Step 4, Fear and Sex at the Woodstock of AA, Cocoa Beach – Bob D.

My name is Bob Darrell and I am alcoholic. Through the grace of a God that I was afraid to believe in, who I found out is crazy about me and obviously has no taste, the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous as they were outlined in this book, good sponsorship, committed and dedicated home group, commitments in the fellowship and bushels and loads of newcomers. I haven't had a drink or any mind or emotion altering substances since Halloween, which is the end of October 1978. And for that, I owe AA my life. It's good to be here. I am honored to participate in the meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I want to welcome all the people that are reasonably new. If you're in your first 30 days or so of sobriety, I'm glad you're here. If you're in your last 30 days of sobriety and don't know it, I'm glad you're here also. And there's always a few in the room like that, unfortunately. It's good to see people from other countries. The two guys from Sweden, I hope they didn't follow me here because I was just there and probably stepped on some people's toes. I hope not. I am delighted to talk about something that I didn't understand. I almost died of alcoholism because I didn't know what people meant when they said surrender. In 1977, my life, I had burnt to the ground one more time. And I came out off of a bad drunk, locked up in a jail cell, facing two years in prison. It's customary in the United States that when you're arrested, you get a phone call to call for help. And there wasn't anybody to call. I was totally alone. and I don't know how that happened to a guy like me who had once had great friends I was the guy with all the potential I had a family that loved me and would have done anything for me but alcoholism will beat that out of people who love you eventually and I was totally alone so I did something that I had done a hundred times when I was in trouble I went to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous but I did not go for recovery by this time I had been in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings for several years I came to my first AA meeting before I was old enough to take a legal drink as a kid and I had given up on AlcoholicsAnonymous I liked you you were always very nice to me but I knew that you didn't have anything for me and I had apparent evidence and the evidence was I stopped drinking and tried with everything in me to stay sober and I didn't feel anything close to the way you looked and there was something else wrong with me and I did not know what it was and I came to a conclusion after dozens and dozens of AA meetings that I know it looks like I have an alcohol problem But it's really not an alcohol problem because when I get sober, it gets worse. And I go to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and I watch you and you get sober and you become wonderful. I mean, you're grateful for everything, for God's sakes. I don't even like anything, really. so I've given up on Alcoholics Anonymous you're nice people but you don't have anything for me really and I had spent years with psychiatrists years taking medications years in treatment centers long term, short term churches everything there was to do and I didn't know what to do and here I am I burnt my life to the ground one more time and I went to an AA meeting and I did not go for recovery I went for cigarettes cigarettes. And that's the truth. And I'm in this meeting and there's this guy who's a solid member of Alcoholics Anonymous named Woody, and Woody's bringing a meeting in there. And Woody, I don't like Woody. Woody is one of those, first of all, Woody is one of these guys that got sober and has the big house and the brand new car and the wife and the children and the great job. He's so happy, he's grateful for everything and he just can't help but want to rub it in my face. And I don't like Woody. Woody is creepy to me. Woody is something I don' t understand. Woody is happy and sober at the same time for God's sakes. I don''t get that. I don ''t even like people like that. They creep me out because I stopped drinking and abstinence feels like I'm doing time. And I put up with it until I can't put up with it no more. And here comes Woody with his minions to come in here, with his pack of do-gooders to try to fix us. But I knew Woody had a lot of money. And I needed somebody to get me out on bail. So I went up to Woody and started talking to him, and he was willing. He said, I'm here to help you, kid. So I explained to him I needed him to put his house up so I could get out on bail. And, you know, these people in AA are hypocrites. They say they want to help me until you explain it to them. And then when you explain it to him they don't want to go. They want to do something. He wants to give me a big book and help me with the steps. I don't need that. I don' t want a big boat. I want out of here. They don' d want to get me out of there. So I got a little pissed off at him. You know, I got a little bluster. I said, I don't need your help. I'm going to beat this. I'm gonna get out of here. I'm not gonna get I'm just gonna get in a good recovery house. Not like that one that took advantage of me. I'm only getting a good one. I'm getting some of that government money. I might go to school. I might be a doctor. I might become a lawyer. And what he's looking at me and he's shaking his head and he is laughing at me. He's laughing. He says, kid, who are you kidding? You're not going to do any of that. Kid, you're not even going to stay sober. You're probably going to die of alcoholism because you haven't hit a bottom and you haven'T surrendered. And I didn't say nothing to Woody, but I was angry at him. I thought to myself, how dare you say that to me? That's the most negative thing I've ever heard. Where's the AA love? I mean, I don't need that negativity. I need positive reinforcement here. Haven't hit a bottom. You with your big house and your good job. You don't know nothing about me, Woody. Haven't surrendered. Surrendered what? There's nothing left of me. A couple years before, I had things I could have given up. I had a good job at one time. I had pretty girlfriend. I had motorcycle. I had place to live. I even had, at one times, I suspect some self-respect. But I don't have any of that anymore. There's nothing left. And I didn't say any of this to Woody because I don' t know how to talk to people when I get sober. I just get locked up in my head. But I thought all of that. And I couldn't sleep that night, spinning in my head the different things I should have said to him to make him realize how wrong he'd been saying that to me. And I had no idea what he was talking about when he said that I hadn't surrendered. I thought, oh my God, you can't, I can't lose it. There's nothing else to lose here. But what he Was talking about one thing. one thing that I have to give up and I didn't understand what it was I couldn't get my mind around what he's talking about and there is only one thing that any alcoholic ever has to give up there's only one thing that stands before me in all the abundance and wonderful things that God would give me and that is my judgment judgment. You see, I fit the old adage, you can always tell an alcoholic, but you can't tell him much. I'm the guy, I can go out, I can get sober, stay sober for 10 months, 12 months, 11 months, build up a great life, I go back to drinking, I ruin my life, I burn it to the ground and I end up back in Alcoholics Anonymous and the first thing I get back is my opinion. And me from you. I can't connect here with anybody. I can't identify because I canít stop picking you apart in my mind, hoping because I really secretly feel so bad about myself that if I can pick you apart and tear you down, maybe Iíll level the playing field. Maybe I wonít feel so less than if I could pull you down. but those of you who have lived that with those defense mechanisms you know that it doesn't really make you feel more even it makes you feel more separate and apart from and I don't know what's wrong with me and I wish I could tell you that that was my last drunk but I went before a judge and ended up getting sentenced to two years in prison and the judge cut me a break and I gave me a chance to go into a treatment center for the last time and I couldn't stay sober in there and I was going to go to prison and Iwas running from the police and living on the streets like an animal and I went to a bridge with a bottle of that kind of wine I used to drink the kind of winethat has never been within 100 yards of a grape this wine is like grain alcohol and flavoring But it was the cheapest kick for the least amount of money I could get. And that's what I, I was an economy drinker. I always was a little frugal. And I go to this bridge with this bottle of wine to try to get up enough courage to kill myself. Because I am in a trap I cannot spring. And I don't know what's wrong with me. And people like Woody had been telling me things like, kid, you've got to surrender. And I didn't know who they were talking about. I understand today exactly what they're talking about. I came, I could not kill myself and I came off that run at the end of that drunk in a hospital with IVs and I was so sick, I hadn't eaten anything in about 10 days. All I'd been drinking is cheap wine and I had the sores and I wasn't feeling well. I was in really bad shape. And in that hospital they sobered me up physically and got me a little bit so I could get back on my feet and go to an AA meeting. And in that Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, something had changed inside of me. And I didn't understand what had happened. I understood later when I heard a man named Chuck Chamberlain talk. But at the time, I just sat there for the first time in many years of attending AA meetings. and you know the voice in your head that runs the critique about everything in the universe it had gone away I guess it had gotten beaten out of me and for the first time in my life I just sat there and I could hear you and your message washed over me and I sat there and I started to identify with members of Alcoholics Anonymous and as these guys would share I found myself sitting there nodding my head and thinking quietly to myself My God, I'm like that. I feel like that I thought like that I drink like that I failed like that I've experienced most of the things those people are talking about and for the first time in my life I could hear you and I think I could finally hear you because there was enough of me kicked out of the way that I could finely hear you See, the problem between me and you is I always have too much me between me and you. Right? And the problem I had with God is there's too much me between Me and God. And I finally got just enough of me kicked out of me that I could hear you. And, I didn't know that I had been surrendered by the bottle. I didn' understand that that had happened. But, I think what happens When you get enough of you beaten out of you, there's a little bit of room for something to come in your life that you probably, if you're like me, don't even believe in. And that's the grace of God. Something I didn't believe in, but I had enough of me kicked out of me that there was a little, there was some kind of grace in me. There was a, there is a little big vacancy within me and there was room and God deplores a vacuum and something came into my life And I didn't understand what it was, but all of a sudden my perception was different. When people in AA said, get a sponsor, I got a sponsor. When they said, join a home group, I joined a home groups. When they say start getting on your knees and praying every morning and every night, it was crazy. I don't even believe in God and I started doing that. And I don' t even believe on God. But I'll tell you what my experience is. And I think I was surrendered by the bottle. But Dr. Harry Thiebaud, who is mentioned in A Comes of Age and who was a very instrumental player in the early days of Alcoholics Anonymous, he helped Bill Wilson a lot. And Dr. Thiebaud talks about the amazing recuperative powers of the alcoholic ego. ego. It's like you can be absolutely beaten to your knees, you can be completely surrendered to the point where I don't know anything, help me, I'll do whatever you say, and three weeks later, no thank you, I know what I need and I know it's wrong with you. Right? It grows back like a bad tumor. I mean it just, it doesn't, you could have it beaten out of you and it just grows Rose back. And that was exactly my experience. Incrementally, bit by bit, I started being consumed with myself again. And I don't even know that that's happening to me. I don'T even know that I'm starting to suffer from untreated alcoholism which the book says the root of this trouble is selfishness, self-centeredness. I don't know that I'm getting back absorbed in myself, in my feelings, in my life again. But that's what's happening to me. And I don'T even know thatI'M becoming the center again. And it didn't happen overnight. It happened very incrementally and slowly and I started to suffer again from depressions. And they look like clinical depression, but it's not. Even though if I was a psychiatrist and I was diagnosing a guy like me, I would probably come to the conclusion this guy is clinically depressed. But do you know why I know it's NOT clinical depression? Because the treatments that are effective for clinical depression don't work on me. But the treatment for spiritual depression does. And I didn't know that it was the depression of a person that just gets so much of himself on himself that I start to smother my very being, my spirit with myself. And I suffered from terrible depression. The only thing that saved me from myself was a lot of 12-step work and a lot of activity in the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I want you to know that I got sober in a city and at a time when people were not into the big book, and that there was no one in Las Vegas back in those days that could tell you how to work the steps out of here, unfortunately. But the Buddhists say that when the student's ready, the teachers appear. here. And I started, I was so involved in service and Alcoholics Anonymous and committees and conferences as if I could outrun my alcoholism. And in that I was introduced to some guys who understood this book, guys like Don Pritz, who in my early sobriety became a close friend and guys like Charlie Parmbie and Joe McQueenie and gentlemen who, through the dark ages of Alcoholics Anonymous, when everybody was trying to work the steps out of the 12x12 and had lost contact with the big book, little pockets around the United States where they kept this alive. And they say the student's ready, the teachers appear, and I hungered for something different because I knew that if something didn't change, eventually I'm a dead man. I don't know how long I can suffer from untreated alcoholism until I drink again. I don' t know. Chuck Chamberlain used to say that if you're a real alcoholic and you do not have a spiritual awakening, there will eventually come a time where you can't put anything between you and you. And you get to a point that 15, 20 meetings a week aren't enough anymore. You get to the point where the only time you're okay is when you're on a 12-step call and the minute that's over, you're back to being you again. There's a time where the shine of everything that you've been using to fix yourself has worn off and there's nothing left. And I was four years sober before I got to that place and I didn't know that what had happened is that I had become unsurrendered. I got a foothold in Alcoholics Anonymous by something that had happened to me. I didnít do it. I had just gotten enough of me beaten out of me to have an infusion of grace that carried me for about four years in Alcoholic Anonymous combined with a lot of 12-step work. But I had got to the place where I couldn't put anything anymore between me and me. But by this time, I had become friends with some people that had showed me how to do this process in this book and I had gotten humbled by the emotional pain of my sobriety. You know, one of the great contributors to Alcoholics, two of the greatest contributors to alcoholics, One of them was a guy named Carl Young, who was a great psychiatrist. He's mentioned in our big book. He's the guy that Roland Hazard went to. And the other guy is the first book Bill Wilson ever read when he got sober was The Varieties of Religious Experience written by William James. And both of those gentlemen said the same thing a different way. But what they both said is that spiritually ill people, ego-driven people, have an absolute inability to observe or listen to hear or see anything new. They only are capable of observing or listening to see how they are already right, right? And that's the problem. As I'm getting sicker and sicker, I'm more right about stuff. I'm More Judgmental. I'm MORE Opinionated. and I don't know that that's the ego growing back like a bad tumor within me. But I had another surrender, and I went back through this process. And you know, oddly enough, I spent from the time I was about 10 minutes... I took my first third step when I was About 10 Months Sober. And I took it by reading that prayer on page 63 out of the big book On My Knees with another member of Alcoholics Anonymous. this but exactly what it talks about in the next page and a half was exactly what happened to me it says that this decision in step three was a vital and crucial step but it says it has little permanent effect unless followed at once by a strenuous effort to face and be rid of of the things that are blocking me. The things that are blocking Me from carrying out this decision I made in Step 3. That's the problem. I can intend to carry out this decision as I did for three years in my early sobriety. I would get physically down on my knees every morning and I would turn my will and my life over to the care of God. I would say that third step prayer and 20 minutes later, I'm back in my head, consumed with me and what you'll think of me I'm thinking about, I'm going to go to work my boss is going to say this, I'll say that he'll say this then I'll hit him with this and then he'll realize how wonderful I am and how wrong he's been and if you're like that and you live a lot of your life up here in this unsurrendered control center trying to run the universe I'm telling you something If you do that with the benefit of vodka or medication, it's not so bad. But when you do this, when you're doing that stark raving sober, that anxiety just wears on a guy like me. Because what I'm doing, essentially, is I am trying to surrender my will and my life to the care of God, but I am retaining my will Because I haven't done the work to dismantle this judgment machine, which is my will. And if you really essentially do what I was doing, which is to try to give God your life, but retain your judgment of your life. It's like saying, God, here's my life, but there's a list coming of how it better go. Right? So what happens is I suffer from the anxiety of not getting my way. I'm in my head spinning about my way, I suffer the depression, you know what depression is, that's when God stops doing your will, or the fear of God not doing my will, so what has happened to me is that I am absolutely blocked. I'll tell you something I believe, I think you could keep your life if you could surrender your will. You know, as a result of Alcoholics Anonymous, I've gone back and revisited the religion of my childhood. And what I've discovered as a resultado of these steps and the awakening that I've obtained through the steps is that a lot of things that never made sense to me start to make sense to be now. I am not the guy that sits at odds with those religions anymore. As a matter of fact, every religion from Buddhism to Hinduism to Islam, I can look at their literature and I can see pieces of my own spiritual experience in those ways of life. Because I'm awake. And what I woke up to, I started looking back at the religion of my childhood and there's a story in Genesis, in the Bible. And I am not a biblical scholar. So there may be people in this room that could fine-tune what I'm saying or whatever. But most of you are familiar vaguely with the story of Adam and Eve. And God created the heavens and the earth, and He created Adam and even out of His rib created Eve. And they were placed in this thing called the Garden of Eden, which was literally heaven on earth. It was paradise. And it was perfect. and they were given one suggestion and the suggestion is you probably shouldn't eat fruit from this one tree the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you know like your sponsor gives you a suggestion well, you probably not shouldn't get in that relationship you know, the minute they tell you that it's like you're going to go I mean, you may not have even wanted to go until they said thou shalt not and then it's okay, here I go wasn't really thinking about dating her until you said that well okay well it's kind of like that so what I you know according to the Bible they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge in good and evil and they lost paradise you know what I think happened I think that they reaped the fruit of the three of the truth of the knowledged in good and evil and I think they got a judgment and they got opinions And I think all of a sudden, what had been heaven, all of the sudden they have judgment about. I could just picture Adam going, God, this was great yesterday, but today there's flies, God. Eve's got cellulite. What were you thinking? I mean, this place is crap. What did I think yesterday? How did I ever think this was heaven? And what happened? What changed? Nothing, except that their perspective became the perspective of the judgmental and they lost heaven. One of my mentors was a guy named Chuck Chamberlain and Chuck used to tell the story of sitting in this chair in his house after a long drunk and he was married to this woman and he Was working at this place and he felt like he was in hell and he was dying. And years later, he sat in the same chair in the very same house married to the same woman working at the same place with tears in his eyes because he felt like he wasn't in heaven. And he said, what changed? He said, maybe heaven's just a new pair of glasses. Right? What do I have to surrender here except my judgment and my opinion. I'll tell you something, this will sound crazy, especially if you're sitting here and you're in the middle of a lot of emotional pain, I will tell you something you're not going to believe. There is no pain except what comes from my resistance to accept life on life's terms. I have never had one problem since I've been sober. I have never had one difficult situation but I've had a thousand times that looked like it right, that it looked like and what's really the problem here the problem is me and my perception of things that little voice in my head something happens and goes oh this is awful well maybe it is and maybe it isn't maybe it's not awful Maybe that's just my judgment of it. How many, you know, what's the worst thing that most of us thought could ever happen to us before we got sober? That we'd find out we were alcoholic. What's the second worst thing that we found out we ever thought? That we have to go to some place like A&A. What are the two greatest things that ever happened to us? That we found that we were alcoholics and that we ended up in Alcoholics Anonymous. this? You see, I don't know. The Buddhists have a story that it's about the wisdom to know the most important thing is that you'll never know. And it's about this little old Chinese farmer who's very poor. He doesn't own anything except a horse. It's his only possession and he's allowed to live on this meager piece of ground in this hut and work the fields that are owned by a a lord of the land who owns the land and he has to tie the portion of his crop for the right to live there and work the soil and him and his only son sit there and they work these fields day in and day out and one day his only horse his only possession runs off and now his friends and family come running over to console him to tell him how terrible this is you've lost your whole estate date this is awful this is bad and the little old man just shrugs his shoulders and says i don't know if it's awful maybe it is maybe it isn't and they think you're nuts you've lost everything and he just keeps saying i don' t know maybe it iss maybe it istn a couple days later the horse returns right into the corral leading a whole herd of wild horses and now his friends and family and neighbors come running over to congratulate him you're the richest man in the valley this is wonderful this is great this is good and he says i don't know if it's good maybe it is maybe it isn't and they look at him like you're nuts you don't think that's good he says I don't know a couple days later his only son is trying to break one of the wild horses and he's thrown throne and he's crippled and he can't walk and he can't work. And now his family and neighbors and friends come rushing over to console him, to tell him how terrible this is, that his only son is crippled. This is terrible. And the little old man shrugs his shoulders and says, I don't know if it's terrible. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. And they think, my God, this is your only son and he is crippLED and you don't even think that's bad? And he said, I I don't know. About a week later, the Chinese army came through the valley and forced all the young men to go and fight in a battle where none of them would survive and they couldn't take the son because of his broken leg. See, the little old man knew the most important thing he would ever know is that he doesn't know and it is only when you think you know that you will never know and when you know that you don't know and you can take the position of a little old man, then maybe you've surrendered the only thing you ever have to give up in order to approach life itself and God like a child. And I think that's the dilemma of Alcoholics Anonymous is for me to get my judgment and my opinion out of the way. You know, to my amazement, when I started doing the fourth step and I started following the outline line in the big book. You know, I thought, and I did two earlier four steps that did me virtually no good. The life story, you know, the 40 pages of all your guilt and shame, and then I answered either the second one was the 38 questions or whatever it is out of the 12 by 12, didn't do anything for me. But when I followed the process in this book, something happened to me and I've I've never been the same. And it started in the resentment section when I started to make a list of everyone I secretly thought owed me an amends. You know, these are the people that had really done me wrong. And I had case files built on all of them. I mean, I could explain it to you where you'd agree with me. Oh, you poor guy. Look, they did that to you, did they? And then the book asked me to do something that was very, very hard and yet very life-changing for me. It asked me to look at these things from an entirely different angle. It asked my heart It asked us to realize how perhaps the person who would harm me how they might be possibly could be could they be sick like I could be sick? In other words could I get off my throne of judgment enough and get humble enough with myself and honest enough and other-centered enough rather than self-centered to see myself in that person and realize, you know, I was wrong about them. They're not... That has nothing to do with me. That's me. What I built this case against is me. Maybe me on a really bad day. But me. and what started to happening is I started to get off the high horse of judgment and I started to dismantle all these judgments that I had about everybody that had ever come in my path and I had a lot of them and I have a lot and I've got all these judgments that were the essence of my fears I had picture of a universe that was I was in conflict with and was very threatening and I was wrong about all of that stuff and the exact nature of my wrongs to my amazement was not the people I hurt it was how wrong I had been in my perception of life itself that I discovered that I was the source of all my conflict and turmoil because I had an ego-centered perception of what was going on I was looking I was trying to run the universe and there's some great analogies in the book, the one about the actor running the whole show. And that's the essence of what I must surrender here. But the problem with me is that this ego just grows back so quickly. You know, in the 10th step, there's a question in there that just bowls me over every day on page 86. We have to add, we say, were we kind and loving towards all? All? listen God I'm kind and loving towards the ones that deserve it it doesn't say that it doesn'T say were you kind and loving to the ones you're kind and loving to or are you kind and loving towards the ones that are kind and loving to you were you kind and loving towards all and what I realize is that every single day I've unsurrendered myself to some degree and created conflict and judgment once again between me and some of the people around me that I haven't been that I'm not always kind and loving towards all and I I don't know what a guy like me would do if it wasn't for this way of life I think Alcoholics Anonymous the whole purpose of all of this is not to get me to quit drinking I mean we can quit drinking if you don't know how to quit drinking punch a policeman you'll quit drinking for a little while it's somehow when I stop drinking and I stop medicating the disease of alcoholism I get so self-consumed and so judgmental and so conflicted with life itself that what eventually happens to me is that eventually abstinence and the conflict and separation that has occurred through my judgment becomes so desolate and so uncomfortable and so painful and yet I can't explain it to you I can' t tell you why I'm uncomfortable I can''t tell you why I feel bad but it is untreated alcoholism because my ego has taken over again. And I think the purpose of all of that is to allow me to better carry out this desperate, desperate decision in step three. You know, there's a delusion in the book that it talks about. It's the third delusion. The first two. The first one kept me from getting sober. I'm sober. The second one almost took me out after a long time in sobriety. And the third one has kept me from ever being happy here. And it says, aren't we victims of the delusion that we can rest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if we only manage well? And the reason that that is a delusion is that there is... I'll tell you something, I don't think there's a demographic, a group of people on this planet that have ever spent more money, more time, more energy and more effort and more focus on trying to make themselves happy and satisfied as we have. I mean, let's face it, what do you think about the first thing when you wake up in the morning? Me, and my day. It's not like we're... And the end result of all of this obsessive effort to make us satisfied and happy is some of us have been thinking about killing ourselves. Some of us are so uncomfortable on this planet as is that we have to drink or maybe go to a doctor and take something. Absolute failure at resting happiness and satisfaction out of this world by managing well. And when I was brand new in sobriety, a guy came up to me after a meeting and he said to me, he says, Bob, you need to take step three. And I said, I looked at this guy and I looked up at the step three on the wall and I said Joe, I said Jo, I can't take step 3. He says, why not? I said well, I don't understand God. God, Joe, I don't even know if I believe in God. I don' t know. I mean, I'm praying, but I don''t really know. He said, You don' d have to believe in God to take step three. I said, Joe it says on the wall we made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God. He said listen kid in your case if you'll turn your will and your life over to this chair he says I guarantee you an instant miracle. Really? I said okay I turned my life over to the chair what's the miracle? he says well the miracle would be your life would no longer be in the hands of an idiot and I didn't even get my feelings hurt I just thought yeah that'd be right cause if you would have followed me around the last couple years I drank and followed me round the first couple years I was sober And you were to watch me, the jobs I kept going through, the people I kept stepping on their toes and didn't mean to, the broken relationships, the financial disasters. I had this knack for snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory every single time. If you would have watched me over those years, you would Have easily come to the conclusion that whoever is making decisions for this person is out to destroy him. And yet, in here where I live, all my actions make sense to me. That's the frightening thing about alcoholism. I have a reason or a justification or an excuse for everything that happens And it's never really my fault. If they wouldn't have, but it is. And I've had some great, great mentors. There was a guy named Dale who died of cancer back in the early 80s with long-term sobriety. And Dale got in my face one day and he said to me, he says, listen kid, this gruff guy, gruff, no appreciation for my sensitivities, rough guy got in my face he says listen kid he says I'm going to tell you a couple things and if you can buy this it will save you a lot of grief he said kid if you're explaining something if you are defending something if you rationalizing or justifying something kid I want you to know you are wrong because you never have to explain defend justify or rationalize what's right you know they say the truth will set you free but I'll tell you it will ruin your day first and Dale was absolutely right and it's been probably 27 or 28 years since he told me that I have never found an exception to that yet it's the same thing it talks about in the 12 by 12 in step 10 it says it's a spiritual axiom which means something that is true under all conditions. It's a spiritual axiom that when I'm disturbed at all, at all! No excuses, no rationalizations, period. At all. No matter what the reason, no matter whatthe cause, there's something wrong with me. Because I am the source of my separation, I amthe source ofmy conflict and I amthesourceofmyjudgment. And I must surrender self because what happens is I get too much of me between me and God's universe. I get to much of you between me in life and I get a lot of you in life. I get so much of myself between me an you. There was a guy named Don Williams and Don died a few years ago. Long term sobriety, wonderful man. and I was at a meeting one time and the meeting was on step 10 and everybody sharing their different approaches to step 10 and some of them were out of the book and someof them were outer space I don't know where they were from some weird stuff sometimes in discussion meetings you can hear stuff where you go oh yeah that's right Right, and your other stuff go, what's he talking about? And Don cut through it all. He said, you know, everything you're saying is all well and good. He said but I don't really need to do a lot of writing or a lot of stuff. He said I simply have to look around me where I work in traffic, out in public, in AA, and in my family. and look around me and if what I see is a lot of people that are struggling with a lot of the same stuff I struggle with the insecurities and the fears and the frustrations of life but I see myself in them and I said you can bet that I am in good spiritual stead but if I look around me and I see a lot of idiots that need straightening out he said you can bet that that I am spiritually sick. And I can measure my distance from God, I can measurement distance from the decision in step 3, I can measured my distance form surrender, by measuring my distance for you. That's why in the big book, in Bill's story he says something that is remarkable. remarkable he says unless the alcoholic can enlarge his spiritual life and he doesn't say through what you would think you would Think he would say through prayer and meditation or through reading spiritual literature he says Unless the alcoholic Can enlarge His spiritual life through self-sacrifice and constant work with others, he will never survive the certain trials and low spots ahead. Certain means you feel wonderful today and everything's going your way. The trials and lowest spots are coming. They're coming. And unless you can enlarge your spiritual life by two things, self- sacrifice. In other words, I have to set myself aside to serve or surrender to a greater purpose than myself. We call it in Alcoholics Anonymous our primary purpose, number one. And it's not me. It's to help another alcoholic who still suffers. In the long form of the tradition it calls it, it says it's our primary spiritual aim. that means that's the target is to help another alcoholic and I think every alcoholic that I have ever met I am absolutely convinced that we are compelled to serve something we will either serve ourselves and if you've been doing that for a while I have one question for you how's that working? or we will serve a power and a set of principles and a purpose greater than ourselves or other than ourselves but we must the alcoholic must stop serving himself and that's what that's how Alcoholics Anonymous that's why I've been able to actualize this surrender in step three is that I clear away the judgments, the resentments the fears, the things that as it talks about in step 7, that stand in the way of my usefulness. It doesn't say... You are not asking God to take away the things that stand on the way to me being happy. That stand in my way of usefulness so I can claim my purpose and surrender to this purpose. This is my primary spiritual aim is to help other drunks. It's not to help me. It's to help others. and then oddly enough when I claim that purpose and I live this ethic and I want you to know I have never done this as well as I'd like to but I am I am comfortable and secure in the knowledge that no one among us has been able to maintain anything like with perfect adherence these principles but I'll tell I'll tell you what I believe must happen. I don't know that I ever have to be surrendered completely, but I better damn well be in the zip code. You know what I'm saying? I better at least be in, at least in the area. Because what happens to me if I'm not is I get me back on me again. If I start serving myself, I will once again become the guy that's prone to depression and anxiety. I'll be once again the guy that's judgmental in conflict with everybody else. There's a description of Alcoholics Anonymous in the back of the big book in a little obscure section called The Medical View of Alcoholism. And it's a transcription of AA that was coined on a radio address by a Dr. Bill Baer, who was not an alcoholic. alcoholic. And in the mid-1940s, Alcoholics Anonymous had gotten a lot of notoriety in the United States. We were on the horizon for the Lasker Award, which didn't occur for about a half dozen years, but there was a lotof magazine articles about us, there was a lot famous people getting sober in AA and we were getting a lot attention. And so Bill Baer went to a few meetings of AlcoholicsAnonymous and he read some of our literature to make make an address about what he thought AA was. And part of that address is reprinted in the back of the big book in The Medical View of Alcoholism, and I'll tell you something, I don't think there's ever been a description of us that is more accurate than what this non-alcoholic came to just visiting us. And Bill Baer, in the background, in the middle of the back end of the book says, he says we are not a temperate society. And that's true. We're not fighting alcohol. We know alcohol never was the problem. The problem was alcoholism. If alcohol was the problem, then everyone who drank would end up like we ended up. But it's, we all know many, many people, we're actually a very minute minority in this world, those who suffer from alcoholism, most people I know it's hard for us to think that because we think everybody's like us, but really the truth objectively is most people don't have alcoholism and they can have a glass of wine at dinner and it's fine. We're not a temperance society. We're nichtemperance movement. And he goes on to say, we're not crusaders. Well, that's mostly true. There is a phase some of us go through, but usually we get through that and become kind of more surrendered members of AA. And it's essential to get through that crusader stage. You know that stage where you use all the spiritual principles in Alcoholics Anonymous to make you feel superior to everybody else? And hey, if the spiritual principals can't make you feeling better than everybody else, what the hell good are they anyway, really? We usually get through the crusader stage of that. And he says something very simple but important. He says that they are people who know that they must not drink. Oh, what some of us paid for that knowledge in the countless attempts to prove we could drink like other people. The countless chasing of that illusion that somehow, someday, someway we'll control and enjoy our drinking. drinking that getting that knowledge really getting it almost killed some of us we know we must not drink and then he says something that is I think is the essence of Alcoholics Anonymous he says that we throw ourselves into helping others with similar problems and in that atmosphere of me helping others with similar problems? He says that the alcoholic will often overcome his excessive over-concentration upon himself. And isn't that the deal? You see, I get sober and I get so much of me on me that this ain't no fun. and abstinence feels like I'm doing time and I get like a mule in a hailstorm I'll just hunker down and take it the emotions and the separation and the loneliness and the depression and the restless, irritable and discontent until I can't take it no more and then with the insanity that returns that crazy thinking after everything that alcohol has done to me that I could possibly think that it's going to be fun again. All the evidence of reality is it hasn't been fun for years. And I will try it one more time. Why? Because I have a yearning, and the book calls it an insistent yearning to enjoy life as I once did. And then this heartbreaking obsession that some new miracle of control this time it's beer only this time I will use a little diet pills with the drinking so I won't black out or a little bit of cocaine with the drinking so I wont get in as much trouble or I'm not going to drive or I am going to take Joe with me and Joe will watch my back that way I won' get in trouble or Iam going to drink on a full stomach or I'am not going drink that place anymore that's a bad place to drink and what I start to sell myself a bill of goods or you know what happens today in Alcoholics Anonymous in 2007 when I see a lot members of Alcoholics Anonymous sober 15 years 5 years 3 years 25 years men and women who know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they can't drink and yet they die of alcoholism because they will convince themselves that they can treat this malady of their being with other substances I can't tell you how many real alcoholics I have seen die from alcoholism and they never took a drink it started with some medication something to fix themselves when objectively they've spent their whole life trying that and it failed Okay, but this is a different drug than the other ones I tried. And I tell you, I can't tell you how many people I've seen die today as a result of that. I have to have a spiritual solution. My being must become different. And I canít do that. My only hope is to get enough of me out of the way that some power thatís behind the curtain of the universe will come into my life and change some things in me that I cannot change that no human power could change and I know because I've tried I've tired everything there was to try and that is so that I can get up one more day and realize that it's not about me I've been given a purpose I've being saved from the abyss and I think to some of us much has been given but much is expected and I have a contractual agreement with God I formed it in the third step when I asked Him to relieve me of the bondage of self and then I said to Him if you'll do that if you will take away these difficulties take them away for one reason God not so I'll be happy take them way way so that victory over them would bear witness to those I would help. My primary purpose, that I would help with thy love, thy power and thy way of life. May I do thy will always. Thank you.