The Bondage of Self and the Delusion of Managing Well – Rory M.

Our speaker is Rory and he told me his sponsor's name seven times and I can't remember who it is. I know his sponsor came down and spoke at our anniversary, so that's pretty cool. And the thing is, Rory's from Austin. He goes to the Primary Purpose Group in Austin and he's actually driving down here every Wednesday. They say when the hand of AA reaches out, you reach back and that's exactly what he's doing. So let's give it up for Rory. I'm Rory McShane. I'm an alcoholic. Give me a second to get situated. Y'all don't start working right when you get to work, do you? I'm sober since June the 5th of 2010. I'm very grateful for that. I have a sponsor, Bob Darrell. He knows he is my sponsor. You could argue he is painfully aware he's my sponsor. He might argue that. I have a service commitment and I sponsor a lot of men in Alcoholics Anonymous. God, sitting here before the meeting, I'm just thinking about how much I love watching people get chips and I'm just thinking about how much I love Alcoholics Anonymous, man. And I love everything about it, man. I love the coffee. I love the clubhouses. I don't even mean it ironically. I take it over Starbucks, man, just because it feels like home to me, right? Sometimes you go to a meditation. You go to a meditation meeting, right? And they tell you, you know, go to your peaceful place, your happy place, right? And some people think about a creek or a riverbed or, you know, something like that. And for me, that's the two minutes before an AA meeting starts and you can hear 40 people talking and zero people listening. And it's just, I know I'm right with my people, man. So tonight, we're going to try and talk a little bit about steps one, two, and three. You know, the first step, the first step as I understand it, it's two parts, right? The first part says that when I start drinking, I cannot stop, right? Something different happens to me that happens to most people, 90% of the population. Something different happens to me when I start drinking. I have that first drink. I go out and I say I'm going to have two beers and I'm going to hang out with my buddies. I'm going to, I'm, I'm, I'm, but, you know, I'm not going to blow the lid tonight, right? I'm not getting arrested tonight. The police aren't coming tonight. I'm not going to end up with vomit all over myself. Again, tonight, this is, I learned this recently. This is this, it was, it was shocking to me when I learned it. I don't know if it will be to you. Did you know that most people only throw up from drinking two times in their entire life? I'm serious. I'm, I'm a hundred percent. That shocked me. Here's another one I recently learned. And I'm telling you guys, I mean, I've been sober a little while now, but I, it's like, I learn new stuff all the time. This one is true. I've verified it. There are people in this world. Who are born, live their entire lives and die without ever getting arrested. I know, I know. Where I'm from, we call them losers. So, so, so when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous, I had a, I had a good understanding of the first part of the first step, which is that once I start drinking, I cannot stop. When I say I'm going to have two, I'm not going to meet that mark, right? Because the problem is, is when I say I'm going to have two, I mean, right around one and a half, I have a spiritual epiphany that today is a bad day for two, right? And, and I get that, man. I could write you two hundred pages on times that I said I was going to have one, and then one turned into two, and two turns into four, and four becomes eight, and then by the time you're at eight, it's like, let's just roll. We'll try some variety tomorrow, right? And, and, And, you know, I grew up in the East Coast, right? I grew up outside of Baltimore, Maryland. And all the states up there are really tiny, right? So you could go into like a blackout, you know, and get in the car and start driving outside of Baltimore. And you wake up and I've woken up in Pennsylvania a couple of times, right? I've woken up in Virginia. And the stories just aren't as good out in these big states like Texas because you can drive for eight hours here and you're just in another part of Texas, right? There's a little less panache to it. But, you know, I remember one time it was a nice summer day, right? And it was me and my best friend and my girlfriend and his girlfriend. And we're not going to go crazy, right? We're going to get a 12-pack of beer and we're going to get a six-pack of those hard lemonades they used to have for the girls, right? And we're going to have some hamburger and some potato salad and it's going to be just a nice, chill summer day. Nobody's getting loaded, right? And, you know, so we start drinking the beers. And he has two of them and I have the rest. And, you know, then we're out of beer. And I go into the refrigerator to start getting these hard lemonades. And my sweet little girlfriend comes up to me and she says, but those are supposed to be for me and my friend. I'm paying the bills around here. You don't tell me what I can drink. Various sponsors I've had over the years have felt it's important to mention we were both living at my mother's house and I was unemployed at that time. I've felt it's less important to mention that. But, right, or this one time I was, you know, I was at this party with a buddy of mine and we're drinking and we're doing outside issues and we go to leave the party. And we're going to turn onto the highway and I need to vomit, right? But I physically can't hold myself up. So I open the door to his van and I fall face first out of the van into my own vomit on the highway, right? And it didn't bother me one bit. It was nice and cool on a hot summer day. Like, it didn't bother me at all. And my buddy leans over and he's like, you can't take a nap on the highway, man. Like, come on. You know, he gets me up in the van and we go down to his house and I get myself all cleaned up and everything. And he's like, and I come downstairs and I'm like, all right, so what do you have to drink? And he's like, what do you mean what do I have to drink? You were passed out on the highway 45 minutes ago. And I'm like, that in no way relates to the question I asked you. You focus, man, right? So I get that piece of it before I even get to Alcoholics Anonymous. That once I start, I cannot stop. But see, what I don't understand is that second piece of the first step that says once I stop, I can't stay stopped. I went through my first treatment center when I was 16 years old, right? And I did the most important thing you can do at your first treatment center. I got a treatment center girlfriend. And I swear to God, man, those little socks with the grippy bottoms on them, I mean, Cinderella slippers. This might shock you. Neither of us stays sober after that. And by the time I was 17 years old, I honestly wanted to stop. I remember I was dating this girl and she was a really, really nice, good girl. And she'd come to me and said she was pregnant. And I said, all right, Teresa, I'm going to straighten out. I'm going to stop drinking. I'm going to stop getting loaded. I swear to God. And I said, well, I'm going to stop drinking. And I had a good father growing up, and I wanted to be that, right? And her dad came to me and said, Rory, if you can get sober, I can get you a job at my construction company. He was like a foreman at a construction company. And I went to my father, and I said, Dad, I swear to God, if you let me move back in the house. I was a hobosexual for a little while, which is where you fall in love for a place to live. I was young and good looking back then. I'm fat and bald now, so I can't pull off that move. But so I go to my father, and I said, Dad, I swear to God, if you let me move back in the house, I will get sober. I swear I'll stop. And you could have hooked me up to a lie detector test, and I would have passed the lie detector test. Because I don't know that I might as well have promised that man that I'm going to sprout wings, fly around the room, and come back and land. I don't have the ability to make that promise. So there's a line on page 24 of our book that says, There comes a time in the drinking of every alcoholic when the most powerful desire to stop. Drinking is of absolutely no avail. I had the most powerful desire to stop drinking, and I made it six weeks. And you know what the problem with not drinking for a guy like me is? It feels like you're holding your breath. And I can hold my breath for a minute. But eventually I've got to breathe again. June the 4th of 2010. I was back living at my mother's house. There's a little bit of a theme here, right? You know where all good gangsters, any other gangsters in the room, former gangsters, right? All good gangsters end up at mom's house, right? There's this little kid, he's a grand sponsee of mine. And we were sitting in the meeting the first time I met him. And he gets called up, and he shares, he goes, I'm a gangster, and gangsters don't need sponsors. I loved him so much I almost asked him to sponsor me. I mean, it was like, he just spoke to my heart. But he's doing real good. He's a few months sober now. And anyways, so June the 4th of 2010, my last drunk, and it was far from my worst drunk. And I got violent, and it was far from the most violent I'd ever gotten. And mom comes to me the next morning and says, you've got three hours to get out of my house or I'm calling the police. I'm having you trespassed on my property. And this is a woman, y'all. My mother is 4'11", 105 pounds. This woman loves me. I mean, paid for criminal defense attorneys, treatment centers, psychiatrists, psychologists. Anybody with a couple letters behind their name who said that they could fix her kid, she'd give her credit card to. And she said, you've got three hours to get out of my house or I'm calling the police. So I go to this meeting in Brooklyn, Maryland, which is south Baltimore. And I remember it like it was yesterday. There was a young black guy in the meeting. He had on a red checkered shirt, and he said, today can be the worst day. It can all be uphill from here, right? And that gave me like a little bit of hope. Enough hope. And so I'm going to make another run at it. I swear to God, this time I'm going to stay sober. This time I am going to stay sober for sure. And I'm going to like three meetings a day. I'm smoking five packs of cigarettes a day. I'm going from the 5.30 meeting to the 8.30 meeting. Back then there were three midnight meetings in driving. There was a midnight meeting in Annapolis, a midnight meeting in Baltimore, and I think two in Washington, D.C., and they were all like 45 minutes. And I'm going to meetings. And I hate every single one of them. And I hate every single person I meet, right? And every single one of you. And that's all. Thanks for letting me speak. Because you know how it is when you're new, right? You're still like, you know, you can barely hold a cup of coffee in your hand, and you've just burned your life to the ground. But everyone in the room is so freaking grateful for everything, right? You're sitting there, and you don't know where you're going to get your next cigarette, and some boob is like, I saw a rainbow on the way to the meeting, and I knew God wanted me at AA, and I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful for AA. And then the next guy is like, you know, I used to live under a bridge, but through the miracle of AA, today I'm vice president of the bank. And it's like, oh, shoot me, right? But I don't know what else to do, and I'm going and I'm going. But I tell you what's happening is I'm starting to think, man, whatever these A&A people have, whatever's wrong with them, that must not be what's wrong with me. Because, see, AA must be a program for people who they ruin their lives because they drank too much. I ruined my life because I drank too much. They go to a million of these meetings. I'm going to a million of these meetings. And then they get happier than shit, and I'm miserable every day, right? And I'll tell you what happened. I'll be honest with you. I'll tell you what happened. I was at, it was Fourth of July time, so I was, I was at, I guess I would have been just under a month sober, and I was at the Samaritan House picnic. It's a halfway house outside of Annapolis, Maryland. And I'm there, and I'm miserable, and I hate everybody, and I hate the guy who's up at the podium speaking. And so if you're sitting there, if you're sitting there tonight feeling that way, much love, you are represented, right? And this girl asks me if I want to leave the picnic with her. And when you look like me, and a girl asks you if you want to do anything, the answer is yes, right? So we take off, and we go meet up with her friends, and they're drinking Bud Limes, and they're eating Oxycons. And I'm like, oh, my God. And I don't want to do it. I don't want to pick up. I don't want to drink. But I'm watching them like a cat watches you. You need a tuna fish sandwich. I mean. And I knew that if something didn't change, this AA thing was going to be just like the treatment centers and just like the psychologists and the psychiatrists and the therapists. And I had a little stage where I tried to stop drinking by going to church and becoming an evangelical Christian and jumping for Jesus. And I don't want to say there's anything wrong with that for anyone who identifies with that faith. And there were wonderful people there. And I took it seriously. I was so serious about it, I broke up with my punk rock girlfriend because I was like, you know, I'm going to do this. And that didn't work for me. And I'd heard people around the room talking about sponsorship, right? Get a sponsor. Who's your sponsor, right? And the only problem, and I've had enough time to analyze this in 13 Years of Sobriety, the only problem with the word sponsor is it sounds just a little bit too much like parole officer. And so that. That was not a part of the program that I was particularly interested in. But I was standing outside this Saturday night young people's meeting in Annapolis, Maryland. And I saw these guys, man, and they were relatively young guys. And they're, you know, late 20s, early 30s, and they were happy. And I don't know, man. There was something about them. And I go up to the one guy after the meeting, and I'm like, hey, man. I'm, like, looking for, like, a sponsor, man. I felt like I was. I was asking if I could be his girlfriend. Like, I mean, it was one of the more humiliating moments. I mean, you know. And I'll tell you what. That feeling has never really gone away. When I asked my current sponsor to sponsor me after my last sponsor died, there was still a little bit of that, like, you know, that feeling. And he says, sure, you know, I'll sponsor you. And his, one of the guys he sponsored who was speaking at the meeting comes up to me and says, so what are you doing, man? And I said, I'm just trying not to drink and go to meetings. I'm trying not to drink and go to meetings. I'm trying not to drink and go to meetings. And fortunately, he was, you know, he was a man who was armed with the facts about himself, right? And the facts of Alcoholics Anonymous and the facts of our big book. And he didn't tell me some happy horse stuff like, oh, just keep coming back. You'll be okay. He said, you're probably going to die, bro. And, like, I was ready to fight him outside the meeting, y'all. Like, again, I was young and tough back then. I'm fat and bald now. I've got about two minutes of fighting before cardiac arrest. But, you know. And I'm, like, so I'm, like, pissed off at the guy. And he's, like, why don't you call me? Calm down and come down to the diner with us, right? We go down to Rip's Restaurant off Crane Highway. And he opens our book and he shows me page 52. And on page 52, it lists out the symptoms of untreated alcoholism. It says we're prey to misery and depression. We have trouble making a living. We have trouble in personal relationships here. Anybody here have trouble in personal relationships? Y'all might not have it up here, but it's big down in Austin, right? You know, I got midnight sponsee phone calls are all about personal relationships. And. And we're full of fear today. They call that anxiety, right? And oh, my God. One by one, these things are hitting me. There's eight symptoms of untreated alcoholism on page 52. And if y'all are poker players, aces and eights is the dead man's hand, right? Eight symptoms for eight symptoms is the dead man's hand. I've sponsored a lot of guys over. I'm fortunate to have never relapsed since I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. Um. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I've sponsored a lot of guys who haven't. And to a man, I ask them when they come back, I say, I ask them, what time, what time did you drink at? You know, and then normally it's in the evening, you know, six o'clock, eight o'clock, 10 o'clock, whatever. I said, OK, well, what time did you wake up that morning? Oh, I woke up at six, seven, eight, nine, whatever. And I said, OK, if I had run into you at Starbucks 30 minutes after you woke up and said, are you going to drink today? What would you have told me? And to a man, every single one of them says, no, I absolutely didn't think I was going to drink that day. And then I open the book to page 52 and I say, now if I listed off these things on page 52, prey to misery, depression, full of fear, trouble in personal relationships, can't make a living, can't be of real help to other people, how many of those things would have applied to you the morning you woke up that you relapsed? Every single one. Y'all see, relapse is not a mistake. It's not an accident. It's not, it's not, I drove by the liquor store and there was a sale on Budweiser. So, oh man, I just don't want to lose money on this. I thought y'all were smart up here in North Texas. It's the neglect, it's the neglect of my spiritual condition until I get to the point where I have no other choice but to drink, right? My willpower does not do anything against it. So they take me to the part of the book in the doctor's opinion where it says, I mean, it's one of my favorite lines in the book, but you can tell that it's XXVIII, but you can tell it's not written by an alcoholic, right? Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. Y'all, I'm a big boy. I like barbecue. I like barbecue brisket. I've never robbed my mother for it, right? Their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. I had a perfect example of this. My ex and I, when we were together, we were out in a meeting in Las Vegas and she was an Al-Anon. And we're sitting there in the meeting and we're listening to the speaker. And the speaker's like, you know, I, I, I went to, I went to treatment, but I AMA'd. What's AMA'd mean? Left against vice. Well, and then I, and then I got a, what was it? It was an, it was an ex-son. It's like, and then I, but then I got arrested and I ROR'd. What's ROR'd mean? Released on your own recognizance. And then I got a DUI. So I had to go see my PO and give a UA. Driving under the influence parole officer, right? Like, but, but, but see, but around these terms, these are common parts, right? But to somebody out there, if I go tell grandma, I got to go give a UA to my PO because I got a DWI. Grandma has no idea. I got a DUI. I got a DUI. I got a DUI. I got a DUI. I got a DUI. I'm talking about. I say that in here. Y'all are like, oh, who's your PO? I know him. He's a good guy, right? Because what happens is, cause I don't go from the way I was when I was 14 years old, when I started drinking to the way I was when my first day in Alcoholics Anonymous overnight. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, little by little by little that I, my, my externalities, the things around me start to change to mirror how I'm living. So how I'm living by comparison seems normal to me. Y'all with me on this? And then I think, what is probably the most important line in our literature written by Dr. William Silk, where it says, we are restless, irritable, and discontent until we can once again gain the sense of ease and comfort that comes at once from taking a few drinks. See, my main problem is not the fact that once I start drinking, I can't stop. That's a big problem. But if all that was wrong with me was what happened when I drank vodka, what would the really simple answer to that question be? Don't drink vodka, right? If we all went out to dinner over the diner tonight after the meeting and I ordered a peanut butter sandwich and I broke out in hives and I started swelling up and having shortness of breath and Aaron had to rush me down to the hospital, you'd say, wow, Roy has a pretty serious allergy to peanut butter. But now if you came down to Austin this weekend to check on me and you saw me sitting there with a big old spoon and a bowl of Jif Chunky, you wouldn't think my problem was peanut butter anymore. You'd think this guy's insane. You know what people who have an allergy to peanut butter do? They don't eat peanut butter. They don't go to Peanut Butter Anonymous. They don't get a peanut butter sponsor. They don't work the peanut butter steps, right? The main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind, not in his body. My main problem is that you take me away from alcohol and you leave me long enough. It starts out really simple. It starts out that I'm just a little bit restless, right? You know, I thought this girl was the right one. She ain't the right one. I thought this was a good job. But that boss, you know, he don't treat me right, right? Just a little discontent. You know, I thought Austin was a good city. It's the wrong city. I got to try to look fine for the city. And then comes the misery and the depression. And finally, that voice in my head at 2 o'clock in the morning that says, you're a worthless abscess on the face of the earth. Mark Houston used to say, people don't shoot themselves in the foot. They shoot themselves in the head because that's where the voices are coming from. Mm. Alcoholism demands treatment. And the most painful feeling I've ever experienced in the world is untreated alcoholism. And I come into a meeting and all of a sudden, what happens is I look up at the wall and in the second step it says that God could restore me to sanity. And what I understand that to mean, when it says could, it doesn't mean if I'm a good little boy and say the exact right prayers and the exact right position at the exact right time. Could means it has the ability to. What you all have here, what you promised me, was that you had something here that could restore me to sanity. And see, I didn't know if I bought that enough. But luckily in the second step, all it says is does he now believe or is he willing to believe there is a power greater than himself, right? It never tells me I have to believe it. I think we go sideways sometimes, you know, talking about stuff like, well, what's in your God box? And is your God a doorknob? Or is it a, you're right? Never in our literature, in fact, in we agnostics, it says who could comprehend the supreme being anyhow. It never asks us to define that God. It asks us to build a relationship with him. And as I understand it, those are two different and separate things. I remember one time I was, we were at the home group. My first home group was the Bowie Friday Night Speakers group in Bowie, Maryland. And we were at the home group and there was a real fresh guy, right? And real new. And a few of us were talking to him. And I had maybe a couple of months and another guy had six months. And kind of, you know, I was like, oh, I'm going to go to the home group. And kind of the leader of our little crew had maybe 18 months or something, right? So we're all relatively new and we're talking to this real new guy. And he says, man, I just can't get on board with this God deal. I just can't. I just can't do it. And Kel says to him, he says, well, all it says is a power greater than yourself. He says, well, we're three guys and you're one guy. Could we beat your ass? And the guy goes, well, I guess you could. Kel goes, great. Some guys need a meeting. Some need a beating. You're in, right? Like, I've had heroes and alcoholics synonymous who believe in God. I've had heroes and alcoholics synonymous who just believe there was some kind of power that gathers here when we're all together and everything in between. And that's enough. That's okay. Because, see, it is my belief that the second step is an action step, right? I don't believe it's a theoretical step. Clancy used to say alcoholics synonymous is quite simply the process of one alcoholic working with another just enough to reduce his feelings of difference that he will start taking actions he does not yet believe in. The second step is when you're all together. The second step is when you're all together. The second step is when I become willing to take the actions that I do not yet believe in. I remember my first home group, my first service position in alcoholics synonymous was butt man. And butt man sounded pretty cool until I found out it meant picking up cigarette butts in the parking lot after the meeting. I didn't follow. And I remember there was a guy in the home group, man, and he was, I wasn't cool. He was cool, man. He played the guitar. He played in a band. He was good looking. All the girls were crazy about him. And every Friday, we met on Friday nights, our home group. And every Friday night after the meeting, he's taken off to some bar downtown to go play. And all the girls in the home group are, you know, oh, where's, where's he playing tonight? And I'm sitting there in the parking lot. I'm in this stupid cult. I'm picking up these stupid cigarette butts. Right? And when I'm making my first amends and I'm sitting in the parking lot of that hardware store and I got the money in my pocket, I'm like, I'm in this stupid cult. Right? And when I'm driving all over God's green earth to pick up a guy and take him to a cheap, take him to a cheap, take him to a meeting and buy him a cheeseburger, I'm in this stupid cult. I've watched that guy spend the last 13 years trying to put a year together. And I've been given the grace, the gift of sobriety through the grace of God by taking actions that I did not, when I took them, believe in. See, I'm not, I'm not a big church guy, but I was, I was up at church one time and the, and the, and the, what do you call him? The pastor was talking about how children build relationships with parents. Right? And, and, and the child will express a need. They're, they're hungry or they need to be changed or they need to be held or, you know, so something, something like that. And, and, and the parent will meet the need. Right? The parent will bring them some food or change them or, or, or hold them. And, and, and, and what happens is, is that child builds a little bit of trust in that parent. Right? And by the completion of a successful childhood, a child is, has built the trust in, in, in his parent. And my relationship with God is much the same way. Right? I will take an action that I do not believe in and God will meet the need. Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? coping mechanisms. We're not learning new life strategies here. In We Agnostics, it says deep down in every man, woman, and child is the fundamental idea of God that's yet obscured by calamity, by pomp, and worship of other things. This is a subtraction program. It isn't an addition program. Y'all see, a doctor doesn't heal anything. A doctor creates an antiseptic environment and God heals. A farmer doesn't grow anything. A farmer till. I've done some business with some farmers and I actually asked one and I said, what are the busiest times of your year? He said, planting season and harvest season. I said, why? He said, well, I got to get up. I got to get the tractors going. We put the seeds in the ground. Then at harvest time, I harvest all the crops, got to take them to market and prepare them for market and do all that stuff. I said, well, what else is there? He said, planting season or sorry, growing season. I said, what do you do during growing season? Not much. Make sure the water's going, the fertilizer, pesticides, all that stuff. A farmer tills the soil and creates a nutrient. Create an environment. God grows. And Alcoholics Anonymous is much the same way. There is no separation from me and God, y'all. God is with me just as much at the dope house as he is in this room tonight. The problem is, is I cannot feel the conscious presence of God when I'm at the dope house. It's like looking for water in a boat. The boat is separating water from the water. The boat is separating water from the water. The boat is separating water from the water. The boat is separating water from the water. The boat is separating me from the water. The problem isn't finding the water. It's removing the thing that is separating me from it. Y'all with me? What we're seeking here is the conscious presence of God. And I'll tell you why. Because it is really simple as I understand it. People who feel the conscious presence of God don't stick needles in their arms and don't sit in their own piss-draining Jack Daniels. The conscious presence of God is the only thing that I've ever found in my entire life that is powerful enough to shut up that voice that says, you worthless abscess on the face of the earth. It is the only thing that can bring peace and light into that darkness. I heard a guy say one time, I steal this line a lot, but I heard a guy say one time, he said, God's love is like the sun, right? The sun is 93 million miles away and it shined on all of us today. If I walk outside on a sunny day, the sun doesn't say, no sunshine for you, Rory. I know what you've done. The sun shines on me because that is the function of the sun. There is nothing I can do that is powerful enough to stop the sun from shining on me. God loves me because that is the function of God. There is nothing I can do that is powerful enough to stop God from loving me. But if I hide in the basement and I don't get any sunshine, that's not the sun's fault. And the second step quite simply says that I have to be willing to take the steps out of the basement. I have to be willing to show up at the meeting and set up the chairs. I have to be willing to show up at the meeting and set up the chairs. Even though I have no idea what that has to do with sobriety. The second step says I got to be willing to pick up the cigarette butts in the parking lot, even though I think this is a stupid cult, right? And Frank's going out there getting the girls, right? The second step says I'm willing to write this inventory and follow the instructions on page 75, which says I have to unveil every twist of character and every dark cranny of my past. And by the way, when I was, um, gosh, I don't know, man, when I, when I, when I first, when I joined my first home group about a little less than a month sober, those guys, man, they used to, they used to pick me up and give me rides to meetings and bum me cigarettes and buy me cheeseburgers. And, and, um, it says in our book, we pull the newcomer with a vision, right? And working with others, it tells us really clearly how far we are supposed to go to, to, to help the next man, right? He may, he may, uh, your telephone may jangle at all hours of the night. He may, uh, he may, he may, uh, he may, he may, he may, he may, he may, he may, he may, he may, He may burn your mattress or break the furniture in your home, but this is my primary purpose. And I remember being a couple of months sober. They told me to start sponsoring guys, and I was like, clearly that we're overcrowded, and they want me to kill off some of these guys or something. Like, you know, I don't know. And they've got me driving all over Maryland picking up these guys and buying them cheeseburgers, and I bought thousands and thousands of cheeseburgers to pay that back. And at the time when I was doing it, I didn't understand what it had to do with staying sober. Real quick, I told that story one time at a conference in Portland, Oregon, and a guy hollered out in the back, they could have bought you a salad once or twice. So when we get to resentment next week, that's going to be, I'm just saying, I'm going to have a whole section on justified resentments. I'm just kidding. And, um, um, sigh, in the third step, it tells me that I'll turn my will and care, care of my life over to God. And I didn't understand, at least I didn't have the understanding of the third step for a lot of years that I do now, right? For me in the beginning, the third step, always listen to Aaron. I didn't have an understanding of the third step that I had now. At the beginning, the third step meant to me just a decision to go through with the rest of the steps. And at the time that might've been okay. And that's, and that was all that it needed to mean at the time. But y'all see, there's this part in the third step where it says that even when our motives are good, we found ourselves in constant collision with somebody or something. I remember when I was about six years sober, man, I, I, I'm in, I'm in the center of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm, I was, I was co-chair of the young people's committee in Vegas. I'm GSR. I'm, I'm, I'm on the inner group. I'm, you know, I, I'm sponsoring every guy at Salvation Army and, and, and my life has just fallen apart. Right. I got, you know, bank account. My account's overdrawn every month. You know, I got one girl pregnant over here. And that's kind of a theme in my story. You might pick up on that a little bit. And, and, you know, and my life's falling apart. And I, and I, and I meet this guy, Charlie Parker, and we lost him last May. And, and, and I asked him to sponsor me. And, and, and we sat down and we went through page 60 to 63. And we talked about, and we, and we really got into this. Right. And we looked at even, and we started with even when my motives are good, I find myself in constant collision. With somebody or something. Y'all see, I've never gotten into a relationship with a girl and gone, in 30 days, she's going to block me. Right. I've never got, I've never gotten a job and said to myself, oh, in two months, they're going to regret hiring me. But I find myself blowing up my life over and over again. And I don't understand why. See, because at the, at the top of the next page, what it says, what it says at the top of the next page is, is that, is that I'm certain that all would, you know, my perfect life could beambreed in peace of mind, that spiritual growth would be before me. Right. As long as I receive75 percent of all kinds of이 of love. Y'all got to keep trying to accomplish more. I'm notik dados later. I had 50. Okay. I'm able to accomplish more than five percent. And that'd be just that much. Like where am I in this world? What are my goals? Can I set a goal where I reach, you know, whatever mental level I still want and what I hope to achieve, whatever the recipe's going to be. I've been iný far beyond where I'm trying not to get broke over time. Never mind. Right. Just set it up. How go all the heroes talking stuff. All the leaders talking stuff. Let's get at it. There's only one requirement in Rorytopia. You have to do what I want. And then in trying to make these arrangements, see, I'll sometimes be kind and patient, modest, and even self-sacrificing. Because I always look better if I can get what I want when I do it with a smile, right? But then if you don't give me what I want when I'm doing it with a smile, what's it say here? It says I'll become mean, egotistical, selfish, and dishonest. I'll go to one guy and I'll scream at him trying to get what I want. But then I'll go over to somebody like Aaron and be like, Aaron, man, you're the only one smart enough to understand what I'm doing over here. You got to come on. Get with me on this, right? It's like you ever, you ever, who here, anybody have little kids here, right? No one in an entire room of AA has young children. All right, I'm in the wrong room. You take your kids out to the bowling alley, right? And they set up those little gutters on the side of the bowling alley, those little, what do they call them? Bumpers, thank you. They set up the bumpers on the side of the bowling alley so the kids don't cry and throw gutter balls every time. Y'all see? That's how I live my life, right? My entire, my entire life, I'm the bumpers on the bowling alley. And I'll come at you and I'll be kind and nice and, baby, I love you, right? Or I'll be mean and dishonest and a liar just to get you to do what I want. Because I'm so convinced later down the page it says, is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness from life if only he manages well? Victim, sorry, victim at that point when they wrote the book mean tricked or duped. I'm tricked or duped into believing that I can get satisfaction and happiness out of life if only I manage well. Rest means to take by semi-violent force. That I will wrestle away from life what will give me satisfaction and happiness. And ultimately it never does, right? And what happens is it blows up in my face over and over again and I don't understand it. And I don't understand it. I was talking to my sponsor, I don't know, like a month ago or something. And he said, Rory, do you know how to? Uh. Do you know how to always get your way? And I was really excited. I was like, finally. I've been sober long enough. I've sponsored enough guys. I'm going to get this secret. I'm like, how? He goes, just don't have a way. And I'm like, goddammit, I knew there was going to be some AA crap, some Bob-ism, you know. Don't have a way. And I'll tell you what this looks like in practicality for me. When I was six years sober, it was one of the hardest times of my life, right? And I was living in Austin at the time and I'm having a child in Las Vegas, so I got to move back to Las Vegas. And at the time I had the best job I'd ever had. And they fire me, right? It was amicable, but they said, hey, sorry, you know, we need you in the office every day. You're helping run our business. You know, you're fired. And so I've lost the best job I've ever had. And my son's mother relapsed on opiates. And so now I'm a single father with no job. And no prospects. Women don't like that combination. And I couldn't even afford a place to live, man. I was spending all my money on this custody lawyer and I'm staying at a friend of mine in the program's house, right? And had you looked at the externalities of my life, had you looked at the things going on in my life, you would have said, man, this guy might be headed for trouble. But had you looked at the externalities of my life, you would have said, man, this guy might be headed for trouble. Had you watched my feet, had you watched my actions, they were centered in Alcoholics Anonymous. They were centered in service to other guys. They were centered in the disciplines of 10, 11, and 12. So as I have all these things going on in my life that I think are going to destroy me, what ends up happening is as a result of losing that job, I ended up starting a business. That business made me a multimillionaire before I was 30. As a result of her relapsing. I ended up with sole custody of that boy. He should be asleep shortly. He's at my house in Austin right now. I've had sole custody of him since he was two years old. Every circumstance in my life has been, every beautiful thing I've had in my life has been the result of some moment in my life where I thought that it was the absolute end. And see, had God come to me down and said, Rory, we've got to get you out of this job because you're going to start a business and that business is going to give you financial security like your family's ever known and you're going to get to work for yourself so you can meet with sponsees during the day and go to meetings during the day and all that kind of stuff. And you see, his mother, her relapse, while unfortunate, it's going to allow you to be the driving emotional force in his life and show up for your son every single day. And see, had God come down and explained to me, Rory, this is what's going on and this is why this has to happen, I would have said, absolutely, sign me up. But the problem is that's not how God works. How God works is laid out really, really simply on the next page. It offers us a contract. The contract says that I keep close to him and perform his work well and he will provide everything that I need. Keep close to him, as I understand it, is the process and the disciplines of Alcoholics Anonymous and perform his work well means that helping other alcoholics has to be the most important thing and center of my life. And I have never, ever, ever once seen God not meet his end of the contract. I've not met mine many times, but I've never seen God not meet his. I had an experience when I was... I share this, I don't share it all the time. When I was two years sober, I was stealing data from this company that I worked for. One of the guys who had been a senior guy at the company had gotten fired and he called me up and he said, hey, I've got this. I've got the passwords to the database. We could steal the data and sell it to the competitors. And I'd like to tell you that there was one thought in my head about like, that isn't very spiritual. That's awesome. So I steal all this data from this company and I sell it to their competitors. And I'm an idiot, so I stole like $200,000 of data and sold it for like $2,500 to make my rent or something. And a couple years later, I absolutely knew that there was no way I was going to stay sober unless I made a contract. And I'm sitting in the parking lot of these people's office in Indianapolis, Indiana and I have $500 to my name. And I go into the office and I asked to meet with a relatively small company. I asked to meet with the owner of the company and I was able to meet with them. And I said, listen, I worked in your Washington, D.C. office in whatever it would have been, 2012, I think, 2011. And I stole this data and I sold it and I have no idea what it's worth. I have $500. I have $500 with me now. I'll give it to you. And whatever you tell me it's worth, I'll pay you forever. And if that's not enough, I understand. And if you want to press charges, I understand and I'll plead guilty. That's a federal crime. And that, unfortunately, wasn't one of those amends where they were like, just stay sober, Rory. We're glad you're in AA. They said, we want you to put this all down on paper. We're going to give it to our lawyer and he's going to get to decide what to do. And I said, well, that is a butthole puckering moment there in those words. But I did. I wrote it all out and I gave it to them and I said, whatever you guys do is fine, right? And for the next, like, couple of months, I'm waiting every day. Like, the hammer's going to drop today. The hammer's going to drop today. And nothing ever happened. And about, I guess, nine months ago, I was driving. I had to go out to Midland, Texas. I was driving back to Austin. It's a long drive. And my phone rings and it's the owner of that company. And I'm still in the same line of work. And I haven't talked to them in years. And I'm like, oh, I'm going to get this. And I picked up, hey, Kurt, what's going on, man? And he said, oh, you know, I was just thinking about you. You crossed my mind. I said, oh, and we catch up for a little bit, exchange, you know, pleasantries for 20 minutes or so. He said, hey, I had an idea. I said, what's up? He said, what would you think about us buying your company and you coming and being a senior vice president at our company? See, I don't understand 10 years ago when I'm making this amends confessing to a federal crime that God is lining up the universe in my favor. But somewhat the third step says, as I understand it, is that if spiritual principles are the center of my life, that God is lining this up for me beyond my level of understanding. The requirement, though, is that I lay down all the means to defend myself, that I truly don't have a way. I sponsor a guy. He was one of the first Marines in Afghanistan during the first Gulf War. Real tough guy. And he was a Marine Special Forces. And we were having a conversation. And I said to him, I said, Brian, what happens if the enemy surrenders but they're holding a, but they have like a gun hidden on their person, a firearm? And he said, we shoot them on the spot. I said, really? He said, yes, under the rules of war, that is not a legal surrender. For it to be a legal surrender, they have to have put down all the means to defend themselves and do exactly what they're told. And see, that's what God asks of me here in this step, to lay down all of my means to defend myself and to do exactly what I'm told. And see, my experience is, is that the more and more I'm willing to do this, I don't, I probably would have disagreed with this a couple of years ago. I don't actually think we get better here in Alcoholics Anonymous. I think we get more surrendered. See, it tells me that this is a progressive illness. And what I understand that to mean is that the spiritual malady is progressive. I do far more AA at 13 years sober than I did at 13 months sober. I pray on my knee, I do the third step prayer on my knees every single day. And I don't think God can do that. I don't think God can do that. I don't think God cares that I'm on my knees. And I don't think anyone at Arlington PPG cares that I do it on my knees. I think that that puts me in a place, a place of humble submission to God. That puts me, that puts me in a place of being reminded that I am only the actor. I am not the director. See, because the problem with a guy like me is, is if I, if, Goodfellas is my favorite movie, right? I love that movie. I like, in my, in my mind, I'm somewhere between Robert De Niro and Al Pacino and Tony Soprano. But in reality, I'm not. In reality, I'm like Pee Wee Herman, right? God, I want to be cool so bad. So the problem with a guy like me is, is, is, is, is, you know, they can make a new Goodfellas movie and they say, Rory, great news, we're going to give you a part in this movie. And your job is you're going to walk across the screen and you're going to hand Robert De Niro a cup of coffee. I'd be like, okay. And Martin Scorsese would yell action and I'd walk in and I'd hand Robert the cup of coffee. But two seconds later, I'd turn around and say, listen, Scorsese. You got this whole thing all wrong here. Your lighting's wrong. You know, my guy needs a lot more lines here. The way you got the camera set up is wrong. In fact, Goodfellas 2 isn't even a good title for the movie. Let's change it, right? And see, everyone else around there would think, who the hell is this guy? And see, that's the problem. That's how I run my life. I run, I run my life like somebody asked me to direct it. But in reality, what this book and what this literature tells me is, is that my job is humblesome. My job is to not have a way. Y'all ever heard the parable of the Chinese farmer? This is a farmer, right? And very poor farmer in rural China. And one day his horse runs away. And everyone in the village says, wow, this must be the worst day of your life. Your horse ran away. You have nothing. Now you're destitute. And the Chinese farmer says, well, maybe yes and maybe no. And then the next day, the horse leads a whole herd of horses into the stable. And everyone in the village says, wow, today must be the best day of your life. You have all these horses now. You're the most wealthy man in the village. Best day of your life. Chinese farmer says, well, maybe yes and maybe no. The next day, his son is out tending to the horses. And the horses stampede and trample over his legs. And he can never walk again. And everyone in the village says, wow, today must be the worst day of your life. That was your only son, your heir. Worst day of your life. Chinese farmer says, well, maybe yes and maybe no. Next day, the Chinese army comes through town to recruit all the young men, to conscript all the young men to go fight. And they go to the battle. But they can't take his son because he has the broken legs. Maybe yes and maybe no. See, I don't get, God has given me a life far beyond my wildest dreams. And every single time he's moved to do that, I've not understood it, or I've been afraid, or I've thought, man, maybe I could just get a little bit better deal. But what my experience has been is that if I'm willing to make this third step contract the center of my life, right, that I keep close to him and perform his work well. And that is, I own a business. I have children. I, you know, I have a big life as a result of Alcoholics Anonymous. But Alcoholics Anonymous is the most important thing in my life. Because without Alcoholics Anonymous, none of the rest of that gets to happen. I love doing stuff like this. And it's a great honor that you all asked me to come do the steps for you this month. And I'm looking forward to hanging out and going and eating and everything like this. But that's, I'll tell you what my Alcoholics Anonymous program is and it's most basic. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. It's a basic level. You go over to the Westlake Club in Austin off Mopac. Go up to the 1030 meeting and you'll find me there a half an hour before the meeting and I'm looking for the guy who needs a cigarette or needs a cheeseburger. Because I believe the single most important thing in my life is to take care of God's kids, perform his work well. And I'll tell you what it tells me here. It's really, really clear in our third step prayer. It says, God, I offer myself to thee to build with me and to do with me as thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self because self is the only bondage that I have. I always see, I always want to think that it's the circumstances I'm in. If the circumstances were different, then I'd be happy. That's not my experience. Take away my difficulties. The victory over them may bear witness to those I would help. It's very clear that this prayer only works if my single focus is helping the next alcoholic. I don't always talk about this, but we got a couple of minutes, so I will. When I was, I started this company when I was, the business I owned, I was, I don't know, eight years sober, something like that. And it got really, really successful. And I'm getting all the things that I thought would make me happy, right? Making a lot of money, relationship with a beautiful girl, big house in the Austin Hills, all this kind of stuff, right? And little by slowly, I start walking myself away from God's will. And I start walking myself away from Alcoholics Anonymous. Excuse me. It was never once like I got up and said, I'm leaving AA. I'm not doing AA anymore. I'm not doing anything like that. It was just this one business deal. That's more important than going to this meeting, right? This, this, this one thing, I'll just, I'll go to a meeting next week. And little by slowly, I go from a guy who goes to a meeting every day, to a guy who goes to a meeting a couple times a week, to once a week, to once a month. A guy who calls my sponsor a couple times a week, to once a week, to once a month. Guy who sponsors a bunch of guys to a couple guys to know guys. And I'll tell you what I found, man. I found that a couple of years ago, I'm sitting in a closet with a shotgun in my mouth. With $4 million in the bank. And I don't say that as any sort of, of, of, of, of ego situation, because I have far less money now. You can give me absolutely everything in my life that I think will make me happy. I'm a victim of the delusion that I can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of life if only I manage well. You can give me absolutely everything in my life that I think will make me happy, and I think will give me peace internally. And it leaves me with a Mossberg shotgun in my mouth with over a decade of success. Sobriety. And conversely, when the sole focus of my life is helping the next alcoholic, well not the sole focus, but the primary focus of my life is helping the next alcoholic and honoring the third step contract that I made. You all see, that experience gave me a level of step one experience that I hope, I don't wish on anybody. I don't wish on my worst enemy. That's a painful place to be. My experiences is, when I honor my third step contract that some days I would, I was speaking in Houston, I don't know, a month ago, and a couple, me and a couple of the sponsees are riding down there and we're driving down there. And, um, there's a rainbow out the window. Oh my God, there's a rainbow. I guess God wants me at the AA meeting. I get to become that guy. And that's a pretty cool place to live, man. That's a pretty cool place to be. And it's contingent on me honoring the third step contract. I owe this program and I owe all of you my life and I pledge my life to you. Thanks.