Step 3 Hit When He Shouted ‘You Son of a B*tch’ at Higher Power – Barney M.

thank you my name is Barney and I'm an alcoholic and it's nice to be here with you this morning I Sean and other people who have been around the television business the broadcasting business know that and I have spent my life in that business, that ratings are critically important. And so I've spent my life worrying about a number on a piece of paper and measuring my value as a human being according to that number on an almost daily basis. And that's a very sick thing to do. And yet at Alcoholics Anonymous I have the same tendency to think somebody's taking ratings on this stuff. Now, I do notice that almost everybody left the rostrum this morning after they finished what they were doing, just in case I guess somebody starts throwing rocks, they don't want to be up here. Anyway, it's nice to be here this morning. I've enjoyed the weekend. It's been adventurous, to say the least. I got to see a lot more of the territory than I thought I would. because we got fogged in, as you know. Hilton Head was fogged in Friday night and then we got diverted to Savannah and they were fogged and then we went to Brunswick and just barely got into Brunsworth, Georgia and before that fog rolled in there we'd end up in Jacksonville because that was the next choice so then we took three cabs, they got us three cabS got a couple cab drivers out of bed in the middle of the night and they had three cabs drive 16 of us that were coming to Hilton Head up here. And they got as far as Savannah, and it was so foggy on that interstate that they all pulled off the side of the road. They didn't want to go any further. They were really concerned about the weather. It was 2 o'clock in the morning, and we wanted to get to Hinton Head. So we were urging them on. My alcoholic nature is such that I don't care what the weather's like. We're just going to drive anyway. Let's just do it. You know, when does that ever have anything to do with it? You know. Just close one eye, baby, and keep going. Other things will be all right. But we finally got him up here. We got up here about 4 o'clock in the morning. But it's been really nice. And I particularly want to thank Rhodes and Rosemarie for being so nice yesterday, for touring me around this island. And Rhodes has lived here 22 years, I guess he said, and started the first meeting here. He tells a funny story about it. I don't know how many of you were from Hilton had or know this story, but it's funny. When he first came here, there was no other alcoholic on the island I guess 22, 23 years ago. And so somebody said, go ahead and start a meeting. and he started a meeting and nobody came so he was making coffee and cookies and sitting there by himself for a while and then finally some people started to show up but Rose's problem was as he told me there was one old part of the program he kept missing he kept drinking and so later on when people started coming to the meeting he would set up the meeting and he would leave a note and say that the leader tonight is so-and-so and the speaker is so and so the coffee is made and the cookies are here and if anybody needs me I'll be home drinking and then he'd leave me and that went on for a number of years I guess but it's a funny story I love it and Rhodes is my kind of guy I love that but I'm grateful that he has been sober now for a couple of years and that he and his lovely wife were kind enough to drive me around and show me the island yesterday. And then we got to stop and see some folks. There was a bunch of folks over here having something to eat yesterday afternoon. And it was nice to go into somebody's home and be able to have some, especially a couple of caterers from Cleveland. I mean, if you've got to go somewhere, go to somebody's house as a caterer from Cleveland, I'll tell you that. Because they had some great food in there, and it was a wonderful afternoon. And good meetings here, of course, all of the wonderful speakers that have been here, and particularly, of course, my buddy Sean last night with whom I identify an awful lot. And I wish that he were living closer to where I am. I'm in Southern California, and Sean is now way up in Vancouver. But he is well thought of on the West Coast, as I know that people on the East Coast think well of him who have heard his tapes or heard him talk. And now, as to this business of ratings and whether or not anybody gives a damn, I don't know how anybody measures an AA talk, but my sponsor has a funny way of doing it. When I was about two years sober, I was being asked to talk at some local meetings around Los Angeles a little bit, and I knew that I was Being Asked to Talk because of the business that I was in and not because of the quality of my sobriety because the quality of my sobrity stuck. I was not drinking. That's about all that was going on there. But I was that sincere. But I know how to give a good pitch. I mean, what the hell? I can do that. And I can talk the talk and I know how to do all that. It's walk in the walk that I have a problem with. But anyway, I had double booked myself at two different meetings at the same time on the same night, and I was terrified of the whole prospect of having to deal with this situation. And I called my sponsor, and I said, Jesus, I've double-booked myself, and I just don't know what to do. And he said, Well, it's real easy. You just flip a coin, and then whoever loses, you go there and talk. he said you call the winner and tell him to get another speaker and then those people are going to have to stay sober whether they hear you talk or not and that kind of put it all in perspective for me so it's nice to be here today and I have there's no doubt in my mind why I'm here I know that anytime I'm participating in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous it's so that I can remain sober. It's so dat I can take care of Barney, so dat Barney can get one more day of sobriety. Dat's the whole purpose of anything dat I do in AA, whether I'm making coffee, which is really my favorite job in AA. I always think the coffee maker's job is good because you get to get there real early and get to see a lot of people before the meeting. And I always have a sense of ownership. When I'm the first one there and I made the coffee, I own that meeting. That's mine, you know. People come in there, better shape up, you know, because that's my meeting. I have a great sense of ownership of my Saturday night meeting in La Jolla because I started out that meeting as the coffee maker and still I test the coffee on Saturday to make sure they're doing it right. And so I think that anything that we do in AA is just aimed at helping us to stay sober And if you're relatively new in AA, by the way, if I have any message today, if I Have Any Message at All Today, my message is that I am standing here sober not because of my head. Not because I did some good thinking here. I am Standing Here Sober not because I was sincere when I got here or for a long time after I've been here and even sometimes today. But my sincerity is in serious doubt a lot of times right now. No, I am standing here sober because I believe because of the things that I have been willing to do in Alcoholics Anonymous, willing to DO in Alcoholic Anonymous in spite of the fact that my head said that won't work. That's why I think I'm standing here. I was willing to listen to another human being who had been sober longer than I and to say, okay, I know that won'T work but I'll do it anyway. And if my sponsor said to me once, he said it a thousand times, I don't care what you think. Do it anyway! And I don' t know why, but I am fortunate that I was for some reason or other willing, desperate enough, I guess, that I wasn' t willing to do what the man said, maybe almost as a way of trying to prove to him that it wouldn' t work. Trying to prove him that What I saw here in this program and in these steps and in these meetings was not aimed at a person like me. Well, first of all, because I didn't think I was alcoholic. I mean, that gets in the way right away. It's a stumbling block when you come to A if you don't think you're an alcoholic. It does tend to cloud your thinking a lot when you're sitting in these meetings. And that's the way I believe. I had a very simple reason for believing that I was not alcoholic. It seemed clear to me that I wasn't really alcoholic for a very simple reason. That I did not have a drinking problem as many people had suggested to me over the years for a simple reason When I drink, I feel better Drinking makes me feel better Now from time to time because my wife or my boss or friends or well-meaning people would suggest to me that it appeared that I was drinking too much and that I had a drinking problem, I would stop drinking in order to prove to me and to them and to the world that I wasn't drinking. That I was okay. And so I would quit drinking for a while. We used to call it going on the wagon. And I would go on the waggon for a While. And I could show anybody that I'm fine. And I can make a day or two or three and do that all the time. That's no big deal. A day or 2 or 3 without a drink? No big deal! I just go about my business. The fourth day gets a little edgy, the fifth day I get a little nervous, and by the sixth day I'm half crazy. Because sobriety, as it turns out, is a very painful experience for me. Long-term, ongoing sobrietry is an agony for me because life is a pain in the ass. it's filled with situations and people and places that I can't handle it's full of responsibilities, I like responsibilities I don't mind responsibility for a few days but then I gotta have some relief I can handle ongoing never ending responsibility I don' t mind showing up for work on time for a couple of days five or six days in a row, that's fine but then i gotta have that day when i either don't show up at all Or, when I just drift in a little bit late. What the hell is wrong with that? I've been there five days in a row, I did it right. You know, that's kind of the philosophy I've always lived with. It's like, I used to do it, I didn't write for a long time. Why are you mad at me now? Just because I screwed up a couple times. Because I do, you know, I screw up a lot. and then I'll do it right for a while and then i screw up but you have to be willing to allow me to do that because I'm different because I am sensitive as he pointed out I'm an extraordinarily sensitive human being I feel things more deeply than you are damn it don't you get that if I say something to hurt your feelings okay it hurts your feelings big deal but if you say something to hurt my feelings you absolutely kill me. It destroys me and you have to understand that. So you got to be nice to me. And a lot of people never understood that. I would stay sober a week, a week and a half. And when I'm sober, a few things begin to occur to me. One, I don't like my job. Not that I don' t like my job, it's that the people I work for don't treat me well. They're not kind to me. They expect performance on a daily basis. They want you to show up on time every day. They wants you to just put your nose to the grindstone and get in there and hustle, and they want you to be good at what you do, and they want you to have a good attitude about it. On top of everything else, they want you to like it. The people I work with, generally speaking, are not too bright. I mean, they're all right, but they're not, you know, most of them are beneath me somewhere and they don't quite seem to understand that. My ideas are just a tad better than theirs. I understand the concept better than they do. I just, somehow they're missing the big picture. And I see the overall picture and that's, they're not getting it. And so they're hard to get along with. I never paid quite enough. Never quite enough, I, there are people being paid more than I am and they don't do as much as I do. They're not as good as I am. And they're not worth as much, but they're making more and more. And that irritates me. And some of them I know are making more, and I don't know how much they're make them, but I sure like to know. Because I know it's too much, whatever the hell it is. And whatever I'm getting ain't enough. See, I grew up on the south side of Chicago in a neighborhood, Irish Catholic neighborhood, where people didn't have anything particularly. I mean, we lived in apartment buildings, and everybody was in kind of the same condition. And I guess my dad at the top of his game made about $8,000 a year, and he worked his ass off that man. I mean, he worked five days to six days a week and long 14-, 16-hour days, and he was quite a guy. He died when I was 14, but I am told that he was quiet a man. And I know I never was able to measure up to whatever my image was of that man, but he was quite a guy. But we never had anything and I always wanted to have something. I always wanted to get some stuff because it seemed to me if I ever had written it down anywhere, and I never did, this has occurred to me since I've been in AA, that my definition of success I suppose over the years was the accumulation of stuff. I guess that's how I define it. It seems to me that if you're successful, that's how you know you're successful, if you've got a lot of stuff. And so I began accumulating stuff at a young age and tried to get more and more stuff and cars and houses and clothes and all those kinds of things. And then after you get a lot OF stuff, the trick is, because other people get a LOT OF stuff too, and then the trick IS to get MORE expensive stuff than stuff. And that's when you start graduating from Chevrolet to BMW and Mercedes. And if you're anything like me, you spend much more than you make, but you get a lot of stuff. And so you look good. And I was into the business of looking good. That was my role in life was to try to look successful. Because I felt that if I could just get enough stuff and if I could just have a big enough house and a nice enough car and all those things and the right wife and the nice kids and the good family and the whole shop, that then I was going to feel okay. I was gonna feel like I had been reasonably successful. That's all. And I never had enough stuff. Never had enough. Ain't got enough yet. Never will have enough. don't ever expect to be the richest man in the cemetery and sometimes that's painful I know what Al Jolson's grave looks like and I'd like to have one a little bit bigger that son of a gun's got a mausoleum I tell you that thing, Al Jolsons boom that's my idea of a death that's how sick I am but there are all kinds I understand people that leave their names on buildings I mean, rich guys put their names on buildings because it has some lasting value to it. I know if my name is in concrete or in marble on a building, it'll last longer than I do. That's all. Somebody will know I was here. The so-and-so building. There it is. A hundred years from now, you know, until they tear it down. And I think about things like that. And I never had a building. But when I'm sober, things like that start bothering me. When I'm sober, the bills start mounting up and the pressure of having to be a father and a husband begins to wear on me. And it is tedious and it is difficult to know that the bills just keep coming and I never have enough money to pay them all and I still don't have enough stuff and I don't know what the hell's the matter and that woman I'm married to just doesn't understand me and she's never understood my sensitivity. We had six children, we had a large family and I'd married this very nice girl and I accidentally fell into the radio broadcasting business and accidentally had a lot of success at it. I accidentally ended up in television and fell into a job where I was anchoring the news for an ABC station in Detroit, and when I was 26 years old, I was making a ton of money. And I was very successful, and I was doing very well, and I didn't feel right. And I didn'T know what the hell was the matter, and I figured the problem was that I wasn't successful enough and I didn't have enough stuff and something was wrong and I don't know what the hell was wrong I guess I was in the wrong town I needed to get to a bigger town I needed more money and more success and I guess I needed Cronkite's job I don' t know what I wanted but I wanted everything and we were extremely successful in Detroit and I made a lot of money and the ratings were good and they were flying this other guy and I that was anchoring with me into New York and we were being wined and dined in New York and taken care of there and I just identify with when Sean talks so much about the New York days and all that because I was being given tickets to a lot of those shows and being given a lot booze in the rooms and Jesus, it was a great life. I was 26, 27, 28 years old. And at the time, I mean right now that blows my mind when I think about it. But at the same time at the end of the time it seemed perfectly natural and perfectly normal and as a matter of fact it was never enough. It was never Enough. They were never treating us quite right. They put us up at the Leonard Goldenson suite at the New York Hilton and it was Never Quite Enough. It was Never Good Enough. And I always had a lot of anxiety about that. What's wrong? Why do they treat us like this? Why don't they treat us better? Why am I not working in New York? Why am i not working in Los Angeles? Why am still in this goddamn tank town? Why can't I get out of here? Why is my wife so dumb sometimes? Why can I have this really slick, sophisticated wife? Why do I have to have this sort of kind of dumb wife? And why do my children behave this way? Why can't they just be good? I don't understand. They just do what I tell them to do. What the hell's the matter with them? Why do they act this way and why do people treat me the way they do and why is my life the way it is and why don't I have to feel so guilty all the time And why do I have to feel so much like a moral leper? I felt that way since I was seven or eight or nine years old. Raised a Roman Catholic, I guess. Just guilty all the time. Felt like a sinner. And felt very much like an immoral leper. And an immortal leper is one who not only sins a lot, but somebody who enjoys it thoroughly. And I knew you weren't supposed to enjoy sin that much, and I did. And I wasn't sorry. I was sorry if they caught me. And growing up in church, I knew I didn't fit there and I didn' t belong there with the good people. I just wasn' t one of the good people. I saw people going to Mass and saying the Rosary and doing the right thing, and it looked like they were getting something and I wasn' T getting it. It' s about the way I felt for a long time. They' re getting it and I' m not getting it! What the hell's the matter here? I don' t get it here! I don't understand. Because in AA, as with the church, I suppose, but certainly in AA I was trying to do something with my head here for a long time. I was tryng to understand intellectually what was going on here. I was tyring to read this thing and understand it intellectually. And it made no sense to me. because, as it turns out, in my case and maybe in yours, there's nothing to be learned here. There's something to be done here. You may ask, do what? My answer is, ask your sponsor. If you don't have a sponsor, you'll never know. That's why you get them. Clancy, he said something the other day. It was great. I always thought of him as being one of these really great sponsors because he just seems to get people to do what he wants them to do and he seems to have such a great handle on human beings and he just deals with them so well. And I heard him the other day said something that really struck me. He said, the principal job of a sponsor is to keep the baby amused until AA works. And you know, that's true. It just never occurred to me. Took a lot of load off of my shoulders, I'll tell you that. Because I always feel like such a goof sponsor, you know. Because they don't have all the magic answers. It's just a matter of keeping them amused because the program will finally get them. But you've got to keep them amuse. But anyway, I had all this responsibility and I had all these problems and I have these feelings. You know, one of the feelings I had that I never was able to put a label on, because I never was good at labeling feelings, I didn't think about it too much. One of the things I felt a lot was fear and I didn' t even know that. I had no idea until I'd been in AA for a long time that I was I spent much of my life terrified and I did not know that. I wasn't aware of it. I just didn't know that I was running around out there scared to death that I was going to be a failure. And when I was as successful as anybody could expect to be at the age that I was at, I was terrified I was going to lose what I had or they were going to catch me. They're going to find out I'm not bright enough or they're going to figure out I don't have it. Whatever it takes, I can't measure up. And I was scared to death of that. I was frightened of bosses. I was threatened of authority figures. I was afraid of my wife, for God's sake. I didn't even know it. I'm just terrified of people. You know, Sean was talking last night about being a really sensitive person and about being shy. Believe it or not, left to my own devices, I will sit in the back of this room and not talk to anybody. I want to be alone. Because there's a part of me that understands when I come in here, you all know one another and I don't know you. And when you get to know me, you ain't going to like me. And I'm probably not going to love you either. So I'll just sit in the back of the room and hide. And then if you want to get to see me, if you get up to know Me, and He said, if you wanna get to Know Me, you come on over and talk to Me. Because I'm not really up to reaching out. That's not my game. and see I'm feeling things like this sober I'm going through these periods of not drinking and I don't even know what I'm feeling all I know is after a week or a week and a half of not drink I'm half crazy I'm nervous I've been going to work every day I've taken out the garbage I've cut the grass I've gone to Y Indian guides making their totem poles and mine don't look as good as the other fathers and I feel like a goof and I don't want to feel that way I want to be a good father I want it to feel sophisticated and slick and bright and I know it will feel that way and I want them to see my totem pole but you got to bring it to every meeting I just I don' t want my kids to think I'm such a goof I want my children to think well of me. And I would take them out and I'd try to teach them how to hit a baseball and I am the world's worst athlete and I can't tell them that. I can admit to my sons that I never could hit. I don't know the first thing about it. I never was any good at that. When we were in the alley on the south side of Chicago and they used to choose upsides with a bat like that. Remember that? Choose upsides. I'd be the last guy they picked. I was the last one. I was always standing there and he'd go, oh well, shit, I'll take him. Can't hit, can't feel, can catch. He's a goof. Not particularly fast. No athletic ability at all. My sponsor happens to be a superb golfer. He would love Hilton Head. Superb golfer, I can't play golf. I tried for 20 years. I took lessons, I did it all. I couldn't do it. I didn't try to drunk anyway, anything. Couldn't do it. I don't have any coordination. I have absolutely no sense of coordination. I have a couple of sons who were beautifully coordinated. They're great athletes. And I don' t understand that. How the hell did it miss me? What happened? But I feel these things. And I'm sober and I'm trying to be a good father and a good husband. I'm going to work every day. I'm doing the best I can. Jesus, they're putting pressure on me all the time. and the anxiety and the frustration, paying the bills, keeping this house together, being a responsible father. That's after about a week and a half. And what happens is that the pressure builds and builds and buildings so much in my mind that I've got to have some relief for Christ's sake. I gave them theirs, now they've gotto give me mine. I've gotta have a few laughs. Let me get just a couple of drinks. Just, I'm only having a couple. Then I'm going home. So I go out and have a couple drinks for Christ's sake. Big deal! Well, just a couple Whew! I feel better. I wonder what the hell I waited so long. Drinking makes me feel better, it always does. Now, there's this sad thing about it, really. It's a peculiarity about my drinking. It's just, it's the weirdest thing. Can't quite understand it. See, it is hard to explain. Once I begin to drink, I don't seem to be able to stop. Isn't that sad? Because drinking makes me feel better. Drinking is great. Drinking ist wonderful. It helps me relax. It takes the sharp edges off of living. I no longer feel frightened. I don't feel inadequate anymore. I feel more than adequate. I feel on top of the world and everything's fine, and I just keep drinking. I don'T seem to be able to stop. And when I keep drinking, I do some things that I suppose people would have described as rather bizarre. I'm a peculiar drinker. Oh. I get real drunk. I don't know why I do that but I do I don' t mean to all the time I just do and when I get real drunk I tend to forget things I just forget I can' t remember who I talk to I can't remember where I am I can''t remember driving the car home I can'T remember where the car is I can ''t remember what city I'm in I move around a lot I travel when I drink I go from bar to bar I go from city to city sometimes I go from country to country and I and I and I don't really always know where I am when I get there and it's embarrassing and it is expensive and it is hard to explain because they don't get it you know where have you been I've been in Jamaica Jamaica why did you go to Jamaica see I always follow up give you one of those why did I go I don't know you asked me where I was that's where I went that's what I went I don' t know where I went there it's a nice place I don''t know your boss has been calling. You've been gone for three days. I don't know. What are you going to tell him? I don' t know. Do you understand what you're doing to your family? Yes. Do understand what you're going to this marriage? Yes, you understand? What you're getting your liver? Yes actually at least my kidneys that are feeling it more than my liver. The pain is in my lower back, dumbbell. If you knew any anatomy at all, you'd know it was my kidneys. But you're so dumb. You should just go down and talk to the priest and tell him what you do. I smell the perfume on you when you come home I don't remember that either Jesus So I went down and saw the priest one time I talked to him I told him the truth I said, I get drunk all the time And she's getting really mad and I said I thought maybe I could teach Sunday school for a while I had 16 hours of theology at the University of Notre Dame I'm qualified I didn't tell him I didn' t believe in God because that does tend to put him off a little but I taught Sunday school down there for quite a few weeks until I got hung over one Sunday and missed it and then I fell screw it that didn't work either nothing seemed to work for me because because I because I am a different kind of a cat because I do have this creative sensitive nature about me because I'm different my case is so different I can't even begin to explain to you how different my case is. I'm just not like you. God, I wish my problem... I wish I were an alcoholic. I really wish that was the problem. I really wished that it were, but my problem is I'm overly sensitive and I'm frightened and I feel inadequate much of the time and I am crazy and I just don't feel good. I just have to drink sometimes, see? I'm not like You. I have to drinking sometimes. See, because the problem is not drinking. When I drink, I feel better. If I stay sober too long, I get crazy. My problem with sobriety always has been. I have this horrible sobriery problem and I don't know where the hell to go with that. Where are you supposed to go? Sobriety's anonymous? You feel like staying sober one more day? You call somebody and get drunk together? I don't know. I don' t know what the hell. I don''t know what you're supposed to do when your problem is not really drinking. When drinking is the only thing that really relieves it, when drinking isthe only thing... The only time I really feel good is when I'm drinking. The only timem I reallyfeel okay, it's just that I can't get a handle on the drinking. It's justthat I can''t control the drinking! I just... There''s something... I don ''t knowwhat the hell''s matter. I don'T get that. My wife, when I was 35, divorced me. She didn't care anymore. I was surprised by that. I really didn't think she'd do that. I'm a Catholic. And I looked at her and I said, well, I guess if that's what you have to do, you have the right to do it. You have to be able to do what you want to do. But I must tell you that I'm going to demand custody of the six children. She said, okay, you can have them. She left. she's gone to too many Al-Anon meetings I just and the court ordered the house sold and the two lawyers split what was left I had a great resentment against lawyers for a long time now I sponsor a couple of them, I get my revenge I just I don't know what the hell to do I took the six kids and I went I rented this apartment in Santa Monica and I turned around and my cars were gone through a series of bad breaks and misunderstandings I ended up owing a lot of money a lot of money thousands and thousands of dollars and I didn't have it some of it was dead money and I don't think that's fair dead money is when you owe for stuff that doesn't exist anymore that's not right they have to keep making those payments It's not about a resentment, baby. It's right to check out for that crap. It just... When you know it doesn't exist anymore. Carpeting, you bought on a house, you know, ten years ago somewhere. The guy that bought the house tore the carpeting out and put new in, and it's gone. You're still paying for it. Here's your rub buck, $29. Oh yeah, thousands and thousands. and thousands of dollars. I don't know what the hell it was. I still had a job. I was working by this time in California and I had a, I had an idea that I had to get a job I don' t know why I had a job they knew I was a drunk I'd been warned and warned and warned about my reputation but I really didn't think that drinking was the problem I really didn't and I ended up getting very very drunk at them all because that's what I do and I woke up, kind of came to in a friend's apartment in the middle of the night in Marina del Rey, California and I was sober all of a sudden. It was four in the morning and I came out of a blackout and I Was sober. Well, my body was drunk but my head was sober. I didn't like that feeling and I started calling people, making phone calls and trying to call people to get some sympathy. Jesus, my wife divorced me. I was broke. I'd lost all my stuff, for God's sake. I didn't even have a car. I managed to go out and lease a car from some idiot who'd never checked my TRW apparently because it looked like a Christmas tree. And I'm driving this leased car and I've got nothing left and I'm just gone. I'm 35 years old and life is over. I just felt screwed by life, by people, by circumstances. I've Got These Six Kids To Take Care Of And here I am in this apartment, and I'm drunk. And those kids are in my apartment in Santa Monica, and they're alone. And the oldest one is 12, and the youngest one is a year. And I'm the drunken father. And I suddenly realized that. And I was scared. And I thought, that bitch. Look what she did to me. That's what I thought. that's how my head works and it never occurs to me that I'm the guy that's responsible it never does it's always you it's never me it's only somebody else it's ever me well I don't know what to do people that night for some reason or other were hanging up on me they were just sick of me my brother in Chicago said I told you six years ago you were drinking too much and destroying your family and as far as I'm concerned and I don't even have a brother anymore. And he hung up on me. And I didn't know what to do. I had a card in my wallet that belonged to a man that I had met about six months before. And this guy had told me that he was an alcoholic. Said it right out in front of people. And I, Jesus, that's embarrassing. and I didn't know what the hell he was so proud of but he'd given me his business card because we had talked you get one of those people you want to talk to them a little bit and just kind of figure out where they're coming from and so I had this guy's card in my wallet and I called him up it was four o'clock in the morning and I thought well these people like to talk to drunks, I guess, and I'm drunk. And he answered the phone and I said, I got to tell you right up front, I'm not an alcoholic. He said, oh, I know. He says, social drinkers call me at four o'clock in the morning all the time. I said, look, I said here's what I'll admit to, okay? When I drink, I look very alcoholic. So a lot of people have made that mistake. It's not the problem. It is not the problem. When I drink, I feel better, baby. If I stay sober too long, I get crazy. My problem is people, my problem is circumstances, my problem is I've never been lucky, my problems is I don't have enough stuff. That's my problem. That has always been my problem." And he said, well what do you want? I said, Well here's the thing, I'm drunk and I'm scared. My kids are in this apartment in Santa Monica and they're all alone and My wife is gone. She left me. Can you imagine the disloyalty? And I got to get my act together, you know what I mean? I just got to make a couple of bucks. I got save a couple bucks. I got get some bills paid. I owe some money. And then I'll be fine. And I thought maybe you could tell me how it is that you don't drink because you told me you hadn't had a drink in quite some time. You see, I haven't had drink in four and a half years. I said, well, my case is not quite that severe. I was thinking maybe 30 days or a couple of months at the outside, you know what I mean? And he said, why don't we just do it a day at a time? And I said no, no, I need a couple months. so we start going to these meetings and I didn't want to go to meetings, I'm in television I don't want to show up at a public place so somebody could see me, not with them because I'm not really them see, I am not one of them then they, the guy he bought this for me, I never bought it myself he paid for this and handed it to me and I took it home and I kind of glanced through it, you know. And I wasn't too impressed with that. First of all, if you notice, it was written before the war. Come on, 1939, it's a new world, you know what I mean? And I just was not too impressed with some of the archaic language, the stilted formal approach that was taken by this man that turned out to be a fellow by the name of Bill who wrote most of that as it turns out and who had a lot of help from his buddy the drunken doctor from Akron and him you wouldn't let Lance a boil I mean it was just you know and it turns Out Bill never got rich even after he got sober so I wasn't too impressed with I really wasn't I thought Jesus I'm not looking for saintliness here I need to get some stuff I'll be fine if I could just get a house and get some cars and get you know I'll get a car I'll do all right get some money going and so this guy we went to these meetings and I I wasn't too thrilled with the meetings and I wasn'T impressed with the speakers and I night after night after night it seemed to be the same crap was going on here all the time I mean from time to time have you identified yet and I'd say no don't expect to haven't met a newscaster in the bunch haven't met anybody that drank where I drank what I drank when I drank haven't meet anybody that's got my background I haven't met anybody here, there's a lot of losers here I was a success story and I went to meetings and I went to meetings and I, now it was at this point that my sponsor's attitude got real nasty because he decided he wanted me to do some things. And I don't want to do anything, but he insisted that I make coffee at the Saturday night meeting, which means showing up at six o'clock to make coffee for the idiots that are going to show up at eight o' clock. And i don't think that's fair or right that I should have to do that every night, but He said that's what you're going to do if I'm your sponsor. And he said, I'm going to give you some things to do here. And if you don't want to do them, that's fine. I don't care. Just tell your next sponsor about it. He didn't seem to give me a lot of room to run. No negotiating, no maneuvering. Just do it! And I would come up with things like, well, I think, and he'd say, I don' t care what you think. Your thinking got you here. Who cares what you think? I want to know what you think, I'll come and lay on the floor of that apartment you're in with those six kids and ask you. I'd say, well, I feel bad today. You'd say your feelings are totally invalid. Don't pay any attention to it. I'd say, well, if you don't care what I think and you don' t care how I feel, what do you care about? He said, I only care about what you do. Just tell me what you do! That's all I want to know. Tell me what you did today to stay sober. That's ALL I WANT TO KNOW! First of all, you call me every day. Secondly, you go to a meeting every day. Thirdly, you get jobs in every damn meeting you go to. And fourthly, you go work with some newcomers. I said, well, I am a newcomer. He said, no, no. There's people in this room that are sober less time than you. And it turns out he was right. At the Ben Stagg and Beverly Hills, there was a guy in the kitchen who was drunker than a skunk. And I don't know anything to do with him, but there was this guy, John, and this guy John was bugging me, and he said, we've got to work with this newcomer, and I said he's drunk. What are you going to tell him? He said, well, we'll work with him. I said, what do you mean, work with them? He's drunk! Well, we're going to take him to coffee. I said oh great, and he went wide awake drunk. Great. So we took him to the coffee shop and we sat and we talked and we talk and we picked Ben up every night and we took Ben to a meeting and Ben was drunk every damn night. And I had him in my car and he threw up in my care one night. and I said Ben you son of a bitch you're drunk again oh no it's just coming out of my pores one night we went to pick him up but he's standing on the sidewalk and he didn't have any shoes on I said Ben where's your shoes he said she won't give me my shoes she threw me out of the house and she won' t give me my shoes I said, well, what the hell are we going to do? And John says, I'll see if I can get his shoes. So he goes up to the house to get the shoes. I'm standing there talking to Ben and he says, by the way, she called the cops. I got a picture. I'm staying on this corner with these two stumble bums. One guy without shoes on and he's half stiff. And I'm a television newscaster, right? I need this for my reputation. I said Ben, get in the car. No shoes. Get in the Car. Come on, John. in the car, off we went. No shoes. Went to the meeting. I said, man, I'm so sick of you I could throw up. Got to the meet and I ran over to a guy who had a lot of time, about a year and a half. And to me, a year an half was forever at that time. As long as I intended to stay, I'll tell you that. But I said to this guy, I says, if I got this guy bent, and he's driving me crazy. He won't stop drinking, he's just going to make me drunk. He said, well, if he's going to threaten your sobriety, dump him. I said, what? He said yeah, if he threatens your sobrietty, anything that threatens your subriety dump him! I said well you can't do that. He said why not? I said it's not the kindly thing to do. He said what do you want me to do? I said how about you take him? Because you've got a year and a half you can talk to him. he said alright let me have them so we took him out to a drying out joint in Oxnard, California and I knew that Ben wasn't sincere and he was a sick cookie and he wasn't ready for this program and it was too bad last May I celebrated 17 years of sobriety in the middle of June Ben celebrated 17 years of subriety and I knew he wasn't sincere but that's the crazy stuff that I did and I became a greeter on Thursday night at the Echo Park meeting and I don't want to stand at the door and shake hands with people and say welcome to our wonderful program I hate Alcoholics Anonymous I don' t want to be here I don''t want to find God I just want to get some stuff. When I was seven months sober, I heard a guy talk and I was surprised because I identified with him. I didn't mean to, it just happened. And I didn' t identify with this guy's drinking story at all. What I identified was how he felt. He talked about a lifetime of being overly sensitive and fearful and not fitting in and not belonging and feeling inadequate. And I understood what he was talking about. He was reading my mail, for God's sake. And he said, if you're walking around with a set of emotions anything like what I'm describing and you seem somehow unable to control and enjoy your drinking there's a name for that. Oh, really? Yes, it turns out it's a disease. I'll be damned. it's called alcoholism ooh and I went up to this guy after the meeting and I said Jesus if what you're saying is true I may be alcoholic he said how long have you been here kid I said seven months he said you're a quick study aren't you And we talked for a long time, that guy and I. And he says, you know kid, the problem is people think the problem's drinking here, don't they? He said, sure looks like it. Jesus, we die from drinking, baby. We get lost jobs from drinking. We lose families from drinking。 We get thrown up from drinking+. We pass out from drinking%. We finally die from drinkings+. Looks like the problem was drinking. Sure looks like it. But you know what he said? The real curse of the alcoholic is not drinking. He said, the real curse of the alcoholics is sobriety. That's what we can't deal with. That's where we don't understand. That's a position we can maintain. Sobriety is the problem, Barney. Sobrietty is the problem! That's why we drink! Really? Yeah. And he pointed out to me, he said, look, you know what's strange? They wrote this book, see? And it's all about sobriety. It talks a lot about how do we stay sane and sober? We already know how to sober up. That's no big deal. We've done that a million times. You sober up in a car. You can sober up in your toilet. that you can sober up in a drunk tank. We can sober it up at a rehab or a hospital. We can sober it up in jail. We can sobre it up anywhere. And we do it over and over and over and ever again. The problem is staying sober. How do we keep from starting to drink again the next time? That's the problem. We sober them up. We get them cleaned up. We get him a job. We get their families back. Six months later, they're drunk again. And the social drinkers and the normies look at him and say, Why did he do that? Well, because he couldn't stay in sobriety. Sobriety was too painful for him. Sobriety was a position he couldn't maintain. Oh. Oh, we have a sobriety problem. Yeah. The minute I quit drinking on May 25th, 1972, my sobriery problem kicked in. I can solve that very quickly by drinking again. then I don't have a sobriety problem anymore but then I got a whole new problem that gets me back on that same rat race I was in before so I've had this sobriery problem for 17 and a half years I wake up with it every morning every morning my mind says to me don't go to work today they're not going to like you anyway you went to work yesterday you deserve a day off why don't you just hide in your room today and don't talk to anybody and just stay here and maybe they'll forget you're here my sobriety problem tells me that people don't understand me my sobpriety problem tells me that people should not be cutting me off on the freeway I have learned however only to chase them about three exit ramps now my sobrietty problem tells me that I am that I am too afraid to do anything. My sobriety problem tells me that I don't have enough stuff. My sobpriety problem tells me my car is not good enough or my house is not good enough or my I'm just getting screwed again by life or they're not treating me well again. My sobribity problem can kick in in the middle of an AA meeting if somebody says something to me that I know that I like. Some son of a bitch an AA can say something and just ruin my whole week. My sobriety problem can kick in at home, it can kick into work, it can take in an AA, it kicks in all the time. It can kill me. It could put me in a position that I was in before where the only relief I have, the only belief I have is to go have a couple of drinks. That immediately relieves my sobrietry problem. Or, I can use AA because, as it turns out, Alcoholics Anonymous has done for me precisely what drinking used to do. If he says it twice, it's probably important. AlcoholicsAnonymous has been a great help to me. It has done, for me, precisely what breaking used to be. It makes me feel better. It deals, one day at a time, with this horrible sobriety problem of mine. And I deal with it in the strangest ways. I deal với my sobriety problem in ways that make absolutely no sense to me because I'm doing things that do not seem to be directly related to what's wrong. My wife mistreated me today, so I'll go to a meeting and make coffee. My bosses do not understand me, so I'm going to talk to some stupid newcomer drunk and tell him about something that I used to do and don't do anymore. My sobriety problem is with me and will be with me until the day that I die. It will never go away. That's why I go to meetings. People say, well, why do they go to meeting? You saw it in here tonight. People stood up this morning who have over 20 years, 25, 30 years of sobriety. Why are they here? You think they're going to get drunk tonight? No! They're dealing with the same thing we're all dealing with, the sobriery problem. That's all. How do people... You look at people, a lot of them, not all of them. A lot of people with 25, 35 years of subriety look pretty good. They look okay. They look like they're fine. How do they get that way? how do they maintain that veneer? How do they seem to stay so goddamn calm all the time? Because they go to meetings. Because they work with newcomers. Because they do things that are seemingly totally unrelated to what the hell's wrong. That's why I'm here. I'm always puzzled why people would ask me to go from one ocean to the other. fly coast to coast to come to Hilton Head, South Carolina for Christ's sake in the Marriott Hotel and talk to a group of people I don't even know about something I don' t even do anymore what the hell is that? because I have an ongoing sobriety problem that can only be treated with you and with these meetings. It can only be treated by people who share the same disease with me. It can only be helped by being a part of your lives and you're being part of mine. It's the only therapy I have. It's The Only Thing That Works For Me. I have no other therapy but Alcoholics Anonymous. I've never tried any. I've been sober 17 and a half years and I feel fine. Doing okay. I don't knock people that go to therapy. I think therapy is fine. But I always ask them if they tried AA. Try AA first. Then let's go talk about $150 an hour. If you want to do that, let's try AA, pal. Let's do that. We've got these here steps. We've Got These Here Meetings. We've GOT THESE HERE Newcomers. we got these coffee pots that they filled do you think if you're new here do you thing the people who were making cookies over there all weekend those great cookies they serve you think they were doing that for you nah each little cookie represented a little more serenity A little more peace, a little more joy in their lives. Because it's in giving this thing away that we get it. It's the oddity of it. It'sthe weirdness of it . . . It's ingiving it away thatwegettogether. And we give it away by making cookies. We give itawaybymakingcoffee. We giveitawaybytalkingtoanewcomer. We giveidawayby talking, byleading, byparticipating. We giveidoayjustbyjustbeinghere. Insteadofbeinghomewatchingbasketball. That's all. that's how we do it I had a lot of difficulty I'll tell you this quickly and I'm going to shut up I had the first step I had lot of difficultly with the third step I had alot of training about God I knew a lot about God when I was 20 years old I had 16 hours of theology at Notre Dame I was perfectly prepared to prove that God existed I was also perfectly prepared to prove that God didn't exist and I didn't care it didn't make any difference to me because if God existed I was screwed and I knew that because I'm a moral leper and that's the way it is. So it was really hard for me in AA and I had a lot of difficulty and I married a girl in AA, a member of AA. That didn't help my serenity a lot but I thought it would. She had two kids and I have six kids and we have raised the eight children and they have grown and the oldest one is now a member of AA, he drank and drugged until he couldn't take it anymore and then he got in AA and he's sober now 8 years and he and his wife are now going through some difficulty they have a couple of children, we're grandparents and that's a great feeling but now it looks like a divorce and that is not a great feel and we're going through all of these sobriety problems ongoing sobriery problems I went to meetings and I worked with newcomers and I made coffee and I did all these things for six and a half years and I didn't drink. But I ended up in San Diego at six and the half years sober. Broke. I was out of work. I had had a couple of really good jobs in sobriety and I'd been fired from those and I had a lot of resentment over that. And my wife at six and a half years of sobriety this woman who was sober at that time almost ten years was going to divorce me because I was a loser and she said that. And I knew that I was a loser because I didn't have any money and I couldn't work, I couldn' t function anymore in television. I'd had it and I knew that I'd hat it and I didn' t know what to do. And I sat on the beach one night in La Jolla and I cried and I cried and that crying and I cried because I was such a loser six and a half years sober I was sponsoring people that were much healthier than I was I had guys driving up to my house in Mercedes Benz asking me how do you work step three and it was embarrassing for me to have to say I don't know I've never tried that one not really well I had a higher power I had a higher power that finally my higher power was all of the alcoholics around the world sober together. That was kind of it, and it didn't work. I was sober, but I was crazy. And I didn't know what to do, and I was sitting on that beach, and I WAS CRYING, AND I WAS SAYING A PRAYER. It's the third step prayer in the book that a man had pointed out to me one day. And I didn�t know why I was saying that prayer because I didn �t really believe in God and I thought, this is all bullshit, really. It's meaningless crap. It's podium talk that doesn't really work. What am I going to do? I'm such a loser. I'm so tired of being a loser I'm just, I finally reached the stage where I understood what my sponsor said when he looked at me and said one day you will know down deep that you are appealed zero. and that day I knew it. That's less than nothing. But I don't know what to do with that. And I was saying that prayer, and I shouted out at God or whoever. I looked up because that's where he's supposed to be, and I said, you son of a bitch. I give up. You've got to be careful what you say. because if I had any idea that day, or for some period after that, that I was beginning the horrible, ugly, awful, agonizing process of surrender, I probably would not have done it. All I did was give up. I just gave up trying to be anything. I gave up try to be a big wheel. I gave trying to rich. I gave try to famous. I gave because I couldn't make it. Not because it wasn't a good idea. I just couldn't make it. I gave up worrying about stuff. I didn't have any stuff. I tried all my life, and I was nothing. Hell, I was 41 years old, and it was over. My life was over." What was the use? My wife was going to divorce me. This was going be my second divorce, my second failure as a husband. Jesus! My kids were crazy. They wouldn't do what I told them to do. I couldn't straighten them out. Life was a bitch. when they hit their teens they grew fangs and I couldn't deal with them I was a failure as an employee as a father as a husband as a human being and as a member of AA as far as I was concerned because I sure as hell didn't have any peace or serenity or love in my heart for anybody I worked with newcomers because somebody told me it was a good idea and I sat on the beach and I cried and I thought I just have to get a job I gotta get a jock and I'll just get a job job, any kind of dumb job job. And I'll just show up every day and try to look alert because it's all I got left. And then I'll go to meetings and I will I'll work with newcomers and she'll be gone and I won't have any more stuff. I'll juste go to the damn meetings and one day with any luck at all I'll die. And that's what I'll do. And so I went and got a job job. Just a dumb job as a reporter with a station that I used to work for in Los Angeles as an anchorman. And I went to work and I decided to show up every day, keep my mouth shut and do what they told me to do. That's hard for me. And I show up and they tell me what to do and I do it and they pay me. It's a damnedest thing. If they ever ask me for my opinion, I'll probably give it to them. They'd never have asked. And now I've been back there 11 years and they keep giving me money. And I'm making an extremely comfortable living today. I've never asked them for a dime. I've ever asked him for a raise. I'd never ask them for nothing. They just keep giving me money, I just show up and look alert. That is God's honest truth. Same thing I did here this morning, I show up to look alert, you know, I have no expectations anymore. I can't afford them. Because I'm such a failure. And so I just do whatever's in front of me. As my sponsor says, whenever I'm crazy and I call him, he'll say, why don't you just do the next indicated thing? It never occurs to me to do the next indicted thing. I'm always thinking about three days from now or a week from now, or the way they're screwing me again or how they treated me yesterday. It never occurred to me. Just stop and do the next indicated thing. That's all. It's so simple, it never occurs to me. But when I do that and when I'm having good days, I'm okay. I feel fine. I didn't know what to do with that woman I married because she's 20 years sober now and I didn'T know how to make her happy and I DIDN'T know HOW TO MAKE HER LOVE ME. I tried for a long time. I was crazy about her but I didn' t know what the hell to do with her. And I decided I'd do at home the same thing I do at work. I just show up and look alert. I don't know what else to do. My sponsor said, why don't you just go home and look at her and say, how are you? And then the hard part, listen for the answer. He said, you're not allowed to tell her how you are unless she asks. Sometimes she doesn't ask. She's a good member of AA. She's a solid member of AA. She sponsors a lot of people. And she's a good, hard worker in AA in La Jolla. And recently our eighth child left home, graduated high school, and we're alone now, the two of us. And we're trying to figure out what the hell to do with ourselves. We rented a house out in LaJolla, and actually we're living up in Orange County now because that's where I work. And I work for still that Los Angeles television station, and I'm a reporter in Orange Country. And I just show up every day and do what they tell me to do, and it's a peculiar kind of thing. for me. I don't ever expect to be the richest man in the cemetery. I never expect to drive the most expensive automobile in America. I'm perfectly content if the one I'm driving gets me to the next meeting, and that's the honest truth, because I have no heavy expectations anymore. I can't have them. I disappoint myself so much. So I just do the next indicated thing all the time. And I'm like, hey, you know what? I'll tell you something really weird. I feel great. It's a damnedest thing. I am pretty much at peace with myself most of the time and with you. I have nothing to prove. I have no words to conquer for me. I just do the next indicated thing most ofthe time. Now, what's happened to me over a long period of time, if you're relatively new and you're having trouble with God, listen to me for a second I have finally over a long period of time come to believe that a power greater than myself can restore me to sanity power greater than myself can restore me to sanity I think he can, I don't think he's done it yet but I think he can and I gotta tell you something And it's just, Jesus, take this with you. You can have any higher power in AA that you want to have. You can add any higher power in AAA that you wanna have as long as you're reasonably sure it isn't you! Do you hear me? I hope so. I hope you stick around. Just go to another meeting, put your ass in the chair, leave your head outside. You can't think your way here anyway. There's nothing to be learned here intellectually. Over a long process and a long period of time something happens to us that's spiritual here that I can't define, that many people who are far brighter than I have tried to define. It's here. And the only thing I can tell you is that I have experienced it here and others have experienced it here and they experience it on an ongoing basis and I experienced it here this weekend and I will feel it again when I go home to my home group and I'll feel it when I get back when I got to work tomorrow if I get to work tomorrow if the fog lifts because it's just a simple matter of doing the next indicated thing because I think that's God's will for me yeah I think that's it so I wish you well if you're new God love you this is not an easy deal but it's sure simple just easy does it baby give yourself a break stay with these people find somebody that's been sober a few days more than you and talk to them if something's bothering you spill it unload it and come to these rooms and just be part of whatever's happening here and maybe if my experience is worth anything to you, or if your life is anything like mine. You can say, finally, as I have said many, many times, I love you. And finally, I know how to say that, and I know what it means. It took a long time. I loveyou because of what you have been for me and because you're allowing me to be part of you. And that's a good thing. That's as good as it gets. God love you.