Steps 10, 11, and 12 Keep You in the Game – Scott R.

I know my wife doesn't want to miss one bit of this. What I do with these tapes, sometimes I wrap them, gift wrap them, and give them to Nancy, and she thinks she's actually getting something. She opens the package and goes, ah! So what he told me to do is, again, when somebody's sharing stuff that's driving me nuts, is to get my hand up and share something I want to hear at the meeting, or to realize that there's, you know, again, and sometimes I've brought newcomers to meetings, and they've been the worst meeting I've ever been to, and you walk out, and the new guy goes, wow, man, it blew my mind. You're going, where was he? What was that? Who am I to tell the guy what he's supposed to be moved by, you know? And in addition to that, if I think about it, could I in good conscience walk up to this podium and tap someone on the shoulder and say, why don't you sit down, pal? Why don't you sit down? I'm going to talk now. And then the third thing he asked me to remember was that when the guy is talking, to remember that he has to finish. It's going to end. He's got to finish eventually. And I need to know that because when I'm in the middle of it, it just doesn't feel like it's ever going to end, you know? And I've got to know that the guy is eventually going to sit down. Yesterday we kind of finished off with the 10 steps, and I want to get back into step 10 today and talk about 11 and 12. I want to begin with my usual disclaimer. Please don't take anything that I say at this meeting as any indictment of your program. This is just me talking about how I found a power greater than myself that has restored me to sanity and brought about a personality change sufficient enough to accomplish sobriety in my life. But just because I'm talking about what's worked for me, it doesn't mean what you've done, that I don't hold that in any other regard than a very high regard, and I know that it saved your life. Not drinking almost killed me, I know that. And if you're new here, I just want to tell you, if not drinking is making you feel bad, you could be an alcoholic. Not drinking doesn't make normal people feel bad. It's sort of a regular deal for them to not drink. But I want to tell you that when I came into Alcoholics Anonymous and I stopped drinking, it nearly drove me insane. I've never felt worse in my entire life. I've never felt worse in my entire life. I've never felt worse in my entire life than when I stopped drinking. And I talked about this a bit yesterday. If you're in this bizarre half-lit world where we're asking you, suggesting to you, to not drink until you have a spiritual experience, and we're telling you, you can't get sober without the spiritual experience, but don't drink until you have one. It was my experience that I had to go through some extremely uncomfortable stuff, that I had to not try to deal with that stuff, not get the sense of ease in my life, not get the sense of ease and comfort that comes at once in getting a few drinks. We already talked about a bit this weekend about the fact that the third step will have little permanent or lasting effect unless immediately followed by a strenuous effort to face and be rid of the things that have been bothering us, that have been blocking us from this power, which is the only power that can save us. So the third step will have little permanent or lasting effect unless followed by a fourth. It is my personal experience that the fourth step will have little permanent or lasting effect unless maintained by a tenth. I was talking to a gentleman this morning about the fact that his mother drives him nuts. My mother drives me nuts. Now, I have to write 10 steps about my mother, or I will not have a relationship with her. She will not be welcomed in my home and my kids won't get to hang out with her. Why? Because she continues to act just like my mother. I could have sent her a copy of my fourth step and had her read it and see if that would change her at all, but it doesn't. She's nuttier than a fruit cake. She lives in a world that's populated, anyone who passes her on their freeway is a maniac, and anyone who's in front of her is a moron. She is populated by a world populated, lives in a world populated by maniacs and morons. And I don't live in that world anymore. And when she's around my kids, and my kids hear her talk, they go like, oh my god, it's like being around someone who's radioactive. And she is perfect. She is perfect, just the way she is. Now, I have a hard time being around her in her perfect state. At times. And I have to sit down. I'm resentful at my mother for being a negative person. It affects my self-esteem, pocketbook, ambition, personal relations, and sex, believe me, everything. What are the defects of character? I have unreasonable expectations. I keep going to a drowning person and asking for swimming lessons, you know. I'm stubborn. I'm going to keep it. We'll stay on this till you change, you know. I'm self-centered because I think she's acting this way because of me. I mean, this is not about me. She's been acting this way for me. I'm not acting this way because of me. I'm not acting this way because of me. I've been acting this way for over 70 years, you know. I'm judgmental. I'm a retaliator. I'm self-righteous. I'm a hypocrite. I do the exact same stuff she's doing. Oh, that's so wonderful to realize. Just such a stomach-turner to hear that stuff from your parents coming out of your mouth. And because of this 10-step work, and I go and then I say, Father, can you please remove this? This is part of my 10-step. And I say, what can I do? And sometimes on some visits, my God says, Scott, stay away from her. Spend as little time as you possibly can with her. You'll be doing her a favor. And I do. And sometimes it says, just do everything you possibly can for her. Drive her to all these places that she wants to go to that you don't want to go to. Just, man, look, get the calculator out. And this is part of my 10-step and part of the work that I do with God. I got this calculator where my kids, when I'm talking to a new guy and my kids see me get my calculator, they go, the calculator. And what I do is, I'll usually ask a man, man, well, geez, how much time did you spend on drugs and alcohol every day? And the guy will say, six hours. And I'll say, okay, let's say 10 minutes. That's a joke, right? That's a joke. How long have you been sober? Well, two years. That's 365 times two times 10 minutes. How many minutes is that? I don't know. It's a couple of thousand. Now, are you an alcoholic? Yes, I'm an alcoholic. Can you stay sober alone? No, I can't. What's keeping you sober? God. So God has saved you several thousand minutes. Yes, he has. Who are you to tell God what to do with that time? Can you take 15 measly minutes and give it to your mom? I mean, this is what I got to say to myself. If I'm online in the bank and, you know, these bank lines are developed to bother me, I'm convinced there's a central line committee that's sending these people out ahead of me. I have to, sometimes I have to say, Scott, how much time has God saved you? Do you have 10 minutes to give it up here? It's like 20 bucks. If I feel like I have to give it up here, I have to give it up here. Take the calculator out on money, too. How much money has God saved me? And it's always a hysterical thing. How much money did I spend on drugs and alcohol a day? A dollar. Now, I'm sober 10 years. 365 times 10 is $3,650. And it's a joke. We know it's a joke. Because it's not only the hard cash, it's the attendant misery and suffering, the insane lifestyle, all the other stuff. We're talking a lot of money. Even if you've been on Skid Row, we're talking about a lot of money. Sometimes I got to get the calculator out and say, you know, it says in the 10th step, we will know the correct use of self-will. And sometimes I got to say, Scott, can you put your money where your mouth is? Can you really do that? Now, I'm freaked out about the 20. God, I love what that guy shared last night about getting enough money to come up here. He got the 70 bucks and it cost 75. And he said, let's see that other five, big guy. Oh, man. It was hysterical, but that's what I'll go right there. Instead of saying, 70 bucks, I'm $5 million in the black here. If you knock the 70 bucks off the real amount of money that I've saved. So it says in our book, it doesn't say self-reliance is always bad. It says self-reliance was as good, but as far as it went. And then we had to have God-reliance. And here in the 10th step, it says we will know the correct use of self-will. And I need to know that because sometimes I have to go, hey, man. God has saved you X amount of dollars. Can you give up 20 here? And sometimes the answer is yes. And sometimes the answer is no. And I have to sit down and I have to write about it. It's a good thing that we are talking about the 12th step today. I had a great talk with somebody who I just adore this morning. And we were talking about, basically talking about the 12th step. And I talked a little bit about something I discussed a little bit yesterday, which is the fact that for me, without step 10, there is no 12th step because I will stop working on it. And I will stop working with drunks because they piss me off. Because they act just like them. Newcomers act just like newcomers. And you know, when a guy calls me up and I say, and he says, how are you? And I go, well, my kids are on fire and my wife blew up. And he goes, yeah, yeah, okay. So my transmission is broken. And if that's not okay, if that is, now if the guy does that for about six or seven years, we're eventually going to have to talk about it. But that's what I did when I was new. And if that's not okay on some kind of level, and I'm not letting drunks act like drunks, I'm in big trouble. One of the things we were discussing this morning is that if I'm having trouble doing 12th step work, one thing I can be absolutely sure of is that there's nothing wrong with the 12th step. That if I'm looking for the problem, I can count the 12th step out. That if I want to go and find out what's wrong, I'm not going to go to the 12th step and see what's wrong with this step. It's perfect. If I'm having trouble with the 12th step, then there's something. There's nothing wrong with the way I'm approaching it. Yesterday I described to you guys a man who I sponsor whose baby got real sick. And subsequently after this, you know, and we had this incredible experience of healing and the home group and all this stuff. And then he wound up calling me and he goes to these depressions, right? So I'm listening to depression. I realize I'm getting pissed off at this guy. Because now I've got a stake in this baby. I'm the uncle, right? You can't be depressed. You've got to take care of my niece. So I'm, I'm, I'm not doing my job. My first job is to be the guy's sponsor. That's why I'm there. I'm there because I'm the guy's sponsor. Because I'm doing the work from the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. The minute that I get a vested interest and I have to preclude what this guy's feeling, I ain't doing my job. So I had to sit down and I said, I'm resentful at blank for being depressed. It affects my self-esteem, blah, blah, blah. What are the defects? I'm self-centered. I'm also greedy because we've had a happy end with the baby, but I want a bigger happy end. Now I want everybody to be happy. I want everybody to be happy. I want everybody to be happy. I want everybody to be happy. I want everybody to be happy and peppy and snappy and live a happy life and for her to be totally well balanced and have pretty dresses. You know, I got this, this thing in my head that has got to go away because it's self-centered, it's self-seeking, it's playing God and it's not trusting in God because I'm saying, God, thank you for sharing. But I think I know I'm on top of this a little more thoroughly than you. The 11th step, uh, and we talked about this yesterday also, uh, for me, uh, the 11th step I really was concerned when I came in Alcoholics Anonymous, I heard a lot of stuff again that I wanted and a lot of stuff I didn't want. And I heard people with time talking about still being insane and still feeling as though their head was out to get them all the time and that's okay for them, but I didn't want to live that way. I didn't want to be 10, you know, there's a bumper sticker that says sober and insane. I don't have that on my car and my book, it says sanity will have been restored. Now, sober and excited, sober, enthusiastic, sober and happy. I don't have that on my car. I don't have that on my car. I don't have that on my car. I don't have that on my car. I don't have that on my car. I don't have that on my car. I don't have that on my car. Yes. Yes. Sober and adventurous? Yes. Sober and sane? Not for me. Just not for me. That's not what I want. You know, and it says here, what used to be the occasional hunch of inspiration, actually becomes a working part of the mind. And what I did was, I took this 3 or 4 paged section on step 11 and I went through it, early in sobriety, and I made a list of all the things that I think I'm told to ask God for and I'll try to do the prayer for you now. Sometimes it's hard for me to do it around other people, but I'll do it to the best of my recollection, in public. .. usually do in private and i do it every morning and i say father please direct my thinking today show me all through the day what my next step is to be and give me whatever i might need to overcome such difficulties please keep my thoughts especially divorced from selfish dishonest and self-seeking motives please keep me from self-will and self-pity and then i end with hold me close to you reveal your work to me and give me the power to carry out hold me close to you and keep me sober just for today so that i might better do thy will thy will be done not mine and what i do in the morning is i do the first three steps the way i described to you earlier in the weekend i take the seventh step prayer and i discuss with god any defects of character that i'm finding particularly troublesome at that time and then i do that 11th step prayer now for me i love the description of 11th step in chapter 6 but just for me i have always loved bill wilson's description of taking the 11th step in his story and he writes something just absolutely gorgeous he talks about uh working with his friend about his friend visiting him in the hospital and doing his inventory and you know you know doing his fifth step and asking for the stuff to be removed and then he says i was to test my thinking by the new god consciousness within common sense would thus become uncommon sense i was to sit quietly when in doubt asking only for direction and strength to meet my problems as he would have me never was i to pray for myself except as my request bore on my usefulness to others then only might i expect to receive and that would be in great measure my friend promised that when these things were done i would enter upon a new relationship with him and i would be with my creator that i would have the elements of a way of living which answered all my problems belief in the power of god plus enough willingness honesty and humility to establish and maintain the new order of things with the essential requirements and and and here's the hook and this this addresses to me all the stuff we've been talking about this weekend about that there is a solution almost none of us like the leveling of pride in the confession of shortcomings what am i going to have to do what am i going to have to look at in myself how after i admit that i'm different that i'm bodily and i'm the same surrender deflation and identification and and pretty much what we're going to be talking about today in the top step is identification it's a simple these things were simple but not easy a price had to be paid it meant the destruction of self-centeredness i must turn in all things and this is not one of my favorite lines in the book it says i must turn in all things to the father of light who presides over all the destruction of self-centeredness is a pretty radical and drastic undertaking to help for any human being why would any human being do it unless they were convinced on some kind of level that their plan was not working out now we're up to kind of up to the sadistic seventh chapter of the big book about politics and it is a sadistic document and if you're new here i'm gonna tell you exactly what it says we're going to do and then we're going to go do it anyway to you we're gonna tell you what we're gonna do here and then we're going to do it here it says talk to a drunken and get him to identify with you get him to laugh with you get him to cry with you and what he's identified with keep upon him evidence as to the hopelessness of his situation always good news for the new man and then after you've done that stress the spiritual angle freely more good news for the new man it doesn't say don't talk about god because you might scare him away i've always wondered where and are we scaring these guys too is there a theme park that they go to i don't i don't quite know where they're going to but it does here say stress the spiritual angle freely one thing that was a big relief for me if i go to chapter seven is it gives me clear-cut directions on actually to to share with another drug and for me that means it actually gives me click with impressions on how to share from a podium could it's my opinion and this is just from the meetings i go into and stuff sharing it from the podium in alcoholics not enough for me is that single most uh... missy used privilege in alcoholics know and i'm not saying i don't think it's a right I don't think it's my right to share. I think it's a privilege. I think it's my right to share with another drunk. I think it's a privilege. Because this program is not one drunk talking to 500. It's one drunk talking to another. But I've seen enough people get to the podium, take a room hostage and share their sickness and share it themselves right out the door to know that this can be a very dangerous place. And that's why for me, in Chapter 7, and it pretty much goes from the bottom of 91 all the way through 93, it step-by-step tells me exactly what to say to a drunk. And that's a relief for me. Practical experience shows that nothing will so much ensure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. Not just work, it says intensive work with other alcoholics. So, again, you know, it can be confusing going to certain AA meetings if we're not hearing about alcoholism, if we're hearing about some of the self-help programs, if we're hearing about the inner child. And I'm not putting the inner child down. But I don't know anything about it. I don't know anything about it. I just know about alcoholism. My inner child's name is Huckleberry. Capone, I think. And I say that not as a knock in any way, shape, or form. That's really the way I see whatever kid than me. But I don't know anything about that work. I don't know anything about those other therapies. And I have no opinion on them. I've got to tell you something, man. Every time there is an article in the paper about rational recovery or any of these other things, there's only one thing I look for in the article and it never ceases to make me feel like a million times a million bucks. Invariably, at the end of the article, they will say, we contacted Alcoholics Anonymous, central office in New York, asked for their opinion, and they replied, we have absolutely no opinion. And that's right. I go, yeah! Every time. Now, they'll always find some wacko who'll spew. I mean, they'll always go, but we found X, Y, and Z who was more than happy to share with us. They'll always find a couple of guys willing to lay it out. But every time they go to AA, AA says, Basta. We have no idea. You know. Anytime anybody with time shares that they feel brand new again, I always say to myself, and I could be wrong, but I'm just saying it to myself. I'm not saying it to myself too well right now, but I kind of always say to myself, no, you don't. No, you don't. You feel bad, but you don't feel brand new. And if you think you feel brand new, it's probably because you're not spending any time with any newcomers. And if you spent any time with any newcomers, you'd see you don't feel brand new. I'm not saying you don't feel bad. You might feel really horrible, but you're not shaking booze out of your spinal fluid. You don't feel that bad. You feel bad, but you don't feel that bad. You know. And again, I got to go, if I'm not spending any time with newcomers, I don't know what a newcomer feels like, number one. And number two, then my bottom can start to evaporate. That's the most dangerous part. Then my bottom can start to evaporate. One time, Nancy, my wife was on the phone with an Al-Anon newcomer. And I said something, I was walking through them, and she said, oh, you're such a liar. And the Al-Anon newcomer said, was he in the room then? Nancy said, yeah. She said, you called him a liar? She said, he's the biggest liar I've ever known in my life. And we were laughing about it, and the woman was like whispering, like someone in her house would find out I'm a liar. I mean, it was just, it was extraordinary. But you see, when my bottom starts to evaporate, it ain't okay for my wife to call me a liar. It ain't okay for us to kid around about that stuff. Not if my bottom starts to disappear, because I'm a man of God. I have God on my side. It's me, God, in the big book. And I don't lie, you know. Extractions I'm sharing. I've got some notes here, because I'm pretty well talked a little bit this weekend. I started sponsoring people in Alcoholics Anonymous when I was about, between 10 months, and a year sober. I was very concerned about it, and when my sponsor, when I asked my sponsor if it's something I should start to do, he said to me, you go do anything you want, just don't give away anything you don't have. And I believed him, but the pivotal experience for me to begin to do 12-step work was I heard a speaker in Alcoholics Anonymous named Sybil Corwin. If you have not heard Sybil Corwin speak, I want to urge you to get one of her tapes. She was the first woman to join Alcoholics Anonymous in Southern California. She joined it as a result of the Jack Alexander article in the Saturday Evening Post. And she, she's still, she's still around. She unfortunately has some Alzheimer's and she doesn't talk anymore. But this lady was incredible. She has over 50 years now. And I didn't know what, you know, I heard all sorts of opinions in Alcoholics Anonymous about when to do 12-step work and when to not. And in my first year, I heard this woman talk, and at her first meeting of AA, they had just received the written responses from the big book, the distribution of the big book. These people had written from Southern California to New York Central Office, and they had these stack of letters. And at her first meeting, they gave her this stack of letters, and they said, these are the women that have responded to the big book. Will you go visit them? And she started as far south as she could, knocking on doors and saying, are you Ethel? And if the woman said yes, she said, did you write this letter? And the woman said yes. She said, look, I don't know anything about this thing, but would you like to attend a meeting with me? And this was the first thing, this woman didn't make coffee. She made history. I mean, in a way. In a way. And man, and her, and this is a woman, and when I heard her talk, she had about 40 years, the first time. And her message to me was, you go do it, man. And you go do it. Do it right now, and don't give away anything you don't have. But everything you have, give it away. If all you have is a car and a quarter, give somebody a ride, and lend them a dime. And do it today. And man, she lit me up like a bulb. And I started getting involved in Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, I made some mistakes. I did some stuff I shouldn't have done. I helped some guys talk their way back into their home, where I should have kept my mouth shut. I made some mistakes, because of spiritual pride and grandiosity. And I started sponsoring men, and, and, and that's when I firmly believe, when I started to sponsor men, and then I started to work the 10 steps, so I would continue to sponsor men, that's when I, I really firmly believe, my bottom had a shot at remaining with me, over an extended period of time. I have seen so many men destroy their lives. I, you know, the guys who are, I sponsored who are dead today, I miss them. I loved them. I loved them when I told them I loved them. My kids miss them. You know, what could possibly prove to me the powerlessness I have, over alcohol, more than loving a man, bringing him into my house, having him meet my family, having the family love him, watching him walk into this, into a room with a hundred lovers, guys swarming him, and watching him make the decision to drink, the insane decision to drink, dig this, stone cold sober. Because to slip, to go out, you have got to make that decision, stone cold sober. And you have got to, as far as I can see, get yourself, radioactive enough, so riddled with this stuff, or have not gotten to the point where you've really had this power into your life to give you some real relief. And these guys, these guys have saved my life. You know. The range of guys who I sponsor, my friend and I were talking about this this morning, sometimes, you know, a guy I sponsor, I'll have no contact with him. He'll just call me up and tell me, I'm getting married. I didn't know he was going out with anybody. Or, you know, it's like, sponsoring an issue of People Magazine. It's all headlines. All headlines. No story. No story at all. Just headlines. And that's okay. I have chosen not to relate to my sponsor that way. I've chosen to involve my sponsor in my life just by telling him what's going on. Now again, I pick the sponsor who doesn't play God with me, who doesn't tell me what to do. So I don't tell him stuff like this. You know. And then I sponsor guys who have gotten totally involved in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and who have been an incredible example to me of how to work the program and how to get involved and how to stay enthusiastic. One of the men I sponsor is HIV positive and he's getting very sick. And he's getting sicker and sicker and just like one of our guys in this room shared at the meeting last night, my home group has begun to take a meeting to him every week and they go to Jim's house every Sunday night. And what the shape of this, this meeting is, it's a men's meeting and we pick a leader every week and the leader picks a topic and shares on the topic and then we go around the room. And early on in this meeting, Jimmy who's just, you know, he's getting real sick, you know. And the topic was fear and sometimes in an AA meeting you can pick a topic of fear and then everybody will just talk about how terrified they are. At this meeting we pick a topic of fear and then we actually talk about the solution to fear which I find a lot more satisfying but that's, you know, I like sharing, I like. And it went, got around to Jimmy and Jimmy looked at this group of men and he said, I am frightened. He said, I am frightened to tell you of how sick I really am because I'm scared that if you find out how sick I am you'll stop hugging me. And of course, everybody got up at the end of the meeting and hugged him and kissed him and let him know that they weren't afraid of him. How does such a thing happen in a group of men? I don't know. I don't know how such a thing happens in a group of people. It's not in my experience, not part of my, not my experience in life. And this is a result, a direct result of the 12th step. You know, this is a direct result of intensive work. You know, it's like John was talking about when they brought that meeting over to his house. I could see it in his face. Like, what an incredible thing. The only people that showed up at my house was, you know, a crowd with scythes and torches. You know, that was the only group that, and my wife would have been serving them coffee, believe me. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we carry this message and practice these principles in all our affairs. And it's a very interesting thing that the, that half, almost half of the, of chapter 7, working with others is about the family. And I think almost more than half of the section on the 12th step and the 12 and 12 is about the family. Now, for those of you who don't have wife and kids or those of you who are gay who have lovers or significant others and don't have heterosexual relationships, you still get to have a family. Even if you don't have a significant other, if you have friends and if you were brought up in an orphanage, you still have a family on some kind of level. Even if it's your co-workers, you are, and I don't mean that it's necessarily a satisfying or wonderful family, but you are surrounded by a community of people who you can take and use as your family and start using these principles on some kind of level. Certainly if you're a newcomer and you've entered into AA, we're your family now. And as with any family, some of us are going to piss you off. I, on my inventory, a major portion of my inventory was about people in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I want to tell you, if I had not written about it, I would not have stayed. Because I don't like a lot of people in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'm not like John Acklin. I don't even love them. I just stay away from them. I mean, I'd help them if they needed help. But I really needed to take a look at a lot of resentments, a lot of the resentments that I was starting to get, and I was seeing people being sexually predatorial in Alcoholics Anonymous. I was seeing people use the spiritual tools as spiritual weapons. It freaked me out, man. One of the reasons it freaked me out was very good because I so believed that this was my only hope for survival that when I saw people abusing it, it terrified me. And that ain't a bad thing. That ain't a bad thing at all. We don't even know what we're doing when we do it. You know, a man who I sponsor is named, is Roland, and I love this guy. What happens with me and my sons and I have this run-on joke in the house that we're watching a playoff game at some time. And it's the last couple of minutes of the Super Bowl and the phone rings. It is always either one of the gay guys I sponsor or one of the foreigners that I sponsor. So the boys always go, gay or foreign, you know, and the phone rings. Two minutes left. And this guy, Roland, who is a dear friend of our family, he's a Cuban guy, and last Super Bowl, before the Super Bowl started, Micah, my oldest son, goes to the phone, dials the phone. All I hear is, all I hear him say is, let's get it over with now. And he just called Roland and said, let's just put it to bed. Let's not wait for the fourth quarter. It was so, so funny. I just want to tell you about why my oldest son has such a strong connection to this guy. Roland called me every day. He called me every day and he would call me at night and many times I wasn't home at night and he would leave a message on my machine and the message would say, Scott, it's Roley, I love you, and I love you. I'm sober and good night. And I didn't know that this was happening and Roland didn't know that this was happening but years later, my oldest son told me that he couldn't go to sleep until he heard Roland's voice on the phone. That he couldn't go to sleep until he heard the message being left at night. Because that was the only thing that let him know that things were actually not changing. That they were going to somehow, that this thing was not going away. It wasn't anything I could say. It was the demonstration of this guy calling and telling me that he loved me and saying, I'm sober and good night. And once he heard Roland's voice on the phone, he could go to sleep. Roland had no idea that that was happening. I had no idea that that was happening. We don't even know what we're doing when we do it. If we continue to walk towards the light and do God's work. Some years ago, I want to tell you that when I was drunk, I used to wake up at night and stare at my wife's neck and see her jugular vein pumping. And I would say to my wife, how can we put a stop to that? It's just a little inch long thing. Right? And if you stop that, we're in the bonus round here, right? I can't even tell you how much I just loathe this woman. And she really saw me as the source of all of her misery. And I had the good fortune to talk to a couple of guys last night about what it's like when you sober up and the Al-Anon and the Al-Anon and what kind of shape the Al-Anon's in. And I want to tell you that living with alcoholism made my wife ugly. It made her wooden and pasty and forbidding and ugly. She had stopped wearing makeup. She didn't know how to dress right. She was insane. Winnie Eddy, who's a great Al-Anon speaker, tells this great story about her husband going to jail for 10 days. And while he was in jail, he had a great, got a good job polishing the police cars at night. And during the day, he'd sun himself on the roof of the jail. So, and she doesn't sleep for 10 days and doesn't wash and take care of herself. He gets out of jail. He's bronze, well-fed, rested, well, hell-fellow and well-met. Feels like a million bucks. And she's like this, you know. Now, if you look at the picture, who's been in jail? She's been in jail. And when my wife, and here I am, I'm having sex that I feel bad about, so I'm drinking to have the sex, which makes me have more of it because I don't want to think about it. And I'm in this horrible, terrible cycle. My wife is becoming this ugly, wooden, unkempt person. So we get sober and, oh, hello. Oh, what a fabulous journey this is going to be, you know. And again, you know, I sobered up and I said, geez, you know, I'm pretty noble. I have this disease. They've written several books about me. I have all these meetings. But my family, they're deranged. And they need to be medicated and locked up. And, um, it says in our book and it says in the seventh chapter that many of us have difficult wives and families. We must remember we did much to make them so. And it's a weird thing, man. It's part of the catch-22 of Alcoholics Anonymous. It is not your fault that you have alcoholism, but it's your responsibility to clean up the damage that your alcoholism has done. I can live with that. I didn't go out, I can't catch this disease. You can't catch this disease. Well, we'll give it to you in AA. But we can only encourage an existing disease. You can't manufacture alcoholism. I didn't catch it. It's not my fault that I have it, but I must take responsibility for the stuff that I did because of it. You know. And, um, what happened as a result of, you know, a lot of the stuff that I've already talked about this weekend and Nancy and I working on ourselves and trying to bring a better person to the deal. A couple of years ago, we were having some financial difficulties and, uh, we were the only family in the United States at that time having financial difficulties. And, um, I was beating myself up pretty good. I was giving myself a real rash of shit about it and I was pretty depressed and my wife, unsolicited by me, takes me and sits me down on the bed and looks at me right in the eyes and she says to me, I adore you. You are absolutely perfect for me and you are perfect right now exactly the way you are. You're my guy and I love you. I didn't marry a rich guy. I married you and I adore you. And what happened for me in the next month is every time I started feeling bad, I started saying to myself, what is, I started saying, can you, like, treat yourself like your wife treated you a little bit here? You know, thanks for sharing, Scott, but maybe you can take what your wife said to you, I mean, this is incredible to me that God would talk to me through my wife, you know, and maybe try to use her opinion of you instead of your opinion of you. If you're new here, you might be having a tough time with your family, you might be having a tough time in your marriage. I'm not telling you that if you do your job at Alcoholics Anonymous, you get your wife back or your lover back and the kids get well and you make a million dollars. I'm not telling you that. I mean, this is the way it's worked out for my wife and I up to this point. I don't know what's in store for us. I will tell you this, my God doesn't give a shit if Nancy and I are together or not. This is just my God. It's just like he doesn't care if I'm in Vancouver or L.A. He's not getting me out of L.A. just to, to save me from the earthquake. But, my God expects me to do my job if Nancy and I are together or not. My God expects me to do my job in Alcoholics Anonymous if I'm living in a house or a refrigerator box. My job in Alcoholics Anonymous could be to show a guy how to go through a divorce like a stand-up guy with God. My job could be how to show a guy how to stay in a marriage and watch it grow with God. It could be me showing a guy how to stay sober in a refrigerator box. Now, I don't want that job. Don't get me wrong. I am not applying for that job. And believe me, I have not applied for the job of staying married at times. I would have loved the job of showing guys how to be divorced. But those were my jobs. And I'm just saying for me in this 12th step and practicing the principles and all my affairs and carrying the message and working with other alcoholics that I have had to do my job no matter what has come up and down the pike. And if I continue to do that 10th step and see what my real problem is, what's my real problem is self-seeking the impatience, the plain God, the stubbornness, the low self-esteem. Those are my real problems. I'm resentful at God for putting me in a refrigerator box. It affects my self-esteem pocket. What are the defects of character? Well, I'm impatient. I might be out of the refrigerator box. The defects are the thing that's going to kick my ass. And it says here something that I have found extremely helpful. And it's a pretty tough pill to swallow for the new man as far as I was concerned. After all, our problems were of our own making. Bottles were only symbols. Besides, we have stopped fighting anybody or anything we have to. It says in the vision for you that a fellowship will spring up around you. And that, as I've talked about this week, and that has happened to my family. We're part of a... Could you kick that door open? I think I'm done on this side. We are surrounded by an AA and an Al-Anon family that is very healthy, very enthusiastic. A remarkable group of people. I really do believe that on my best day I am not a source of love. I really do believe that on my best day if I can keep this lens clean, if I can keep it as clear as possible of resentments, defective characters, fears and sexual problems, what is God's will for me? I never get into that debate. My God's will for me is one thing and one thing alone all the time. My God's will for me is that I be as clear as possible of this soul sickness, so I can draw close to Him. He can reveal Himself to me and I can reflect a little of this light. I don't think I'm a source of love. I think I can reflect some of this light onto some other people and the clearer the lens is, the reflector, the more light I'm going to shine. It's like trying to hear God's voice through a room top. You can't hear it. It's muffled. And if I get as much shit out of there as possible, I'm in good shape. One of our members of this group shared last night something that I love and I firmly, truly believe in and it's in our book. It says we absolutely insist on enjoying life. There is no text that I know of about recovery from a fatal illness that contains the phrase we absolutely insist on enjoying life. There's no book about cholera that says cholera's a hoot. You'll love cholera. Cholera's a scream. You'll meet other people with cholera. You'll have a fabulous time. You'll meet people who just caught cholera. It doesn't get any better than that. But it does say so about alcoholism. To the best of my knowledge, this is the only disease that leaves you in better shape than you were in before you contracted it. Where the treatment actually leaves you in better condition than you were in before you contracted the disease. I don't think there's really any other disease that can lay claim to that. One of the other things that I want to talk about is the fact that about this morning is my sponsor and something my friend and I were talking about this morning. I have had to go through some separating with my sponsor in the last couple of years. It started when I was about eight years sober and separating in a really good way. I think that it is a natural part of any sponsorial relationship that what we initially see in the sponsor and seek in the sponsor and depend on in the sponsor somehow has got to be transferred to the higher power eventually. Because ultimately our sponsor will fail us. They'll act human and they'll have needs and a life. And eventually that'll become a difficult thing for us. So I have been going through that separation. Now if anybody has ever been a teenager here or lives with a teenager we all know that they all have to separate on some kind of level. For me the definition of a successful separation is a separation where the separating parties don't have to kill each other. Now we all know that a teenager who's separating unsuccessfully is willing to throw their life on the table and say I'm willing to die for you. People are nothing. You want to go toe to toe. And what I've had to do and every time I've had to say you know geez I don't think that's right or you know my sponsor seems off here is I've had to say to myself don't punish Don for you having to grow up. If you have to grow up don't make him pay for it. Because you wouldn't be here if God hadn't spoken to you through him. God used him gorgeously and perfectly in terms of what you had to do. Now don't you don't you don't watch it man. Because you know I see my son do it. I have got my son at one point I had to become the stupidest human being in the universe. Any adolescent separating from their parent at one point everything that comes out of the parent's mouth has got to be garbage on some kind of level. And my kid you know oh my God you know my son is a devout communist now. It's something he's come up with I think solely to piss off my in-laws who who live in Orange County and he gets all these people together and starts talking about communism and I see my father-in-law start to go I pulled Mike aside a couple of months ago and I said you know as a communist I was just wondering have you called the main office lately because things are not working out real well but you might want to check with headquarters but he's got this beautiful kind of approach and my wife I as I told you I met her on the rebound from a communist commune so she kind of watches him you know rave and dabs at her eye you know brings a tear to her eye she thinks it's so sweet and and I was talking to him and it's like he's a communist and he's approaching the whole world with this humanistic point of view and I said to him finally I said but your mother and I we haven't found a way in there and he went no you haven't so you love the people but we are not the people and he said yeah that's right and I said you are not the people so I am looking forward to if he continues on his communist path for me to actually become to be allowed into the great proletariat at some point and to get the same kind of consideration and kindness that he universe I I really do firmly believe that the entire purpose of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and the program of Alcoholics Anonymous I really do firmly believe for me that the entire program and my entire job is all about showing another man that it is possible to live joyously with the 12 steps and that if I'm not living joyously I still don't have to drink but I'll be honest with you I want the joyous I want that good stuff I'm here I'm having a great time I am having a great time in sobriety and I deserve a dream you know I got to talk with another man I love this weekend about that you know my dream when I came in here was to be a writer and I was working as a cook and I sat down and I made a deal with God and I said Father can I have my dream and he said to me yes you can Scott you can have your dream I'm going to help you get free from jealousy and self-loathing and low self-esteem and you can pursue your dream now I didn't get to say Father can I have an office and can I make some money from it I didn't get to say that he said you go you write a book you write for 15 minutes every day and you pursue your dream and you before so before I couldn't sit down and write for 15 minutes because I'm going oh I had to cook all day all these bastards are making all this money oh I write shit anyway you can't do it man you can't have a dream when you're sick that way so he said to me I'll help you get free you go pursue your dream and whether or not I'm making money as a writer I write and I write almost every day and I pursue my dream because God has said yes go do it man do it with every fiber in your being and it is my personal opinion if your dream is to own a boat my feeling is if you talk to your God and you get free enough you can have it I don't give a shit if you've got to cut the god damn tree down and build it that on some level in some way if you ask God couldn't what if he were sought I really firmly do believe that everybody in this room deserves their dream and can have it but I can't ask God for a goal I can't ask God for the three picture deal I can only ask him for the dream I can only ask for that which is reasonable otherwise for me I'm asking him to be more than God you know so we've got a little bit left here I want to open the floor to questions again you can feel free to not only ask questions about 10, 11 and 12 but anything else we've discussed over the weekend from one up up on and down thanks again guys for sitting and listening I really appreciate it I really appreciate it I really appreciate it I really appreciate it you know you hear something in AA a lot which is true for me that meditation for me is just real simply that it's the process of listening to God and I meditate a lot I don't have any regimented meditation I don't have a specific regiment that I do or tapes that I listen to or that kind of stuff maybe I will someday I don't know I have found for me that faith without works is dead in the most of my contact and direction from God has been a result of action rather than that kind of and it's talked about all over in the book and it's talked about in the 12 and 12 really in depth about sitting and getting quiet and stuff that's just never really been part of my deal I do my prayer regiment every morning but it's much more of a prayer regiment than a meditation I have found that meditation has happened to me over the 10 years sort of again as a war of attrition it's kind of found its way into my life at different times you know for me when I'm in the middle of something that I know I'm going down the toilet if I can break free and sit down and pray that's an incredibly powerful meditation for me so that's kind of what it's been like and I'm glad you brought it up because meditation is something I need to find out more about and do and expand you know in my program any more questions any answers any accusations there we go if you go to your sponsor please and say I hear a lot of the analysis that all the places that I call you or they have come to you I know from my experience when I got sober I was lucky enough to have a guy to watch me from so if you have a sponsor to know you can do that I just like to know what you're feeling around that because I still go out and make assumptions and I still follow them as much as I can rather than making them the question is do I call my sponsor or do I wait for them to come to me it's a great question and I'm really glad you shared what you do I do something completely opposite and that's why God made two of us he had one guy who was going to call a newcomer and he said I don't call anybody I don't call any of them and I set it up in the beginning when a guy asked me to sponsor him I tell him three things I tell him let me tell you how I approach sponsorship and then you'll tell me if you want to continue this I say I will I play God I will not tell you what to do under any circumstances my only job as far as I see is to walk closer to you to God with you by showing you the steps and I will never call you and I say I will never call you even if I want to and the reason why was my sponsor did it for me which he doesn't do anymore he does call me now which is kind of strange but what happened was I was so pissed off and so grandiose when I came to AA I was one of those guys who would say well I'll just wait until he calls me and that was just my deal you know I played a game with it all the time so when I knew that my sponsor would not call me even when he wanted to the game was gone I knew that if I didn't call I'd never talk to him again and that's what my guys who I sponsor know about me now men I sponsor don't do that there's men I sponsor who really pursue and call and do all of that stuff so that's my approach and I'm really glad there's two of us I mean I'm really glad that God came up with a way to get both things done because I know there are guys who need both things the way that I approach the fourth step is a pretty in-depth intensive way and some guys it repels them and they shouldn't do it with me they shouldn't do it it seems a little too scholastic a little too complicated a little too studied and they shouldn't do it with me they should do it again that's why God made two of us I have seen fourth step forums where I just don't know where these people have come up with this stuff I mean I'm a little alarmed because it just has nothing to do with the big book you know four thousand questions and you know I mean I get a little alarmed by that but that's again why God made more than one of us because I don't do those and I don't pass them on also I've seen fourth step forums with checklists which boy that's kind of getting me further and further away from the process I've even seen a sexual inventory where instead of it says we got this all down on paper in the sexual inventory and instead it's a checklist have I done this have I done that and boy that just seems to me to be pretty antithetical to what the book is encouraging me to do you know um there's deflation surrender and identification and uh there's no deflation without humility I think it's the first thing that we do when we come to Alcoholics Anonymous again is we admit on some kind of level that my plan does not seem to be working out anybody else well I gotta tell you guys I have just had the time of my life here I'm like Bob I would much rather that it didn't end uh I don't want to go home and uh I uh I just love you and I just want to thank all the guys who took time this weekend to spend some time with me uh individually and enrich my life and you have all enriched my life and thanks for one of the best Alcoholics Anonymous meetings I have ever attended I am forever grateful that you asked me up here to spend some time with you thanks again