Stop Eavesdropping on Your Recovery — Danny B.

Good afternoon, Speaker. Danny. Danny! I feel much more comfortable behind the podium. It seems like there's a wall there and I feel better, you know? I think Charlie should be up here because he's a teacher. You know, I mean, I'm not... Actually, after listening to Gaby talk, I'm kind of like moved in my soul. I really am. Because you don't often know what alcoholism actually does to a family. And that was just a very, very moving description of how it just deteriorates. And kind of just took me off of where I was going because I was right now. By the way, let me start over. My name's Danny. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Danny. And I've had the gift of sobriety since February the 18th of 81. And let's see, I believe I've been married five months longer than Charlie has. My wife is here. We'll have 11 months married on the 22nd. Of course I remember. Yeah. I don't know how I'll ever forget it. She makes me celebrate it every month. It's been pretty good. I had to be 28 years sober before I could do that, actually. She's a real gift in my life. We had quite a trip coming up here. It took us 24 hours to get here from Texas. and you know anytime they say something's breaking down on the airplane my serenity level goes down I'm not really a nervous flyer anymore but I used to be I really did everything in life what's been on my mind is about surrender that's the only thing I really know to talk about and I think it's what we all actually we're either going one direction or the other. We're either talking about what it used to be like and the problem, and the thing that we're all so familiar with and so comfortable talking about. You want a really active discussion meeting in AA, bring up a topic that's about the problem. And boy, we love to talk about it. If you want one that there's less talk and it's more formal, mention the seventh step. And, you know, everybody's comments will get really short, you know, because it's like, well, what exactly would you say about that? But when I think about it, everything, every step that I've taken has been a step that is drawing me towards surrender. It's drawing me out of that rebellion that I lived with. That was, I mean, I was rebellious like Gabby. I was the same way from the very beginning. I mean, I just felt rebellious. And I don't know that I felt rebellous. I just knew you weren't going to tell me what to do. And I didn't know what to doing, but you were not going to tell me, that's for sure. And unlike Gaby, I didn' t necessarily think I knew what I knew I couldn't tell you what to do, but whatever you did, I knew it wouldn't be right. And so you're kind of lost there. Alcohol solved my problem. And alcohol allowed me to live at ease with the conflicts I had. And it allowed me to construct an inner life that was very, very colorful. And when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous I was just as lost as a ball in high weeds. And I... I'm from Texas. We didn't go to college. We just make up little sayings, you know. and that should cover education. I was listening to Charlie talk last night, just great talk. I'd never heard him, and I was listen to him talk and I'm not talking after that. That was just really, but it was very remarkable. He's very amusing, but he carried a wonderful message. and i uh i'm kind of wondering around could you know if we could just how about let's do something that i normally don't do but could we all just have a little moment here where we could just all get quiet and get focused and then we'll just redo that serenity prayer but if it's just take three or four minutes maybe four and uh just stop with all of the everything that's going on in the world and just be right here for a few minutes and let's see what God has to say about whatever it is we're doing here. Thank you. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know difference I was I was sober just a very few years I like most alcoholics found I couldn't work for anybody so I started my own business and I found that I started my home business with not enough money so I got a partner and you know but I'm very good salesman so you know I've got a lot of work and my partner and I would you know we would go we had this project going in all everyone I'm in construction and everyone would go to work first thing in the morning they would get there like it's 630 7 o'clock get everything ready and they would be going and I came in at 10 and I would come in at can and work till you know like you know till the jobs done like three and and then I'd have to leave because I've got I've gotten get cleaned up and go run and go to a a and and I And I was having to go to a lot of AA because I was very tense. I was not able to just go to meeting every other day because I kind of stressed out. My business was really, things were not going well in my business and my partner thought it was because I rarely there. And I really took offense to that because this was my business. I was the person, it was my idea. And so now we've got all these people, and they should, you know, this should happen. I show up. And anyway, things are deteriorating, and I'm going to more meetings. And so I'm not even able to be there for like six hours. Now it's five, you Know, because now they're irritating me. And I finally decided I'm gonna let my sponsor in on this, and maybe he can help me see how to get my partner out of this business completely, which would the only working member and I want to get rid of him so I've got my plan all set I go in and I present it to my sponsor and I told Puckett this is what's going on and I said what do you think I should do? I think I should offer to buy him out I had no money but I thought an offer would be a good start and he said if I were you I would get up at 5 and I would get there at 6 before everyone else and I'd be the best employee that the company has. And I would work hard, as Bob Bissons would say, I would go to work, stay at work and work at work. That is the most lame thing I've probably I didn't explain to him that I'm actually the boss and but i went and told uh another friend and he said that sounds pretty pretty sound so i didn't really feel surrendered about this but i i really set out to prove that they were wrong so i got up in the morning and i i went there and and i worked hard and i made sure everyone knew that i was there and you know and just stayed the whole day i know they were thrilled to have me But as a week or so progresses, I'm not feeling the need to go to meetings as often. Although I'm still going, but I find that I can show up in my work clothes and it turns out it's all right to go directly from your job to work. You don't have to go run, pray, take a nap, you know, go shopping, and then go to a meeting. You can actually work. and I could go and work and I found that I was getting a lot more out of it and I wasn't as tired and I couldn't get up in the morning but there was this growing resentment that I wasn' t right that my sponsor had actually been correct and my partner came up to me and said you know this is the most remarkable thing everybody's happier here at work things are going smoother and I don't know what you've done but we really thank you, and I really appreciate you giving 100%. This has been the story of my life in AA. Everything that I, every problem that I have, I have an instant solution for. I never have to ask my sponsor for a solution. I have one. That's the problem. I have solutions for problems that haven't even started. They're just this vast storehouse of things that I'll know what to do when this happens because it's going to happen. And coming into AA, I thought when I first came into Alcoholics Anonymous, I was so beat up. And I'll never forget walking into Northland Group. And, you know, two years I've been coming to AA and not getting it. and a lady walked by me, and she said, Honey, haven't you suffered enough? And I just kind of just exhaled. It's like I just for the first time breathed it consciously in months. And I thought, Yeah, I have, and I don't know what to do. And I didn't know then that I had made my first surrender, my first attempt to just say, I don'T know what TO DO. And that was so foreign to me to ever even admit to myself that I didn't know what to do. So when you come into Alcoholics Anonymous and you know what to do, and you sit in the back, and your isolated and your cool, the chances are you'll never really find out what we do here. I've been, I've gone to thousands and thousands of meetings, and I have, I really do believe that AlcoholicsAnonymous, The further you get from one-on-one AA, the further you actually get from what AA does. Because Tom Ivester was saying here recently, the most noble thing that we do with one another is we get together one-to-one and we open our hearts and we share what our life was like and the power that we found and then we attentively listen to where this person's at and help them to see where they can go. and watch that power just grow into their lives, and it's an amazing thing. And to me, that's Alcoholics Anonymous, and the Fellowship of AlcoholicsAnonymous is where we collectively gather to give this opportunity for new people to see that this happens and that it can happen for them. But if you're like I was, if you are coming to meetings and you are sitting in the back and you're watching this and you re listening to people talk and you see people share and you see people open up and you see the power at work. If you think that you have been to an AA meeting and yet you have never done anything other than get your court card signed, I submit for your consideration that that's not true. What you have done is you have come and you have been an eavesdropper. You have witnessed Alcoholics Anonymous at work You would say that you've been to an AAA meeting but I say you just observed an AA meet and you might as well than sitting behind a glass wall and the the fact is is that you're welcome here but to put you have to somehow surrender what you think about everything in life and come on in i was fortunate enough i don't know how you do it here i guess you do like we do everywhere else in the world uh people you the book says if you want what we have i had people that saw me come in and they would pay attention to me and they came to me. I was never going to ask you to help me. I was Never going to Ask you to sponsor me. I had a guy that appointed himself my sponsor and I'm glad that he did. His name was John Henry and he's still a little short guy and he wears a bow tie and he is just a very intense fellow who has memorized the big book and I remember when I first would talk to him he would say, I would call him with a problem and he'd say Dan Brown avoid the deliberate manufacturer of misery but when trouble comes along cheerfully catalyze it as an opportunity to demonstrate his omnipotence and I think I don't know why I didn't think of that you know and I would go to meetings and I would quote John Henry, you know, it's like, you know, and that's when I found out that that wasn't original with him, that's in the big book. And I was listening to Charlie talk about the big book and he was amusing and I know what he means when you, you know, we get people, we've got groups now that study the big book word by word and with a 1935 dictionary so we can be sure that we knew what they meant when they said it then. And I have a friend who's involved in one of those groups very heavily, and every time I get through talking to him, I just want to erase his name from my phone book. He is just so intense now with AA, and it makes me feel like I don't do it. You know, I'm only sponsoring like 10 guys and I go out and speak 22 times a year. And I go to meetings and I don't drink. I pray on my knees. And I feel inadequate when I'm talking to him because I don' t know what the well-known stages of a spree are. And neither do you. but we you know when I walk away from there I mean I'm just that kind of guy who's always looking at me and I can walk away from you feeling like I just I don't measure up you know and by the way this can be question and answer what are the well known stages of a spree I don' t try to read the book and dissect it I'm really looking for power I'm really looking for a way out of my life, the way out of the life that I created. And I do read the big book a lot and I do believe personally that it's a very I think it's spiritual book. I think the first 164 pages, you can read them when you walk in the door and they can speak to you right where you're at. I mean it's like the book is shallow enough for a baby to bathe in, you know. It's deep enough for an elephant to bath in. I mean, it just depends on where you're at at any given time. And I think I read this book over and over and ever again and I would read 86, 87, and 88, the third step prayer. I knew all about the phenomenon of craving. But I didn't like that part of page 60 through 63 because that didn't really seem to apply to me. You know, I mean, I always knew that self was a problem for most people. But if you do it with humor, it's not as much of a problem, I don't think, for me. And I... I know. You know... I read the big book for a while and I remember reading in the very beginning of it I think it's the forward to the first edition where it talks about this is a book where more than 100 men and women shows precisely how they have recovered and I think man that is great and then I would immediately begin to read deep spiritual books I'm glad to know that this is how they recovered and if I were like them I would do that too But, you know, with that opening statement, you would think that this would be a book that you would really want to pay more attention to. Now I'm not suggesting that we need to make a shrine to the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I'm also not suggesting that you can just read this book and it's going to make a complete difference in your life. In fact, I can prove to you, I can show you my old big book, which I still have, which is Stained With Beer, where I would sit and read it and drink, and I have a pretty good memory. And it didn't change my life at all. The big book of Alcoholics Anonymous is just a window of actions. I mean, it just tells you this is what we did, this is the way that we are going to live. This is what they do, and everything we do is counter to what we think we ought to do. We have to surrender everything we know, or I've had to. And in the years that I've been here, I've had just this whole period of my life where I went to meetings obsessively, worked with others, prayed on my knees, and I stayed in a train wreck. And I'm going to tell you, I fought with depression. I took up running. I became an avid marathon runner because it was the only way I could manage my emotions. I could talk about Alcoholics Anonymous. If you were in trouble, I would go to you and try to help you. But to actually open up and let you know how I am was just so hard for me. I spent my whole life building this personality that was designed to keep you from me, and I didn't know that. And I felt like even in AA that what I was supposed to do was sort of spiritualize my personality. You know what I mean? I mean, I don't know if you did that or if you're doing that, but it's kind of like I learned stuff and put that on and add that to what I've got going on. and it would cause me great conflict and I would find that peace would elude me from time to time for great periods of time and so I would begin to look for other things to make me feel okay that's why I didn't want to go all the way through with the big book I've got all of these plaques, or I should have all these plaques for being the winner in the 20 yard dash but they're all like 100 meter runs I just, but that's as far as I go. I go a little ways and this isn't it either. You know, I would meet her. Not this one. This is really her, by the way. This really is her. But I've met her several times in AA. I have started businesses. I do all kinds of things. I remember sitting with a guy that I sponsor and I told him to meet me over at the ice cream shop and we're over here and I remember I just had to have this particular Sunday a certain way and I got that thing in and I'm sitting here eating that thing and I love ice cream and when it was all gone I realized that wasn't it either. But that was my whole purpose of going and eating the ice cream or getting involved with someone else or buying a new car. I bought four new trucks in one year. Yeah, I mean, when I was early married, early in sobriety, I was married to a gal who wasn't in the program, and so therefore she doesn't understand a lot. And her and my daughter, my stepdaughter, went off for the weekend, and I had asked about buying one of these big screen TVs, and these are the kind that are so big. You remember they're like as big as this table and about six foot high, And she said we couldn't afford it. So when they left on a little trip, I immediately ordered it because I was sure that once it was in the house, in place, everyone would see that this is a very useful thing. And when they came home, I had got it stuck in the door, and I couldn't get it out, and I could not get it in, and it was just stuck, you know. And so I'm just sitting here, and there's no way. You can't come up with some kind of excuse, but my mind's racing. And my little stepdaughter walks up, and she says, Oh, look, there's Daddy, and he's got that TV you told him he couldn't have. And I felt, it just seems like my life just felt like that. I was always getting, I had this round hole, square peg, big hammer deal. instead of putting the square peg down I get a big hammer now I've got my solution stuck in my problem and now I want to spend my time filling in the edges try to make it look like it belongs there You know, all of this, it turns out, much of this is avoidable. It turns out that you can pick up the phone. You can call and say, you know, I was just thinking about buying this TV that I can't afford, that my wife said we can't have. And what do you think? and usually you won't make that call because you're pretty sure what they think anyway you know and that's really it turns out it's really true if you really examine your motive you'll understand the reason you don't make the call is because you are not surrendered you don' t want to do this anyway you want your way I want what I want when I want it and as long as you have that attitude you're going to get what you want you're going to get what you want and you won't necessarily like the outcome and so you spend time managing your life and it's very very tiring in sobriety you go to more meetings and you hear things like y'all use this around here meeting based sobriete have you heard this term they're talking about it down in Texas now Vicki and I are trying to figure out what it is I like the whole not drinking thing But the idea, I think the idea is that if you're just going to come in and sit in AA so you can not drink, you're going to have to probably move really close to the meeting because once you come in here, you're gonna feel better. But then you're gong to leave and you're goign to find out that if live the way I was living, you're gunna have to turn right around and come right back in here. I liken it to a teapot. If you take a teacup or steam kettle and you fill it up with water and set it on a stove, you let it start whistling. All you have to do is go up and raise the lid, let off a little steam, and it'll quit whistling, and you can set it down, and you won't even make it back to your kitchen table, and it will start whistling again. So you haveと move your chair a little closer. Just do this. and you never it occurs to you to turn the damn fire out that's what we a lot of us do in AA and we tell ourselves AA doesn't work I've been going to meetings I talk to people while I'm there I let the steam off hell, I burnt their face they walked out like this so you deceive yourself into thinking that all of that is what we're doing here. But this really is a spiritual program. Chuck Chamberlain used to say, this is an inside action. What you're looking for, you came here with. And I would listen to that stuff and think, what in the world is he talking about? What I'm looking for I came here with. I have no idea. If you read over in We Agnostics, it says deep down inside every man, woman, and child there's a fundamental idea of god it may be covered up with pomp and calamity and worship of things worldly but it's there and i think that that's what he was talking about i think that what he is talking about it is down here inside there is something in me that longs to be have a union with you to be at peace and to be of use and that if i can somehow chip away at all of this stuff that causes me to continue to gather more stuff up to make me look better to you, I'll be okay. It's not about gathering more things. I mean, when I got sold five cars or four cars from new trucks in one year, that's, you know, you're not actually on the right track here. You know, in fact, what I... And of course, I'm rolling the note, you knows, so the last truck is really expensive, you now. And then you drive out and you feel really, really good. The last one I got that year, this is what leaned me to go to my sponsor. The last ones I got, I went in and I told the salesman I wanted to buy a new car and the bank would finance it. All I had to do was pick up his phone and call him. The guy said, Mr. Brown, it won't be ready until tomorrow. I said, My car will be ready today or I'm going to go down the street and get one from this guy. Well, they pushed everybody aside. it embarrassed my then wife and daughter and I got in my car I drove it home I felt very proud of myself I set it out in front of the house where I had a picture window where I could look at it I went outside and I love that new car smell you know, it's like that's just the answer to alcoholism it's just you're sitting there and it's got that smell and you program the radio and you know I just kind of drive it around the block so the neighbors can see it and then park it out front. My wife's not talking to me, my daughter's not talking tome, and the guy that bought it is in the program, you know, the guy I bought it from is in the program and he's pissed at me because of the way I behave. And, you now, that night I went to bed feeling like, you kno, AA really works. You know, I used to live in a stolen car and look at me now. And that night about 11 o'clock there was this big thunderstorm and we had golf ball sized hell. It beat that car almost to death. I looked at it, and I called Puckett, and I said, Pucket, do you know what happened to my car? And I told him the story, and he said, I bet you they're having a hail sale down there today. You should have waited. So I drove back down to the body shop to get it fixed one day old, and And that guy had a smirk on his face, you know. And I asked Puckett, I said, what should I do? He said, hell, you should make amends. You were, he used the word. So I went in and I made amends to the guy and I told him I was sorry. And he said, yeah, we're having a hail sale today. I said thank you so much. But that's the way it seems the word God works in my life. If I get what I want, usually I'll want to be free of it pretty quick. It's like paying back money. If you're in sobriety and you take advantage of somebody for $50, I'll guarantee you it will cost you $500. You might as well give back the $50. It will save you $450. Of course, it does cost you a little bit of your pride. That's anyway. so I rocked wrong in sobriety and I don't talk about all this so much when I give my talk, I got a little canned talk which is designed really so that if I'm not feeling spiritually centered I can go on autopilot and I can tell this story, what it used to be like what it's like now no, what used to be like, what happened, what was like up to three years ago right now I don' t want to talk about this, you know, because it's too painful. And that's the way my talk would go. But here today I want to tell you that as I have progressed through life, I have made a lot of mistakes in sobriety. And maybe they weren't mistakes. Maybe they were just painful choices that I had to learn. But by the time I was 14 years sober, my life was a train wreck. And And I'll tell you, I had left my wife. I had remarried. I remarried a woman who was really not doing well up here. None of her personalities were doing well. She really looked like she would be doing great. So I was very attracted to her. So I'm married to this girl, and she's a psycho. and, you know, water seeks its own level. I don't like to hear this, you know, and I'm working on fixing her. I run a business. I'm sponsoring a lot of people. I fly around the country and talk in AA, right? And I come home to this woman who's psycho and we would throw dishes and stuff and go and have these fights that would last 10 hours, you know, and I remember one time a guy calling me and he needed, This is a guy I sponsor. I am a lunatic. No one knows this is going on in my house. I have a swimming pool, for God's sakes. I can't be doing bad. You know? I've got a swimming Pool. I have employees, you know? I have A wife. I keep her away from AA. You don't know what she's like. And, you know, I mean, and I'm just nuts. And this guy calls me. He wants me to come and counseling on relationships. You know, he's having trouble with his relationship. I care about him. I'm going to go help him. In the meantime, I'm in the middle of a fight that's been going on all night long. As I'm trying to back out of the driveway, she's going around and laying down behind the wheels of my truck. I would pick her up, carry her back in the house, put her at the furthest bedroom, run to my truck, try to back it out. I would get it almost down the driveway, and there she'd be again. So I don't know if the guy got his problem worked out or not, you know? Anyway, you Know, I was just sitting there rocking. I thought, this isn't working. I hate AA now. I hate my life. I am so stressed out. At the end of that fight, I got up and walked out of the house, and I made a decision that I was going to drink. I just said, that's it. I've had it. I'm going to go have a drink. I drove straight to the nearest 7-Eleven, and I drove in there, and I pushed this guy out of the way. I have a vivid memory. I just shoved him out ofthe way, andI walked straight for the beer boxes. I went back there, andi had been sober so long, I didn't know that I livedin a dry county. I was... You know, I was like, I didn't know what to say. I called Puckett, and I told him what had just happened. And he said, well, perhaps you should come on over to my house and spend a little time. And I went over to Jim's house, andI told him what was going on. And I think this is the point that I actually had that, what a lot of people call it, the second surrender. This is where I really joined AA. this is where I really realized that this isn't about having some you know a lot of stuff and clever insights it's not about gathering information I mean you can actually know this book inside and out and die drunk in fact I know people who know this so well that they you get to the point where you can know all the words but you don't hear the music and if you don't hear the music, the words, they just sound flat and I would rather you hear the music. I went to Jim Puckett and Pucket suggested to me that I had never really joined Alcoholics Anonymous, that I'd been involved in action and I went back through the steps with him and I made a decision and I really made that decision that Thursday. that God is, I wanted a new director. I wanted power. I wanted to be able to turn somewhere other than that God that I grew up with as a child. I grewup with a God as a childhood. I believe that God was punishing. I believethat God, I love what Charlie said, you know, there are good people. There are good, good people who just seem to have no problem telling God I'm just not going to do any of those bad things. I'm going to do all those good things and they eat fried chicken they sing where I came from I grew up in this church where we didn't use music because it was an offense to God to use musical instruments you made a joyful noise with your heart and we had an old guy that was a farmer he led the music and he would stand up there and do this I don't even think he knew what this meant I didn't either but he would do this and sing when we all get to heaven we're going to sing all the time and it was the worst noise you ever heard in your life and I'd sit there and I think oh surely God we're not going to do that I don'T even know if I want to go you know and then they never talked about a God that was merciful loving and kind they just talked about that if you don't want to go with us to heaven, here's your option. And I was like, wow, I hate music and I don't wanna be on fire, not for the rest of my life. Is there like some sort of, does it happen all the time? You can't grasp that stuff, so what do you do with that? You turn it off. You say you abandon the God idea entirely, and that's what it talks about in We Agnostics. We abandon the god idea entirely. But you haven't. We don't abandon things. What we, you know, I believe that the heart is a place that is meant for communication to and with other people. This is where I'm supposed to communicate with you from. But what I do, and had done for years, was I take things that scare me, things that I'm conflicted about, and I shove them down in my subconscious, in my heart. And I cover them up, and I don't want to think about them anymore. But everything comes out sideways. I find that I am more rebellious at authority. I findthat I want to drink more often. Alcohol would allow me to create a fantasy world that I could live in. and it was about the only time that I could live free of my conflicts. It absolutely would just set me free. I had no problem whatsoever when I drank. I never did, and, you know, I had problems when I sobered up. When I soberED up, all of the shame and all of fear was back and all the realization that everybody else had something going on but me. I was headed back down that road when I was 14 years sober and I rejoined Alcoholics Anonymous, and I decided that I would commit myself to a way of life that I believed that you did. And I admitted to Jim Puckett that I didn't know what that was, not really. I knew how to kind of act like you, but I didn' t know how to take direction. I didn''t know that when you took a commitment, that meant that you would actually do that over and over again until the end of your commitment. I like to go to the commitment unless, you know, there's a, well, the Dallas Cowboys are playing. This is, you Know, this should surely be an exception. But it's not. The commitment is a spiritual contract between you and an ideal or you and another person. This is what I'm going to do. I'm Going to show up for good, bad, or indifferent. And that has made a big difference in my life. It made a big difference in my life to get a home group. To get a home group and to become and when you say you got a home group, when you have that, you're not just a person who sits there. Home is where everyone lives. Everyone has chores. This thing, we all work in concert. There are people that come to visit and there are people that come that are family members and you want them to stay and it's my job to help make them comfortable. It's my Job to educate myself about what's wrong with me. It's my job to be able to take the time to talk to you, to listen to you to quit, as my friend says to quit listening with my mouth and start learning to listen with my ears. I came into AA really butt first everything was yow butt, yow but but I joined Alcoholics Anonymous about 14 years ago really and uh now i don't it in there again this is a surrender thing that happens and i just i just felt like i fit in i was able to actually say i don'T really know what to do that a lot of my humor is sincere but a lot OF IT TO COVER UP BECAUSE I'M LOST YOU KNOW I I HAVE TO MAKE YOU LAUGH I REMEMBER GOING OUT AND SPEAKING I WOULD GO OUT AND SPEAKER SOMEWHERE AND IF PEOPLE weren't laughing at certain points i would feel like an absolute utter failure and it would just i would be like oh my god how long is this talk going to go on you know uh i was up there i was not up there to to to give anything i was out there to get your approval approval seeking became just i mean it just got magnified when i got an opportunity to stand in front of my peers in Alcoholics Anonymous. I was, during the time I was with that woman and I was so sick I went to speak in Kansas you know, I mean, and I'm telling you I was in a position where I really should have been hospitalized. That's how bad I was. And I go up to Kansas to speak at this conference I'm up here, I am so full of BS I'm trying every line I've ever heard you say to try to cover my own sense of failure that i mean i'm just my forehead which is big it was just sweating you know and they were outside and i'm 그냥 all of a sudden this lady walks up and she says excuse me i need to make an announcement this is in the middle of the only joke i know that i think it's going to get a laugh and i just stopped and she said the people that run this camp that we've been coming here for for years were just killed in a car wreck down the road and i just thought you all like no no you can go ahead sir and I thought I don't know if it can get much worse than this and but even at that I try rather than try to understand what had just happened that something significant happened I was still so self-absorbed I was I didn't even hear what had happened I tried to recover my story and make people laugh I mean this is what self-centeredness does to you this is what selfishness does it's not you know it's not I mean there's no end to the way to what it what it does and it's like it's I never was against you I would just always for me you know what I mean and I didn't know how to make myself actually care what you were about and what you were doing you know even today I you know you'll feel I can feel it when it comes back you know I mean I'll just all of a sudden I'll be talking to Charlie and all of a sudden I'm thinking wow man I wonder what's on TV and I mean you know I just I mean I just left you know he might be pouring out his heart and I'm sitting there thinking man you know wonder you know and I I hate that about me you know but what I have found is an answer to that is an answered to that for me has been to really remain transparent with a sponsor, to really be transparent not only with my sponsor but with the guys that I sponsor. To be honest with you, I'm probably more transparent with the men I sponsor than I am my own sponsor these days. I love my sponsor. I like to talk to him on the phone. He's insightful and he calls me a jerk and I feel like I've been properly upbraided but with The Guys I Sponsor, I am much more willing to be just transparent with them. I mean, because when I listen to their inventory, I always share my inventory with them, I always new stuff that I've picked up along the way and I unload it and it makes you feel lighter and I really believe that today that the most important thing I can do each day is to get up and to fit myself to be of maximum service and how do I do that? I do what Gabby said. He says, I get on my knees and I say my prayers. I take a moment and I read a spiritual book or I read the 86, 87, and 88, which I do a lot. I stop a minute and I think about what I'm going to do. I ask God to direct my thinking. And I remember something that Chuck said a long time ago. Chuck had a very profound impact on a lot of our lives. He certainly did mine. But he said that he prayed and then he walked out believing that he had got the guidance, that he has guidance, that he will be guided. And I do. I trust moment by moment that I'm being led to go where I need to go, that God really is there. My friend Howard Polence talks about having a... He had a meditation where he talked about this thick ice. I'm sure you've heard him talk about it if you've ever heard of Howard. He talks about how it could be a metaphor for his life that he was walking across a frozen lake and that the ice in his meditation was like 14 foot thick. He said you could have drove a Sherman tank across it and as long as he believed that the Ice was thick enough that the Ice would support him he could walk across that frozen lake with confidence. Now he had to be careful because it was slick but there was no problem. The moment that he decided that he wasn't going to make it and he was on thin ice He would start running into everybody else Trying to get away from the thin ice part And when the fact is It's just a figment of his own imagination And that's been my experience I come here and I remember That I'm on thick ice I want to live the rest of my life sober I've just had a friend That had 22 years sober And he's not sober today Vicki just had a girl that she sponsored last year That she found out today Died of alcoholic poisoning this weekend These are things that once you're here a while You don't think that this happens to you anymore You think now all you've got to do is get more money But it's really not that way at all I try really hard i have such a large ego it is just unbelievable and uh i try really hard to be transparent with you guys and to let you know that because i don't want i don'T WANT TO EVER BE BACK OUT THERE ON THE STREETS I DON'T WANNA EVER BE BACK OUT there alone i would i want to die as a member of alcoholics anonymous a sober member and i and while i'm here i wantto live as a sober member i like the i like this growing i want to know about god and i want to know and i think the only way i ever really get to know him is i getting to know you guys um i hate doing by the way i really do i hate doing workshops i am not a teacher you know i'm just a west texas boy who drank way too much whiskey and uh caused a lot of trouble i uh i had this uh i read this the other day there was a guy from from cheers that was they were explaining the buffalo theory did y'all ever hear him talk about that uh the buffalo theories he was talking about natural selection and how really what the way it all works is is that that the slow animals in the herd are the ones that get captured and killed by the predators and therefore the herd and becomes stronger and faster and moves along, and it works better. And he said that's the same way with drinking. He said when you drink, it's the brain cells that are slow that are kind of killed off, and therefore if you drink enough, you naturally evolve and become smarter and faster. And sitting in AA, that's funny, but sitting in a bar, you think, you know, that'S true. that's the way we think I'm not going to sit here and take up lunch time if you've got any questions we've got about three seconds don't we eat at 12? 12.30 well Matt will take your questions and if you don't have any we can be done y'all can go smoke and i know you didn't get anything from this uh workshop neither did i except that i got except that I got to be here with you and I want to thank you for uh always allowing me to be able to just uh tell you about my insecurities I am I'm so insecure about my insecurities. It's unbelievable, you know? I want to cover them up. When I talk from the podium and I talk about my story, my story of my life, it's not so hard. It really isn't because one of the things that kept me in AA is I saw a microphone. But this is a storyline I've told over and over again. And, you know, there's times when that's all I know to tell. You know, I'm not as in touch with who I am as a human being. And so I'll go into that mode. And then there's time when I feel very vulnerable. And, when I was listening to her, that just, I mean, that touched my heart. Because I remember the hell that I put my family through. and I but when you when you come to these things and you sit here and you look around and you think I like this person I don't like this person I wish we weren't here it's too far up here it costs too much I don' t know why we do this and you start all that stuff you've completely missed why you're here what's going on the option to being here is to being there you know and I'm gonna tell you we all we're all here by god's grace i uh only thing i disagree with charlie on is uh is the luck thing although i don't believe that we are one or one is chosen over the other i think god's grace really does exist for all human beings at all times it's just it's your choice do you want to take it or not so i will tell you this if you're here today new or old and you're wondering whether or not you really need to stay here, whether you belong here, whether this even works. I submit for your consideration you probably haven't really, really opened up. You probably really haven't tried this thing. And if you want somebody to talk to, there's somebody here to talk with. There's somebody to speak to. If you don't know what to do, I do. I actually do know what the do. I can't make you understand it. I can turn on your light. But I can tell you what I did that turned on my light. I can tell you that 28 and a half years ago, I was at the absolute end of one of the worst runs that it was imaginable in my family. And there was no hope for me turning around. I'd been in mental institutions, prisons, skid rows. You know, I was a menace to society and to myself. and for 28 and a half years I have lived a pretty good life now I've dug a deeper hole in some people you know and that's another I'll tell you there's another thing I really do want to say this is if there was ever a group of people that ought to be kind to one another it's us because if you think your therapist understands you you are so wrong they may be able to tell you what to do about you i don't know but they don't understand you and i do understand you and i love you and that's really really important i understand what that malady feels like and i understand what it's like to walk out into the light and i know the path from there to there anybody got anything you want to say or you'd like to go smoke she wants to smoke let's go