The Bar Where You Needed 32 Customers to See a Full Set of Teeth – Paul M.

My name is Paul, I'm an alcoholic and it's good to be here and it is good to be sober. It's a great honor and a great privilege to be asked to speak here and has just been it's just been a wonderful weekend you know we're like Jeff just said they're like each speaker come on like Jeff and I would look at each other and go you know by Sunday morning there's going to be like tumbleweeds blowing through here you know maybe a couple of the hotel staff and that'll be about the height of it you know and uh but it's just been wonderful and you know that angst I think Bob picked up on that and he left me a nice little note here he says Paul the speakers have been wonderful all weekend don't screw it up you know. And I knew he cured I just didn't know how little you know But I called my sponsor, and you know, my sponsor always keeps me straight with this stuff. He says, Paul, where are you? I said, I'm in Las Vegas. He said, you went all the way to Las Vegas to talk? How far would you go to listen? The Bronx, you know. And he's really good. Like we just said earlier on there, he's like, listen, don't worry about this good speaker. Trying to be a good speaker in Alcoholics Anonymous It's like trying to be the tallest of the seven dwarfs, you know. It's really not that important, you know. And as I said, they're an alcoholic's knowledge. If you hang around here long enough, you know, humility will come find you. And I was at a conference one time and I was speaking and a guy came up to me afterwards and he says, are you Paul McHugh? And I says, yes I am. He goes, I just want you to know that you saved my life. So right away, my ego checks in and I said, tell me all about it, you know, and take your time, don't leave anything out, you know? And he said, I'm in the car driving and I got my wife and mother-in-law in the back of the car and they're arguing and bickering and he said I can't take it anymore and he says I always carry CDs in the glove box and I reached in and I just grabbed the first CD I got I stuck it in the player and it was you speaking now this is what I think he's going to say Paul when your melodic voice started to emanate around the car there was a sense of peace and serenity this is how I feel this is why I think he's gonna say What he actually did say, I put the CD in and five minutes later I turned around and my wife and mother-in-law were sleeping in the back of the car. Anyway, it's good to be here and it's great to be sober. For the new people that are here, you know it's been a wonderful weekend. And these steps and each step, it has just been great. And I want to welcome the newcomer, because as far as I'm concerned, this whole weekend, Alcoholics Anonymous, without the newcomers, it's just a room full of noise. It makes no sense to me. The whole program is predicated on the next alcoholic. I'm not here to sell AlcoholicsAnonymous, it sells itself. It's a program for traction, not promotion. But I will say this, and I don't mean cashing prizes. you cannot get where I am today from where I came from without Alcoholics Anonymous it's an impossible journey now why do I continue to come I know how the movie goes but I wouldn't miss it to see someone walk in here in the worst night of their life and they talk about the grace of God but it's so much more than grace it's mercy and the definition of mercy that I like the best is entering into the chaos of another person's life. And in August of 1992, when everybody in my life, and there wasn't many, was going that way, the only people coming this way was Alcoholics Anonymous. And they carried this message. My message mightn't even keep me sober. They carried this massage. And what is the message that's on offer in alcoholic synonymous for the people that are new here. When complete defeat through alcohol, step one I got a body won't let me drink and the mind won't let me stop. One drink creates a thirst I can't quench. When I control my drinking I don't enjoy it and when I enjoy my drinking I can control it. I haven't had a drink with your help since august of 1992 one drink this morning destination unknown when complete defeat through alcohol meets what i've seen here all weekend step 12 hope in human form people get people sober god works through people i've never seen god at a meeting yet but i know he's here and what does he use he uses the fellowship of alcoholics anonymous to spread his love and grace when i went to my when i was brought to my first meeting of alcoholic synonymous in new york in august of 1992 someone met me after my first reading and they'd heard it all before the oaths the proclamations the swearing-offs hand on heart but i said to this person i've found something I didn't know what it was at the time but as I said I know this morning and it's hope because you people took me from a place of powerlessness and unmanageability not to a place where of power that's ego but a place where of access to power 24 hours a day seven days a week you took me From That Spot through the process to a Place As I Said There You Cannot Get Where am today from where I came from and I'm so glad at my first meeting there wasn't a guy stand with the clipboard saying check the box for what you want I would have checked the box not drinking I would have been delighted with that yes Alcoholics Anonymous has given me that the first half of the first step but this program is giving me so much more the other 11 and a half steps helped me to do what I couldn't do drunk or sober and that's live out there in God's world under his conditions rather than my demands. Now my life as I said there are no it may come as a shock to some people in the room here but I'm not from the neighborhood originally. It's about 30 years now since I left my native Cuba and I was laughing when Maury said she got her ancestry checked. I got my ancestry done, I got a letter back that says go to AA immediately. Do not pass go, do not collect $200 you know? I grew up in a neighbourhood if you didn't drink you moved. I didn't know anybody who didn't drank. I wasn't one of those oh that's what alcohol does. I seen alcohol up close and personal in my own life and the neighborhood I lived in. There's alcoholism in my family as far as the eye can see. I'm the first person in my family, with your help, that ever got into Alcoholics Anonymous. My brother's got 20 years now back in Northern Ireland. The chain has been broken here because of Alcoholics Anonymous As I said there, where was I going to be here as a guy? And I don't know why I became an alcoholic. I used to get a lot of mental gymnastics when I first came to AA. Why did I become an alcoholic? Where did I become an alcoholic? When did I became an alcoholic. You know the old conundrum, what came first, the chicken or the keg? A lot of guys got drunk trying to figure that one out. Everything I need to know the people told me in the 12th step at my first meeting. My name is Paul and I'm an alcoholic. That tells me who I am, what I am where I am. What I need to be doing. When I know that I'm alright and when I'm all right everything around me is alright too even if it's not. For the people that are new here this morning. I know we threw the word miracle around a lot in AA. The definition I like the best is a complete reversal or upheaval of the laws of nature. It's in my nature to be lying drunk somewhere this morning and I'm not. How did that happen? It happened because of Alcoholics Anonymous. And this is not some sales pitch. There's a miracle, if you're new here this morning there's a miracle here with your name on it. Nobody can take it from you and nobody can take het for you. Come up and get the life you're meant to live before drink took you down a different road. The writer George Eliot says, it's never too late to live the life you're meant to live. My sponsor grabbed me outside a meeting one time and we don't talk about that much in there. We talk about the car crashes and the degradation. You know one of the saddest things of alcoholism? The unlived life. where you drift through life you don't know where you're going or why you're doing it you're not going there like flotsam and jetsam on a sea of booze there's a rhythm to my life today my life has got meaning my life is purpose because I am an alcoholic and I know where I belong in Alcoholics Anonymous I got sober so the people that are new here you hear that metaphor you go 10 miles into the forest you got to go 10 miles out I don't believe that in AA I don' care how deep how dark how painful the forest you're in may seem AA tells me and I'll tell you, you're just 12 steps away from a new life that's all just 12 steps away from a brand new life in Alcoholics Anonymous. People come to AA they go, oh I came to AA and I got my life back. I don't want my life back, it sucked. And for 30 years I could do nothing with it, I got a whole brand new Life in Alcoholic Synonymous. Are there people in my life from the old drinking days? Absolutely, but things are different today. My world is built on concrete because of these 12 steps and like that story i used to read to my little daughter when she was young the world out there because there's days of spiritual warfare out there and the world out there will huff and it will puff but if i stay close to the principles of alcoholics synonymous one day at a time i don't have to drink no matter what and i was an alcoholic who had to drink no matter what and people say oh you're just an arm's length away from a drink and I suppose that's true with your help and this program I'm 12 steps away from my drink and that's a quantum leap from where I first came in here but don't get me wrong they're not 12 steps up to anything I believe they're 12 steps down to humility I seen people drink again in that I thought would never drink again. And that tells me it's a daily reprieve, not a pardon. And there's certain things I must do to enjoy this way of life. And one of them is to try to help the still sick and suffering alcoholic. Maybe you're out there. I know it's not easy. Probably the hardest thing in life to do is to get sober if you're an alcoholic, especially that first year. The roller coaster goes up and the roller coaster goes down, just don't get off. Stay on. Ride it out and get this life that's on offer here. And I think Bill Wilson got that. I don't know whether he was divinely inspired or it was his own idea, but Bill Wilson, we heard that story being read on December 11th, sitting up in that hospital room for the third time indeed in town's hospital had tried everything to try to get sober. Couldn't get sober or couldn't stay sober. See, that's what Alcoholics Anonymous has given me. Thank God for those people that came before. If you're new here today, you know what AA gave me that I never had before? It gave me something between me the first drink. Before I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, the thought of a drink would become the obsession to drink, an idea that crowds out all other ideas. I've become myopic, all I can see is drink and I find myself drinking again. And once the clock started ticking, I have no way of stopping the clock. Use people give me something between me and the first drink. Maybe these 12 steps and this 12 step that we're talking about, maybe it seems a bridge too far right now. Maybe you're too new. And I understand that. But the 12th step, two days can help a person with one day. Maybe steps seem like a foreign concept. We have a symbol in AA. It's a triangle inside a circle. And there's three parts to it. Unity, service and recovery. Now I'm going to tell you something, not in the theoretical, from practical experience. You can stay dry on two parts of the triangle. I've done it. You could even stay dry on one part of the Triangle. I have done that too. But if I want to get free from the one guy I couldn't get free form which is me and live in the one place that's the only place you can live Right here, right now, I've got to put all three parts into my life and I've got to do it every day. But it's a small price to pay for the life that I've been given. The only way that I coast in alcoholic synonymous is downhill. And I think to myself, Bill Wilson, up in that, and I have stood outside that hospital, up on Central Park West. it's not a hospital today it's a building there's some rental, some buy some office space a friend of mine I'll tell you a story a friend a friend a friend a friend a friend a friend a friend it's funny like the old story New Yorkers never got the Statue of Liberty and these bunch of guys came in from Mexico and it was December and they said we want to go outside Towns Hospital on December 11th 11th. And a couple of the New York guys were like, why do we never think of that, you know? These guys from Mexico are... And a whole bunch of guys went in and they're standing outside looking across at the building and they lit a candle. Some guy's shirt, some stuff, gratitude about being sober. And the guy comes out of the building walking his dog. And he sees these guys and he walks over. He says, that's a pretty ritzy part of New York. He says what's the story here? And the guy says we're all alcoholics and we're sober today and on December 11th 1934 one of our co-founders had a spiritual experience in some room in that building that you live in we're not sure exactly which one and it's transformed our lives and we are here to pay gratitude. The guy says I've been living here for a number of years. I never knew that. He says, do you mind when I go back in if I put a candle in my window? And the guy went back into his apartment. My friend said, the blinds opened, the lights went out and the candle went in the window. This is unbelievable we have here. Thank God for Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith. People say, well, if it hadn't been Bill and Bob it would have been John and Jim. You know what? It wasn't John and James. Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith, they're the guys that done it. For thousands of years there was people like us couldn't fit in, ran at life with drink, ran away from life with drink. We were society's first outcasts. And on December 11th of 1934 remember in the old space race they would talk about the rockets coming back into the Earth's atmosphere and they would have to hit the Earth's atmosphere at exactly the right angle or they would skim off into space and they Would use a term A window of opportunity In December Of 1934 There was a window of Opportunity And Bill Wilson stepped through it And took all of us with him You can trace this moment in time Back to that moment in Time I'll be honest with you I never took my sobriety for granted, always very grateful to be sober, but I took air for granted. There's three nights a week down the road, what's the big deal? And you hang around here and you realize, this is lightning in a bottle. And I might never come around again. And I think on weekends like this, and I know like we said earlier, I'm preaching to the choir. The coffee makers are here. The chair people are here, the people who sweep up the meetings are here but we come to these weekends I remember the first time I went on a weekend like this I'm like hey let's just keep going Monday Tuesday Wednesday why go home let's get more speakers typical alcoholic you know half measures avail me nothing you know and my sponsor says to me there's a spiritual story about a guy and he takes three of his sponsees up to the top of the mountain and the guys one of the guys could identify with says let's just stay here it's so peaceful and the sponsor says we just come up here to recharge but down in the valley that's where the work has to be done and we come on these weekends and we fill our tanks and we get spiritually recharged so we come back to our home groups and we tell them what we have seen here this weekend the stories we have heard the blind seeing and the lame walking people miracles walking and talking miracles as i said they're unbelievable and i'm so glad that we have this because i don't want to be here like on a thing on weekends like this and talk about these steps and this 12th step i don'T WANT TO BE HERE LIKE THAT ICONIC DAWN MCCLEAN SONG I never dropped a bottle of whiskey I'll tell you that I don't want to be here like that iconic Don McLean song I don' t want to hear the day the music died oh the music used to play but it doesn't play anymore I guarantee you even this age there's more information about alcoholism at any time in human civilization. I guarantee you, if I leave this podium right now, I wouldn't even have to take a car. I could walk. I'm not by too long either knocking somebody's door and find someone drinking themselves to death right now. Totally oblivious to what's going on here. And what is our job that we've done this weekend is to keep that door open for the still sick and suffering alcoholic, whether it be inside or outside of this room there's a guy was mentioned here this weekend tom i i heard him saying one time a is on our watch and he says i don't want to go on down on my watch and i said absolutely and i think on weekends like this we're doing a lot to keep alive and vibrant because we're not entitled to this this is the gift that keeps on giving and as Bill Wilson I think he understood this when he had I don't know what happened in that room I talked about but something happened it was a change it changed everything a paradigm shift and he had this thought whether it was divinely inspired or not I don' t know but he had his thought surely there must be other people out there like me I wonder if my experience could help them and immediately before he even left the hospital he asked Dr. Silkworth can I even talk to the other patients even before he left the hospital and Dr. silkworth with some misgiving allowed him to do that see Bill Wilson got it we didn't have a 12th step but Bill Wilson realized if I'm helping you maybe I'm helping myself you are me and I am you without you there's no me if I'm doing A alone I'm doing something but it's not AA there's a friend of mine who says BB, I said what's BB? He says I don't know but it is not AA and Bill Wilson got it, we didn't have the 12 steps then, but he realized because you know what an 11 step program is for a guy like me an 11 Step Program is nothing more than a self help program don't get me wrong it's a highly evolved self-help program but it's a self-health program nonetheless the 12th step completes that spiritual circuit I need you and you need me there's one lifeboat and it's called Alcoholics Anonymous my disease would tell me get your own lifeboat put your name on the side sail off into the sunset there's one lifeboat and it's called Alcoholics Anonymous. It's none of my business who's sitting next to me in the lifeboat. That's God's business. It is my business if I'm willing to help that person or be helped by that person. For that, I am responsible. And it doesn't matter. We sit here. That's what I love about AlcoholicsAnonymous. Is one of the few places in the world that you can walk in a room full of strangers and start reminiscing there was people shared this weekend who grew up 6 000 miles from where i grew up and i identified with them every step of the way now what is that gender color creed when you see an alcoholic i know enough about you I know you've experienced terror frustration bewilderment and despair I know that you put a drink to your lips as if tears rolled down your face and you drank it anyway I know friends and family and loved ones pleaded with you not to drink or in my case for goodness sake at the end of my drinking I drank against my own will I know this I know because you tell me you're an alcoholic and I know it because I'm an alcoholic if we ever lose singleness of purpose we're finished I need you and you need me common alcoholics all these other things are important what do we do us alcoholists can do I'm not saying the other things aren't important the doctor treats the physical symptoms the clergyman looks for the lack of religious conviction the psychiatrist treats the causes the therapist treats the effects and the alcoholic dies drunk because nobody can get him sober those things are important but first things first there's a hierarchy of recovery the drinking has to stop and nothing in human history has worked better than one alcoholic working with another alcoholic they get them sober and eventually they can do all those other things if need be It's like the fire department coming to your house. The house is on fire. They don't stand outside going, I wonder how this fire started. I wonder how much damage is done to the second floor or is it electrical or that old boiler? They put the fire out and then they go in and see what's wrong. We do the exact same thing in Alcoholics Anonymous. Every time I've gotten trouble in AA it's when I've tried to deal with something that I've no experience in. When I've talked about something I've not experienced in, that's every time I've gotten in trouble. If I stick, it's like when you apply for a job and you look at a job online and it gives you job description. What's my job description as an alcoholic and AA? Stay sober, help another alcoholic. If i stick to that job description, I won't get in trouble and even more importantly I won't get the other person in trouble every time I stray away from my job description and try to do things that I'm not qualified or not meant to do is when I've gotten trouble in alcoholic synonymous and that's why I carry this message my message might even keep me sober and I think of the life I've been given an alcoholic synonymus I got sober a couple of guys in the old South Bronx group in New York and they had a mantra that group we don't give up on anybody and they didn't give up on me I'd given up on myself a long time ago but they didn' t give up I love this time of the year that Christmas car movie I like the old version with Alistair Sim and I think at the end of my drinking about the three ghosts the ghost of the past and the ghost to the present and the ghost of the future. I don't know why I became an alcoholic, but I took that first drink. I was 14 or 15 years of age back in Northern Ireland. I had this stone in the shoe. I had just not in the stomach when I was over there, I wanted to be over here. When I was upstairs, I wanted me downstairs and then I took my first drink and then took that drink. For whatever reason, I don'T KNOW what a hole in my soul long before I took drink and I took out drinking it filled in all the holes it took off all the rough edges it made me be everything I thought you wanted me to be and for a chronic people pleaser with low self esteem it was a magic elixir but it was a Faustian bargain I made a deal with the devil booze will give you a lift but when it comes time to pay the freight watch out, in the merchant of Venice Shylock just wanted one pound of flesh not this disease it'll take your job your car your wife the shirt off your back but what it really wants is me six feet under there's a lot of terminal diseases out there I don't know about those but I know about this one this disease will kill me stone dead with or without booze in my body I don'T NEED BOOZE IN MY BODY TO DESTROY MY LIFE I ALMOST DID IT NAY BECAUSE I WOULDN'T ACCEPT THESE 12 PRINCIPLES Now, when I took that first drink at 15 years of age back in Northern Ireland, promising soccer career. Rick's wearing his Manchester United shirt, promising soccer career, that went out the window. I took the first drink, the stone came out of the shoe, the knot came out the stomach. You've heard all the different metaphors. The one that works for me, it was like black and white to color. I took that first drink, just like Dorothy. I knew I wasn't in Kansas anymore. Now if the ghost of my alcoholic future had stepped in at that point and said, I want to show you something. Look in that window. You see that guy drinking around the clock against his own will? You see a guy that's pushed away everybody who mattered in his life? You see the guy who was quicksand stressed all around him? That's you in 15 years. I'd have said you're in your mind You must be thinking of somebody else But that's exactly what happened My life fell apart In short order By 1987 Geographical cure A snow quince I'm standing in America An Irish accent I was a long distance runner Somewhere, someday, out there Always looking for an outside fix For an inside job Ended up on Rockaway Beach, New York I don't know if you know Rockaway Beach, New York. It's a big Irish-American neighborhood. People call it, you know, they go, oh, Rockaway Beach, the Irish Riviera. It should have been called Cirrhosis by the Sea. They have more alcoholics per square foot. Here's a guy going to make it big in America. I end up as a bartender in the worst bar in a town that has a lot of worse bars. The bar that I worked in, if you want to see a full set of teeth, you need 32 customers, you know? That's male and female. And you can forget about ladies' night. Most of the women that came in there looked like they did their makeup on a trampoline. Over here, over there, back over here. But water fine to some level instead of alcoholics. here's a guy going to make it big in America but the first thing I'm packed out of the case was me and this is where I end up I'm in the Bronx in a basement I think at this time of the year around November my mother would start calling from Ireland if I had a phone I would go off the grid for months at a time my poor mother would be going around Northern Ireland asking other people who had children in New York would you ask your son if he has seen my son just tell him to call home and let us know he's all right so you start calling this time of the year paul can you come home for christmas yes mom i'll be home this christmas just like the song says you can count on me christmas would come christmas will go and i would be a no-show that's what i hated about myself more than anything about this disease my name wasn't worth the papers written on I wanted to be there for you but if a drink up between me and you you're always coming in second place and here it was it was Christmas time he was the guy going to make it big in America I'm living in the Bronx in a basement on a mattress with a phone that takes incoming calls my mother tracked me down through a friend of a friend who was a bartender in Manhattan it's Christmas Eve there's something about Christmas Eve in the life of an alcoholic I had a huge abscess in my mouth I'd gathered the money up twice to go to the dentist drank at both times I'm laying down there in the afternoon woke up mattress covered in blood and the phone rings and it's my mother calling from Ireland there's a five hour time difference between the East Coast and Ireland. They're five hours ahead. And she says, Paul, I went to midnight mass tonight and I prayed for you. And I thought to myself, don't pray for me. I'm beyond the beyond. I ain't coming back. I could not see a way back from there to here. I didn't have that vision. You people had that vision a little while after that I'm on another drunk I'd like to tell you I got sober that night went outside at some Frank Capra it's a wonderful life moment but I didn't I drank on after that I went down deeper but as far down as you go with alcohol you can come up in Alcoholics Anonymous I'm not going to stand up here like some snake oil salesman and promise you the moon and the stars there's things I lost through drinking they're not coming back there's things you might have lost through drinking they're not coming either who among us could live with the guilt and shame of remorse of our drinking if it wasn't for the 12 steps to alleviate that I wasn't a sociopath I knew the bridges I burned the doors I closed the people I walked away from thank God for this program I can't change the past but I'm able to change my perception of the past and get free from the one guy could never get free from. I lived in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. We talked about freedom, we marched in the streets for freedom, and we sat in pubs singing about freedom. I wouldn't have known freedom if it had jumped up next to me. I'm free this morning. I am as free as any time I've been in my life. It mightn't seem like much to an un-alcoholic to get on a plane in New York I'm flying to Las Vegas, but that's a freedom I didn't have 26 years ago. Alcohol had become the common denominator in my life. Every decision I made consciously or unconsciously was divided through the first drink. Is there enough booze? Even going here to the car park, is there enough booz to get me there? Is it enough when I get there? And will there be enough to bring me back? and when you live your life as we do under those parameters your life gets smaller and smaller with less people in it to your sitting where I was drinking around the clock against my own will knowing loneliness and only an alcoholic can know and the sad thing about this disease by the time you're actually graveyard dead you've been dead mentally spiritually and emotionally for years and anybody who mattered in your life is long, long gone. Because that's what we do to people. They're like go away and drink or go away and don't drink but you've got to go. And these two I'm in this apartment well you want to call it that drinking again I love when people are telling their stories in Alcoholics Anonymous might have been Clancy said this but it's so true and there becomes that moment in their story and it's called and then I sit up like a German shepherd because I know God's coming in the next sentence there's not a person in here 24 hours sober that hasn't had an and then moment and mine was coming I'm sitting in an apartment drinking around the clock and a note came under the door and it said what I've been hearing since I was 15 you're a nice guy but you drink too much it had a man's telephone number on it I picked up the phone I'd been drinking for about 10 or 12 days on this drunk I used to have seizures coming off now I'm having them while I'm drinking I put down this note I'm sitting there and I called this guy and he'd been praying that I might call I said I can't stop drinking I can'st stop drinking he says Paul you can't stop drinking because you're an alcoholic and me and another man are going to come to your house and I hung up the phone with him I hadn't got down on my knees in probably 15 years I was in sort of, I grew up in a place in Northern Ireland where people shot each other outside their front door over who had the right God I remember as a young kid hearing a rat-a-tat-tat open the door and there's two guys lying dead on the doorstep. We were burnt out of our house by the opposing paramilitaries. I put a gun to my father's head, I thought I was going to shoot him I used to think about God, I said God? He never came down our street very often but you can go ahead and talk about him and I moved away. Did I make a conscious decision to move away? I don't think so but it was a drift almost a glacial drift but just like a plane flying off course it doesn't have to go 180 degrees just one degree long enough and far enough you're completely lost and at 30 years of age I'm sitting in an apartment and I'm lost I'm a man without a plan I'm finished and I know it and I got down on my knees for the first time in 15 or maybe longer and I said the alcoholic prayer that I've heard many times in AA if there's anything out there please help me And I felt like someone walked up behind me and took a great weight off my shoulders. A sense of peace came over me that I've never experienced before or since. And a thought came into my head, you don't have to drink again if you don' t want to. And the two men came to the door. I told them what I just told you. And the one guy says, Paul, you had a spiritual experience. It'll get you sober, but it won't keep you sober. We've got to get you to Alcoholics Anonymous. I was too sick to go to a meeting then, but about 48 hours later, those two guys bookended me into my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And coming to a meet of Alcoholic Anonymous, being 12 steps into this program, is the greatest singular event in my life. Everything else is secondary and tertiary. Because unbeknownst to myself, I was moving from the problem to the solution. as I said during a life a life beyond my wildest dreams I'm not going to stand up here and tell you that come into AA score a touchdown the book talks about ballroom mentality I come in here with ballroom mentality, the book talk about letting go of old ideas and I come here with a lot of old ideas I love the simplicity of Alcoholics Anonymous this spiritual awakening it says have a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps past tense in other words my response would be Paul you go through this program willingly or you go to this program unwillingly the result is the same if you go though this program and you're an alcoholic you will have had a spiritual waking I made life very difficult for myself this program looked too easy it looked too simple there's got to be more to this it just can't be that and I'm two and a half years in Alcoholics Anonymous and I won't do all these steps and I am sitting in Alcoholic Anonymous and I m dying from the inside out of untreated alcoholism I have a sponsor but a name only and a guy called me one night at a meeting he says Paul can I talk to you I said sure he says you're dying and you're down in AA you're like a starving man at a spiritual banquet just like this morning there's all this food on offer and you over here living on bread and water keeping my arm as length with your one liners and your glib phrases the guy had my number because you can fool them it's a coffee pot I've done that You know when untreated alcoholism comes to visit me? Two o'clock in the morning. Could'ves, should'ves would'ves guilt, shame, remorse another sleepless night in sobriety. I still wasn't convinced to do all these steps. The next day I'm driving out of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel a guy cut me off and I go really? seven lane highway i chase after him jam him against the guardrail this is rush hour new york traffic i'm blocking three lanes two and a half years off drink no program get out of the car i don't care who's in the other car i'm out of my mind i go back there's an asian man sitting behind the wheel shaking his wife's crying and his three kids are crying in the back of the car. Two and a half years off drink, no program. I apologized profusely at his window, which he didn't roll down. Don't blame him either. I got back in the car, I hit my head on the steering wheel. I said, I'm crazier off drink than I was on it. And in some respects, I was right. After the jumping off place twice in my life, once with drink and once with no drink in no program different type of pain but pain nonetheless i go to my sponsor's house and name only you can bring a horse to water you can make him thirsty but he's got a drink my sponsor was doing everything but i wasn't willing to go through these steps and have a full spiritual awakening i go into his house he should sit on his porch smoking big cigars super long time and he was smoking this big cigar and he said i told him what i just told you and he sat back and he says paul how old were you when this happened i says harold this happened 20 minutes ago what do you mean harold i don't know why this is we're not getting it we're kind of lost in translation here you know i gotta get you hooked on phonics the shamrock version you know bring you up to speed you know And he coined that phrase, Harry Thiebaud, that was a great friend of A.A., coined thatphrase, His Majesty the Baby. He says, Paul, you've got to grow up. You're 32 years of age. His Majesty the Baby, they don't make cribs in your size. here i was an alcoholic synonymous unwilling to move through this program going through life i was physically mentally and spiritually and emotionally exhausted trying to put square blocks in round holes against my better judgment everything that's helped me in Yes, but against my better judgment, I get into the cause and effects of my drinking. My sponsor grabbed me by the lapels outside a meeting one night and says, Paul, you've been dragging these two hefty bags full of garbage around from the schoolyard. Are you going to let go of this? If you don't, like I said with the George Allen, if you don' t live the life that you're meant to live in sobriety, that life is going to go unlived. Nobody's got the desires you have. Nobody's not going to live the lives that you want to live. Nobody's going to get the talents you have, nobody's got to dreams that you have if you don't live your life it's going to go unlived and that's on you drop the rock garb whatever you want to call it I had to get free and I started to put stuff down on paper is it good to do the 12 steps and get a full knowledge of your condition absolutely but for what purpose what's the whole reason of me having a spiritual awakening I think somewhere someday I'm going to be asked one question What did you do with the gift that was given to you? Well, I worked on myself And I worked out I worked at myself some more Then I did some more working on myself I'll ask again What didyou do With the giftthatwasgiventoyou Is it good to get a knowledge of condition? Absolutely You know when my life caught on fire You know my life took on new meaning You know when great events came to pass in my life? When I turned around and tried to take another man through the program. That's what this is all about. Without you, there's no me. And Alcoholics Anonymous, we have the ability. And this is not easy. I'm so glad that they've practiced these principles. There's days I'm sober. And there's days, I just don't drink. But thank God, with the help of a sponsor, I can find out the difference. I come to Alcoholics Anonymous and as I said there, practice these principles and having the life that I have. I mean, as I sad there, I came into AlcoholicsAnonymous at 30 years of age working in this crazy gin mill in Rockaway. They cut me down to Tuesday night, one night a week. They said give him Tuesday. Nobody goes out on a Tuesday. Even he can't screw that up. And here I am. I come into AA and my sponsor was saying to me, Paul, I didn't get a high school diploma. Dropped out of school at 15 drunk back in Ireland. And oh, sitting in AA two and a half years and all this shame and disgrace and self-loathing and not good enoughness. And my sponsor says, Paul, why don't you go back to school? I said, Paul, come on. I'm 32 years of age. Can't wait for the bus to pick me up in the morning in the corner. He says, Paul how do we do things around here one day at a time? What if I fail? Paul, nothing beats a failure but a try why didn't you just try I took a class I loved it took another class got a high school diploma got a degree, another degree two graduate degrees these are the benefits these are just the benefits byproduct of a sober life got into education when I first started teaching I wanted to teach the brightest of the bright and I did that for a while go out on other plans I work in special education now. I work with children. They don't know anything but the present moment. They're spiritually pure. They do naturally what comes to me unnaturally, live in the present moment. And what a gift. They think I'm teaching them. They're teaching me. I go to kids' houses for the New York City Board of Ed, children who can't get to school. I see children that will not graduate. Kids sitting there with cancer, walking to that house on a Monday morning with your mickey mouse problems and you get a full realization of what's really going on here what's real important i try to add to the situation instead of my old life always taking taking taking what's in it for me but i don't do this program perfectly i dropped the ball many times thank god for a sponsor went through some tough times sobriety practice these principles and all our affairs Bob will tell you I was 20 years sober 6 year old daughter married and through a divorce resentment to here harbored up to here another guy involved I'd be putting my daughter to bed when I had to move out I'd put my daughter to bed she was 6 years of age I'd been putting her to bed at night and she says to me daddy I don't want to get divorced this is 20 years sober i go into the living room i said man i've destroyed this kid's life the hell's wrong with me i'm 20 years over my marriage is falling apart what's wrong with me what's going on here did i miss something i'm trying to do you know i'm saying gonna get mad at god god what's gone on here i'm in a good air i'm a good boy I eat my A vegetables. What the hell is going on here? Why is this happening to me? And I spoke, Bob called me about something completely different. He says, Paul, I want you to come and speak. I said, Bob, you might want to get somebody else. My life's falling apart right now, right in the middle of AA. He says Paul, I'll never forget it. I had a good sponsor, but sometimes, you know, people say something. He says、 Paul, there's two things can happen. here. This can kick you into AA or this can kick you out of AA. And only you can decide which way you're going to go. And chances are if you're facing in, you'll go further in. You're facing out, adios. Thank God I was facing the right way and it pushed me in at a good sponsor. If you're doing this alone as mentioned here yesterday, Thomas Merton he got it right this idea that i can engineer an architect my own personal salvation project bunch of nonsense because the ego gets involved i need you to help me and my sponsor help i would never have gotten through that without the help of sponsorship my sponsor said to me paul take the high road i don't want to take the high Road do you know what happened to me he said paul take the high road. Am I ever glad that I took the high road? There's a guy here taping right now. Helped me immensely many times. Lee and Big Jimmy at different places. I'm thinking, oh my God, I've ruined my daughter's life. Two years ago, my wife went off and I'm glad for her. She married that guy and I hope they're happy and I wish them well. when he lives six blocks apart four nights a week my daughter stays with her four nights a week a week she stays with me i'm thinking myself i've ruined this kid's life i'm thinking my life's over okay i'll just come ahead a daughter you know that's so i'm okay i met a woman in alcoholics anonymous we got married two years ago in december I got a 10 month old baby at home right now two years ago in December that daughter she's at high school right now got a $40,000 scholarship for singing at a private Catholic school in New York doing great two years before two years go in December at my wedding at the end of the wedding and you're sitting up on the altar you're looking out, which normally you don't see out of the congregation just her and the guy up in the thing playing the organ she sang O Holy Night you could have heard a pin drop in the place I thought to myself that feeling I had that morning that's what I was looking for in whiskey and I came this close a few times that spiritual awakening the closest thing to a spiritual awakening that actually isn't one is drinking booze it's this close It looks like the real deal. It feels like the Real deal. You almost think it is The real deal but it's not It's bogus, it's counterfeit It's phony and it's fleeting This is the real Deal here in Alcoholics Anonymous And you can have moments like that in your life And many of you have heard them here all weekend You know the key to success In Alcoholics Anonymous You will have had a spiritual awakening It's guaranteed in black and white You know what the key is for me is to stay awake. It's so easy to fall asleep in Alcoholics Anonymous. Especially when you've got a few years in here. It's just so easy it's so easily to nod off in Alcoholic Anonymous and just like nodding off behind the wheel of a car you don't have to sleep for very long for something really bad to happen and that's life there's these ups and these downs I've seen moments in my life i remember sitting a day break on the mount of olives in jerusalem overlooking the city and i thought i could reach out just like the sistine chapel and touch god and there's other mornings i wake up i feel i'm on a spiritual barn desert but i know what to do i have these tools i have the spiritual tools that are laid at my feet I have to go down and pick them up and use them as I said there and the problems I have today compared to where I was and the life I have today and how this thing this her sobriety in this 12th step in my own family in my greater family it's the rock in the pond it's a ripple effect as I say their alcoholism I was I'll tell you a quick story I was at a funeral one time in Ireland many years ago typical Irish, you know all these elephants in the living room that nobody talks about and I hear this guy's name mentioned Uncle Bertie I'm like who's Uncle Berti? I never heard of him oh shh we don't talk about him this guy I know it sounds like something out of a Catherine Cookson novel this guy back in Ireland in the 1930s you could take a family member and sign them into the insane asylum in red ink that means they're never getting out this guy was an alcoholic 1931, I looked into this he was signed into the local asylum and spent the rest of his life there because he was an alcoholic my brother's sober now over 20 years back in Northern Ireland the chain has been broken because we have this ability to help each other the first country that AA went to in Europe was Ireland. I don't know why that is. I think it's a little cultural profiling if you ask me. And the story is so amazing. 1946, Connor Flynn, who's from Philadelphia, he's sober two years. He's in Ireland on a vacation. He realizes there's no way out. He decides to start a meeting. that's getting nowhere in a hurry, ready to pack up and come back home, meet somebody who tells him about this doctor who's working with alcoholics in a hospital. He goes to the doctor. This is 1946. The doctor says, I'd never even heard of AA. But I'll tell you what. We've got a guy in one of the rooms down here. He's been here 30 times. Some days he's drunk on the way home from the hospital. If you can help anybody, try and help him. And Connor Flynn went down to the room and did what had been done here this weekend shared experience, strength and hope Harry drank, Harry got sober and Harry the man or the woman in the bed didn't get sober he talked about himself just like Bill Wilson did to Dr. Bob the guy in the bedroom was called Richard Percival he'd been talked to, talked at preached at, preached over he was a dead man walking and he knew it but this was something different he got out of his bed never took another drink to the day he died 1971 those two men started A in Ireland that's the power of alcoholic tsunamis, one alcoholic working with another and all that other stuff that seems so important is left where it should be in the car park and we talk about our common problem and our common solution and in that there's more unites us than ever divides us I was home in Northern Ireland one time. It was Christmas time. I'll end on this story and I'll sit down. And one of the paramilitary leaders got murdered in prison. The whole country blew up. And I was asked to speak at a meeting in Belfast that night. And my brother says, Paul, we can't go down into Belfost tonight. They're burning buses, barricades. Well, I'm like, I will go anyway. So we take this we're going from one side of Belfast to the Protestant part from the Catholic part into the Protestant part, took this circuitous route to get to the meeting and things were bad and I love AA humor, we're driving through into this part of Balfast and one of the guys says, just think about the last time four Catholics were in this part of Balthast, they were in the trunk of the car, you know and we drove on to the meeting and we pulled up and the kids over there they got this thing called joy riding where they steal cars drive them around then burn them out and they seen our car pulling up and they're like oh fresh meat and uh the guy stepped out of the meeting and he realized the effort we had made to get there that night and he said to the kids hey kids leave that car alone these guys are friends of ours. And we walked into the meeting and we talked about our common problem and we talked about a common solution. And the whole country was in big turmoil that night. And I can't think of another place in Northern Ireland that night where Catholics and Protestants were sitting together, getting sober. We hang together or we die alone. I'm not going to tell you that we came out of the meeting and went skipping down the street singing come by ah those guys thanked us for our service and i felt good knowing that they were sober in the world and i think they have felt good known that we were sobering the world that's what we have here if you're new or maybe not so new don't miss this i came this close to missing this. I'd like to end on a few words that sums up how I feel about this 12th step and how I feel about you and Alcoholics Anonymous may the road rise to meet you, may the wind be always at your back, may the sun shine warm upon your face and the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again may God hold you in the palm of his hand. Thank you so much Thank you.