Steps 3 and 10 – Chance for Change Workshop – Part 3 of 6 – 2004 – Scott R.

Be along for the ride. Be in the flow of it, you know. And I believe in the big book of AA. I believe in the mystics. I belief in St. Thomas. I believed to know God is to not know God. Where are we? We've been at it for another hour haven't we? Just about? No? What? Thirty-five minutes? Wow. Yikes. Later in time with my sponsor, I'm going to read something to you. I told you that my alcoholism used to go below the horizon and would stop presenting itself as a real and present danger and that it would disappear and that I would drink again. As a result of 6 and 7, and I want to talk about 6 and 9 6 and 10 now as related to the 10th step and as utilized as a tool for change. Okay? I've had a lot of problems in sobriety. If you haven't, God bless you, I am thrilled for you, and I know some people haven't. And I'm not saying I don't believe you. I've Had a lot Of problems in Sobriety, I have problems with my marriage, I've had problems financially, Ive had problems professionally, I'v had problems, I Have an eating disorder, I Weighed over 300 pounds in sobriety, I had problems smoking cigarettes, I Had a Lot of problems. And I hang out with people with problems. in AA. What I mean by that is my sponsors have been seekers, people who have really admitted what their difficulties are and putting it out there. I want to tell you the story about how I stopped smoking in AA, and it's very important. Three and a half years of sobriety. Now one of the things I did when I came in Alcoholics Anonymous is I stayed away from the women in AA not because of the women, because of me. I had been a miserable, irresponsible, adulterous husband. And part of my amends to my wife was to comport myself in a way that would not be anxiety-producing for my wife. And it was a smart thing to do. And again, not because of the women in AA, because of me. I spoke at a meeting one night. A woman asked to talk to me afterwards. For some reason, I did. I talked to her. She subsequently said that I had saved her life. You know how long I kept her sober for? Exactly not one second. At any rate, I had this terrible dilemma. I was having a very difficult time with cigarette smoking. It was scaring my children, and it was a bad deal for me. But here was my deal. I had never stopped drinking before, ever. And I was terrified that if I asked God to take away the cigarettes, that he wouldn't, and then I drank. Then it would all, it was house of cards. It would just come tumbling down, andit terrified me. So I finally go to Smokers Anonymous, us. And this woman whose life I've saved, and you'll see in a minute why I'm telling you that, she was taking a cake for a year of smobriety. And she's taking her cake and she shares, oh, this is great. I'm also a member of AA. As you know, the people in AA who still smoke just work crappy programs. So I go nuts. My brain blows up. And in my head. I'm going, so you rotten bitch, I didn't save your life because I smoke. I smoke, I'm a smoker. I work at crappy program. I didnít save your life. I mean Iím just Yosemite Sam. Iím nuts. Smokeís coming out of my ears. Iím psycho. So I go home and I write the inventory. And what comes out in the wash in the inventory, I read it to my sponsor, The Ten Step, is that sheís lying. I work a great AA program, and smoking cigarettes has nothing, nothing to do with Alcoholics Anonymous. Absolutely nothing. And then I got rid of the cigarettes. Because I got it. I got that I could have my dialogue about God and ask for relief from anything. It has nothing to do with the central miracle of stopping drinking. It's a miracle! This stopping drinking! And sometimes I've heard in sobriety, and I've hear people say this, it's no longer about not drinking it's about now living in those and I understand what they're saying but I will tell you at 19 years in this is absolutely 100% about not drink not drinking for me and I'll tell you why if I don't attend to that ember it's the only thing that's made everything else possible so at the end of the day it's enough it's Enough at the End of the Day that when I crave I don' t treat the craving with a drink If you're new, stop treating your craving. Stop treating your alcoholism. Every craving has a beginning, a middle, and an end. If you accept it, if you say, Pop, I will accept my craving. I will stop treating it. Please remove the obsession and let it break over you like a wave and take the whooping and you won't have to do it alone. Although it does say in the last paragraph of chapter 3, and I believe it, that the time and place will come where it's three o'clock in the morning and your mouth fills with saliva and the room spins and you're drunk. And you could not drink. You could not drank. If you do something to keep your alcoholism above the horizon as a real and present danger even when you're not concentrating on it. And that happens when your alcohol is gets firmly placed on the shoulders of the men and women of AA and the higher power here. Because of myself I can't keep it buoyed up. I can' t keep it up there. It's impossible for me. I can in certain situations, for certain periods of time, when certain calamities happen, when it's important enough for a period of time. But I can't keep it up there. I'm not strong enough, man. The 10-step has been a tremendous gift to me. I went up over 300 pounds in sobriety. And I would do 10 steps about it. I'm resentful of Scott for being overweight. It affects my self-esteem, pocketbook, ambition, personal relations, and sex. The defects, gluttony, self-serving, shame, people-pleasing. And I read it to my sponsor and go have an apple pie and a bowl of spaghetti, similar to my lunch. And I would say, so now I'm repeating the same behavior. I'm writing it, I'm reading it, and then I'm doing it. That's not the design for living. Write it, read it, repeat it. That's not actually, there's no bumper sticker that says write it, read it, and repeat it. So I have to take a look at this. And I have do what I talked about in 6 and 7. I have go over the first five propositions in the book. Where am I trying to make mortar without sand? In this specific area of my life. So Pop, please take it away. What should I do? Go to OA. What else you got? And this stuff's coming up for me again and again and again. And I go over the first five propositions in the book. And finally, I go to Overeaters Anonymous. And I went there and I said, you know, I'm a circuit speaker. And they said, yeah, and a very fat circuit speaker. And I said well would you like me to talk? They said no. No, and your mouth's full and you shouldn't talk with your mouth full. And basically they said to me, you can't spend your AA money here. What does this have to do with sobriety? Absolutely nothing unless you're going through it. Absolutely nothing, unless you're going through. What is smoking have to do with Sobriety, absolutely nothing unless you are going through it and it creates resentments against yourself and it blocks you from your fellows. And that's where I have gotten to get the rubber on the road in sobriety and take action on things that have made me have some big problems with me. Nobody's bringing it to me. My wife loves me, my kids love me, my sponsees love me. But I'm traveling to Alcoholics Anonymous conferences all over the world and I can't fit into an airplane seat. And I'm having, and I'm dying. I'm dying. The worst journey in the world is the 12 steps from down here up to here. And that's not it's not a good way to live. And thank God that I was hanging out with people who say, yeah, you sound terrible. You sound terrible, you know, I'm sitting there going, well take two of my tapes and call me in the morning, you know. So what's the task? I go over the first five propositions in the book and I don't care if it's about your weight, about smoking, about difficulties in your marriage, about difficulties an AA, I want to tell you something man, No 10th step, no 12th step. I'm at Alcoholics Anonymous because the people in Alcoholics Anonymous make me insane. Insane. I listen to some people share I want to throw a noose over a beam and just take myself out, you know? I had one of the worst blowhards in my group. This guy, when he shared people literally killed themselves. I mean this guy was unbelievable. This was one of the great experiences I've ever had. He walks over to me after a meeting and he puts his hand on my shoulder And he says, you know, you really have not been there for me, man. I'm going to move on with sponsorship. I had no recollection of ever sponsoring him. I hadno recollectionof him ever asking me to sponsor him. All I got was the blessing of being fired by the guy. So it was like I gotit was all good. All Igot was the firing part, which was likeI felt relieved, even though I don't think I ever talked to the guy anyway. My sponsor gave me three mantras if someone's sharing, you know when someone's sharing and you feel your DNA unraveling? I mean, you literally feel the skin falling off your face. But I know that you judge no man much like me because you're all too spiritually developed because we've spent hours together. And what Don gave me is he gave me 3 things to do. He said, number 1, remember everything said in an AA meeting needs to be said, you just might not be on the list of people who need to hear it. Then he said then he said to me are you willing to take the following chance with your life? Are you willing to get up to the podium tap that person on the shoulder and say shut the hell up and sit down because I'm going to talk now. And so far the answer to that question is not that I don't want to but the answer to the question is no I'm not willing to take that chance with my life. And the third thing he told me was, remember, they're going to stop. They're going to stop, they have to stop! Eventually they have stop! And I can't tell you how many times I've had to go, they are going to STOP! It doesn't feel like it right now, but they are going to Stop! If I want to change, I must wake up. I have been asleep. I have seen this problem in a cloud. I am letting it go below the horizon so that it does not present itself as a real problem. When I see it clearly, it will not be precious to me. When I came in Alcoholics Anonymous, you guys said, what do you want? I said, well, I'll tell you what I want. I want an exciting sexual relationship with my wife. I'd like a good marriage. I'd love to do something with my career. I'd like to. And they said, you said, well, you can do that. Now let me ask you a question. Do you have to be miserable until you do that? And my first thought was, yeah, yeah. I mean, if I'm not worried about it, how is that ever going to happen? Again, I learned from my sons. A couple of years ago, when my son Micah graduated high school, he, instead of going to college, he went to Chiapas, Mexico and worked with these Zapatista revolutionaries for a while. And like his politics or not, man, he's put himself in between him and the bad guys. I mean, he is out in the jungle bearing witness to make sure that the Mexican military didn't abuse indigenous peoples. And I don't know that I've ever been that scared in my entire life. At any rate, the Mexican military is depicted as such a kind loving group of people that I would go through, I would just get terrified. My sponsor told me to start taking the third step and turning the Mexican military over to God. And I would take a walk in the morning. I'd take the first three steps specifically with the Mexican military. Pop, I'm powerless over the Mexican military. My life's unmanageable around the Mexican military. I know that you will restore me to sanity around the Mexican military because I got this bad Oliver Stone movie playing over and over again on my head, man. I mean it's bad, bad. Because the Mexican military rolls by my son every couple of days, stares at him and rolls away. And he's in the jungle for three weeks at a shot and I can't even talk to him on the phone. And then I take the third step. And I would do it and I would feel better. And one morning the waves of fear came in faster than I could pray. And I just got crushed by it. And so I called Paul that night and I I was weeping. And he did the thing you guys have told me over and over again, which our book talks about over andover again. Don't argue. What's he going to say? He's alright. He's fine. The Mexican military are really swell. I saw him on a Dr. Pepper ad. They're great guys. What is he going say? You're being silly. What is it going to do? He didn't argue with me. He said something so gorgeous. He said to me, what if this is the greatest thing that Micah ever does? Wow. Now I don't know if it's the best thing he'll ever do, but it's sure an incredible thing. And he came back from there fully cut cloth. You know, he came out of the closet, and he was like, He had to go to the hardware store. My wife said, can he do that? I said, well, he's been at Chiapas. I think he can handle lows, don't you? I think she's okay. at Osh. But then he started applying to colleges and my wife started, she was getting anxious about him. He wound up being a greener, he wound up in Evergreen. Go Greeners! And it was just the right hippie school for him. And he's going over these applications and my wife is just on him, on him. My son turns to her, just like he did when he was eight years old, just like to me, he turns to her. He was 18 at this point. He turns to her and he looks in the eye and he goes, do you actually think that your anxiety benefits me in any way? And my wife kind of went, well, I was hoping, you know, I was sort of the, kind of the plan, you know. She didn't say, well no. I mean, she, you No, that's why I'm like all over you like a cheap suit. At any rate, when I see it clearly, it will not be precious to me. I cannot live this way knowing that it is wrong and continuing to do it. I must tell the truth about what I am doing. I have been willing to complain about this and going on doing it. So I'm willing to complaint about whatever these chronic problems I'm experiencing in sobriety and go on doing It. I must take it from a complaint to a real piece of business. Make it a real problem. After all, that's what's happening with my alcoholism, right? It's no longer a complaint. It's a real peace of business, I don't drink. I must stand in front of it naked, make a surrender, take an inventory, make some kind of demonstration. This is not a small deal. I do not want to live like this. I'm a grown person. I have been unconscious. I have been slipping into this behavior. I have be acting without explanation. I must ask God to help me keep this thing on a conscious level. I must elevate it in my conscience to keep it as a real problem, to keep above the horizon as a piece of business. Prayer is the measure of whether or not I'm in the game. Dear God, direct my will to what you want me to do. What I just read to you was a series of notes that I took down during a conversation with my sponsor. Those are the things he told me to do. If I want to change, I must wake up. Wake up. And as Anthony DeMello says, waking up can be very uncomfortable, but wake up I must. And when I talk about catching alcoholism, I'm talking about the more I wake up and the more things I wake to and they present themselves as a real and present danger, the better shape that I'm in. At any rate, we're going to take about a 10-minute break. Smoke them if you got them. We'll come back and we'll talk about steps 11 and 12, and then let's go get into a bar fight or something, okay? Hi, everybody. Someone just asked me an interesting question. They asked me if I had relapsed after I came in alcoholist on this, and the answer is no. And I also want to tell you that I don't put a high premium on that. We were discussing this on the short ride here yesterday, and let me tell you why. I swore that I would never drink again a million times before I came to AA, and I drank again. There is no reason for me to assume that I wouldn't have done that had I been introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous. It says on the last page of the chapter to the wives, God has either removed it or he hasn't. You've either experienced the touch of the master's hand or you haven't. So I don't put a high premium on people who come in, like myself, and don't drink. And I think that at times, people who come in and do drink, I mean, I don' t know about you, but in my group, we've got people who have been trying to get sober for years, years and years and years. My spiritual advisor was a 10-year AA loser, loser on the Mount Olympus of losers, you know? And I just I really don't put a high premium on it. We have a guy in my group, and at one point I sponsored a lot of guys named Mark. And my sons, when they were little boys, are going through my appointment book, and they see I have Fat Mark, Mark the Jew, Nervous Mark, Mark from Alhambra, and Mark the Vomped Up. Mark the Vonked Up was in the book. So the boys went mad laughing. They thought this was the greatest name they had ever heard. And he slipped so much, I finally said to him one day, my children laugh at you. My children think you're like the funniest thing that ever happened. That's how bad it is. So he appears at my door one day and he says, hi boys, I'm Mark the... And my kids went cuckoo. At any rate, during the last couple of minutes of any playoff game, one of three people calls. Either the gay men I sponsor, the men I sponsored from other countries, or the chronic slippers who have no idea what the hell is going on. Usually one of those three people call. So my sons and I are watching the World Series, it's the ninth inning, and we hear Mark's voice on our machine. It's good! It's Good! And my sons, who were little boys at the time, start yelling, Drink! Drink! Drink! Oh, no! Oh,no! So, but my kids, you know, I told you they were so scared. You know, their small motor skills were screwed up and there was nothing organically wrong with them. They couldn't put small tasks together, you know, and we didn't even know it was alcoholism. And when I did, when I started working my eighth the ninth step, and I had to continue to do ten-step work because I continued to feel horrible guilt and shame about how I'd comported myself as a father. And I had to do some stuff I didn't want to do. I had go into school and advocate for my kids because my kids were a mess. And this teacher said to me, you know, they had great potential. You know, when a baby gets in between me and the drink, the baby has to disappear or become something less than human. How much vanishing can a baby bear before the baby believes that they don't exist? they just don't exist they disappear, they go away and this teacher said he's got so much potential I just want to grab him and shake him and I said to this teacher he's already shook he doesn't need shaking we need something else and can you help us and not once has anybody said no they all said yes yeah, we've got lots of resources let's test the boys they tested the boys the boys needed help and they got special ed. And the special ed teacher said, we're having these small motor problems, let's get them into big motor stuff, like music and like sports, you know, and we'll see what happens. I mean, that'll see how that impacts the small motor stuff. And so I spent a couple of booze bucks on buying my kid a mint and getting him into the Little League, something I had not done. We're not talking about a lot of dough here, you know? And I go to my first Little League game. my wife comes to the game and looks over and there's all the people in a first base stance and there is me alone in the sun psycho you know just psycho going up and down two hat sizes just nuts you know I'm here I'm doing my job I'm her I'm hear the kids were thrilled to see me you know Mr. Redman is going to blow up man look at that I got a vein pumping like a garden hose on my forehead you know it took me a couple of years for the voices to diminish in volume and number to just go and sit in the stands, to just be with the people in the stance, to be at my sobriety station in the stand like a citizen. My kid played baseball for a couple of years and he received one of the great compliments I believe a human being can receive on the planet. He was intentionally walked. If you are not a baseball fan that That means they're scared of you and they want to get to the weenie behind you. And it's, you know, pretty cool. So he didn't want to jump up and down and, you know, be a dork. So he just laid his bat down and trotted up the first baseline. And on the way up the first baseline, he turned to me at my sobriety station and he just shot me just a little bit of stuff, not too much. It's the old man. You don't want to spoil him, right? And he got up to the first baseline. And I could have missed the whole thing, you know. And I'm not telling you that my son was intentionally walked because I'm sober. I'm telling you, I was at my sobriety station because I was sober. I didn't hear about it. I was there. And I've been with enough guys who are drunk again on their kid's birthday again. And I tell them about the day my kid got walked. They told us to get the boys into music and Jesse wanted to play drums. I didn'T have any dough, but I'll tell you what I did. I went to the music store and I bought him a drum pad, which is a piece of wood with a piece of rubber and two sticks. And I was really proud of myself. My son asked me for something and I did it. And I went back to my home group and I told my guys at the home group, and I'll tell you why I told them, but you already know if you've got the same kind of home group. Because they wanted to know. Because they were interested in my family. Because there were watching us. And And within two, three weeks, the AA drum set showed up at my house. There were like a lot of burnout drummers in my group at that time. And guys are showing up with these mega death drums, you know, dude. And my son had this drum set that you couldn't even see him when he sat behind it. He was like disappeared. And a couple of years ago, my sons played the House of Blues in L.A. on the Sunset Strip, both of them. And they burnt the dump down. They burnt it down. They played to this room. By the way, I got a hip-hop joke. Can I tell a hip hop joke? Why does Snoop Dogg carry an umbrella? For drizzle. It's just a little hip-pop joke. At any rate. playing hip-hop music to this uh packed room eight nine hundred kids elbow to elbow just flipping out and uh while they're playing there's this group of middle-aged weeping alcoholics over on the side you know and the kids are kind of looking and going what is with the crying old people what the hell is that all about but that's their a.a aunts and uncles that have been following him around for the past 19 years. My son Michael was babysitting for this couple on the program a couple of years ago, and the guy said to him, what do you think of your dad talking in AA? And Michael said, I'm not a member. I don't really much, you know, it's not my deal. He said, all I can tell you is that since I'm a very little boy, the men and women of Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon have taken very, very good care of me, and never once has any of them demanded that I believe what they believe." Wow. Wow. What an incredible thing. That's based on his experience as a member of an AA family, AA Al-Anon family. Especially in this time of so much proprietary, of so much bullying, of so much unkindness, medieval bestiality. You know, really, what an incredible thing. And that's not based on his experience with a few people. That's not his experience with hundreds of people. I used to go to my first AA Thanksgiving dinners with my nose up. I'm the guy who ate Thanksgiving dinner with the dentist and his bonanza. Bonanza, oh my God. I was sober a couple of years and I I'm going to tell you this story about Roland before I tell you this story because I'm working into 10, 11, and 12 really is what I'm finishing off with. I sponsored this guy Roland. He was the first guy I sponsored, actually the second guy And I sponsor him today. I have a year more than him. He's got 18 years, and he's a sweetheart. He's from Cuba, and he calls me with two seconds left of any playoff game, except for the World Cup, which I don't watch. My son eventually, my son is a fluent Spanish-speaking person, and he always calls up Roland before a game starts and says, can we get this over with now? and I hear Roland cursing in Spanish on the other line. But Roland used to call me every night and he'd leave a message on my answering machine and he would say, Scott, it's Roley. I'm sober. I love you. Good night. And he'd hang up the phone. And five years after this, when I was about six years sober, Roland came to me and he told me that he was positive he hadn't helped anybody in AA. And shortly after this my son Micah came to be and he said, you know what, Dad? I should mention this to you. When I was a little boy, I couldn't fall asleep until I heard Roland's voice on the machine. And when I heard Ronald's voice in the machine, I knew everything was okay and it was all right to go to sleep. And I think that sometimes as a terrified child in an alcoholic home, he used to stay up until he passed out. But he knew, he knew that Roland wouldn't call if I was drinking. He knew that. He knew the reason why Roland was calling is because I was sober. Now this is the kid who I told was no God. I told him there was no god. And you guys came over the phone and you tucked him in. You came over to the answering machine and you put him to bed every night. Around this time, when I was about a year sober, I had a ghost writing job for 20th Century Fox. I was starting to sponsor guys. I was really becoming a spiritual Goliath at that particular time. And I had an overture made to me by a show in L.A. to become a staff writer for a sitcom. And I really thought if I got this job with the Situation Comedy, it would really help the guys I sponsor because they would see me prospering. They'd really see that the program worked. And I did some stuff with the show, and I directed one episode, and I didn't get the job, and I almost drank. And I was humiliated. I went to my sponsor, I told him what had happened and he said to me, well, I guess you have the show business God. And I said, what? He said, well, what keeps you sober? I said God keeps me sober. He said God keeping me sober keeps you over. You didn't get a show business job and you almost drank so I guess you have this show business God and he has abandoned you utterly. Now when I came into AA I heard God getting people jobs God getting people into relationships God getting people parking spaces oh no not the parking space God what if you don't get a space but if you have a parking space God and he gives you a space pass at any rate I had my sponsor said you know what, you need to do a 10-step. I was resentful of myself for almost drinking. I was resentment at the company for not giving me the job. He said, and I read him the inventory, he said, you know, it's got, humbly ask him to remove these shortcomings. Humbly isn't take him if you can, big guy. HumbLY isn't to take him, you rotten, miserable. HumbLY is pop, please, I can't bear this anymore. Please do my work. I'll do your work. When I draw closer in that moment, in that momento, when I draw close to you, you reveal yourself to me. Right in real time in that movement. That's when the interchange happens sometimes for me. He said, when you do six and seven, you're going to really have to ask God what you need to do to stay sober. So when I did six and Seven that day, I said, Pop, you got it. Take show business. I've had it. I'm done. I will do anything you want me to do for a living. I'll do anything. Just keep me sober. And within three months, I was working as a cook on a catering truck. And I looked up to God and I said And I did not mean this. We've had a grotesque misunderstanding. This wasn't even on the long list. I don't know where you came up with this. In Los Angeles, when they make a TV show or a movie, you hire a caterer. Caterer follows the company around and feeds them, and it's a great job. It's Teamster dough. You're on a vehicle on a movie set. but I'm Scott Redman. And the first movie that I cater, the executive producer and star of the movie is a guy who I've worked with in the business. And he sticks his head on the truck that morning and he says, can I have a burrito? Scott? And I said, what's happen to me he said is this your truck I said no but it's my spatula I call my sponsor when I get home and I said oh we're getting the gift now this is it's so beautiful sobriety it's it's beautiful sounds like you've got a resentment I'm resentful at Scott for working on the kitchen truck it affects my self-esteem pocketbook ambition personal and sex. What are the defects? I'm ashamed. I'm ungrateful. I am working, right? I got false pride. I m playing God. I' m impatient. Things aren't moving along according to the Scott Redmond program. Fabulous program. False pride. Greedy. Playing God. I gotta write it and I gotta read it. And I wind up serving people who I had directed in TV shows, people who have been my assistant stage managers. And and I'm coming back to my home group every week with a new story of humiliation every week, and the guys are going, Ha! And I start being able to help some people who feel that they've fallen from a height in AA. Not my plan, right? I had a friend named Paul who came in. He used to say this prayer. He felt he had fallen from high. He'd say this pray. He'd said, Papa, I'm willing to do anything you want me to do for a living, but keep me sober, but don't let it be as bad as what you did to Scott. I was so glad to help him out. So I do it for a couple of years, and I learn how to show up and give them a dime for their nickel. And my son Jesse, he doesn't want me to teach him how to write or be a director. He wants me to teaching him how cook, and that's what he and I have been doing together. When he went to school at the University of Chicago, He called me up and had me talk him through sauces that he and I had been making together for 10 years. We would go to the market together and pick out what was fresh and make something wonderful. We'd been cooking together for years. That's not my plan for being intimate with my son. I wanted him to come to the awards dinner for me. Not that it would have been a terrible thing, it's just this is the other way it happened. It's fun and it tastes better. So I'm in my home group one week and a guy walks in and he's the star of the sitcom that I didn't get the job on. And I look at the guy and I go, wow. And he's around for a while and he hears me talk and he asks me to show him how to do the work in the big book of AA. And I'm clean now, man. I've done all of this 10-step work and I'm cool with it. He's late to the appointment at my house. He comes in. Now, on my inventory, I was a little kid in the Bronx and there was a kid named Mark in my area. And I don't know if you had a kid who was a bully in your area but this was the kid who was the bully in mine. He'd wake up and say, Where's Scott? I'm going to kick his ass. This kid kicked my ass. He humiliated me at my first make-out parties. There were 20 goddamn resentments against this kid on my inventory. He was the bane of my existence. So this other guy, the star of the sitcom, walks in. Now, I'm in L.A. This is 34 years later. And this guy comes and says, I'm so sorry, our new director. My job, my job. Our new director, the job I should have had, asked me to, he's teaching an acting course and he wanted me to do some guest speaking at it. This guy, Mark. Mark. The same Mark. And now I'm going, get a hobby. Get a hobby, find something else to do. i just can't do you want to come over and bang my wife i mean what what else what else how haven't i been humiliated here i mean it was just unbelievable and i'm screaming laughing i'm telling my sponsor can't even breathe he's laughing so hard you know when i had that magic moment of asking telling god i'll do anything for a living as long he keeps me sober that i was done that he could have that too i didn't know to the extent that i was changing my life i didn' t get it i was on that movie set one day and even if you're the chef at the end of the meal you clean up the garbage like everybody else that's what you got to do it's you and another guy and you just stuff all the garbage i'm covered with garbage and on this set of a big movie that iwas catering comes the last guy who was the stage manager of the last tv show i directed and i went and i hid behind the truck and I went ahead by the truck and I said to myself you will either hide behind this truck for the rest of your life or you will go out and tell Lenny how good it is to see him and shake his hand and I knew it I knew in that moment that God is either everything there is nothing that's the demonstration of it right otherwise it's just a lot of chin music you know and I tried I went and I shook Lenny's hand. Lenny was very happy to see me. And I shook his hand. I told him how good it was to see him, which was half true because he was a nice guy and it was good to see them. I just didn't want to see Him there where I had to wipe my hands off that way. And I'm a free man. I don't like it a lot of the time. Sometimes I don' t like it at all. But I am a free man. And when I said to God, you know, when I saw God getting people into relationships, getting people parking spaces and I knew that I had to get a God big enough so a lot of stuff could happen in his universe and I didn't get to drink. We got nailed in the Northridge earthquake. I'm sure you guys, most of you guys have heard what happened about 1994. It was bad. We were in the epicenter of it. Guy died right near us. House smashed up. I got a bad physical injury. It was terrible. And shortly after the quake my wife and I went into an AA function out of town up in Canada. And this woman who used to live in L.A. walks up to me at this function and she says to me, Oh, I'm so glad that God got us out of L.E. before the quake. I said, Oh, so He likes you. He likes you, but we're crap. But He likes you. And she said to me I guess He just felt you had some lessons to learn. I'm out of here I can't live in that world for 10 minutes that God couldn't keep me sober for 3 seconds if I had a God up there saying get him, get the Redmond boy no evacuation planned for you Jew boy get him kill his wife, turn her to salt kill his goat, put a finger in his eye smote his ass smote everyone he talks to we'll figure it out later get him How can you live in that world In that world where God's saying Let's key your car, it boils for you You're due for a rash, don't you think? I mean, that's it Isn't that it? Lesson, lesson, lesson Figure it out, figure it out Figure out the lesson Come back to me with the answer Oops, tripped ya Ha ha ha it's beyond comprehension i believe when i hear one of the guys i sponsor i have two jobs which is god's will i don't think god gives a rat's ass which job you take that's just my opinion i can't have an annihilator i canít when i told you about my friend whose baby was in the hospital there was another baby right next to her who died Rachel Wang, I hope I never forget her this gorgeous baby who died I don't have a baby annihilating God I don'T HAVE A GOD THAT'S PICKING ONE OF THEM TO LIVE that's just me God is absolutely complete mystery to me St. Thomas says to know God is to not know God the big book of AA says that no one can fully comprehend or define that power which is God And every time I ascribe an intention or a personality to him, I make him small and smaller and smaller. And I want the whole big, sexy, robust thing. Nowhere in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous does it say the road gets narrower. I understand what people are saying when they say it. They're saying, I can't do all the bad crap I used to do. I get that. I get dat. But as a lifestyle, I don't subscribe to it. The Big Book of AA says, come join us on the broad highway. Become part of the big idea, the great reality. Join us on The Firing Line of Life. Help us to pack things into the mainstream of life. Become partof this deal. It's inclusive. It's not exclusive. It just gets bigger and bigger. That's what I subscribe to. That's when I believe in. I believeinthebigbookofaa.com. believe in the mystics and they all have that same message so I learned how to be a good cook I learn how to show up and give him a dime for the nickel you know years later after this whole experience with cooking I was back on the universal lot I got a staff job directing a situation comedy and this grip walked up to me grip is a guy who make sure everything is okay on a movie shot and he said oh you're that sweet caterer you're such a great guy what are you doing on the lot. I said, well, I'm directing the show on stage 36. And he said, did you go right from the catering to the directing? At any rate, I did this for about three years and I had an overture made to me by a company called Ketchum Public Relations. They had for a big comedy writing job. And I felt at this point, after all of the difficulty I had gone through that this would really benefit the men that I sponsor because because they had seen me suffer and now they were and now if they would see me prosper thusly at any rate I went cuckoo before I had to do a videotape for these guys and I went nuts I my brain blew up before I even found out about it and I had to sit down and write the resentment because I'm a mind reader and a soothsayer, so I can tell the future while I'm reading your mind. Oh my God. You know, I was sober for a year or two and I was doing something with my wife. She said, why are you doing that? I said, I'm just trying to be of service. She said well this is a marriage not a coffee commitment. When when ouchie when I try to be good it's not good and I was trying to be good and I went into self-delusion again what a defect what a miserable defect especially when you don't join me in the delusion I wish it was us-delution better than self-elution at any rate And I went bananas over this overture they had made. And I wrote about it, I released it, and I was cool. A couple of weeks later, I got a call from Ketchum that I didn't get the job. And I was fine. I had released it already. Then I called my sponsor, and we were talking. And a little while later, I got an email from my catering company asking me to cater some commercials in the mountains above L.A., up in Lake Arrowhead. So I go up there, and And I grab the call sheet, that's a sheet with all the information about the shoot. And I see that the commercials are for Ketchum Public Relations. So I'm feeding them now. Now I'm feedin' em. And I look at the end of the truck and a guy is videotaping me. I said what are you doing? He said oh we're taping the making of the commercial. He's taping my humiliation. a hobby. He, he's taping my humiliation. He's going to go back to New York with it and they're going to say, is that Scott Redman with the meatloaf? Oh my God, that poor son of a bitch. I can't believe it. So I call my sponsor and I said, oh, we're getting the gift now. Oh this is a miracle this is just a miracle, miracle miracle my sponsor says to me he said I guess God had enough writers and he needed a few cooks today then he said you know you told God you wanted to work for Ketchum and you forgot to tell him what you wanted to do Well, as long as he's having a good time. If I stop doing this work, and I want to tell you, I'm not bragging, but I'm just going to tell you my experience. I'm proud of it, actually. I have been doing the work from the big book of AA since I'm six months sober, and I'm 19, and I have not spent any appreciable amount of time not doing the work. I have not drifted away and not stopped doing the work. I'm not saying that that won't happen to me, but But I'm telling you that part of what you're hearing today is a result of consistently doing the work. And I'm very pleased about that, very pleased. A guy, a sponsor used to say to guys when they were, he'd say, well, what does time mean? My friend used to go, if you don't think time means much, go get some. my sponsor told me that there was an acid test for my activities and my actions as a member of AA that I was to ask myself the question am I taking a step toward a drink or away from it and you know what at the end of the day that's an easy question to answer it really is when in doubt take a step away from a drink God does not die on the day that I cease to believe in a personal deity. But I die on the day when my life ceases to be illumined by the steady radiance renewed daily of a wonder the source of which is beyond all reason. That's a quote from Dag Hammarskjöld who used to be the Secretary General of the United Nations. It's one of the most beautiful statements about God I've ever heard. I'm going to repeat it. God does not die on the Day that I Cease to Believe in a personal deity, but I die on the day when my life ceases to be illumined by the steady radiance renewed daily of a wonder the source of which is beyond all reason. Wow. It's, I heard this quote from one of my favorite spiritual teachers named Anthony DeMello. I was taken to Anthony De Mello and Eckhart Tolle by my sponsors who were growing me up spiritually and who taught me how to meditate because I was a member of AA for 15 years and hadn't meditated really in any robust way. And it was kind of shocking to me that I was working 11 1⁄2 steps, kind of upsetting for me. And I used to think that it was very complicated and woo-woo and I didn't know how to do it and I did not know that it was about breathing and being quiet and setting a timer and spending a minute or two or longer. And I gravitated to this spiritual teacher named Anthony DeMello, who I've come to love and depend upon, and a spiritual teacher name Eckhart Tolle, who's become very popular. He's a wonderful guy, and these tapes really saved my life. I eventually got a book. I'm going to talk about a whole bunch of non-conference-approved literature. What the hell? There's a beautiful book called Sadhana, A Way to God by Anthony De Mello, which is a meditation handbook which I've used, and there are many, many beautiful exercises. and I've come to really love that. I separated from my sponsor in my home group when I was 10 years sober and I had to move on with sponsorship and go to another home group. It was one of the most difficult, painful things I've ever experienced in my life. I started writing 10 steps against my sponsor. My sponsor was the best friend I had ever had. He carried the Torah at both of my kids' bar mitzvahs which is a very, very big deal. When I was put in the hospital a couple times because of injuries, I called my sponsor before I called my wife. He was the spy and some of you have sponsors like this it was the most intimate relationship I had ever had and at 10 years of sobriety he and I had a parting of the ways and we didn't do it good it wasn't good it was a terrible separation and I made a series of mistakes. The first mistake I made is I let our terrible separation color our fantastic relationship and this reminded me of so many things that had happened to me in my life where I'd be close friends with somebody and we'd have an explosion and I'd been sitting there going what is this? I thought we were friends I thought loved each other was all of that a lie? did it really not? what happened? and I didn't know this thing you've taught me in AA is that the separation is not the relationship I had terrible separation skills I can't leave until everyone in the village is slaughtered you've got to slaughter the village poison the water kill the live stock. I can go. The whole place looks like an ashtray. Time to leave. I have annihilated everything. Guess this isn't a good place anymore. I mean, my skills for leaving are horrible. I didn't know it. And because of this experience with my sponsor, I started paying attention to my quality of separation. And man, has that helped me with my kids, because I've had to separate from the teenager to get to know the young man. I'll have to separate from the young man to know the married man, you know, as my kids develop. I have to have those separations and those renewals. And I was waking up in the middle of the night with this resentment against him. And it's the last thing I want to talk about today. It's really been a big, big part of my life, a wonderful, wonderful thing. I resented my sponsor for being mean to me I resended him for rejecting me I resetted him for a lot of stuff and I would read the resentment I would reed the defects and I wold read them to the guys I was reading to and I'd wake up furious at them I didn't let myself character assassinate him to other people but the defect of character assassination was there because I was doing it in my own head I don't have to talk to anybody to assassinate a character. That could just happen right up here, right up in the waffle iron of my brain, right? And I'm reading it to him. I got a new sponsor and I'm read this to my sponsor and I am reading into it and he said, you know what Scott, you've done everything, everything except forgive him. I said, what? He said, the defect of unforgiving is killing you. You've done anything except forgive them. and I didn't get it. I didn' t know it. I didn´t know that I could forgive. I thought that if I forgave you that I was saying you were wrong. But I´m not. My defect of unforgiveness is I´M NOT forgiving you for a perceived wrong. I think you´ve treated me horribly and I´м not forgiving you for it. Instead of just saying, look, I really feel like you´d done this to me, I forgive you! I forgive YOU! That doesn´t mean I´am saying you're wrong, that means it felt terrible. I feel terrible. This was terrible. And my sponsor took me to a wonderful book called The Sermon on the Mount by Emmett Fox. And in the back of this book he has a sentence-by-sentence breakdown of the Lord's Prayer and it changed my life. Two sections of it saved my life one is the section on resist not evil. Now this is from actually not from the Lord's prayer but resist not able is from The Serman on the Mountain. And what he says in it is and you can you can hear the voice of the framers of aa in this thing i mean you can tell they were reading this material he says stop making oaths stop making declarations stop deciding that you're going to stop doing something for the rest of your life he's a christian he even went beyond this and i'm not a christians but my life has been incredibly enriched by this guy he says members of the clergy that take lifelong oaths are missing the point they're cutting themselves off from the splendor of the day yikes didn't excite the pope didn't excite a lot of people very difficult for a lot of disciplines that were being used and they're still being used but one day at a time boy can you hear it radiate in that statement and in forgiveness forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and he says and if you get a chance i'm not going to go through the process right now but he says if you are ready to do this first of all how can you say the lord's prayer if you're not forgiving people how could you possibly continue to Repeat this prayer and say, forgive me my trespasses. We forgive those who trespass against us if you're not doing it. He says, you should choke on the words. The words shouldn't even be able... He suggests stop saying the prayer until you do it. It would be a very quiet AA meeting. Very quiet AA meaning, I think. Would have been quiet for me, I'll tell you that. He says don't you understand that there's no jail without a jailer and a prisoner? And if you've imprisoned somebody with your resentment, you have attached yourself to them with a rope made of steel. You can't have... Ram Dass is an old acid head and a great spiritual teacher. I just love the guy. He used to teach meditation in prison and he would tell the prisoners, he'd say, if you start meditating, the only people who will be in prison here are the guards. And I love that because how true about resentment. And he talks about in this section and forgive us our trespasses He says, we forgive those who trespass against us. He says get yourself ready and say I forgive you absolutely and completely in forgiving you I set you free and I set myself free. And he says if the thing comes back later you can say to yourself oh my God I'm forgetting I forgave you. And again I want to read the whole thing but it is just I forgive my sponsor and I love him and I was able to appreciate all the extraordinary stuff that he did for me. And in forgiving him, I set myself free. Let me just see if there's a couple of other things I wanted to mention before I stop today. By the way, while I'm doing this, does anybody have any questions or anything they wanted me to cover before I wrap this up? Okay. Yes. Say it again. I am at the GR a GSR for my my group so I go to general service I'm one of the fuss budgets who goes to general servicing I'm a service geek anybody else Terry three minutes if you're new I want to welcome you to alcoholics synonymous and you know sometimes people who are new they'll go back to you know crack parties and stuff and say geez I'm real comfortable my grant sponsor used to say when Jonah got out of the belly of the whale he didn't go back in to get his hat I just love that to pieces the good news is is our problem mainly rests in our mind hmm there's no book about recovery from a fatal illness that contains the sentence, we absolutely insist on enjoying life. There's no book about cholera that says cholera is a hoot. You'll love cholera. You will meet other people with cholera, it's fantastic and then you will meet people who just caught cholera and it doesn't get any better than that. Alcoholics Anonymous my sponsor used to say is the only recovery from a fatal illness he knew of that left the sufferer in better condition than they were in before they contracted the disease. Wow! How remarkable. And the The bad news is our problem mainly rests in our mind. Some years ago, my wife was walking through our house and she knew I was talking to a new guy and she heard me say on the phone to the new guy, let's say the aliens are coming. And she stopped short. She ain't missing a word of this. And I said, look, I'm not saying the aliens aren't coming. They might be coming. That's an outside interest. But why are they coming for you? Why have they traversed a universe for your sorry ass? Why? Don't you think they'll call a cop or go to a post office? Plus, he's sleeping with the Bible on his chest to ward them off. So they're going to traverse a galaxy, walk into his house and go, Oh no, the Bible, let's go home. So I'm at my home group and I'm telling this story and the guy in the story walks into the group and I am watching the cat as I am telling the story. I am talking to the story and I watch the guy and he goes like this. I saw him remember that he was the guy in the story if you're new here I want to urge you to take this thing as seriously as you possibly can and go out there and have the time of your life if the aliens are coming for you, welcome to AA, welcome home thank you so much for having me today I can't tell you how much I appreciate it, love you