Step 5 Allowed Him to Tear Away the Veneer – John

I'm an alcoholic. Through the grace of God and the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous, I have not had a drink since October the 10th, 1964. I pass. Now you just explain those airline tickets around there. I'd like to thank the committee for their gracious hospitality and their invitation and to congratulate you and bring you the best wishes of the Westbury Group on your 23rd get-together. The Westbury group voted 17 to 12 with four abstaining for that motion. You've had your business meetings. I fell right at home yesterday. I want to do this early. Can you hear me in the back? Yeah. I did that in the middle of a talk one time, and somebody in the front said, I'll change places with you. I spoke at a local meeting a week ago, and a gentleman in the background stood up, and he was rather critical. I felt rejection. At the top of his lungs, He yelled out, you big windbag, you don't know what you're talking about. And then he yelled, you Big Windbag, why don't you shut up? So I called the chairman over and I said, you know, could you quiet him down? I can't talk. He says, you have to talk. I said why? He says he's new. You're the first one he's listened to. from the time that I entered service my ambition beginning with my own group was to go to a sensible business meeting I felt right at home yesterday you didn't have any minutes it was beautiful I got to the board of trustees they didn't have any minutes the Sunday morning is a spiritual meeting and you know this has been this weekend with helpful hints it's been something like the beer commercial you know less filling tastes good this has just been talk service be spiritual talk service be spiritual and David's saying if you embarrass me you'll be dead for five minutes before you fall. Let me roll that all into one and simply say, service is spiritual. For the new people who were elected yesterday and have not served on committees, there are normally six parts to any committee project, And they go as follows, enthusiasm, disillusionment, panic, a search for the guilty, the punishment of the innocent, and praise and honors for all non-participants. We have already covered the elephants and the General Service Conference for Pete. and I just would like to say that it seems rather rare that for a little town like Carl Place to put two trustees on that board what I was thinking of doing I spoke to Helen by the way when she spoke in Midwest somehow got herself listed from Carl Place and I made a suggestion with three knowing Ruth that on the this is not pushy But I felt on the trustee's questionnaire, one of the questions should be, have you ever lived in or do you ever intend to live in Carl Place? And Ruth said, quote, I was elected in spite of you living in Carl place. And Helen said that it almost cost her her job. I have rotated and you know you just can't get much higher than a past trustee what they have done for Dr. Maxwell and Dr. Norris was to make them trustees emeritus for their glorious service and help and it has been whispered that I am to be bestowed the same honor people have been saying that they would like to see does posthumous mean the same as emeritus In one of the locked wards I was in I told the doctor I had terrible feelings of inadequacy He said, don't worry about it You're inadequate It was my privilege to meet One of the gentlemen who served As a non-alcoholic trustee way back in the beginnings of the program, Austin McCormick. To me, he was a man who changed my life. And on a spiritual note, at one of the conferences, Austin was asked to explain the writing of the concepts. Now this is about as exciting as watching water drip. He went into it and gave the input that Bill had given and the legal aspects being handled by Vern Smith and you were seeing history in front of you. And he closed with a line that sent a chill down my back and I have never forgotten it. They speak of a divine presence being present in these rooms. Austin, who tended to be agnostic, said the following. While Bill's hand held the pen, there was a divine force in that room and I've never forgotten. Spirituality. If Mr. Holmes' ghost is here, we welcome you. On a Sunday morning in Westbury a few years ago, a gentleman felt that his wife was shilly-shallying. And what he did, he sneaked home early, burst into the apartment and while the wife was disheveled there was no one there. But in complete rage he ran through the apartment, looked out the window and saw a man running down the fire escape. He wrestled the refrigerator to the window. As the man stepped off the fire escaped, he dropped in on him. Now that's a resentment. Spirituality, seeing changes to heaven a few hours later. St. Peter is interviewing candidates. He said, my son, how did you get here? He said I don't know. I locked myself out of my apartment. I tried to go in through the window, through the fire estate. I stepped off and I have no recollection. He said, my son, you are the victim of an unfortunate accident. You may pass. The next gentleman came up and he said, St. Peter, in a blind rage, rightly or wrongly, I was pushing an icebox, a refrigerator over, and I don't remember anything. He said in your rage, you took a heart attack. In spite of your terrible finish, you've lived a good life. You may press. The third man came over and he says, St Peter, I have no recollection of how I got here or what I'm doing here. He said my son. What is the last thing you remember? He said, I was sitting in this icebox. It doesn't matter how I got here or you got here or he got there. We're here this morning. For anyone who is new or considers himself a potential alcoholic, let me review the anonymity statement as follows. I won't tell anyone I saw you here if you tell no one you saw me here I appreciate the introduction they asked David how do you introduce John and David said you don't introduce him you explain him we're supposed to be topical and on Long Island now they have graphs up which tell you by your weight and by your height how much you can safely drink without becoming intoxicated. A gentleman named Dr. Lin wrote a book called Drink and Be Happy. That's a great title. And he put the relationship of weight to alcohol. So let me just tell you that by observation from the podium this morning, none of you are alcoholic you're all too short we flew down here and there was a real new gung-ho member sitting in the seat opposite us and when the stewardess came down she was serving drinks he took a coke and he said to her I don't drink isn't that nice what do you he said I just don't drink he said rather than have a drink I would commit adultery and with that the man next to him said cancel the martini I didn't know I had a choice I'm an alcoholic and I know many of you will identify with this I'm a lonely child now that may not be a dual addiction but it could be a duel problem when I first sobered up I was a heavy cigar smoker I would drink about four cups of heavy black coffee smoke about three cigars and then thank God that I was no longer chemically dependent we have all kind of sayings up there now there's a gentleman that John knows well who came in and told me he said you've heard of sedativism and cross addiction and dual addiction and he said, there's a guy just run in here and said he was polyaddicted. I said, what does that mean? He said, he makes love to parrots. I was a little bit nervous when I was outside, but you see, what it amounted to when I came in, I couldn't see the air. But I came here, and the smoke is here, the cigarette people are here, and it's got that zing. That inhale, it's just like home. I always want it to be different, and as you can see, I made it. About 51 years ago, two drunks got together in Akron. And before that phone call, Bill was just about finished. he'd been sober for a period of time and now his stock deal had collapsed he was finished, he was down he was blue and he was terrified and he knew that one drink would lift the horror and he also knew that one drink would send him back to the hell that he came from so he made that phone call to Bob if I recall my big book someplace in there it says when Bill spoke to Bob he said something to the effect that, my God, someone knows what I've gone through. And Bill also said later, and I want to get this one right, that the surest way, and he didn't say to help it, he said to assure it, is for one drunk to share with another. I come from an Irish background, and our family was sort of the wheeze and the thems the whees drank its sun down and the thens drank its son up and as a kid we had our closet relatives that nobody spoke about Uncle Mike that was locked away there was alcoholism in the family and so my family felt that if I was introduced to alcohol at a young age I would not try to prove my manhood when I became of age. I would accept it for what it was. And strangely enough, in my case, it worked out very, very well. I say there was alcoholism in the family. They had one uncle who was a heavy drinker. When they cremated him, they couldn't put the fire out. It worked very, very well. And if there's such a thing as normal drinking, I could accept it. I could except drink for what it was and for what it could do. I had an uncle who was a brilliant man, vice president of a large corporation, suffered a severe setback with a retarded child, could not face it. and I saw a heavy drinker who could handle himself drink himself into a wet brain more than one year growing up in the wildness I walked away from three automobiles minutes before they were totaled and people were killed and you know, would you say were they drunk John? I'd say no, we had a good swinging package on but nobody was drunk so I knew what could happen if you drank As you find out, my background came out of industrial relations I knew about Alcoholics Anonymous I come out of something called the big band era And on a night like last night, late in the summer Or early in the spring I'd be coming back across the George Washington Bridge In a convertible With a young lady at my side with the roof down and the stars twinkling and all Manhattan at my feet. Life was beautiful and life was lovely and this was living. I loved it. I loved the drink. I love what it represented. I love what it did for me. Of course, once in a while there could be if you drank the way I did strange things could happen. If you come across Manhattan being an island, you come in from New Jersey, go straight across, and there are tunnels which bring you out to Long Island. One night either I did not get off the martinis or got from the scotch to the bourbon, but things were a little hazy. And I was looking for the tunnel and to me the tunnel was a large opening in the ground. As David has pointed out Now, since we've looked at it, there are French doors on it. I did not see them. Anyway, one hole in the ground was as good as the next. So I took the car down Grand Central Station loading platform. And there was an Irish cop. And I don't know whether I was as glib then as I am now, but I don't know whether we did Mother McCree or Irish Soldier Boy but he bid me drink no more my son take it straight home and let's be a little careful about this he even stopped traffic to get me back I was driving along the shore parkway which runs along the coast it's a thruway I found myself stopping for red lights it was pointed out to me they were on ships this was not on the parkway But you see, there's such a thing, it's called the disease of the attitudes. And basically, my attitude was I could call you the next morning and simply say, hey, wait till you hear the dumb thing I did last night. I could share with you. If you drank like that, strange and funny things could happen to you. There was a cheap Irish bartender who would not buy a round. I, you Texans will love it, I rode a horse into his bar one night. He was trying to drag me and the horse off the dance floor. He was afraid it was going to collapse. And I kept saying, if you don't buy, we will do a little dance out here. I mean, it was almost a tragedy. The horse stepped on the man's foot and broke it. But, you know, fun. Who cared? He threatened to call the police. A gentleman who was a police captain was sitting next to me. he also has since joined us. But you see, there was no shame, there was not a single thing There was no guilt. I could tell you what I drank and what I did. But for what it's worth, for 18 years without any kid stuff, I was a daily heavy hitter. I drank when I wanted to, where I wanted too, and if you didn't like it, you could go someplace else. Arrogance. Now, and I said that I was an only child, and as you can see, I'm sensitive and I'm delicate. My mother told me I was sensitive and delicate. Now, I fell prey to my first wife. She's still my wife, but we use first wife, it keeps her on her toes. we refer to her as wife du jour. She was the oldest of seven. She would be referred to in this part of the country as a bounty hunter. Now, until I was 18 years of age, my mother, you only children will identify with this, used to cut my meat. Thank you? Used to cut every, you know, used to cut every little piece, bite sizes for me. I didn't ask her to feed me but, you know, she did this. And this female bounty hunter, the oldest of seven, flatly refused to cut the meat. I don't want to say that this caused the alcoholism, but it definitely caused the trauma. It was a contributing factor to my drinking. this is a mean woman definitely a mean woman she spoke down in Lubbock a few years ago on a Friday night and I got a standing ovation for being alive on Sunday morning in the lobby they had a picture of a leopard springing at a poor domesticated animal I said there is the story of my life she called she joined she was beginning to object to my imbibing and she joined an organization which we in the east refer to as Operation Head Start these are the people who got that way without drinking I have referred to them as the normal neurotics but she went in there and she joined something called the aggravation group you have your committees they have theirs they put her on the hostility committee she qualified she had progressed she could start a fight in an empty room they said to him my dear he's sick you don't want anything to happen to him she said no I'm going to get him myself uh she had plans she bought a little doggie was a Doberman pincer as a pup she began beating it with my socks and underwear when it got full grown she was going to teach me to say here doggy doggy if this did not work she had an idea of using beef bouillon in my shirt collars I have heard that bigamy is having one wife too many at that time monogamy was having one wife too many. I was trying to prove to her that she was imagining things. I was not as drunk as I appeared at times. She said, I came in at three o'clock and I saw the one-eyed cat so I was all right. She said John that cat had two eyes and it was going out not coming in. Under the guise of my drinking she got me down to a gentleman who was referred to as an analyst. An analyst. And we got in there and talked about my drinking and then he brought up, he shocked me. He used the word, this is a spiritual meeting, what did he say? He said, your wife is complaining of sexual dysfunction. I said, that's nice. That's nice He said she claims that you are bisexual. I said that's a lie. That's a lying. He said he's not, she's not talking about choice. She's talking about frequency. I was sick I said to her one night look I just want to die in bed she said what again it was nice and this this to a sensitive only child we don't advise I just wanna share if any of you are married to one of the normal neurotics let me say this don't criticize because they did pick you. And never tell them you are not worthy, they will find this out for themselves. The same is behind every successful man as a successful woman. I can reverse this. Before I entered service, she became an Al-Anon delegate to the World Service Conference. Without me, she never would have made it. strangely enough I began in engineering and I wound up in industrial relations and I loved it I loved the excitement I loved to travel I loved I loved the pressure and I came up like a rocket I came up out of a New York local onto their Board of Directors, I became head of the International Education Department and inside of two years I was, quote, an advisor to the international president. Some people refer to that as being a hatchet man. But basically I had it. Make no mistake about it, I had it. And if you didn't know I had, it I would tell you I had. You know Bill, Bill speaks of success as a wine, which never failed to excite and satisfy. Now you heard Helen, and you know she's from Carl Place, you heard her humility Friday evening, andyou've heard my humility this morning, it is, we refer to it in Carl Place as aggressive humility. I didn't give a damn when I drank, and I didn' t give a dam if you knew when I drunk. I was top dog in my field. I could handle myself. If you didn' T like it, you could get yourself somebody else. But you see, things started to go wrong. Things started to do that. Things started going wrong. And when things go wrong, people point, and if you're a heavy hitter they say he drinks not like he drinks he drinks and so for the first time in my life I began hiding when I drank where I drank and how I drank the guy who said he drank for the bouquet and the flavor began switching to vodka to hide it telltale signs they were there strangely enough one of my assignments was to find out what to do with people like you for the union it was costing approximately and this is 25 years ago $20,000 to arbitrate lost cases for drunkenness for dismissal and they said you know find out what to do with them and strangely enough starting with the Yale and Cornell and Rutgers reports and winding up with my own physician this had the best track record people not only stopped drinking they became adjusted There's a nice Freudian void. They lived happily ever after. They went to these meetings and shook hands and, you know, embraced each other and wasn't that swinging and wonderful. Good for you. Great. Not for me. You know, nice people, nice people, but, you know, not for me So, you see, I had a few things going for me I had the knowledge of alcoholism I had my personal family and the experience of friends and I knew alcoholism and I know about AA now the wife du jour if you hear her speak will pick up the alcoholism about a year before I began to really realize I was going downhill we were expecting our second child and I was doing a nursery and we had some beautiful rocking horses on the wallpaper it was a tough wall believe me it was it was a tough wall and I spackled I started early and I was drinking orange juice which was improved and my coffee was improved and at this time she was beginning to hint that this was not improving me but basically what happened I want to be humble but if you took the first rocking horse panel the joint you could have taken it down and put it in the Louvre in Paris it was magnificent when I got to the end her comment was as follows the nose of one rocking horse was up the anal canal of the one in front I've heard alcoholism called cunning, powerful and baffling and I'd like to add my word insidious because if anything made me successful it was objectivity and alcohol destroyed my objectivity at that point I was gone they speak of early intervention I went back to my doctor who knew me all of my life who had told me about Alcoholics Anonymous on my assignment and I asked that big question am I alcoholic and he said no not as you understand it and AA understands it but, John, you drink too damn much. You've got an insane power drive. You're going to climb the mountain to the top and then you're going to find another mountain to climb. Take time off. Cut back on the drinking. Live a normal life. Objectivity, if you pay the man good money, you do as you were told. And so I did just what he told me. You know what happened? You hear the line, unfortunately, I had crossed. Because for a guy who drank, what's a nice word? Like a pig. For 18 years and had some laughs and fun and games he could talk about with you, my life collapsed around my ears in 18 months. I've heard alcoholism described as a leaf coming down. The general direction is down but some ups in there. Mine was just like you fell off this stage head first. it was straight down from the top to the bottom it wasn't like dominoes going down it was like you're pulling the arch on a keystone not knowing what was going to happen to you next my life was in shambles Bill speaks of it as the dark the black midnight of the soul the Assijian darkness the blackness you see and I had drifted away I never had the audacity to stop believing in a God but I didn't need him and now I was flat on my back and helpless and hopeless and crying and finished and by the crazy macho code I lived by since I hadn't gone to a God when I was on top I couldn't crawl to him on my hands and knees when I wasn't there when I lay in a gutter in those next 18 months if I had known it was going to be a status symbol I would have kept, like yesterday, a stroke count. I was hospitalized, I don't know how many times, better than eight. I was straight-jacketed. They didn't have, we called them rehabs in those days. That was what the rehabs were. Ward O, mental ward. I had become such a fine patient, I was getting get-well cards from doctors and nurses. You see the only thing wrong is when you become so damn good that you're your own higher power When you're out there in that blackness and you're falling into that pit There's no place to go So you just fall and you cry and you scream And you're afraid And you've handled everything in your entire life And your life is gone now The kid with the golden spoon in his mouth the woe he's got, the brass ring on the merry-go-round was finished. And when I took the body shot, I didn't get up and come back for more. I just laid there, and I wanted to die. I quit cold. I quit cool. The loved one was seeing the lawyer for divorce. I was high enough in the union where I was a definite menace. And so a decision was made by the union to fire me. but they weren't going to fire me the way you were thinking they were going to fire me ready aim fire my final service hitch was in experimental submarines and so as a last resort I went under two weeks of voluntary psychiatric and psychological examination wrote to New London Adam released my record you know I knew from the experiments on prolonged submersion my quote psychological profile I know all those great words like anxiety neurosis and adjusted and non-adjusted it was great and Helen will identify with this we had a good friend who has passed away he did the same thing I did got a big book to help the doctors after all if you're gifted you do want to help people and he put it better Ed S. put it better than I ever could after going all the way through this book and looking for big hyphenated words that would explain the actions we could not identify with two things everything else we had but we were not alcoholic and we were nicht lesbians I think most males who have played sports and consider themselves the macho have the idea that when things go wrong you can do the John Wayne bit you can walk off into the sunset quietly with the troubles of the world on your shoulders and bucket away by yourself and let no one know what's going on but not what alcohol isn't. It's a dirty, dingy, debilitating disease that took my pride. It almost took my life and it destroyed me. It just got progression, it just got worse and it got worse and it get worse. At Rutgers they talk about the Ds in progression. Delusion, disillusion, disappointment, desperation, and despair. When I first came in, I said that the reason I did not commit suicide was that I was afraid. And I've come to believe that that's not quite the story. I've comes to believe that a loving God chose not to give me too much despair because, unfortunately, I've seen those such as me who had too much despair and they did end it. There's a poem by T.S. Eliot called The Hollowed Men and there's a line which just about sums up my drinking that says, this is the way the world ends, this is how it should be. This is the Way the World Ends. This is The Way the Word Ends." Not with a bang, but with a whimper. I was facing custodial care it didn't bother me one bit your horizons come down I was looking forward to seeing old friends I did not know about the actions going to be taken by the union and luckily I had one thing going for me I didn't come in through those doors finally to identify I came in because I was a drunk and I was dying it was that simple I could not go any further I had reached the end and standing in a doorway was a gentleman who was still alive now if you think I have a New York accent I came through the door half dead not happy about the class of people I was forced to join and I got the following greeting. Hi, you've got a three-fold disease. Three-fold. I said, what? He said, three- fold. Three- fold disease. I said what the hell is a threefold disease? He says mental, physical, spiritual. Three- Fold. I said my God it's come to this. This was a kid. His mother let out one side of his hat. It was bad. It was bad. Some other gentleman came up to me and said, that's one of our winners. That'll scare you. You don't want to see those who didn't make it if this guy won. Mother of God. You know, this was just ridiculous. But I came in and I said, look at the record, and they said, you know, you're a sharp guy. So I went — get that pronoun, I — I went to all the meetings. I said good, good, wonderful, wonderful great, great, read all the pamphlets, read the big book, A.A. Comes of Age, I, I. I was the ideal pigeon. I was driven by, obsessed with the idea of finding out what had finally stopped me. See, I had lost many battles in my life, but this was a whole war. This was a complete war and I wasn't too happy about blowing this one. I went into the Yale and Cornell and Rutgers reports on alcoholism looking for a way out and I couldn't find one. Because whether they told me in the books or you told me at these meetings, the sentence, and I refer to it and regard it as a sentence, was the same. I was suffering from a terminal illness and while I might get some smarts back and I might get some relations back with the human race I was physically addicted to a mind changing substance and never again would I pick one up safely now I think that I would have made rookie of the year at AA but I looked up the words obsession and compulsion in the dictionary so that they would not be interchangeably used incorrectly at closed meetings some people took offense at this and referred to him as that smart ass I was obsessed I schemed and I planned and I plotted and I couldn't find a way out but I met a gifted gentleman one night I could identify with him immediately he was gifted and I heard him speak and what he had done same background engineering and industrial relations Eddie had changed the way he lived he had changed what he drank he had change when he drank he kept copious notes on this scientific approach he kept a graph it was a bar graph but it wouldn't have been a good idea. You laugh, you laugh, but listen, science triumphs. At the end of nine months, Ed proved he was not alcoholic. Ha ha! How does that grab you, huh? He came to this conclusion in a straitjacket at Knickerbocker Hospital. I discussed this with Threefold. catch this one he says drinking again is like putting toothpaste back in a tube ha ha so much so much for science but I had spirituality I was reeking of spirituality at this point and so what I did since science had failed I prayed to God for a miracle I asked God not to allow me to have one or two but to restore my former drinking powers in Toto you laugh but if anyone has got a better idea how to beat this thing see me after the meeting you see but I was smart and I said if anything went wrong if anything went wrong I could come back to my group that night other damn fools I had exactly 90 days Other damn fools had tried this great chemical experiment and had gotten back. See, but the one thing I hadn't learned was that the drunk who made the plans was not the same drunk who picked up the drink. And so basically I picked it up. I'll advise here. My first drink after three months of abstinence, it was a nice sensible drink. Any normal person would do it. It was eight ounces of vodka. Over the ice. And as it went down, I knew that it was not going to work. I could see threefold yelling something like, this is about as good an idea as a parachute opening on the second bounce. He was full of wisdom. He's still there. He's till there helping people. Okay, I picked it up, but I didn't get back to my group that night. And I didn't get back the next night. I went on a 13-day ripper, and I couldn't get off the drunk. It's that easy. I refer to myself, and other people do too, as a retarded alcoholic, because basically I'm one of those... I stopped smoking and caught pneumonia. That's hard to do. I stopped drinking, and ten days later had a delayed convulsion. Damn near took me out. I was out for about 55 minutes flapping around and in reading those books I found that I was convulsion prone and that should I drink again I would convulse again and the next time it would either kill me or leave me with more brain damage than I am exhibiting up here this morning I got back in through one way the grace of God and I came back in and I didn't damn the people and I just felt I was a loser because after all I had done it all and I had gotten drunk now standing this is the end of side one side two is keyed ready for your listening now thank you you think it was three fold I wished it was tree fold it was something that looked like Joe Kleckle playing nose guard for the Jets. And it went something like this. You feel bad? I said, I feel bad. He said, you feel sick? I say, I don't feel sick. He says, do you feel like a low-life bum because you let everybody down? And I said I feel like the low-lifes bum because I let everybody down. He say, do know why you feel this way? I says, why? He said because you are a dirty low-life bum that's love where is the love there it is now I don't like again to lecture but what you've got to be you've gotta you've gotten this is how you get a sponsor now my idea on getting a sponsor was to ask for resumes. But it was not to be. It was not to be This thing looked down at me and said I am your sponsor I said what makes you think you can be my sponsor? He says 5 inches and 55 pounds Do you want to talk to that? I said no sponsor I said, no, I'll go right along with that one. He says, you've got to get a couple of things straight. He said, you keep saying you're successful. He said coming in through that door you're the total story of your entire life. The total, the sum and it doesn't add up to success. He said that if you are successful what was the price you paid? if a car wins at Indianapolis at the price of killing the driver is that the success you're talking to me about and at this point the voice from the side yelled out this slip was caused by denial threefold denial he said you don't look good I said be positive he said your positivity don't work you don' t look good denial I said what do you know what you're talking about I said what is denial he said denial he said there was an Arab and he had a bag of dates and he went into the tent to eat his dates and he took the first date and there was a worm on it and he threw it away and he put it in the bag and he pulled the second and there were worms in it and he tore it away and he picked the third out and he blew out the candle that's denial I came back in the loser and all I wanted to do was to sit out there and play out the cards but it was not to be there were people out there whose stories I had heard and whose lives had changed pussy cats had become a bit tigerish and some of the tigers had become little pussy cat-ish and I watched like a hawk to see if they were just up here proselytizing or if they was living the life that they were talking about. I got some very good advice. I was told that quite possibly I had missed the entire spiritual message of the program because nowhere in those steps does the word I appear. It's a we program. We. People are yelling, keep it simple, you know, all of those big ones. Keep it simple. He told another story about one of his relatives who had a cattle ranch. And he had a problem. They didn't know what to name it. The father wanted to call it the Bee Ranch. And the son wanted to called it the B-Bar Ranch. And the mother wanted to be called it B-Bar Bar slash B-Ranch. And each child had another one. I said, all right, I'll bite. What did they call it? He said they called it the B slash bar bar slash BB slash bar slash B Ranch Bar. I said how many cattle do they have? He said, no, they never survived the branding. The ones I were attracted to came out of that chapter five. You could almost trace them like a tree at that time on the island. There were no step meetings. It was one drunk talking to another. I said, you know, I went that way. I said I even got the idea since. They were in order with numbers on them. He said, what do you know about them? I said, you know, they're nice. He said John when Bill put the program together with Bob it came out of the Oxford Movement and the Book of James. He said there were six steps in the Oxford Movement and Bill referred to them as the building blocks of Alcoholics Anonymous. And he said he expanded them from 6 to 12 so that the drunks would not fall into the cracks. He said they're a journey and not a destination. They're a means to an end and not an end in themselves. I was deeply impressed. His deep philosophy. I said, I'll use the slogans. He said, The slogans are first aid. You need major surgery. You know, I had an attitude like the little boy, you know, with these steps. I looked at those great slogans, you You know, Mary and John play with the dog, run dick, run. I thought they were great. I was impressed. You know it was like the little kid in school who said I have to go to the bathroom and the teacher said raise your hand and he said what good is that going to do? One of the first things I heard, Bob has got a later talk by him. it was on a wire recorder Chuck Chuck in California was talking about the steps and he said we didn't memorize them and we didn' t intellectualize them it says in the book we took them so you better took them you know I looked at them and you know one I said I got that one he said no no no look at it this way he said it's not partial it's no partial it's partial it didn't say that you were in trouble only when you were drinking and you were powerless only when you were drunk. He said, and you will resign to alcoholism. You will resign. He said because basically if you admitted it you're bound to take steps, the following steps to try to correct it. He said your life was unmanageable. He said not only that, not only that. He said if you look at the finish of it, it was unbelievable. Little voice from the side yelled out, halfway measures avail us nothing. God. Okay, we got through one. Wasn't that wonderful? It was like a test in those days. You may now pass and go to the second plateau. You know, strangely enough, I've heard people tell me that they had trouble with two. And yet for me, two was the most beautiful and easily step of all time. See, I came out of a sewer. My life had become a cesspool. And if I could sit in groups such as this and you could tell me I was off the norm, I was sick. I was not myself. Responsibility I bear. But you lifted the guilt shirt from me. You told me that I was a sick person trying to get well, not a bad person trying to be good. And I didn't realize what was done for me, but it altered my entire approach to the program because I didn' t have to wear a hair shirt for my actions. Basically, what two did for me was to splice a lifeline back to society. Splice my lifeline back to the society. But that splice is still delicate today, you see, because it' s soluble. It can dissolve in alcohol. Three, I had one hell of a job, you see. I had lost all kind of faith and I did not believe in anything. And strangely enough, I got three by people telling me what it did not say. It didn't say I had to define a God. It just said I had a belief that I was no longer the answer to my own life, that an An external force had to do something for me. And so you see, it became very pragmatic. I didn't like life and will, and so I substituted thoughts and action to a code of ethics, the remaining steps. And yet it got me into self-evaluation, it got into self assessment and knowledge, and very basically into the beginnings of a self-discipline. Because on page 103, it tells me that I'm through fighting anyone or anybody. And it was also pointed out to me that on the second page of the 12 and 12, Bill gives his only warning. He doesn't say you've got to be successful with that step, but he says you've gotta take one hell of a shot at it because the entire success of my program will depend on how well I attempt step three. And so when you look back on it, what the heck was it? One, two, three. One, I couldn't stop drinking. Two, a loving God could stop me and three, I allowed him to. Four gets very interesting. The beast nose tackle sponsor gets into it. I went running up to him and said, Ed, I did four and you're not going to believe this but there's not much wrong with me. People backed away. Now catch this. This is an honest program. Honesty, right? Honesty. He smiled and said John, that's wonderful. He said, but do you want to pay back what you've been given? I said yes. He said well John if you went in 12 steps on one they have nothing to identify with. I said you're right. You're right He said, so why don't you go back and write a little bit like it says in the book and just see if you could find one defect so you could help some poor drunk. Con? Con job? Beautiful. Beautiful. It was motivation, you know, motivation. David speaks of motivation. He said that he could never use the program for dieting because he is, if I remember correctly, David said he'd never been arrested for fat driving. Basically, on four, I met John. And I didn't go after how many times I had stolen or how many times I have slipped around, those were numbers. I went back into what made John tick. I found fear. I found conceit. I found self-centeredness. I found vindictiveness. I know the book tells me I'm supposed to get a release on three. Up to three, it was by rote and under duress. Four, I felt the release. I found myself. And I don't know how long it took. You reach your point where you got that rug. If it hurt, they told me stop. There's no time limit. You're your own boss. You're the only one you've got to satisfy with that step. you got to get it so it fits like an old tweed coat may fit no one else but you're comfortable when you get that so far with this thing you can just throw the rest back there's nothing there's left the vindictiveness sort of surprised me i went to my other higher power the the wife du jour and she said no john i don't think you're vindictive for a for a person who lived by get even first no I don't see why you would ever do unto others first your golden rule I came to a full halt on four I felt that five as I read it for me would be with a priest, I'm a Catholic and yet it wasn't to be like that it was not to be like that. Up to this point things were pragmatic things were very impersonal my wife got a baby kid sister I said she's the oldest nice to carry this beautiful little blind kid around on my shoulders we were going together and now she had gone upon hard times she had blown a marriage she was on drugs she had broken daddy's heart she'd been passed around to all the family we took her in guess what guess what Peggy found Peggy found booze isn't that great and hey you get your high and society accepts it it's beautiful this is what we need but I saw it right in front of me there was no addiction period when she went from the sauce to the booze. She was addicted with the first drink and things got bad. And I wasn't about to send her back to her father to break her heart, break his heart. And so God here, I refer to myself, made a decision. Peggy was a hopeless alcoholic and we would put Peggy into a locked ward where hopeless alcoholics belong. And that night, someplace between the front door and the bedroom, a little voice said to me, who in the hell are you to call anybody hopeless? Who in the hill are you play God and be judgmental? Who do you think you are? so I went into that room and I spoke to Peggy and I didn't preach and I did not proselytize she thought she was bad and Peggy heard John's fifth step as no one in this program has heard it since or again I was just trying to show Peggy one, she was not quote, dead and two, she could not con John. Peggy joined J.A. It's great. Success. Happiness. Right? Baby, after all, one thing wrong. The swinging door. People have a slip. People come in. People go out. People come back. People come out. People go in. People go outside. You know, I'm a kid. What can happen? One shot. Through the door, out the door dead. and my wife hated she hated me I got more than one shot she hated you she hated AA she hated her God and what could I do I'm a drunk I'm drunk I kid Al-Anon and I laughed with them and I laugh at them. Those women gathered around my wife and they supported her and they saved her sanity and they save my marriage and I'm eternally grateful. So five allowed me to tear away the veneer and let another human being see me for what I am for better or for worse. Six presented a bit of a problem. You know, it's sort of absolute. It says all. Something about character defects, shortcomings. And you see, the problem was the ones you wanted me to get rid of I was comfortable with. Yeah, I just wanted to pick and choose. It was like, you know, peanuts with a security blanket. and then there's a little voice again threefold catch this one alcohol comes in people not in bottles change or you will drink what I did was just like the book says I I got rid of ego I said go I got read I got red of self-centeredness I got rid of all the defects just said oh wait just like that you have to be firm when you do this and also I had gotten some wisdom in here I had figured out that my alcoholism was caused by drinking alcohol now that's clearing up I spoke to an old timer and explained this and he went into a parable He blew my mind. He said, quote, John, there was a man who was out on the lake with all of his possessions in a boat and a storm came up and to save his life he threw over anything in sight. He was taking on too much water. He said then you know we see the terrible thing happen. The storm ended and he was taking a little water and he Was throwing a little Water out. He said he didn't know what to throw over next. And he walked away. About that time the dam broke and all of the defects, shortcomings and what have you came roaring back in. And like it says in the Bible the last state was much worse than the first. But you see I had accomplished a step. It said became ready and I became ready. Very very simply I became ready on six by finding out I couldn't do anything by myself. Seven seven says something about ask God. You know this really turned me off he said you've got to ask a higher power I said look at it this way God made me this way maybe we shouldn't tamper with it an idea of threefold humor he said he was at a party one night and he asked the host if lemons had feathers and the host said no and he said I just squeezed your canary into my drink still alive still helping people still in the doorway where you're from I was getting aggravated with the God bit I was definitely sore about the God beat and the sponsor came running over and said hold it mouth that's how he referred to me tenderly mouth he said if you believe that something outside yourself lifted the desire had to drink from you. What else will this outside power do if you will only ask? He said, have you read the spiritual index? I said, yes, yes. I read the book. Test. Here we go. It says in front. It is in back. We argue. Front, back. It's in the back. And it says something to the effect that there was one rule that will stop all growth and There's a hindrance to any growth. And that rule is basically contempt without investigation. As the kids say, try it, you might like it. What else if you will only ask? We came to eight and I got introduced to a new word. Trefoil said, do you have resentments? I said no I don't have one resentment I mean the union was hiring people to kill me my wife had all of the assets in her name I was like a pet or a consort of the day I was not bothered by resentments I was an advanced case what I had was absolute hatred yet actually you know I've heard people roll these steps six and seven together I couldn't I couldn' t roll eight and nine together because basically on eight all I had to do was answer a question I didn't have to be anything all I have to say I didn' t have to be a judge or a juror or a prosecutor I only had a right and I had to answer a question have you ever hurt anyone in your entire life and do you want to do anything about it stop right there and we got to nine and nine was beautiful except all it said was put your money where your mouth is do something about it you know when all the junk was gone what had I done I had ripped a family unit into shreds and scattered it to the four winds. And so basically on nine, while I had developed a relationship with the wife and a relationship mit each one of the children, there was no family unit. And so on nine it was basically an idea of putting a family union back together again. and I went to the old timers again and I said how do you do this looking for the wisdom of the ages and they said have one meal together and try not to give one of the children who displeases you the potatoes on the head very simplistic yet it worked I want to get this sentence right I'm blessed for one reason because my children allowed me to play with them. It was beautiful. If you look at it to that point, those steps are written in retrospect. Everything is in the past. Look back and cry. Gain from them. It brought me up to 10, 11, and 12, the so-called maintenance steps. And I made a mistake the last time I shared. The nicest thing that was said about me was that I was, well, let me say, I used the word, I said, are there any housewives out there? And the nicest thing I was called was a sexist pig. So this morning, letme say, arethereanyhousepersonsoutthere? because basically on 10 it's a case where if you do not put out the garbage it's going to begin to smell and then it's going to be begin to rust and if I don't put my garbage out on a daily basis the same thing will happen to me 11 is the step of communication threefold ran up to me and said, quote, do you know that communication is the art of listening? Can you imagine him telling a brilliant person like myself that communication is listening? I found on 11 that I am far from cured, that through the grace of that loving God that granted me my life, I have a daily reprieve. and there has been some growth because in the beginning with the beginnings of spirituality I could pray for myself then once in a while I could find myself praying for another and believe it or not today when all else and all the scheming and conniving fails once in great time once in awhile I find myself praying for the will of God again 12 to me was an adventure and while I had to take the steps individually to me 12, 12 became three different parts it became the icing on the cake it told me that I had a spiritual awakening and this basically gave me a self that I could live with it told me I should carry the message and it gave me a cause to live for and try to practice these principles in all of my affairs a code to live by when I came in back there in the east there was an old cliche and it said man takes drink drink takes drink and drink takes man and this drunk has come to believe that man takes steps steps take steps and steps take men and speaking to Brian he said the format this morning John is for you to talk a little bit and they're going to listen a little bit, for God's sake try to finish before they do the final threefold I say he's still there he has caused a proliferation of groups many, many have left and started other groups he is beginning to go bald I said to him are you doing anything about it he said I'm using preparation H on your head does it help does it grow hair he says no but it shrinks the bald spot I came in here and I found that intellect and intelligence did me no good I found that the best advice I had gotten was to believe with the simple faith of a child the way a kid believes in Santa Claus. And this is one drunk who came in and believed and I'm a hopeless romantic, I found Minnie and Mickey, the tooth fairy, Tinkerbell. They say that out of the mouth of children you can often hear wisdom. And since I want my children to be upgraded I had upgraded them from Mickey Mouse on parade to the superheroes that's gross and the two middle kids were about 12 and 10 at the time the baby was 5 and they thanked me the two little kids thanked me for bringing them to see Disney on parade and that five-year-old baby looked up and said he didn't bring us he took us with him. I'd like to thank all of you for allowing me to share with you this morning. I've met an awful lot of people I've meet some people who are going to become very, very special to me the language of the heart and being able to share with a few of you at a really, really gut level. You've given me a tremendous love in a weekend that I will never forget. I'd like to close with this many, many years ago when a general service dinner Bill was discussing whether or not Alcoholics Anonymous could exist in a hostile environment. could they exist with a hostile government could he wanted survive in a hostile and perilous world should the world someday confront us with a negative could we exist under a dictatorship and his answer was as follows I think we need have no fear let the cold winds blow if they must and the night darken. You and I know a land where the light is bright and there's a stillness for the spirit. A land we can live in for as long as we wish for it exists really only in our hearts. It's a magical world called AA. The Lord, I believe, created AA for us. May it be his will for us that we keep it safe. Good morning. God bless you. Thank you very, very much.