Steps 1 and 6 – Jack B. – 2020

Jack Brennan, Alcoholics Anonymous, USA Good morning, friends. My name is Jack Brennan. I'm an alcoholic. And it's a pleasure to be here this morning and do the best I can to share with you what little I know about the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. We'll wait just a few minutes. Here come a bunch of people. Good morning. When I first came into AA, there was a very positive program for Alcoholics Anonymous. And I mean a positive program in that when you came to AA, people wouldn't just say, well, keep on coming. Everything's going to be all right. They actually told you what to do and described to you how to live and how to change your life. And over the years, that seems to be changing. It's changed around just a little bit. There are many people that come into AA and they take a look on the wall and they see the steps and they say, that's nice, isn't it? And that's about as far as they go. What happens is that when the alcoholic comes into AA, takes the alcohol out of his life, and what he's left with is a great big huge bundle of trouble in his mind and in his heart. And he feels very dirty. And he feels very sad. He feels very guilty. And he feels a lot of emotion. He feels very insecure. And he's come into a place where there's a lot of people that he doesn't know and he's quite scared. And the first and foremost manifestation of our disease is ungrounded and unfounded fear. And realizing that and keeping that in mind, you can see that when the alcoholic comes to AA and all that he does is stop drinking, well, he can't live that way. He just can't live that way. It's impossible. And a lot of people these days don't even understand that there is a program of AA. And the program of AA is the 12 steps. Down there in Perth where I am now, it's just amazing. People come into AA, they get sober and they stay sober for a while. And pretty soon their sobriety starts to pile up on them. And all the fears that they have and all the things that they've done as an alcoholic start to become very dangerous. And they just don't know what's going to happen to them. And they just don't know what's going to happen to them. And that's why I think that the AA has become very real in their lives. And it bothers them to the point where if they don't do something about it, then they have to pick up a drink because that's the only relief for the alcoholic. Take a drink. If something bothers you, take a drink. And your past and your problems, your life will bother you if you're sober and not doing anything about your problems. Well, anyway, I do believe very strongly in the progression of sobriety. We all talk about the progression of the disease. We all talk about the progression of the disease. And I think that's one of the reasons why we're all living in a world where we're all living in a world where we're all living in a world where we're all living in a world where we're all living in a world where we're all living in a world where we're all suffering from the disease of alcoholism. But we do have what I call the progression of sobriety. And as your mind gets clearer and you stay sober day by day, what happens is that your mind becomes very clear to the point where it becomes almost unbearable. And all these things start piling back into your head. And if you don't do something about it, you're in trouble, you know. I've been told very bluntly by some people that I don't need the steps. Let's talk a little bit about that, though, as we talk. One thing that I'd like to talk about is just the whole reason that I get affected by this is actually because I have been given a certain amount of things through the Gap These things start piling back into your head. And if you don't do something about it, you're in trouble. I've been told very bluntly by some people that I don't need the steps. A lot of people tell me they don't need the steps. And I look at them, and they're a brand of sobriety I don't want. They're just dry, period. That's it. And if you drop a cup on the other side of the room, they're likely to go out through the window, you see. They're nasty. They come to AA, and they smile with their teeth. You know what I mean by smiling with your teeth? They have a fixed smile on their face, and when they leave, they say, thank God, they go home and probably bash their wife and kick the kids. You know, they're just not happy. They're in AA, and they're sober, but I call them booze fighters. That's all they are, booze fighters. They hang on as long as they can, and then they get drunk. And the first thing they say is, well, AA doesn't work, you see. And that's the way that it goes. Well. Anyway, if you have read AA Comes of Age, and you see a part in there by Bill Wilson, and it's a quote, and it says that the alcoholic that comes into Alcoholics Anonymous and doesn't, to the best of his ability, put the 12 steps into his life and change, is almost certain to drink again. And that's quite emphatic and quite clear. And a lot of people say, well, it's only a suggested program. Well, I like to tell you the story about the parachute, you see. Every time that you're in a plane and you have a parachute strapped to you, you know what you've got to do. There's a ring there. You pull that ring when you jump. If you don't, you're in trouble. And it's called the ripcord. And when you pull that ring, out goes the chute, and you float down very nicely. Well, under that ring, there's always a sign printed on there that says pull. Pull. P-U-L-L. And I suggest that that's only a suggestion, too. You don't have to, you know. You don't have to. You can do just exactly as you want. You can jump out of there and splatter on the ground, or you can, when all else fails, read the directions if you've got time. Well, that's the way I liken this business of the steps. If you want what we have, it says there in that fifth chapter of the big book, then this is what that you do. You don't have to. And if you want to keep on, you know, the way you are, fine. And then we come to the twelfth step there, where it says, having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps. As a result of what steps? The first eleven, the previous eleven steps. And if you look at that closely, having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, then we try to carry this message to other alcoholics. And practice these principles in all our affairs. Now, I have a son out there that's drinking. He may be drinking at the moment, maybe in AA, I don't know. But he's an alcoholic, and he's been an alcoholic for the past 25 years. And he runs into AA when going gets pretty tough. And then he takes off after a little while because he can't look at himself, he can't put the steps into his life. There's just too much garbage in his life, and he doesn't have the guts enough to stand and look at himself and change, you see. So he's been drinking alcoholically for about 25 years, over 20 years anyway. And it hurts me because he runs about and he comes into AA, and when he gets into AA, he finds a group of people that he wants to find. Those people that say, oh well, you know, do it any which way you want as long as you stay sober. And as a result of that, this kid is going down the chute real quick. And I don't like to see it, and it's bad. So therefore, I'm a very emphatic person. I talk just exactly as I see it. I don't mince any words with anybody. And I hope that you like what I have to say. And if you do, that's good, and if you don't, well, leave it here because there's no problem. It don't cost you anything. But what I tell you about the... about the steps is what I know to be true. I know exactly how the things happen to me, and I've seen so many people come in and out of AA, and I've watched the mistakes they make. I can tell you just exactly where they're making mistakes. I can almost see to the minute where they go off the program and try to go in their own direction and do it by themselves. And it doesn't work. It just doesn't work. So that's enough for me. Now I would say too at this point that when I came into AA, there was never one meeting a week. Never. When a group started to form, they went to a church or somewhere and tried to get a hall or a place to meet for two nights. Two nights a week, not one. And one night would be an open meeting. An open meeting where wives were welcome, and visitors, and priests, and ministers, and judges, and police, whoever wanted to come. An open meeting. And that was called the Showcase of AA, where we exhibited... What an alcoholic wives. Just one head per piece, you see. And not nasty people, nice people, not falling down drunk, and people well dressed, and alcoholics. And that was good. And the second meeting was called the School Room of AA, where the alcoholic learned to put the steps into his life and how the people before him did it. And that's the way that AA was conducted, and that's many years ago. And why the deviation, I don't know. But in the States now, you'll find a lot of groups that just have one meeting a week, or they have two meetings, they have a discussion meeting, and they come in and they sit down and they say, what will we discuss tonight? Let's talk about the overhead sewage system in China, or the price of apples in the state of Washington. And it's pretty ridiculous to my mind. Because we are doing for ourselves here in AA what no doctor can do, and what no scientist can do. What no priest can do, what no minister can do. Nobody can do what we do. No mother, no father, no brother, no sister. Nobody can help us. No one. And all the brains and all the technology and all the space age computers, can't help an alcoholic. And the only one that can help an alcoholic is the alcoholic himself. And that being the case, then it would seem to me that every alcoholic would be very anxious to know what route to take. Or you wouldn't take a young fellow, you know, and six years old and stick a bunch of heavy books under his arm, and put him on a bus and send him to college. It would be ridiculous because he would be out of his class. And by the same token, you wouldn't take an alcoholic shaking and shivering and about to puke and full of fear and full of remorse and regret and guilt, and stick him in the middle of a group of people and say, oh, now sit down and have some coffee and you'll be all right. It just don't work that way. It wasn't the case with that sort of friend. OK. So the former recommender said that I wanted to refocus the day when this client decided to sign off the joint official ib Phelps segs and I were looking at a next thing you'd want to do is that I would restrict the department and said, if you didn't set your mind up well, I 어떻게 backup an alcohol addicted I pancake Iápógod. But because you take an alcohol addicted woman, it could also cause Regelgsa a man'srijk and I hahahaha aó and I knew him very well as I knew Bill Wilson very well. I lived for many years within three miles of Bill Wilson for about 15 years and I knew Dr. Silkwright. In fact, one of the last people I saw before I left the States was Dr. Silkwright and what happened was, and so few people know, what happened that Dr. Silkwright watched Bill Wilson grow and he watched him and Dr. Bob put AA together and he never ceased to be amazed at AA and even to this day he just don't understand. He knows that it's a God-given and God-inspired program and he's quite aware of that and anyway in the early days there when he had one and then two and then 50 then 60 and 80 and then 100. When he reached 100, Dr. Silkwright just couldn't take no more and he said, Bill, I just don't know what's going on. He said, Bill, I just don't know what's going on. He said, here you are, 100 hopeless, helpless, chronic drunks. You should be dead and you're all alive and not only are you alive but you're growing and changing so much and you're out there helping other people. He said, it's just unbelievable and he said, I'm very fortunate to be able to be associated with this bunch and then he said something that changed everything. He said, why don't you people sit down and record how that you did it. Put it down. Put it down on paper because you're not going to live forever and surely there's going to be a lot more alcoholics behind you and you're going to need something so sit down and write it down on a piece of paper and those first 100 got together and they wrote the 12 steps. This is how we did it. This is what that we did. These are the steps we took. That's why they were all in the past tense and this is how that we accomplished what we did. 100 sober miracles and that's just what they were. So the 12. Those steps are basically, as far as I'm concerned, the AA program. There's no question in my mind about it. So the alcoholic comes into AA and he's very sick. He's sick to the death. Up a little bit, please. That's better. That's good. Thank you. Well done. The alcoholic comes into AA and... and he's sick to the death. And what that he looks at is a bunch of people and a bunch of people that are nicely dressed and all happy and all sober and immediately what happens or what should happen that this individual becomes a little bit... is given a little bit of fate and a little bit of hope that if these people can do it, then I can do it too. And he goes about and he kind of tests people here and he tests them. And he gets them there and he... he listens to a few people. They tell him a few things about their own drinking. And little by little, he comes to the conclusion that he is no different from what they are. And this is the great reason that people at AA should always recognize the new individual when he comes in the door because he's looking for something. And if he don't get it at that meeting, well then he may never ever get it because he may go out and die. So this individual comes and he looks and he sees. And... to believe is what that they say come to believe and he gets to that meeting and for the first time in his life as i did i felt like i was home for the first time i never felt anywhere in this world that i ever belonged anywhere i never belonged at home i never belonged in my house with my mother i never belonged anywhere the only thing that i felt was that i was a round block in a square hole and i felt uneasy and uncomfortable everywhere that i went and when i drank i felt good so i drank of course to feel good and that's the alcoholic but when i came to aa i found what i would have been looking for in the bottom of a bottle all my life here was people now that understood me and i was filthy dirty i was not cleaned by any means i was dirty i had a lot of body lights and i had hair down here it was full of blood and i was a mess but these people didn't back off for me like normal people would they stood there and i guess i'm sure that they had to smell me because i stunk like a goat on goat hill but none of them ever said anything about it except welcome we're glad to see you and that was good so i came to believe immediately and that was my first step and i do believe i took the first step before i came to a and the first step says we admitted we were alcohol and that our lives are unmanageable well i'm going to put this in i admitted that our republican alcohol and that my life had become unmanageable i had known that for many years and i was polished over alcohol and that my life was unmanageable but i wouldn't accept it i wouldn't accept it i found i thought that i was going to find a magic solution the magic way to drink and one day i was going to take two drinks and go home like my brother and the third day i was going to finish myISTINCELLOR because i knew i was going toнаяfair and should go back afterwards to the medical unit and i utilizent ætheon toang soil chainена and and hong kong not doing any crap my first was for the body and after four years he and he one and i went out of my livingmorepan and my family grew up and my family grew up comfortable emotional wasn't satisfied with all the park right And that's all that I wanted. And I wanted to do that because that would make me different from my father. My father being an alcoholic and me watching him performing at home when I was that high, I hated his guts and I couldn't be like him. So I fought not to be like my father. And I was going to learn how to drink and I was not going to be like him. He was a drunken bum and I was a nice young fella. I had money and he had nothing and that's the way I thought. Well, anyway, when I came to AA, I had taken the first step. I did finally at long last hanging over a toilet bowl, bleeding like a stuffed pig on a bowery in New York. I admitted that the bottle was bigger than me and I couldn't beat it. And I threw the bottle over my shoulder and I said, the hell with it, let me die. I just can't fight no more. And I didn't care if they called me alcoholic, schmalkaholic or what they called me. I just didn't want to fight no more. I accepted the first step. You see, I was powerless over alcohol and my life was certainly unmanageable. I couldn't even move from where I was hanging on a toilet bowl. I was that weak. Well, now a lot of people say, well, sure, you had to stop drinking. I didn't have to stop drinking. There's cemeteries in New York and in the Bowery over there and in Potter's Field in New York. They buried him in Potter's Field with a backhoe, 25 at a time, twice a week, just 50 a week. I went to one big one. The mayor's grave and they covered it up with a bulldozer and that's it. Potter's Field, they call it, you see. And 95% of the people in Potter's Field are alcoholics. Yeah, because of the kind of booze, you see. So nobody ever has to stop drinking. You don't have to stop. You should maybe, but you don't. I stopped because I just didn't want to drink no more. Now, you don't have to be to the point that I was. In fact, I hope that nobody ever goes to that point. It's not necessarily. It's almost stupid. But you see. I had one of those alcoholic minds and I was determined I was going to do it my way. And I was going to fight this thing to a draw. So what happened was that I gave up and I admitted I was powerless over alcohol. My life was unmanageable and I accepted it. Now, I would say at this point that people coming into AA today come in with a home. They come in with cars. They have a bank account. They have a family. And they think that their life is not unmanageable. So the way I describe unmanageability is. That if you can't take a drink and guarantee your behavior, your life is unmanageable. If you can't take a drink and guarantee your behavior, then you're having trouble with alcohol. Your life is unmanageable. And if you miss a train because you're sitting in a bar and the train leaves and you're still there, that's unmanageability. And if your wife has tea on the table at seven o'clock or six and you get there at nine, that's unmanageable. So it doesn't say in that step anywhere how unmanageable your life has to be or how powerless you are. You are over alcohol. It doesn't say that at all. It just says that you're having a little trouble. Your life is unmanageable and you're powerless over the next drink. And if you can't take a drink and guarantee your behavior, then you're powerless over alcohol. And that's step number one. I admitted that very rapidly. And then it said, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. And let us define the word sanity. What is sanity? A lot of people object to that word because they think that may mean cruelty. It's crazy. And it doesn't mean that at all. Sanity is simply acting with some sane thought, some good sane thinking. And before you do anything, you put a little thinking to it and think and you come out with sane thinking. And if you don't do that and you act on impulse, then you're acting in a state of insanity. That's all that it means. Sane thinking. Well, it's very evident that the alcoholic doesn't act with sane thinking. He acts on... I have seen many people... I've seen myself wake up in a jail and look at the bars and say, where the hell am I now? And if I wasn't in a jail, I could have been in a nut house in a straight jacket or somewhere. And I would think back and someone might ask me, how come you did the stupid things that you did? How come you took on four cops? You go up and look for a cop and take on four of them and get your brains beat. How come you do that? And I would think about it a little bit and I'd say, well, I really don't know. But it looked like... It looked like a good idea at the time, you see. Well, now, that's a state of insanity. You see, nobody does that. Well, I did it, but I was insane at the time. That did not mean that I was crazy. In fact, when I got to nut houses and I got out of the straight jacket and I looked around and I saw actually crazy people there. People that were really sick in the head. And the first thing that would occur to me any of these times in these hospitals, I didn't belong there. I knew... I knew... I knew... I knew damn well I didn't belong there. They were crazy and I was not. So, so much for the word sanity. It does not mean that you're crazy. It means that you act under the influence of alcohol and you do stupid things that normally you wouldn't want to do or wouldn't do. And that's all that it means. And it says, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves. Now, when I first came into AA, people would have said to me, God, I would have left. I would have took off because I had cursed God. And I was cursed all my life. All my life. I was brought up Irish Catholic, you know. And in the early days, I was an altar boy and I tried to live real good. And then when trouble started to bug me and I started getting in trouble with alcohol, I blamed my father first for my drinking. And then I blamed my mother for not getting rid of my father when he used to beat on her. And then I blamed my brothers and my sisters. And then I turned down to God, you see, and I blamed him. Look what you did to me. Because when I was a kid, I used to sit between my mother and father, keep them from hurting each other, you see. And I was only that big. And I remember the terror that used to be in my heart when my father used to start screaming and threatening my mother. And I remember grabbing him around the legs and begging with him, you know, don't beat on her no more. And you see, this I remember all of this. And then God let that go on. And I got a tremendous hatred. I got a tremendous hatred for God. Because here was I, a kid that used to hate booze the way I did. And I was afflicted with this damn problem with booze. I couldn't drink like normal people. I started getting in trouble. And I was becoming more like my father every day. And I didn't like it. And I blamed God for that. So I cursed God. And now here I am in AA. And my sponsor is telling me there's no religion in AA. And I'm glad to hear that. Because I was so guilty it was pitiful. And I just went along. And when it came to that, I said, that second step, I had to substitute the group, the group of people in AA. Because if anyone would have mentioned God to me, I would have took off with another bunch of holy rollers and let me go. I couldn't stomach that. So this program was written, I think, for people, for alcoholics just like me. And it says over there, power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. It doesn't say anything about higher power. And a lot of people read higher power into that, and it isn't. It just says a power greater than ourselves. Well, the alcoholic that comes through the door of AA, he looks about and he's probably shabby and he's probably, you know, a little uneasy. And he's got a lot of problems. And he looks at a bunch of people. And they're all happy and nicely dressed, drinking coffee, all smiling. And they got big cars at the door probably, you know. And they got nice shoes on their feet. And he knows that they got something that he wants. And that's the power. And greater than him that can restore them to sanity. Because if he asks them any question, he'll get an answer. And they'll teach him how to think sanely. If he wants to do something, if they know, don't do it right now. Wait a little while. See, take it easy. And after you get your feet on the ground, then we'll make a few decisions. So this, then, is the power greater than yourself that restores you to sanity when you first arrive. Now comes the big one. A lot of people get turned off when they come to the third step. Thank you. The third step says we made a decision to turn our lives, our will and our lives, over to the care of God as we understood him. Well, now, one day I said to my sponsor, I said, Sam, my sponsor was a little Jewish fellow. He was about that big. And, you know, he was just as nice as he could be. Very gentle man. And I said to him, Sam, I just feel so good. I don't know what to do. And I said, you know something? I owe you my life. And he said something to me that I'll never forget. And he said, you know something, Jack? And I said, no. He said, you're an ungrateful Irish bum. And I looked at him, you know, coming from a little Jewish fellow. That hurt me. Especially when I thought this guy was the second coming of God, you know. I thought the sun rose and set on him. And when he told me that, I said, why do you say that to me? He said, because that's what you are. An ungrateful. Irish bum. And I was amazed. I said, well, you better straighten that out because I don't understand what you're saying. I said, you saved my life. He said, I didn't do a damn thing for you. Nothing. All I did was go out and pick you up and carry you to AA and set you down here and watch out you didn't hurt yourself falling off the stool the first night you were here. And I just looked at him. I was amazed because here was a whole new attitude of this guy. So I said, would you? Please explain to me what you're talking about. He said, yeah, I'll tell you. When the man upstairs, and he called him the higher power, the man upstairs. And he said, when the man upstairs hold you on a Bowery and throwing in the sponge. He said, he got a hold of me and told me to go out and get you to AA. And he said, I took Gene, my wife, and we went down to Bowery and we picked you up and we carried you to AA. And he said, Jack. Jack. Jack. That's all I've done for you. No more. That's it. And everything that's happened to you since is because of the man upstairs. And he said, you see, what I did for you was done for me. And the guy that did it for me had it done for him. And the guy that did it for him had it done for him. And if you carry it all the way back to the very beginning, who did it for Bill Wilson in that room some 40-odd years ago? The guy upstairs. The higher power. He said, Bill had a spiritual experience. The higher power visited him and gave him this, you know, understanding of other alcoholics. And he said, he's the only one. And from that, we are all sober. So he said, we all owe the guy upstairs. We don't owe nobody else in AA anything because we each are only giving away what was given to us very freely. So I had to think about that. And I said, well, Sam, how do I, you know. He said. Jack, do you have any money in your pocket? I said, yeah, I got a few bucks. He said, you didn't have when you came here. He said, you have shoes? I said, yeah. He said, you didn't have when you got here. He said, do you have a job? I said, yeah. He said, you got a room, haven't you? Yeah. And he said, you eating pretty good? Yeah. He said, you couldn't eat when you got here. You'd puke. And I said, true. And he said, well, then everything that you have, you owe to the man upstairs because he loves you pretty good. And I said, how do you figure that he loves me pretty good, Sam? He said, because there's millions more out there that were not brought to AA. You were. So he must love you pretty good. He's got something in store for you. He's going to have some work for you to do. So I listened to that man and I felt mixed emotions. I didn't know what to believe. I had avoided the higher power and God for months because I wasn't prepared. The to be able to understand. But he put it to me so simply that there was no which way that I could get away from it. It was just that easy and that simple. I said, Sam, what do I do now that you shook me up like this? Tell me what to do. He said, I'll tell you what to do. You thank him for what that you have and you turn your life and will over to him. And he's doing pretty good job with you so far. You got everything you need. I said, yeah. Well, let him continue. It's just that easy. I said, well, how do I do that? He said, well, talk to him just like you talk to me. And then he said, no, no. Wait just a minute. He said, in your case, you better clean it up a little bit first. He said, because, you know, you're not. So that night I went out and I didn't take the usual bus home. I walked because I was up to here with emotion. And I just talked to my friend upstairs and I told him, I said, you know, I came here with nothing and now we have everything. And that little Jewish fellow. He says that you love me and it must be true because I'm sober. I was never sober before. I never had any friends before. And I've got everything now that I want. And I said, I got to believe what that little guy in there was saying. So I want to thank you for what that you did for me. And from here on in, you tell me what to do and I'll do it to the best of my ability. And you know something? He's been telling me what to do since that day. Now, there are a lot of times in my life that I look at him. I look at. No. The situation around me and I say, man, I can do a lot better than this, you know. And I tell him, I say, this is stupid, you know. And sometimes it becomes very obvious that I could do something that I think is wrong. But I look back at my track record, I look back at my record and everything I ever touched turned to garbage. So now I must have a little faith. And when something comes up and I can't see the reason for it, I just put it off for a little while and I say, well, I don't understand it, but I'm going to do it anyway. Because this is what I'm supposed to do. And I do it. And sometimes the confusion is tremendous, tremendous in my life. And I have to take my own advice. I tell I tell alcoholics all the time when your confusion reigns, don't get upset and don't act like normal people. See, normal people say, don't just stand there, do something. And for the alcoholic, that's wrong. The alcoholic must tell him stuff. Don't just do something. Stand there. And if you do, you'll find out that the confusion will leave and the answer will come to you. So just don't do something. Stand there. And when everything is upside down in my life, I just put it on the side. I say, just stand here and see what happens. And it always comes out right because I keep my big hands out of it and I keep my life and my will in a care of the guy upstairs where it should be. See. And now when I took the third step, Sam said to me, Jack, you like what you're doing? I said, I love it. And I said, you know, Sam, it's just great. And he said, it's only the beginning. Things are going to get better. And he said, if you really like what you're doing, you want the rest of this program, you want the whole ball of wax. So you want to be like a lot of other people just come in and get sober and forget about it. I said, no, no, I want the whole ball of wax. I want what you got. Now, what does Sam have? Sam had a piece of heart. You see, a lot of people talk about serenity. I don't know what the hell serenity is, but he had a piece of heart and that's what I wanted. And he smoked a big cigar like that, you know, big, long cigar. He light one up the beginning of the meeting and he just sit there and he dribble down here and on his shirt, you know, and his wife used to said, oh, my God. Look at that boy. And look, I said, he's beautiful. He's beautiful. Look at him. You know, nothing bothered him. He was a beautiful man. And I wanted what he had because I was one of them people, you know, I was going here and there and there, 90 miles an hour. And he used to say, Jack, why don't you slow down? Guy upstairs is taking care of things. Don't worry about it. And I finally had to adopt. But I wanted what he had. And he told me one day, he said, if you want what I got, knock me down and take it away from me, but you get it. You get it. And if I don't have it, you go to somebody that's got it and get it. That's what AA is all about. So he said, if you want the rest of this program, then you do what we did. And I said, what I do next? You get a piece of paper and get a pencil because you're going to go to work. And he said, you're going on a trip and you got to know who you are because, you know, there's a lot of misconceptions up here in your head and you got to get yourself straightened out and you got to know you. You don't know what's right and you don't know what's wrong. You don't know anything about anything. You're diny the dunce, you stupid. And he said, you've got to learn who you are. So I knew then he was talking about the fourth step. And the fourth step says, made a searching and feel it, my inventory of yourself, of me. And I was prepared to do that because I wanted what he had. So I sat down with a piece of paper and I did exactly what I was told to do. I started with me and I put down here on a piece of paper that I was a thief and I didn't list, you know, every place that I had ever stuck up or stolen money from or I just put down here. I was a thief. I'm a thief. And basically that was my. Big problem. I never learned to work. I never wanted to work. I was a thief and I heard a lot of people. I put that down. I heard a lot of people. I had a lot of envy in me and a lot of jealousy in me. And I had a lot of resentments. I resented my father real good. My mother had died and I never had any chance to tell her, you know, to make any amends to her. She died while I was drunk. And all she knew of me was headlines in a newspaper. And I heard her real bad. And, you know, I had to put that down on a piece of paper, too. And I hurt my brothers and my sisters. And I heard a lot of people that I never knew. I remember I bashed a guy with a steel barstool one day because he knocked me over when I, you know, accidentally brushed up against me, knocked me off the stool. And I come up with the stool and I like to tear the head off him with a steel barstool. And he laid there on the ground with his brain spilling out, you know. And the bartender told me to run. And I said, hell no, I ain't going to run. That bum had it coming to me. Knocked me over first, see. And I said, if he opens his mouth again, I'll kick the rest of his brains out. That's the kind of individual that I was. And that went down on a piece of paper. I was vicious. I was nasty. Don't get in my way. People used to say to me, Jack, what way are you going? I'm going that way. If it will, we'll go this way. Nobody wanted to be associated with me, you see. And now I had to recognize these things in myself because I had to find out who I was. Who that I was and what was right and what was wrong and what way to go. Because like Sam said, I was going on a very important trip. I was going to go on a one way trip through life. And I had to know me. So I put it all down. I didn't make a great big, huge book out of it. I didn't elaborate on it too much. I just put it down there as simply and as easily as that I could. And he told me in the beginning, he said, Jack, nobody will correct you on it. Nobody's going to read it. They're not going to worry about the spelling or the punctuation. It don't matter. He said, that is yours between you and the higher power. So you can be as honest as you possibly can be. Be honest and be fearless. And I could be fearless because I had turned my life over to the care of God. If I understood him in the third step and I had no more fear. I walked then without fear and I didn't care. I hear a lot of people say, well, suppose I write this down and somebody finds it. What? So they find it. You know, that's a very little faith that a lot of people have. Very little. You take that and you do it and you get it done. Stick it in a Bible somewhere because nobody ever reads the Bible. Right. And you don't worry about it. And if that's just it, because you're going to need that paper later on. So I did my fourth step. And when I got through, I asked myself one question. Is there anything else in your mind that's bugging you? Is there anything else in your heart that you don't want nobody to know about? Is there anything else inside you and that you would prefer never to talk about? You know, you wish that it went away or you wish it never happened. And it wasn't. There was nothing left in me. So I considered myself to have done the fourth step and I closed it up. And the relief that I felt was unimaginable. And what happened to me was that at that moment I lost the desire to drink. I no more had to drink because from that doing what that I did on that piece of paper, it took away from me all the all the fears. It took away from me everything I no more had to drink because everything on that piece of paper was associated with alcohol. And I realized that alcohol had ruined my life. And when you come to that conclusion, then you're white. There's no more in the picture. The friends are no more in the picture. It's just you and booze. And look what it did to you. And a desire for a drink leaves. I haven't had a desire for a drink from that moment because I looked at me on a sheet of paper and I said, that's what booze did to me. And the whole with booze. I don't want no more. I don't care if I live or die. I'm not going to drink no more period one day at a time. And then I had a hot potato because now I knew me and I didn't like me. I didn't like me one little bit and I wanted to get rid of me. And my friend Sam said, Jack, the only way that you're going to get rid of you is by taking the fifth step. And I said, when can we do it? He said, you want me? I said, yeah, definitely you. Because, Sam, you know me and I want you to know me a little better. And, you know, I want you to be because I'm going to be with you. And when you see me going that way and I'm supposed to be going now, you tell me about it because I want what you got. And I didn't go around looking for no Spanish speaking priest up in Harlem that didn't understand what I was talking about. I didn't go looking for anybody, you know, somebody that was going to leave and go to South America next week. I wanted somebody to know. Somebody told me that was going to be with me. Now, it says here in the big book that you can use a priest or minister or use who you want. And I don't never argue with the big book. Never. But I have found this, that I have had many people in my life come to me and tell me, Jack, I'm going to take my fifth step with a priest or minister. And I do what you want. But I advise you not to. I advise you not to very strongly take it with somebody in your group or somebody close to you. And the reason for that being because many, many times these guys have come back and told me that the priest or the minister actually told them that they didn't think that they were alcoholics. They couldn't be. There were two nights of people. And why don't you just try drinking a little beer and don't, you know, go for the heavy stuff, you'll be all right. And this has happened many, many times. So I advise people you do as you want, of course. But I advise people to get somebody to take your fifth step with. And somebody is going to know you, somebody is going to be with you and somebody is going to stay near you and guide you and catch you when you're going off base. And that's the way that I took my fifth step. I sat down with Sam and I just let it all pour out. And I didn't show my fourth step. I didn't have anything like that. I just said, Sam, this is what's bothering me. These are the things that I want to tell you about me. And I told him about me. And the fifth step says that admitted to God, to ourselves, that another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs. Now, I didn't bore him with all the sort of details of this particular day in 1937 or 38 or whenever I stuck up the Chase Manhattan Bank in lower New York. I had nothing like that. The exact nature of my wrongs. I'm a vicious person. I'm a thief. I'm very jealous person. I'm a guy. And I would tell him a few instances of it. I've always hated my brother because he was such a good fellow. And now my brother died. You know, a few years ago. And I was very happy to be able to be real close to this guy because I had heard him bad all his life. I bad mouthed him all the time. Any time anybody said anything nice about my brother, I would talk to him. I would tell them about things I knew about him that weren't so nice. I even made him up. So I bad mouthed my brother. And, you know, these things, this is the way I spoke to my friend Sam. And, you know, he kept the cigar there and he didn't even lose the ashes. What? He didn't lose the cigar. You know, I thought that he'd be shocked no end. He wasn't shocked because it's like John Barrymore said one day, you know, he was up on a stage in Massachusetts and he was a great goer, too. He drank a lot of beer and he had a play going up there in Massachusetts. And he happened to be near the footlights and he had a belly full of beer and a very quiet time in a performance and he had a tremendous burp, you know. And a woman in the front row said, oh, my God, you know, like that. And he stopped the whole show. And he said, just one minute. And he bent over the footlights and he said to her, Madam, I've been drinking a whole lot of beer. What did you expect? Chimes, you see? And that's what I say about the alcoholic. You're an alcoholic. What do you expect? Beautiful things in your life? No, garbage, garbage. I don't know any alcoholic that comes into AA that got here because they were beautiful people or lovely people or so thoughtful of other people. Hell no. They got here because they're sick to the death of being sick to the death. And that's the way. And they've done a lot of nasty things. They've hurt people that shouldn't be hurt. And at this point, I would like to say, why did the higher power give to Bill Wilson the understanding that is needed for the alcoholic? Why didn't he give it to doctors or lawyers or priests or scientists? Well, there's a friend of mine that wrote this little thing and it says over there his name was Joe O'Connor and he was a Jesuit priest and he wrote that little piece in there. I don't see it here in AA and up here. And I'm sorry about that. I hope you'll get it. It says AA and the higher power. And it says God in his infinite wisdom gave to this group of people a power beyond estimate. And it goes on to tell you why you're an alcoholic and why you're in AA. It's a very beautiful thing, you see? And Joe O'Connor wrote it and he was always very unhappy. And I used to say to him, what's wrong, Joe? And he said, I'm only a priest. I can't be an alcoholic because I drink, I get sick. And he said, I can't drink that much. And I said, Joe, that's tough. You know, I said, I really feel sorry for you. You know, why don't you try drinking, you know, little little water with it or something, but if you want to be an alcoholic that bad, you know, try harder. He said, I can't. I get too damn sick. I can't drink. And I say, that's tough. Really, I feel sorry for you. You can't be an alcoholic. You're only a priest. And I said, how come that you feel this way? He said, well, I watch you. You help that guy, then you help that guy, and you help that one and that one, a young one, an old one. He said, me, I help more and I'm doing real good. His life was a beautiful life. He had a beautiful life with a good priest, a lovely fellow, but he was restricted. He was restricted in the way that he could help people. And he was very envious and very envious of AA. And he died very unhappy. But he did leave that little piece, AA in the higher power. And I would love to see more people read it because they come into AA and they say, well, yeah, I'm sober, so what? So what? And that's a pretty poor attitude because the gift that we have is what he said in that piece of literature. And he wrote a power beyond estimate to be able to step into chaos in a family and bring something to that family that nobody else in this world can bring. Peace of heart, contentment, sobriety. And we are capable of doing that. And a lot of people don't realize what they have equipped to do. And they worry about, well, there was one particular fellow. I know his name was Bill Buckner and he was like a Greek god. Believe me, he was about six foot four. He had shoulders on him like that. He had a waist on him like that. Not a fat pot belly like me. He was built and he had a lot of money and he drove a big open Cadillac. And I used to look at this guy in awe. And I say, my God, if this guy can be an alcoholic, I'm glad I'm an alcoholic, too, because he looked like anything but an alcoholic. He looked like a Greek god. And I'm not kidding. He was a beautiful fellow. He was a jujitsu expert. He was a. He was kind of a commander in the army somewhere. And his whole being, when he walked into the room, he filled up a door and everybody just stopped. And this guy sat at a meeting one night and he told his story. See, and he said that when he first came into AA after about three months, he was sitting in a bar one night and his friends had built bridges. And this guy was a great architect and that guy was doing something else. And they were all big shots in their field. And what was he? And he's sitting in a bar looking in a blue glass in the mirror, you know, and drinking a Coke and he didn't belong in the first place. And he's feeling sorry for himself. He's on a pity pot, don't you see? And he's saying, yeah, they're all sober. And they did this and that. And the other thing I can't drink and all I am is I'm a damn alcoholic. That's all I am. And he said to himself, yeah, well, you're sober. So what? And it was that kind of thinking. You see, I almost dumped him. And suddenly he went and called somebody and somebody came to him and explained to him. Hey, you're sober. And they explained to him this, that no matter what anybody else in this world did, as far as great things were concerned, that no one could do what he had done. He had saved his own life. And if he could take care of his body and save his own soul for the rest of the time that he was alive, nobody could be greater than that. So he developed a new outlook on life. And from that day on, he helped a tremendous amount of people in AA because he realized what this program was. What this program was all about and that it was a gift. It wasn't some place to come to stay sober. And when you felt like having a drink or have a drink, you always come back to AA. See, no, no, no. That's not the way that it works. See, this is truly a gift from the higher power to we people. And why did they give it to Bill Wilson? Why did he give it to Bill Wilson? I don't know, but I think I have an idea because we as alcoholics, we hate all the wrong people. We hate mothers. We hate fathers. We hate wives. And particularly, we hurt little people, our children. And I think that the man upstairs had to find some way to stop we people from hurting people that didn't deserve to be hurt. And so he said, well, I don't know how to do it. I could make them all stop drinking now, but I gave them free will. So I can't. I can't do that. I can't inflict anything on them. They have free will. They can drink or not drink, but I wish they wouldn't. So he's then schemed out. This way of giving us something that he never gave to anybody else. Gave us the gift of sobriety and the gift of understanding. And that's what AA is. Understanding one alcoholic for the other. See, and he can't bottle it and he can't put it in a book. And there's no damn doctor in the world that understands us and ever will. There ain't a damn one of them knows what the hell he's talking about when it comes to booze. Nobody. Because we are the experts. We know. And they don't. And they can guess about it and they can talk about it and they can give you pills and they can do and they're all just scratching the ciphers. They don't know. They have not been given a gift. No wife has been given a gift. No father, no mother, no priest, no doctor, nobody. Only the alcoholic. Because unto your weak and trembling hands, I give the gift of healing other alcoholics, which I gave to no man. Joe O'Connor. Read it. It's beautiful. It changed my life. I'm sure it'll change yours, too. And if you ever get to that point, where you say, yeah, I'm sober, so what? Better quick, get a hold of a telephone and call somebody up in AA and have them explain to you why that you're sober, because I'll tell you very frankly, if I came through the doors of AA and all I got was sobriety, I'd cut my throat tonight, today, or I'd go out and get drunk and it'd be the last drunk I ever had. If there was no more in here than just sobriety, I don't want it. I don't want it. Because when I came through those doors, I couldn't stand the stink of me.