Step 3 and the God He Was Afraid to Believe In – Bob D.

a hand. My name is Bob Darrell and I am an alcoholic. And only through the grace of a God that I was afraid to believe in, that I've accessed and maintained in my life through a process outlined in a book called Alcoholics Anonymous, the ability to remain reasonably sponsorable in a persistent and consistent effort in the primary purpose of helping other alcoholics. I haven't had a drink or any mind or emotion-altering substance since October 31st, 1978. God, there's a lot of people here I know It's hard to believe. I came to Alcoholics Anonymous back in 1978, and I'd been totally alone for a long time. No one would have anything to do with me. And not only is there a lot of people here I know, there's a lot of people hier that know a lot about me and seem to still like me, which is amazing to me. I would like to welcome anybody that's new. I'm glad you're here. How many people, this is your first international? How many people here have been noticing things and this is your last international? Always one or two. Yeah, I know. You get gang 12 stepped at the end of the meeting. I hate to say, and I say this sometimes, it's true. I can't wait to hear what I'm going to say. I need to clear the air of what's going on in my life right today. This has been an amazing couple weeks. I was in some other countries, and I came back, just had a luncheon with my sponsor, and I really, I don't know, I've really come to cherish time with him. He's sober a long time, coming up on 57 years and he's 88 years old. So I don't know how big the window of hanging out with him is, but I'm telling you, I'm in that window every chance I can get. And he's become very dear to me. And his influence has been very important to me He holds a high bar here for me to try to follow. So, anyway, if you're new, I'm glad you're here. Is anybody brand new here? Like within the first 30 days? Oh, really? Wow. Wow. Oh, my. I mean, you, God, you must have been so bad that God had to have the whole frickin' planet 12-step you. I mean... I don't even really want to think about it. Well, just a regular rehab ain't going to do for this guy. he needs about 70,000 people that's very cool I don't know why I'm alcoholic I didn't come from an alcoholic home I came from a mother and father who loved me I always knew it they sacrificed for me and you know there's an odd thing I look back at my childhood and there was just something wasn't right with me. And I don't know why. It should have been. I mean, I had a great childhood. I should have Been the happy kid. But I got this kind of mindset that I don' t appreciate good stuff because I'm so busy looking for potential problems. And if you're like me, they're all over the place. And most of them haven't occurred yet but you can see them forming right before your eyes. You know what I'm saying? And I can tell by body language of people that they're thinking something about me, you know? You know What I mean? And I feel awkward and I go to school and oh, there's all kinds of people there and I don't know what they're thinkin', but I always suspect it's about me for some reason. And the teachers, I don' t know what the want. My parents, I d'n' t kno' what they want, and everybody wants something from me and I don't know what it is and I just, I don' t fit anywhere and man, I worry a lot and I was almost 13 years old and the first time alcohol ever touched this sickness of my being and I'll tell you, the first times I ever took a drink, I was like, I was, I was 13 years older. It was like instantly, I knew I had needed this for a long time. I mean, and it was, I love the effect produced by alcohol. It was just so spectacular because I'm a guy who, I'm, I'm the problematic guy. I don't mean to be, but I'm that guy who doesn't feel like he fits. I'm they guy who's full of fear. I'm them guy who is not tough and tries to pretend like he is and I cower behind a facade that I've created that's phony so you don't see how wrong I am. And when I drank alcohol the first time, the facade came down. I don't have to pretend anymore. I really am free. I could come out and play. I could talk to people. I don' t have to be a man. I don''t have to have to pretend I'm cool. I tell you, you get me half lit up, I am cool. Sober, I am just a, I'm a mope. I don't talk to people. I'm serious. You get me about half drunk. I'm funny. I mean, I crack me up. I'm funny. I remember getting in those. Alcohol put me in the early days. It put me into this zone. Man, when I was in that zone, I can't miss. No matter what I'm doing, I'm dealing with it. I'm feeling it like way up here above humanity. You know what I am saying? Like I could shoot pool. When I'm sober, I'm just a below average pool shooter you get that right buzz on and I can't miss it's like I'm channeling Willie Marsconi in Minnesota Fats or something it was amazing you get me about half drunk I can dance I can' t dance sober they're all looking at me I never took a dance lesson in my life but I'll tell you a pint of whiskey is like 20 Arthur Murray dance lessons man And I'll tell you, you know, whoa, I could just get out there and feel the rhythm of the universe flowing through me, man. And I, whoo, I can be intelligent. I am so awkward around people sober, but you get me half lit up. I mean, deep stuff comes out of me. You know what I'm saying? Like deep, I remember many times with a bunch of stoner friends of mine, it's about three o'clock in the morning, we're smoking reefer and drinking wine and cracking the secrets of the universe. I remember one night saying to my buddies, I said, I think this is what Buddha saw. You know, you get to see the big picture. You know what I mean? The big picture, and then you know, you know. I sober up, and I'm back to being me again, and my big secret was I never liked that much. I always liked myself better under the effects of alcohol than I ever liked myself on the natch. I don't know why. I do not know if I could have explained that to you. I do even know that I could explain it to myself, but I just know from the first time I ever drank it did something for me that I would not get enough of it and I just remember the first time I got lit up thinking to myself, oh my God, I want to feel like this the rest of my life. And it was a crusade with me. Out getting high was my religion, man. I'm telling you, I just pursued it with a vengeance. But I'm alcoholic. Now, I don't know why I'm alcoholic, but when you're alcoholic, there's something wrong with you that you don't know is wrong with you. And it keeps ending you up in jails and in principal's offices and in the boss's offices, he's letting you go and, you know, he was getting that look from her. I didn't mean to wet your bed. I mean, you know, well, you know, I mean it's physics. You drink five quarts of beer and pass out. It's physics man. It ain't nothing personal. So I don't know what's wrong with me because when I start to drink, something happens to me. I do not know it's happening to me, but it's happened to me just the same. And what that is, is as I feel the effect of the alcohol, I break out in this irresistible yearning for more. And that only happens in people with alcoholism. Dr. Silkworth in our book says that this phenomenon of craving, this allergic reaction to alcohol that expresses itself in this craving, is what differentiates us and sets us apart as a distinct entity. It's why I know I have this disease. And, you know, I got sober at a time when, I got sober over and over again through years where if you went into a treatment center, they would ask you these questions like, what's your drug of choice? That's an odd question. Because I don't, you can't say what pops into your mind because what pops in my mind is, well, what do you got? I mean, you cannot say that. I mean you know, so you have to try to grab something out of the air. And they ask the wrong, it's not the right question. The question should be, okay, you think your problem is that. Oh yeah, yeah, we know that. That's what you think because that's what he got arrested for. You think that's your problem. Bob, but what happens to you when you drink alcohol, Bob? What happens if you have two drinks of alcohol? There's a test in our big book. It says where you can diagnose yourself. It says you're not sure if you're alcoholic. It says go over to the nearest bar room, try some controlled drinking, try to drink and then stop abruptly. Well, if I were to take that test because I don't believe I'm alcoholic, Like, I think my problem is these chemicals. I think My Problem's the police. I think It's Some Kind of Mental Illness. It's not alcoholism. But you guys say, take the test. Okay, go into this bar. Let's see if these people from AA are full of crap. You're going to have two strong drinks because if you're only going to have two, you might as well be doubles. Triples maybe. Doubles at least. Two drinks and then you've got to shut her down and you've Got to go home. Now, you can't smoke nothing. You can't go bang on a guy's door and sell something. You've got to just have two drinks and go home. Well, about halfway through that second drink, it becomes very apparent to me that this is a bad test day. Well, because that game's on. I didn't know that game was on. For God's sakes, I've got another drink. Watch that game. Or Joe walks in. Joe's got something good to smoke. I've Got to Have a Drink with Joe. Or she walks in, Oh my God, that could be her. Can I have a drink with her? Might be my soulmate. Bad test day. Tomorrow, I'll do a test. It'll be good. Better tomorrow. And it's a funny thing that happens as the effect from the alcohol hits me. I have that allergic reaction, but I don't know it because inside of me, I don'T think I'm being driven by a phenomenon, a craving. it seems to me that I just changed my mind. I think the way this disease punked me out and burnt my life to the ground over and over again and it did it convincing me it was my idea. Right? And I have no idea in how many times that people like us we get in a lot of trouble a lot of trouble. Say to myself, man, I can't do that again. I'm just going to have to stop at a reasonable point and not two, that's silly, but you know, like 12. 12 is good. Something reasonable because I don't seem to do anything too bizarre on the first 10 anyway. So, I'll stop then and, you know, number 11, and it seems like, oh, 12 was a stupid number. And every drink of alcohol I have ever taken in my life makes me feel and think, I need another drink of alcool. And I didn't know that that was the definitive characteristic of the alcoholic. That's why I know I have this thing. well if that was all there was to alcoholism then back in it back in the 80s that nancy reagan just say no program would have worked for me because you did you take me to a treatment center you show me the father martin movies you'd listen i'd listen to the doctors you can't take the first drink because of the acetane in the brain and all that so i go okay okay i get it get it okay all right i'm just not going to take the 1st one and i make up my mind because i'm not stupid I understand I'm burning my life to the ground. I understand I'm sleeping on guys' couches guys, idiots stupid guys I went to high school with own homes I get it I get It So I'd make up my mind I'm never going to touch that stuff again and something hideous would start to happen to me and it's really hard to see it sometimes but these emotions would start to grind away at me subtly and slowly inside of me. And they just start, you know. Silkworth says that we become when we get sober what brings us back to taking a drink again is this condition of my spirit that I'll become progressively more restless irritable and discontent. and I don't know it because it goes right below the radar and just kind of gnaws at you. You know that restlessness every alcoholic I've ever talked to knows about that feeling. It's a feeling wherever you are it's not where you need to be I don' t know where I need to but it ain't here. It's an inability to feel settled it's an ability to go in your own life I'm irritable but I don't want to admit to myself I'm irritable. First of all, irritable people irritate me. I am not irritable but now that I'm not drinking I can see very clearly how stupid people are and because I'm restless they need to know and it can't help it and I see stupid people everywhere. Everywhere I go I see Stupid People. I see stupid people in the grocery store. Oh, my God. Do you ever stay in that line with buying something? Watch a Diet Coke, gallon of ice cream. Stupid people inthe grocery store, stupid peoplein traffic. There's nobody drives right. They're either driving crazy and they're a maniac or they're driving too slow and then they're an idiot, right? Nobody drives right, there's always something wrong. I go to get jobs, go to work. you know, when I interviewed for the job they seemed like nice people and then I'm telling you, I'm not there very long and man, I've worked for some stupid people my friend Jimmy said something that I thought was hilarious and so true he said one time, he said I worked over 50 places he said I never worked anywhere where they did it right and then he said some of those places have been doing it wrong successfully for decades. And then he said something that really cut me. He said, and I was always the guy that was leaving. Whoa, whoa, man, because I'm always the guys that's leaving. And I go to work, and they're stupid at work. Oh, go to meetings. Oh my God, they got all the stupid people grouped in AA. hey, they're all right here. Oh my God, how did they get them all together? They're all Right Here. I remember sitting in meetings and just... AA was intellectually offensive to me. Oh my god, it was horrible. I'd just sit there and people share these cliches like first things first, easy does it, live and let live, let go. I felt like I was being stoned to death by refrigerator magnets from a recovery bookstore. stop. Doesn't anybody speak English here? Right? It's like all these cliches. Oh, and then you talk about God. God, God, god, god. God did this. God. Oh. The minute you start saying the God stuff, it's like a steel door slams closed in my head because it can't be that. It can't be that. Because if it's that, if that's the way to go, I've got a problem here. I fancied myself an atheist when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous. In truth, I really wasn't an atheist. I have known some real atheists. I'm telling you, you've got to be religious about your atheism. I can't get that much angst about it. What I really am in truth is I'm a guy who's afraid of God. I'm a guy, to this day by nature, if I just suspect you don't like me, I'm going to not like you first. And I thought that's me and God. What I'm about to say, I've got to tell you, my religious upbringing as a kid, the problem with it, it was good. I brought the mind of a chronic alcoholic who hasn't found the medicine of alcohol yet to the table there. Wilson describes the alcoholic mind pretty well, very insightful in the 12 steps and 12 traditions. When he's talking about me, he says that we talk a lot about problems. And then he goes on to say why. He says, that's because we're problem people. Did you ever see that movie Six sense, a little kid walks around and says, I see dead people? Oh, I see problems. Oh, oh, everywhere I look, I can look at your body language and go, oh yeah, you're going to be a problem. I can tell by looking at you. You're thinking something about me. I can tell. I see problems that haven't occurred yet. So when I'm talking, I don't hear about a God of love because that's not a problem I don' t hear that. I don''t even hear that I hear problems I hear about a God who judges because that's a problem about a god who could see in the dark oh, that's really a problem oh man that's an hideous problem about a guy about a good god who could read my mind and not only judge me for what I do judge me for what I think about doing that's just horrible this nun god she was young nice nun I guess. She would have been kind of, I think she would have been pretty if she didn't have all that hardware on, I guess, I don't know. But she'd be, I'm like, I mean, grade school, and she's like saying this thing she says all the time, but we must be pure of thought, word, and deed. And I'm a little kid trying to be good. I go, yes, sister. Yes, sister? And then my mind starts imagining her naked. I'm thinking, oh, oh. That sin's not even in the books. You know what I'm saying? You cannot go into that church and go in that little box with that priest and tell him that. Oh, he'll come out beat the crap out of you. You cannot tell anybody that. You can't tell anybody that. So it's another brick in the wall that separated me from you and me from God. It was my secret life and my secret thoughts and feelings and judgments. What our book refers to is our old ideas that were killing me. So when I get to Alcoholics Anonymous, and I hear you guys talk about God. It's like, oh, not that, not that. Can't be that. But I got alcoholism. And if you live long enough, alcohol will just beat all your convictions and your things you think you're right about right out of you. And it's a Tedious, tedious process. This crushing of the ego. There's a line in our book, it's so right on. It talks about being crushed. I like that word crushed because I just puff up with all this stuff I think I know. I just cuff up about everything I'm right about. and that says when we're crushed by these self-imposed crises we cannot postpone or evade then Bob you will have to fearlessly face the proposition that God's either everything or he's nothing he either is or he isn't what are you going to do and you know it's funny because broken, crushed, desperate people that have nowhere to go and they can't think their way out of the bad, bad, horrid situation they're in become desperate. And desperate people will entertain actions and ideas that they normally if they were in their right mind would never entertain. I had to have just enough of me kicked out of me that I could start to hear you. And I almost died of a condition that I didn't even understand that I had. I had a therapist one time try to tell me that I was ego-dominant. He said, there's this great guy in Pittsburgh. I've been to three treatment centers he was in that he lectured in. He was a psychiatrist and a rabbi, and he was like a brilliant guy. And Abe cornered me on the third one one time, and he said to me, he said, people like you never get better. Some of you find a way to remain in some kind of angst abstinence for decades but you never change and you never recover. He said because even though you have no self-esteem and boy that was true. He says you have grown such a horrendous huge ego that you have an inability to listen to anyone in order to hear anything new. You can only hear how you are already right. And I'll tell you, I thought he was stupid. That went over my head. That was exactly, that was so, that Was so on the money because I'm sitting there and I'm picking him apart as he's saying that to me, right? I'm making him out to be, he's Jewish. What does he know? You know what I mean? You're not right. Right. I'll find anything. I mean, I've had people on A, get a little too close to home with me. And my head would do, well, that's the stupidest toupee I've ever seen. I mean, just anything I can grab onto to discount you if you threaten me. This is the most defended sickness, I think, in the universe. And I don't know that. I don' t know. I just know I'm dying here. and you know my mother worked for mental health she was a therapist of sorts because of her and my father's connections I went to some great psychiatrists went to a lot of treatment centers I accumulated a wealth of intellectual knowledge believing that there's power in knowledge and there's not all the knowledge was for me in my unsurrendered state it was just more fodder for my ego. It just puffed me up, that's all. It puffed me up into being the guy you can't tell, that knows everything. I was the I know guy. I know. I know everything. You know, I could sit in meetings and if you said something I agreed with, you were brilliant. Anything else, you're stupid. Which, the only guy that would say something I agree with was the guy that was on marijuana maintenance usually. So, I'm dying of this disease and well-intentioned people are trying to help me and people in AA are trying to help me if you're if you are fairly new I'd be willing to bet that in the years preceding your coming to Alcoholics Anonymous there has probably been a whole bunch of people getting in your face at time to time to talk to you about you you know I hate that stuff my mother and father Maybe your mother and father have tried to talk to you about you. Maybe your siblings have tried to talk with you. Maybe your kids, or your wife, your husband, or girlfriend, or boyfriend have had conversations with you about you, maybe your priest or your minister has had some conversations with you about you, maybe your parole officers had some conversation, you get really bad, maybe your drug dealers had some conversations with you about you. And it's the same conversation. They all use different words and come, but it's the same thing. They're all saying to me, Bob, Bob. Bob, you're so screwed up. If you catch me on a bad day and my defense mechanisms are down, I might just sit there and feel like crap and go, yeah, I know. And then they always want to answer their own question. They always ask a question, and they answer it. They say, do you know why you're screwed up? My God, I've been to so much therapy by now, my head's spinning with useless information. I said, no, I don't know. And they'll tell you. They'll say, well, the reason you're so screwed up is you keep getting screwed up. If you didn't keep getting screwd up, you wouldn't be so screwedup. So I'm pretty screwed up, and I think, okay, I ain't going to get screwed up and when I don' t get screwedup, I get so screwed-up, I have to go get screwed-upped. and I don't understand this this doesn't make sense to me because I think the problem is alcohol and combinations of alcohol and drugs and in truth what alcohol is alcohol is a medicine that at one time in the early days in the marvelous days when the hook was set at one time was the most immediate and dynamic treatment for the thing that's really wrong with me that I've ever, ever found. There was a friend of mine up in the Bay Area, Gil, he used to say, there's three phases of alcoholism. There's the fun phase. That's the phase when you're singing in the band, you know, you're rocking and rolling, man. It's never, that's when life's good. Then there's the funny problem phase. it's like you're rocking and rolling and having a lot of fun and going to jail intermittently. Wetting your pants intermittently but it's little price to pay for the party for God's sakes and then there's the last phase and most of us come here in the last stage and that's where all the funds bled out and it's just problems but we don't want to believe it's like that. That one of the things that almost killed me was hope. Now that sounds very strange to say that, that I almost died from too much hope. But I almost died from Too Much Hope. And what's the hope? The hope is that some, somehow, someday, someway, man, I'm going to roll her back to the good old days and I'm going to find a way to do that and get away with it. I never thought that I'm not going to pay a price for drinking. I mean, I get it. There's always some sort a price. My delusion is that I can keep the price down to something reasonable, right? I think I have that much control. And what broke me was a painful truth that I resisted and fought and resisted, and justified, and rationalized away for years because my God, I don't want to believe it. And the truth is, hey Bob, you know this pathetic, self-pitying, depressing drinking you do in loneliness? This is as good as it's ever going to get for you, Bob. And man, I don't want to believe the party's over because if I can't somehow someday reap the old effects that used to light me up and set me free from alcohol, then the truth is I don't see the point in living because I can't live without it. I can' t live without it. Not only am I restless, irritable, and discontent, but I get very depressed when I'm sober. I don' t start off depressed. I start off excited. There's a passage in the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions where he talks about us, and he says that we have known three emotional conditions. Excitement. You know what that's like? You're newly sober, and you're excited because you're going to turn over a new leaf. You're going to show them. I'm that guy. I am going to go to school. I will like an engine that don't turn over. What happens is that I get so excited on the I'm going tos, and then there's their fear because I can't seem to do any of it. And the anxiety, is this it? And then even if you do roll one of them and you get your way, you know what that's like. Oh my God, the shine of that wears off no matter what it is. If you're like me, you get sober and you have a consciousness of acquisition. You're always targeting things, man, that you believe are going to make a difference. As the book says, we're victims of this delusion that we could rest, like in wrestle, rest happiness and satisfaction out of this world if we only manage well. This idea that if I get my ducks all lined up in a row, this idea that if I'm properly financed, if I had the right person loving me the right way, not like the others, but the right way. If I had the job where I was understood and respected not like the others. If i had all that lined up surely then I will have found satisfaction and happiness out of this world. The reason that this is such a heartbreaking and demoralizing delusion is that for God's sakes, no one on the planet as a demographic has ever spent more money, more effort, more obsessive energy and focus and time on making ourselves happy and satisfied as we have, for God sakes. And the end result is, would you sponsor me? Right? I mean, if you're new, I hope you get that. Matter of fact, if you have people telling you that now that you're sober you should work on yourself, run. Run away from them. You have worked on yourself a lot. I know. You've thought about yourself a lot. You figured for yourself a lot. Stop it. Come with us into this altruistic movement where we're going to teach you how to forget yourself by your actions. And if you do it by your options long enough, eventually the insides start to follow somewhat. I will always be self-centered. I think it's one of my more endearing qualities, but a lot of people don't. I will also be selfless. I will have that default. it's like the nature and everything I do in Alcoholics Anonymous, all the actions I take are to move me off of that position. Not once and for all because I immediately start degrading back into me again There was a guy this thing he shared an analogy I think it's perfect I can come into Alcoholics Anonymous and I can surrender and I can work these steps. And it's like flushing a toilet. The back of the toilet just empties. I just empty out of me. And then instantaneously, I start to fill up with myself again. I don't mean to. It's just the nature of a chronic, not acute, but a chronic spiritual malady. It's my default position. I mean, if you're like me, if you want to try a little experiment, don't talk to anybody all day tomorrow. Just ponder your life. Don't have any sharp objects around. I've never pondered my life and spiraled upward. No, no. Matter of fact, I just start pondering my life and oh my god there's some I'm glad I'm thinking about this stuff because there's some problems here I didn't notice before oh did you ever check your future and have it look good I check my future and oh it's bleak bleak bleak and that does change in here as just contingent on how much I've learned to strengthen and exercise the trust God muscle here and the trust AA muscle. But for a long time here, I could understand intellectually that I'm supposed to abandon myself and trust my sponsor and trust AA and ultimately trust God. I could understanding that intellectually. It doesn't mean I can do it because I've been taking a position in my life of listening to my head and believing it a lot longer than I've ever... As a matter of fact, my trust God, my trust muscle had atrophied by the time I came here. I was so defended. I didn't trust anything or anybody. And I had to start exercising that through my actions. And it's not easy. One of the first line in step five in the 12 steps and 12 traditions really nails a lot of this for me. it says that these things that we do run contrary to our basic instincts and desires. They really do. You know, no one comes to AA, looks at the 12 steps in the midst of their brokenness and hopelessness, and looks at The Twelve Steps and goes, oh yeah, that would work. Yeah. Oh, I'm so grateful to be here. Oh, I get to write an inventory. Oh, I'm going to cry. Oh, this is amazing. I get the payback, all the money. Oh. Yeah. And if you think that way, I think Al-Anon's down the hall. No. And you don't really want to get out of there but you want to take him down there, don't you? I know you do. I know. It's like you can't resist. And I don't know what you're doing here. AA doesn't make sense. And it doesn't if you're new. Don't wait until this stuff makes, if you wait until this stuff makes sense before you do it, you will already die of alcoholism. Alcoholics Anonymous does not make sense until you've taken the actions for a while. And then we all say the same thing as we start to come alive here, as all that sick crap starts to be lifted up off of us through steps four through nine. We all say the same thing in the new rush of freedom and happiness. We all saythe same thing. Oh my God, I should have done this years ago. Which is so bizarre because we were the people fighting it for years. And we don't know what's good for, I don't know what is good for me. That's why I have a sponsor and home group and I have the accountability of sponsoring people. And I tell you there is a tremendous amount of accountability in sponsoring people because you may not even want the position but I will tell you something in time you are going to wake up to something that might change you. You're going to wake up to the reality that those people look to you as the example of how to live your life sober. And I don't know about you, but it I don' t care that much about me, but I care about you and I don''t want to be a bad example to the guys I sponsor because I end up loving them. And so I have a sponsor and I have sponsees In 1970, I think it was early 77, I ended up in an emergency room. Not unusual. I hurt myself sometimes. I don't mean to. I fall down and break stuff. I wreck cars. This particular time, I think what happened is in some kind of semi-blackout alcoholic rage. I put myself, I smashed through a plate glass window and got cut up pretty bad and had to have some, they had to take me to the hospital because I wouldn't stop bleeding and had some stitches and they're stitching me up and I'm in there for a while. Now they took some x-rays to make sure something wasn't broken and I've been in there a couple hours So I'm kind of sobering up because they don't have bars in emergency room waiting. I mean, they should because if there's ever a time you need a drink, it's in an emergency room or a waiting room for God's sake. But they don' t have bars so I'm being forced to sober up while I'm waiting for the results for the x-rays. And there's a rack of medical pamphlets sitting there on this table. You know, heart disease and diabetes and different things. There was this one that got my attention. and it was the seven warning signs of cancer. And I remember seeing that and going, huh. And I grabbed it and I started looking through it. I'm kind of sobered up kind of now and I'm reading it. And one of the warning signs of cancer, it was something like continued unexplained intermittent bleeding. And I Remember reading that and thinking, ooh. Because I throw up sometimes and dry heaves. Blood comes up sometimes. And I thought, oh my God. Then I thought oh wait a minute there's been a couple occasions I've bled out of both ends. This is not good. I have cancer. And then it was like this veil lifted and I could see it so clearly. It's metastasized to my brain. I mean, no, it explained volumes of my life. That's why I do bizarre things and I can't remember them. That's Why Sometimes It Works. Somebody will say some little thing to me and I'll fly off the handle, just go crazy and yell at them and scream. Everybody stays away from me. A lot of people don't like me. But it's not my fault. I have a brain tumor. Oh! Oh! I have brain tumor! I remember, I walked out for a long time. I had this fantasy, you know, they're going to eventually pull me off the streets and take me to a cancer ward. My mother and father, who will not have anything to do with me, won't even take my calls. They think I'm a bum. They're goingto be notified that I have a brain tumor. And oh, are they going to be so wrong about everything. and they're going to come run into the hospital. They're going put me back in the will. Oh, my God. And of course, all my ex-girlfriends will be notified. And they thought I was a bum. They're gonna come running to the hospital properly ashamed of themselves. I love that fantasy. Well, a little later on I ended up in another detox This medical guy is giving me the Checking my vitals and everything And he's talking about alcoholism He might have been in the program I don't know He's talking About alcoholism I said, doc, doc I have a brain tumor And he rears back And he goes Has this been verified? Yes, it has Well, no It was verified by the smartest guy I know Right? And he gets very excited, and he sets me up with a whole bunch of tests. They shoot dye in me, take pictures. They do a whole lot of stuff, blood tests, blood test. And I'm waiting, waiting for him to come back and tell me the good news. I'm dying of a terminal disease. Tell me the goodness. And he comes in, he says, we got your test results back. You don't have a brain tumor. You don't have cancer at all. What you have is you have an ulcer and a hemorrhoid. And I remember, it felt like the bottom fell out. It was like, oh, no, no. I mean, I wanted a second opinion, right? Now, if you identify with that on any level, you are sick because my, I am so ego dominant that I would rather be dead and right and you wrong. The idea that I'm going to live a normal life is depressing to me. Wow. You know, the funny part is I bet you there's people in here that are going, oh yeah, I thought that. Oh yeah. I bet you I'm not the only one in this room that hasn't rehearsed some just heartfelt deathbed speeches. Oh, I mean, bring tears to your eyes. Just bring tears. Bring tears to their eyes. I mean to kind of... Well, anyway, the doctor said to me, he said, you know, you don't have any of that stuff, but you do have alcoholism, kid, and if you keep drinking, it's going to kill you. he said then he said you know you're young and you physically bounce back you're in your 20s you're physically bounced back it probably is going to take five more years but if you keep drinking it's going to kill you and I never forgot that before the year was up I was been thrown out of another rehab and I'm facing two years in a state penitentiary Clancy talks about getting to a place where there's no friendly direction and it's more to me that's more than the fact that there's no one to turn to for help I can't even turn to the bottle in the bag anymore because I get it I can drink that stuff until it kills me but I can get free anymore and I know it I know the truth about the last couple years of my pathetic, pathetic, lonely, depressing drinking and how I just hoped against hope to get back to the good old days and failed every single time. And man, I'll tell you something. I am not a suicidal guy, but when drinking is horrible and pathetic and abstinence is depressing and lonely and feels like you're doing time and neither state is tenable for very long for you because neither one's good. Suicide, even if you don't have a suicidal cell in your body can start looking like a good deal to a guy like me because I want out. I'm like that rat man I don't want any more cheese I want outta this trap. And I came to in a park and I remember I'm sitting there and I'm sick and I can't even get free from drinking and I shake, I have terrible tremors. I'm a kid in my 20s, I've tremors like some old burnout wino. I'm totally alone. There's no hope anywhere of any relief and I remember the doctor saying you keep drinking it's going to kill you but it'll take five more years and I Remember sitting there thinking oh my god I can't do five more days of this I'm so sick of me I'm sick of begging people for beds in some skid row mission or a halfway house or detox I'm sick of the looks as I walk down the street because I'm dirty and I got long hair down to about here and a beard long long beard I think I fancied myself a ZZ Top tryout I don't know and when you when drinking is horrible and not drinking is horrible suicide looks like a good deal and I went to a bridge and I'll tell you something this is it's kind of odd but in my making the decision to kill myself I reaped a little bit of relief. It was like a feeling like, okay, I'm going to get this over with. And I went to a bridge and I got on that bridge and I'm perched on the side, psyching myself up to jump and kill myself. And I'm looking down below. There's these railroad tracks along the side of the river. And I am looking down, maybe 100 feet, I guess. And I was looking down and all of a sudden this terror gripped me. And it was not the fear of dying. The terror was that maybe this isn't high enough. i'm not afraid to die and i have been trying consciously and unconsciously mostly to drink and drug myself to death for a number of years and i think a lot of us get to that point you know we just we just try to blot the line in the book is beautiful it says that we have two choices one was to go on to the bitter end blotting out our intolerable situation as best we could or the other one, which was creepy, except spiritual help. And I've been trying to do that. I've been trying and trying to drink myself to death. But it's a hard thing to do. It takes a long time. It's like being kicked to death by rabbits. It just goes on and on and on. I mean, for God's sake, that's why so many of us start thinking about killing ourselves, for God's sakes. We can't hang. I mean, it's just too much. It's like day in and day out. That's the worst thing about alcoholism in the progression of the disease. It gets worse and worse and worse and then when you don't think it can get any worse, it gets worse. And then the worst of all, it get's the same. And that is intolerable to me. At least a ride downhill has a little bit of excitement it's that sick same can't even get well pathetic self-pitying depressing drinking and I and this terror gripped me that I'm not going to die it might not be high enough up with my luck and I haven't had much good luck with my look I'll end up paralyzed from the neck down in some charity ward, and I'll lay there for 50 years, and they don't bring you drinks in those places. I'll lie there, and members of Alcoholics Anonymous will pray their newcomers through the room, and out here are things like, well this is what you have when you don't work our beautiful 12 steps, and you know, I can't even give them the one-fingered salute because I'm paralyzed. And you know something? When drinking is horrible and not drinking is horrible, and you can't even off yourself, what the hell's left except Alcoholics Anonymous? i mean i had a guy quit i had a guy come up to me and he quit aa he said i'm never coming back to a meeting i said yeah you will no he said you don't hear me i'm never coming back yeah you will he said yeah i'm never coming but i said yes you will he says why do you say that i said because when you burn your life to the ground again and no one has anything to do with you, there's nowhere else to go except Alcoholics Anonymous. We used to refer to AA as the last house on the block. I mean, nobody's referred out of here anywhere. I don't know if he's in the room. I sponsor a psychiatrist. I've sponsored clergy. I mean, this is where the religion and therapy failures get sent to AA. I mean no, really. The psychiatrists have to come here to get sober. The ministers have to comes here to go sober. There's nowhere to go except Alcoholics Anonymous. And I couldn't kill myself. Some of you figured that out. I couldn' kill myself and I ended up in my last detox And in Las Vegas, Nevada, of all places, I started off in Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh on the streets. And I started hitchhiking cross country to avoid, I thought I was trying to avoid incarceration. You guys, after I got sober, told me it was a geographic. I didn't know that. I'm coming cross country and I make it, I'm trying to get to Los Angeles because I thought if I could live on the beach, maybe in Venice or under one of the boardwalks or something, you know, and maybe the cops wouldn't find me. Maybe I wouldn't be in danger of freezing to death like I was in Pennsylvania in the winter. Maybe I could make it if I could get to California, and I got as far as Las Vegas. I ended up in a detox there. I was so, so sick. I didn't want to stop in Vegas, but I got to that horrid point. Some of you may understand this. When you get real extreme alcohol addiction, you can get to a point where you desperately have to get some of that medicine in you, and you can't keep it down. It comes back up on you and that's a horrid, frightening place to be when you feel like your nerves are shot and you want to jump out of your skin and you're afraid you're going to go into seizures and you need to get some of that sick, cheap wine in you and you don't want to go in there and you just can't, you know, and you know you can do it and you think you can keep it but you can never keep it and you've got to keep it and you have to keep doing it and you'll never be able to do it and you won't be able and that is the place I got to and by the time I'm rolling through Las Vegas and I ended up going into a detox there where I met a man named Dick Toussaint who, he was the first person in Alcoholics Anonymous I could ever hear. Now, I'm not saying, by this time I'd been to probably 150, 200 meetings in various treatment centers. I'm just saying that no one had the message of AA. I just was too full of myself to hear you. Because the constant critic in my head just tears you down. I can't, nothing gets into me. but I guess I had enough of me kicked out of me that for the first time in my life I was open to you and your message and experience rolled over me and I remember the first time and some of you will have I know you've had this experience it's a magical time it doesn't feel magical because your life's in ashes but you're sitting in a meeting somewhere and something starts happening to you that never happened before where you're listening to these people talk and you're nodding your head and you are going oh my God I'm like these people and you don't know if that's good news or bad news but some kind of connection starts out of the loneliness and alcoholism is a lonely business out of loneliness that I suffered from, I started to make connection. And I went up to this man and I was so, I wanted to ask him to sponsor me, but I was so afraid that he would reject me because I felt so worthless. I would have rejected me. I was continually rejecting me. And i just thought that other people would too. AndI went up to him and I said, would you sponsor me? And then I said if you will, I'll do anything you want me to do? And he said, of course I'll sponsor you. And I said, I'll do anything you want me to do. And you know, I never realized that there was a lot of things they want you to do. I mean, there's a whole bunch of stuff. I just thought it was a nice thing to say so he wouldn't reject me. Oh my God, they have tons of stuff and none of it seems like a good idea. I don't know. I sponsor a lot new guys and I give them the same directions that were given to me, you know. And I was, I love the look on their face. Like, are you kidding? You know, I loved that look, right? I love that look. And I, the amazing thing is people all the time in moments of desperation will say things like, I'll do anything you suggest. And then when it comes time, they don't do it. And I am standing here today and my life has changed so dramatically because when it came time and I'm asked to do some of the things I don't want to do is I did them. That is the thing, the factor that changed my life. Little thing. And my sponsor wasn't asking me to, he wasn't trying to control my life, he was passing on to me everything that I found out later was in the book, it was in The Actions, it Was Everything You Hear Here. He just wanted me to join the herd and dance behind the ones before me in the same steps. That's all. He just wanted me to join Alcoholics Anonymous by my actions. He wanted me to pray. I don't believe in God. I told him, I said, I don' t know. I can't really pray.I don't believe in god. I'll feel like a hypocrite. He said, you know, you've been a hypocrit all your life. What's the difference? Just do it. One time he said something harsh to me. I told him, you know, I'm sensitive. He said, sensitive people are sensitive to other people's feelings. You're just sensitive to your own. We call that selfish and self-centered. I tell you, if you're new and you don't want to change, better stay away from those old-timers. They got some kind of spiritual jujitsu. They turn everything around on you, man. I'm telling you. Wow. He said to me, he was big. He was a past delegate. He had started. He was one of the guys that started the convention in Vegas. He started a retreat. He was involved in one of AA clubs. He was one of the guys that brought the meetings into the detox twice a week. He was a doer, and he wanted me to be a doER. And he kept hammering me about service, service, serve. He wanted 12-step calls. You've got to get on the list. Go to 12-stepped calls. He said, I want you to sign up and go to the new meeting in the prison. Well, I didn't think I had enough. I'm going to have to get some tattoos. I don't know if I can do that. And he said, I want you to go back into the detox with us twice a week and take a meeting back in there. He said, no, I don't want to do that. I want to try to look for new people and help them. I want them to help, help, and help. It seemed like every time I'd see him, he'd talk to me about 12-step or helping others. Finally, after a couple of days of this... You know, it's funny. when I was in the detox, I thought I was willing to do just about anything. But now I'm starting to realize that this guy's not that bright. Because I'd had a lot of therapy, right? And so I said to him, I said, you know, I understand what you're getting at about helping others. I didn't say this, but I thought that A must have a membership problem or something. I said I know what you are saying about helping other and I said in time I could do that. But don't you think I should work on me for a while? And he rears back and he goes, work on you? You've done quite enough of that. Stop it. And I thought, wow, you know, I have done quite a lot of that, I mean, by the time I got to Alcoholics Anonymous, I'd primal screamed, I've been hypnotized, I've gestalt therapy, transactional analysis, rational emotive therapy, even with Ellis, the founder. I mean, I did so much stuff. And when he said, you know, you've done quite enough of that, I thought, you now I have, haven't I? You kept injecting reality into me. See, I don't live in reality. I live in this story of my life. You keep pointing out evidence in my life that has to do with reality. And so I started doing this service and these 12-step calls and I started going back into the detox. I've been doing an averaging probably at least two of those meetings a week for over 36 and a half years. No, it's... You don't understand. I don't do it because I'm a good guy. I do it because if I don't do it, I get weird. And I don' t suffer well. And I do' n't suffer alone. So my home group is very delighted that I do service. my sponsees are very delighted that I'm a nicer guy I'm an nicer guy because it relieves me of the bondage of self and it gets me out of me and gets me into you and that's the answer isn't it by the time, I think most of us we get sober we think that the problem is out here and the answer is in here that's backwards the problem is in hier and the answer is out her in other centeredness I heard a new guy say it one time at a meeting, it was so simple as all real spiritual truth are simplistic in nature he said I don't know why but when I'm trying to do service and I'm thinking about you I feel really good and when I am thinking about me I feel really bad that's really the truth so I started this journey I was just out of the detox, maybe not even a week, I don't think. Pretty new. And I go to a meeting and there's a guy, Joe, there. Joe was very instrumental in my early sobriety. Joe cornered me after the meeting and he said to me, he said, kid, you need to take step three. And the steps are on the wall in the Helano Club and I look at him. I said to Joe, I can't, Joe. He said, why not? I said, well the truth is I don't believe in God Joe said, you don't have to believe in God to take step three I said Joe, for God's sakes look at step two came to believe step three made a decision turned my will and my life over to the care of God as I understand him understand him believe I don' t have any of that Joe and he said to me I'll tell you again kid you do not have to believe in god to take steps step three they said I'll promise you an instantaneous miracle if you'll turn your will and your life over to this chair and he points to a chair on the alano club I thought, oh, what the hell. Okay, all right, Joe, I turn my will and my life over to the chair and Joe gets a big smile. He says, well, the miracle would be your life's no longer in the hands of an idiot. I didn't get mad. I just thought, yeah, that'd be right. Yep, yeah. Well, for God's sakes, if you'd have followed me around and watched me the last couple years, not just the stupid stuff I do drinking, I do really stupid stuff sober. I know that to pick up a drink is to destroy myself, and I make the choice to pick one up in a state of sobriety, abstinence. So I get it. And then I started through the journey of the steps, which is designed, I think, to one end and one end only, and that's to facilitate this decision in step three, which really the point of it is let God have it yeah, yeah, but more importantly is to get it out of the hands of the idiot and if you're new here I hope you're broken enough and discouraged enough and I hope your out of options I hope to get to the place my sponsor talks about where there's no friendly direction and join us let this be the last house on your block and I'll tell you something it's an unbelievable life thank you for my life