It's an controlled environment and by the way before the procedure happens there's going to been anesthesiologist and he's going to come in and he is going to give you something to make you comfortable before the procedures. So I'm an alcoholic. I go from you're going to kill me. I'm going to get comfortable. Now, if you're new, it's not that I haven't been comfortable in Alcoholics Anonymous, but I haven'T been that kind of comfortable in almost 20 years, right? And this is a free pass. I'M sure my sponsor'S okay with it. So I'M like, hey, okay, doc, let'S schedule this thing. Let'S do it. Let's get on this, right? Three weeks later, I show up at the hospital. They put me in the little gown. You know, I got the pads taped to my chest i got an iv in my arm dr carlson's there and the anesthesiologist comes in and he's got the syringe full of comfortable and i am just tracking him all the way across he makes a little small talk he puts the the uh syringe into my iv and the next thing i know dr carlsons leaning over me goes uh how you doing i'm like i'm good i'm gut because well how do you feel? I said, I feel good. I'm ready. Let's do it. He goes, no, no. We already did it. I looked at him and said, no that ain't right doc. You told me I was going to get comfortable. I didn't get comfortable I am now arguing with the doctor about general anesthesia My grand sponsor was a guy named Scott Redman He died a little over 11 years ago. He used to talk about alcoholics are the only people that get excited about general anaesthesia And the reason is because in the old days, it's not like that anymore. You know, now they gave me this stuff called Propofil, which is what they gave Michael Jackson. They just gave me the correct dose. And the problem with this stuff is, like, you're here and then you're there. There's no there. There's still there, right? But in the all days when they would give you general anesthesia, they would tell you to count back from 100. And you'd go 100, 99, 90. And, you know, we're all for 99. You know, that's why we want to be in 99, right? And so we go through this procedure. I had to do the procedure several times. It really didn't take. I wound up having something called a cryoablation where they go up in your groin. They zap part of your heart. They freeze part of you heart. Hopefully that's worked. I'll find out in a couple weeks. But that's not the point of this story. The point of the story is when I got shot, I was on an AA retreat. Just let that settle in for a little bit and think about that. It gets better. I was leading the retreat. I'd given a talk the night before I got shot, and the subject was unity, which I thought was compelling, but apparently one guy wasn't impressed with it at all, right? And the evening that I got shut, I got chatted that morning. Saturday night, I was supposed to give a series of talks on acceptance and forgiveness. Right? Yeah. But that's not the best part. The best part is, the guy that shot me, I sponsor him. I sponsored him then, and I sponsor him now. And I've got to tell you, one of the things that I've learned in Alcoholics Anonymous is I made a lot of mistakes before I got here. I've made a ton of mistakes since I've been here. I've done a lot more mistakes than I've ever done. I've had a lot about acceptance, and acceptance is great, but that will only get you halfway through the door. Forgiveness is the only solution for a real resentment. You know, and we talk a lot about resentments, and if you're new, you'll get through stages 60 through 63, and they'll talk about resentment, and they'll talk about how it's, you know, it can be fatal. And if you're like me, you'll probably think that seems hyperbolic, a little bit overreacting. It's not. These rooms are littered with empty chairs from men and women that went out on resentments and either drank and died or just killed themselves. You know? It's the number one offender. It's a source of all spiritual disease. And that's no joke. That's no joke. but when i got here i uh i got here on a dui by the way which is neither here nor there i used to drive drunk all the time finally got popped for a duj judge sent me to go to six aa meetings in six months which i thought was excessive and i'm the kind of guy that my wife sends me out to get milk and i come back three days later and you know but I come I stop I get the milk I'm like hey baby I got the milk right and what's happened is I've engaged in what I used to refer to as time travel I now realize since I've been in AA that's blacking out okay but I viewed it as time trial because what happens to me is you know I start drinking beer and shoot tequila and I drink beer because beer is like a basic food group and tequila is like an accelerant you know because you can't get there fast enough with just the beer right so you got beer and tequila and uh you know i have every intention of just going to get in the milk and coming back, but I meet Ernie. And Ernie and I start talking. We drink beer, shoot tequila, and it's three days later. It's like magic. It just happens. I don't know what the deal is. And that's how I drink. I have an inability to control and enjoy my drinking. If I don'T drink, I'm not enjoying it. And if I'm drinking, I just can't stop. I start drinking and I just CAN'T stop until it's done with me. That's why I drink." And I get to Alcoholics Anonymous and I stop drinking. And it really surprised me. And I look back on it a lot of times and I think about it and I think, you know, why did I stop? And the only thing I can think of is how I hated AA, by the way, when I first got here. You know, I just didn't like you. I hated AAA. But there's, you were telling my story. I mean, the facts and circumstances were different, but the emotions were the same and the reaction that you had with the substance alcohol was the same as mine. I knew that you knew. so it was something like I didn't like it I didn' t like you but I couldn' t not keep coming back and listening and I got sober on July 27th 1996, I stayed sober since then, I would like to tell you that my journey of recovery started then but that's not my story, what happened to me is I come into AA and there were people that were talking about, really well meaning people, giving me good advice don't drink and go to meetings meetings, meetings, meeting, meeting makers make it, 90 meetings in 90 days Now, there were other people in Alcoholics Anonymous that were talking about the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. They were talking about the program, which is the 12 steps. They were talking about the big book, which is where you find the program which is the 12 steps. They were talking about trying to find a God or a higher power if you prefer the term of your understanding, which is the point of the exercise. And they were talking about sponsorship which is simply a guide through this process. But I am not drinking. You know, I'm not an extra credit guy. I don't want to overreact here, you know. And there are some older women in the meeting that are telling me, you know, sugar, just don't leave before the miracle. I'm like, okay, I'm ready. Give me the miracle, I can do it. I'm not going to do anything because I confused activity and action. I wasn't into action. I had a lot of activity, like a dog on linoleum. A lot of movement but no forward motion, you know, it's just. And so I'm going to these meetings and people are talking about being restored to sanity and I feel like I'm going nuts. I don't understand it. I don' t understand that you remove alcohol from me and everything gets worse. That was my solution for a long time. Now I realize I can' t drink, but this is not working. I'm not getting better. I'm getting worse, and I'm confused. I don''t understand it." I'm hearing a lot of white noise. People are talking and sharing at meetings. I'm here in every second or third word. I'm just a jackass at work. I'm a jack ass at home. I'm coming into meetings, and old-timers are looking at me, they're going lamb just sit in the corner and for god's sakes don't talk to any newcomers because they still have hope you know it was just i was bad i was and it went about 100 days i was stark rave and sober i was out of my mind i'm a trial lawyer by trade i had to go back to pittsburgh to do some depositions to get ready for a trial minneapolis first and pittspurg i'm supposed to be there all week i get done wednesday or thursday i come back to the hotel room it's midday And in my hotel room, I've got an honor bar. An honor bar? I am a newcomer. I have no honor, but they've given me this little mini fridge. And I've Got the Key to it. And it doesn't have everything I want and need in it, but it's a really good start. You know, two by two by one. There's vodka. There's gin. There's bourbon. There was no tequila, which was annoying. But there's beer, domestics, imports, and then a bunch of crap like soda and water, which you push off to the side. But, I mean, if you've ever seen the movie Flight with Denzel Washington, I mean, those honor bars, it's talking to me. It's talking of me. I'm talking to it. You know, I want a drink. I can almost taste it. I'm opening and shutting the honor bar. I'm just, you know, inventorying it just in case, right? And what's happening to me is I'm experiencing what the 12 and 12 calls anxious apartness. It's this feeling of separation that every alcoholic has. It's a false illusion. It's delusion, but I can't see it. One of the things that I love, I love the big book and I love the 12 and 12. But when I was new, my sponsor had me listen to a series of talks by a guy named Chuck Chamberlain. And in 1975, he was at a retreat in Palo Mesa when he passed away in the 80s. One of his sponsees put it in a book. It's called A New Pair of Glasses. It's not conference approved literature. It's just one alcoholic story. But in that book, there's a drawing. And this drawing changed my life because what he does is Chuck draws a circle. and then inside the circle he puts all the people plants and animals in the universe inside the circle of life and then he puts life good god whatever your concept of a higher power is all inside this circle of light and then outside the circle of wife he draws a stick man and that's him and that me and because it's almost 8 30 on a saturday night in scottsdale arizona i'm assuming that's all you i'm not judging i'm just saying okay and what separates us is a thin line that chuck identifies as ego or conscious separation from god in the 11th step we're striving for conscious contact but i've got conscious separation so i'm going out of my mind and i try to distract myself i decide to watch television i'm flipping back and forth between religious television and porno religious television this guy's with me he's yeah you're not well we need to talk after the meeting but i'm just i'm not judging i'm saying brother and but the bad part is i'm getting confused as to who's doing what on what station you know it's just like i'm out of my mind right and for whatever reason i don't drink. You can call it the dumb luck of the alcoholic. Norm Alpe used to refer to it as seconds and inches. I now believe it's the grace of God, but I would not have used that phrase back then. I go downstairs, I get in a car, I go out to the airport, I fly home. I get up the next morning, I've had time to think on the flight, I'm a newcomer, I've got a newcomers plan. I'm thinking it's a really good plan. It's a brilliant plan. And my newcomer plan is this. I got out of the Army in 1993. I joined in 1980. I went through airborne school, ranger school. I went over to Korea for a year. I got recruited for Special Forces. I was a Green Beret for several years. Went over to Beirut in 1983. I got picked up for the funded legal education program. They sent me to law school. I did 13 1⁄2 years in the Army. I promoted early to major. My last assignment was I was in the Pentagon and I was the intelligence oversight advisor to the United States Army should concern you. And when I got out, I had a kit bag, we call it a go-bag. I had some weapons, some demo and 13 passports in it. And I remember when I went out in 1993, I didn't even think of this as stealing. I just thought, you know, this could come in handy one day, right? You know? And today's the day. And I'm not going to go Columbine or anything. I've gotten rid of everything. But I need these passports because my newcomer plan, which I'm thinking is brilliant, is I'm going to take my blue tourist passport it's got my name and my photograph on it that the army gave me uh it's just like everybody else's blue tourist password i'm going to fly to british columbia it's important to leave the country on your name then i'm gonna take these other passports i've got my photograph but different names on them from different countries i'm supposed to start flipping identities i'm to head over to europe for a week or two i'm come back to britis columbian a few weeks steve lam ceases to exist now i got a wife i gota kid but this is really a career move, and they're not involved. So I don't consult with them, right? Because my newcomer plan is when I get back to British Columbia and Steve Lamb no longer exists, I'm going to fly down to Costa Rica because I've got some former Army associates of mine. They're doing some kind of interesting marketing and distribution down there, and that's my newcomer plant, and I'm on it, right, and so I lay all this stuff out, and the 13 passports that I should have turned in in 1993, they're all current. They have not expired, but my blue tourist passport has expired so I am just beside myself I don't know what to do I wind up going to a meeting and I'm at this meeting and i wind up getting assigned a sponsor a guy named Jim Nisbet who died with 15 years sobriety he was my grand sponsor for a while and by the way when he assigned me to Michael I thought he was trying to help me Michael's my sponsor I now looking back on it over time realized that michael was having a hard time i went to jim i said i need sponsor jim took me to michael and said here michael play with this see what happens because the reality is you know sponsorship is a divine distraction not only will it propel you into the steps and give you a better understanding of the work that you've done but at a minimum it will distract you from your own mind. You know, when I was, when I got shot, I sponsored quite a few guys and I'm an attorney so I'm a negotiator I'd gotten the nurse to allow me to have, I mean, I see you up in Cahuilla Medical Center and I've got my phone and my iPad. They even gave me their charger so I wouldn't run out of power. Because I'm a persuasive guy, right? So I'm getting calls. I get a call from a guy that I sponsored. He said, hey, how you doing? I said, well, I've had better days. I said, well, what happened? I said. Well, I got shot. He goes, really? You know. Well, are you going to be okay? I said yeah, they're going to let me go in a couple days. He goes. Oh, okay. Well, let me tell you what she did today. What's the point? The point. He doesn't care how I am. He wants to talk about himself. It's his selfishness and self-centeredness which is initially irritating, annoying. But then when he's talking about him, I'm not thinking about me. It's out of self and into God. So, you know, God, I got this sponsor. And the sponsor tells me, you know, get your big book, get your 12 and 12. Read your big books through the doctor's opinion. Read the 12 and 11, the first chapter, step one. And show up at my house Monday night at 630. We'll go over this stuff. And I read this stuff and I've been to college and been to law school. And I'm reading it and it's kind of archaic language. I'm thinking obviously he needs a little help with this information. I'm here to help him. So I show up and I sit down with him, and he says, okay, open the book. I open the book. He says, start reading. I'm like, no, I read it. He goes, no-no-no. Start reading. Start reading at the beginning. I was like, what is this? Like kindergarten? He goes well, this is what we're going to do. I am going to read a paragraph. You are going to write a paragraph. Then we are going talk about it. I will ask you if you identify. If you don't identify, you agree. You don't agree. We are going go through this process. Oh my God, really? So I start reading in the doctor's opinion. He said, no. No. No, we are go back to the preface and the foreword. He wanted to go back from the very beginning. So we go through this process, and when we got to a prayer, we said the prayer, we got into a step, we worked the step. And it saved my life. And when we went through this process, I was absolutely convinced it wouldn't work. We were talking about this at dinner. And if that's your belief, I've got to tell you something. We don't really care what you think. You know, and I'm not trying to be mean or cruel, but it doesn't matter what you think, it matters what you do. There's people that'll get up to podiums like this and they'll say alcoholics and items are for people that really need it. And then somebody else will come up and say it's for people that really want it, both of which are true. But my experience is it's für people that do it. If you do the work, the work will do you. I had a really bad, crappy attitude when I got here. Now I love Alcoholics Anonymous. And the other thing is, you know, you look at the 12 steps up on the wall and you're thinking, if you're like me, this is ridiculous. What does this have to do with my set of complex social issues, right? And by the way, confession, you now, that's a bad deal. and restitution? Pay the money back? I mean, I'm not stupid. I know it's their money. But I've been hanging on to it for a long time. It really feels like my money. And I don't know how that's supposed to help me get sober. Nobody comes in here, looks at those and goes, Oh, Kai. I've be waiting my whole life for this. Will you take me through this step? That never happens. That never happened. We're beaten into a state of reasonableness. you know we're driven by the lash of alcoholism that's the only way that we do it and if you're sitting there and you're thinking god this really sucks welcome to the price of admission to Alcoholics Anonymous okay and you know that's that state of desperation which feels bad but it's the gateway to grace you won't be able to see that till you're on the other side of it but it really truly is the gateway of grace so we go through this process and I want to talk about We've got a number of new people in here tonight, so I want to talk about some of the steps. Specifically, I wantto talk about the fourth step because in my area, a lot of times you'll hear people, oh, it's really complicated. It takes forever. You know, I do a lotof notebooks. And first of all, whatever your sponsors have and you do, that's what you should do. There's a loto great guidebooks and whatever. I gotta tell you, I'm a lawyer. I'm an arguer. I'ma pain in the butt. And my sponsor looked at me and said, look, we're gonna keep it simple. I just want you to do it the way it is in the book. He took me to page 65. And if you're new, that's where the three columns are. And Michael says to me, do you notice anything about those three columns? I'm like, no, not really. He goes, well, look again. Well, Mr. Brown's a jackass. Somebody needs to tighten him up, you know, because that guy's done some bad stuff, right? And he goes, no-no-no. There's not even complete sentences there. These are like bullet points, you now. I'm prepared for a long talk. I just want you to fill it. You only need a few words for each of these columns. I'm going to ask you to do a fourth column. There isn't a fourth column in the book, but if you look on page 67, it talks about turning back to our list. We're going to identify mistake, fault, and blame. Not my part. A lot of times in AA, you'll hear people say the fourth column is my part, my part's not my part." That's a perfectly good shorthand, but there is a potential problem for that because people will try to find their part in the second and the third column. You don't always have a part inthe second column. You always do in the third colon. You always have mistake,fault, andblame. I have no idea what he's talking about. I'm just trying to follow directions, okay? I get the instructions for the fear inventory, for the sexual misconduct inventory. It turns me loose. It tells me it should take me a couple weeks. It took me about five weeks, about two, two and a half weeks to think about it, two or three weeks to do it. Because like the book says, it's simple but not easy. The simple part is the black part, the written instructions. The not easy part is me and my ego which tries to separate me from you and from God. The latter is impossible. The former is possible but very painful to try to do this by yourself. So I get done with this inventory, I show up at his house, and for the new people, I'm going to tell you the first person on my inventory, just so you understand how simple and basic this is. First column, I am resentful at two words, my father. Second column, the cause, two words deserted me. Now Michael asked some questions. I explained to him, I'm four or five years old. I'm growing up in Las Vegas, Nevada. My dad's in the Air Force. It's the early 60s. he goes off to Vietnam. He doesn't die there, but he stays there for, I don't know, 8, 10, 12 years. He does a number of tours in the Air Force. He joins an outfit called Air America. He winds up meeting a Thai woman, Lien Thong, marries her, apparently before he divorced my mom. I've never met Lien THONG. I've got a half-sister, Peck. I'VE NEVER MET HER. It's been over three decades. I have had minimal contact with my father. A couple cards and letters you know that that's about it third column what does it affect everything self-esteem pocketbook security ambition personal relations sex relations i mean other than that it's going pretty well but you know it's this is a big one you know like like scott used to say this is a five bagger my life is consumed with this now what about the fourth column where's my mistake fault or blame well i don't have any in relation to the cause i mean i didn't cause my father to go to Vietnam. But how about the condition? I'm 37 when I get sober, 38 when I'm writing this inventory. What defect of character do I have if God were to remove it, I would no longer suffer from this resentment? Am I selfish, self-centered, self seeking? I don't think so. Dishonesty? That doesn't seem to apply. The 12 in 12 talks about the seven deadly sins. Pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, sloth. I write down anger. I was really angry for a long time. Now it's just kind of a dull, I hate the SOB, but it seems to apply. Fear. I have a lot of fear. What does this fear look like? I loved my father and I gave him a certain amount of power. He abused that power. And ever since I was a little kid, I have a wall of insulation between me and you and you and me because it's not safe. You can't get to know me. The part in the big book that talks about the actor, I love that part because I'm under the mistaken impression that if you don't really know who I am, you can't hurt me. That's not true, but that's what I'm running with. It doesn't make good for marital relations or relations with the kids or friends or anybody, but it's all I got. And then finally, like it says on the bottom of 66 and on 67 where it has the prayer to the sick man, I'm unwilling to see my father as a child of God who could be spiritually sick. I'm willing to forgive him. So I read this. I am getting ready to go on to the next person, mom. And Michael stops me. He goes, look, I want to make sure I understand this. All right. You're resentful of your father. That's right. He deserted you when you were a little kid, and this affects every aspect of your life. And you've got some residual anger, a lot of fear, and you don't want to forgive your father, right? I'm like, yeah, Michael, and I've read ahead. I know there's a ninth step. It's not going to happen. He goes, well, look, we're just doing the fifth step now. But I do have another question. I'm Like, what is it? He says, Well, if I understand you correctly, when you came to me, and I started sponsoring you, you told me about this plan that you had that involved these passports, and You were going to go to Costa Rica. You got a wife and you got a kid, and you are going to take them with you. You didn't say that you were going to desert them, but is there really a difference functionally between what you were planning on doing and what your father actually did? My first thought was, this is not going the way I thought it was going to go. And I put my head down and I muttered something like, I mean, well, if you look at it that way. and if you're new that's why in the fifth step we admit to god to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs because i can't see me for who i am i need in this case my sponsor to hold a mirror up to me to reflect me back to me and now he's shown me that i've become the one thing i didn't want to be my father you know and i'm not i am not happy about this right but we go on and we read the rest of the inventory do the fear inventory the sexual absconding inventory i i go home i get quiet i've reviewed what i've done i flip the page and now I've got to do six and seven. And six is a lot about willingness, and seven is a little bit more about humility. Seven is a whole lot about humility, there's a lot more to it then, but my experience with these, and the experience I've had with the men and women that I've sponsored is that the first pass through of this is relatively surficial. You know, it just really is. It gets a lot deeper later on when it ties back in, when you incorporate this in an 11, 10 and 11 step process. But at the time, I'm just trying, I'mちょっと scared, I'm trying to get through it, and my sponsors ask me in my step eight, to make a list, and he wants to see proposed amends. Apparently he does not trust my judgment. I don't know what's with that. So I make up this list of proposed amens of the people that I've harmed that I'm willing to, and what I'm going to do, and I show it to Michael, and Michael looks at it, and he goes, well, your father's not on the list. I'm like, yeah, I told you he wasn't going to be on the lista. He goes, do you think you're any better than your father? I said, no, and thanks for pointing that out to me, Michael. I really appreciate that, right? And he goes – well, look, a lot of times at the end of the meeting we hold hands and we say a prayer, the Lord's Prayer. And part of the prayer is forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Michael says, well, what do you think that means? I think it's a damn trick question. That's what I think It means. Because it's A Spiritual Truth. It's an axiom. I'm only forgiven to the extent that I forgive. I got it. You know, we go to the step 11, page 99, the 11-step prayer in the 12 and 12. It is through forgiving that we are forgiven. Okay, I see that. I can agree with it conceptually. He goes, well, are you willing to make amends to your father? Are you willingto forgive? No. No. I said, well the eighth step is a lot about willingness. Are youwilling to pray for the willingness? Yeah. So okay, you pray, I'll pray, we'll both pray. In the meantime, start making amends. I start paying back some of the money. I make some ofthe other amends . I make ammends to my wife. I am back in the big bed. I do not quite have the crossover privileges that I think I deserve. And now I'm in this active 10-step process. I'm doing an evening review. I'm doing a morning review. I'm reading inventory to my sponsor. I'm making amends promptly. And by the way, when I was new, promptly was three or four weeks. That time frame compresses when you get more time. I'm do an 11-step practice. I'm praying and meditating. I'm trying to get into conscious contact with this thing I don't really understand. And I'm training in the 12-step Practice of Principles in All My Affairs. And I've been doing that for a long time. I'm carrying the message. People are coming to me. Guys, I'm taking them through the steps. They're getting a year. I'm sponsoring them. Things are going well. but i'm not making amends to my father and this goes on for quite some time and after after a few years i remember i was talking to michael and i was just making you know just i talked to my sponsor a lot and we're just this is casual conversation i just would let him know where i was going to be i said look i'm Not going to Be there next week uh at the home group because I'm going to, I have to go up to Anchorage to do some depositions. He lights up like a Christmas tree. He gets all excited. He goes, great, you'll make amends to your father. And I had forgotten that I told him my father at the time was living in Wasilla, Alaska, which is about 30 miles outside of Anchorage. So I now realize that he's connected two dots that I do not intend him to connect. So I'm waving him off. I'm like, whoa, whoa. I don't know what to do. I said, I'm not ready. He says, no, no, you're praying, right? I said yeah, I've been praying but I'm not ready I'm not willing he goes no no God's talking can't you hear him I'm like no no I'm not I don't know what I don'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE LISTENING TO BUT NO I'M NOT he goes look you get quiet every morning get quiet and I'M SURE THIS IS THE ANSWER so within a few days I I realized that that was the answer so I okay I got it so I go to Michael I said okay I'll do it what do I do he looks at me he goes I DON'T KNOW I'M Not GOING UP THERE TALK TO GOD I'M LIKE OH like, geez, you know, you're killing me. I used to call my sponsor the Cosmic Cupcake, the Mystic Muffin. You know, it was just, oh God. So I get quiet, I get comfortable and I call my father. He says he'll meet me and I fly up to Anchorage and I'm going through the airport and I don't know what I'm gonna do. I really have no idea what I'M gonna do but I've made this commitment. I'm Gonna go see him and who knows what's gonna happen. I'M walking through the airport and in the terminal and my father's older than I remembered he's shorter than I remember he's kind of shuffling towards me he's uncertain I'm walking towards him I'm striding towards him with purpose but I don't know what to do I get up to my father and I did one of the things that I when when I got here I hated all the hand holding and you know hugging crapping and by the way if you're new it's never the supermodel woman as a guy that wants to hug you it's like it's no offense but it's always the biker with three days beard I love you man you You know, it's like, and you know, I'm like, oh, whoa, whoa. You know? And if you're new, I've got to tell you, we grow on you. It takes a while, but we grow in you. We're an acquired taste. And I get up to my father, and without thinking, I just grabbed him, and I hugged him. And he buried his head on my shoulder, and he cried for about five minutes. And I cried, and forgiveness occurred. And all I had to do was show up and get out of the way. And if it doesn't make any sense, it's just because you haven't gone through the process yet. It's so interesting. We pray for God's guidance a lot of times, and people say, well, I don't know. What's the will of God? It's so confusing. Well, I think we've been given a pretty good general indication. In the 12th step, it says practice the principles and carry the message. Chop the wood, carry the water. God doesn't appear to be overly concerned with the details to me. Just do that. You know, it's not that complicated. Do the next indicated thing. you know do the right thing which is not usually my nature and we pray and ask for God's guidance and direction and I'm sure there are people in this room that have had God talk to them but it doesn't normally happen that way you know you don't usually hear somebody come in and say oh yeah I was praying and meditating and God said this is my son in whom I'm well pleased or my daughter in whom i'm well-pleased and here's my direction to you my son i'm sure it's happened to some people but usually what happens is we've had a spiritual awakening so we have to stay awake We have to stay alert. We go to a meeting, and there's some guy who shares the same pathetic, stupid story every time. And we don't like it. We're not judging, but we don'T like this guy, right? But if we pay attention, sometimes the answer to our problem is there. Or we're at a grocery store, and two little kids are arguing by the candy counter, and mom is trying to explain to them how to behave properly. And the solution to my problem is in the instruction that she's given her kids. But I have to Stay Awake. You know, a lot of times in the 11th step, we pray and meditate, We think, okay, that's it. That's done. All right, God, okay. I've got a ninth step. I'll clean it up at the end of the day. But the point is to try to be here right now all the time, to pay attention. Why is the newcomer talking to me about this? Why am I doing this? You know, one of the most amazing things happened to me. I had two or three years sober and I'm driving back from a meeting and I'M driving down by, it's called the Esplanade, it's right by the ocean. And the dolphins are running through the surf and there's people out there. and I'm like, wow, people come here to go on vacation. Who knew? I've been living here for over a decade. You know, you start to smell things and hear things and see things and that's sobriety and that is waking up. And I got to tell you, my sponsor told me if I make amends to my father, things will probably get better with my wife. And what is that? Things started getting better with my wife you know who knew but i i want to tell you just so you understand the imperfect nature of alcoholics at least of my variety and by the way i'm uh i really appreciate being here but i'm not an authority in aa it wasn't appointed or annoying and i'm just the guy who's sharing his experience here tonight and and and hopefully you know you'll go through the steps the steps are a set of spiritual exercises they're designed to allow each individual to find develop maintain a conscious contact with a god or a higher power if you prefer the term of your understanding based on your experience so that you can live and move and have your being in the world out there without drinking alcohol or doing any other party favors that some of us enjoy that's it that's the point okay and uh i do inventory on a regular basis and i have at times uh suffered from spiritual pride and maybe i am right now who knows spiritual pride is really interesting because everybody else sees it but the person who's got it. It's very insidious. And I'll give you this example. I love my wife, and I'm back in the big bed, but I noticed after a few years that she was taking the trash and recycling and putting it out on the stoop for me to get in the morning. So clearly I'm not restored to full husband status, right? And I'm writing him into it. I'm pissed. I'm pissed because, you know, apparently I'm the trash man, right, But, you know, I take it out. I put the trash recycling in. I'm writing an inventory. I talk to Michael about it. I read the inventory to him and he asks me a question. He says, well, have you talked to your wife? I'm like, well no, I haven't talked to her. He goes, why haven't you talked with her? I said, well Michael, I know this is going to be surprising to you but I now have been married 35 years but at the time I'd been married 10 or 12 years and I looked at him dead in the eye and I meant this. I said Michael, I've been married for over a decade. I know what my wife's thinking before she's even thinking it. And Michael looked at me and he says, well we call that mind reading it's a rather significant character defect but if you're not willing to let that go you're gonna have to you're going to talk to the big guy you have to talk to God and to get some relief from this resentment so I'm praying and meditating I'm asking for direction this takes months and what comes to me in a meditation is patience tolerance love and understanding it's all over the book people talk about it in meetings but I haven't heard it you know for whatever it takes a while and by the way this is one of the interesting aspects of Alcoholics Anonymous. If you're working with somebody, you can be encouraging him or her to do amends, to pray, to get a commitment, whatever it is. Tell them for months, months. And then they'll come to a meeting like this and some chucklehead like me will get up and talk about it. You'll go out for coffee afterwards and your sponsor will go, you know, that guy was talking about, I think I ought to try that. God, I've been talking to you about that for months we hear it when we hear it I don't know why that is but it is just a fact of alcoholics it's just the way it is so uh you know I got I pray for it I get I get patients tolerance loving I got the trash recycling you know taking it out I've worked through this resentment and by the way since I'm a man of God I tell all the guys that I sponsor what great work I've done on this resent work right through this resentment. Talk to God, we've got this tightened up, we're good. You know, this goes on for years. I'm taking out the trash recycling and I'm not writing any inventory at all. Every once in a while I twitch but I'm okay, right? This goes on for six or seven years. We get a dog, Zoe. She just passed away about a month ago but golden retriever, beautiful dog. And we take Zoe out in the morning and she poops. She poops, I put it in a bag, I throw it in the trash. On nights like tonight, when I would go to a meeting, my wife will let her out in the backyard. Zoe will run around. She'll poop. And then my wife, she'll pick it up. She's put it in a bag. But does she put it into trash? She puts it with the trash and recycling on the stoop. So I mean, I'm a man of God, right? But Michael, now I got dog crap. I've got dog crop. I know what that means. I got dog crap! I mean I've dealt with the Trash Recycling, but now we've got the dog crap." And he says to me, he says, well, have you talked to her? I'm like, well no, I haven't talked to him. He goes, well you're going to have to talk to God. So I'm talking, and this only takes a couple weeks. I get the same message. Patience, tolerance, love and understanding. I pray for it, I got it. I got the trash recycling poop, everything's good. And by the way, I got to tell all the guys that I sponsor what great work I've done working through this resentment. This goes on for another seven or eight years. A few years ago, I go out the front door instead of the back door. I do not get the trash recycling and poop because the trash is like it's on the side porch you know and I go out the front door so it's Monday I go to my meeting and I and I realize oh god you know I didn't this is my job I didn't get it I'm gonna have to make amends so I go home it's it's my home group is Hermosa Beach Men's Tag it meets on Monday night I'm going to clean this up before I go to My Meeting so we're having dinner my wife and my girls are there and I wait a little bit and I say hey Lynn my wife's name is Lynn Lynn you probably noticed this morning I went out the front door, I did not go out the side door. I did not get the trash recycling and poop. I know it's my job, and I'll do better next time. She goes, what? So I'm cool. I've been taught to pause when agitated. I'm like, maybe. You know, the trash recycling and poo, it's in my job. I haven't been doing it for over a decade. I didn't get it this morning. You probably noticed, and i'll do better next time. She looks at me, she goes, what are you talking about? So now my head's like a freaking root rotisserie, right? I'm just, but you know, I'm a spiritual guy. So I slow down and I tell her real slow. Now, by the way, guys, they love that. So she's looking at me. She's looking at me like, are you drinking? You know what I mean? She's, she's look at me, I get done with my explanation one more time. And she looks at me and she goes, Steve, you know We've got raccoons and possums and skunk that are out there by the recycling bins and it's kind of spooky at night. And we've had these coyotes that have come down from Palos Verdes, from the peninsula. They've been taking some of the small dogs and cats so I don't like to go out there at night, it's just kind of scary. So I leave that there on the porch and I figure I'll get it in the morning or the girls will get it or you'll get editor, you'll get it. But I don't leave that there for you. So again, I'm not that quick on the uptake, right? But I now realize I've had this resentment that I've worked through, that I bragged about, that has absolutely no basis in fact, right. So I look at my wife and go, love you, babe, I gotta go, you know, because I can't have a conversation with her. I'm going to go to my home group. Go to my sponsor. Because they'll be sympathetic, right? Yeah. So I get there and I tell them. And they're like, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute. They get all the new guys around. Hey. Like my friend Bill C says, everybody wears a clown suit. We hang it up every once in a while. But it's there. We dust it off. We just can't resist wearing it, right. And my sponsor is laughing at me. And he goes, Lamb, that's why they call it a delusion. And you told me before. you know a lot of times people get up and talk about denial and denial denial but that that's really the the phrase the word denial is in the in the big book once in relation to what bill's grandfather is doing but it has nothing to do with denial as we know it like in terms of sobriety uh it's if there's a story in the Big Book now crossing the river denial it's a fourth edition story but really in the first 164 pages and in the 12 and 12 you don't see denial you see delusion it's not that we don't suffer from denial but denial is different denial is um i know the truth but i like the lie and i'm going to try to convince you the lie delusion is i didn't get the memo i don't know the truth you all know but i don' t know it's much more dangerous okay and he looked at me goes well there's good news and bad news i'm like well what's what's the bad news because well the bad news is it never ends i'mlike okay michael what'sthegoodnews he said Well, the good news is this is Alcoholics Anonymous. Not only is there always something to do, but there's somebody to do it with. And if you're new, I hope you find that person tonight. Thanks for having me here. I appreciate it. Thank you.