The Bondage of Self and the Man Who Found Himself Fascinating – Paul O.

Good evening. My name is Paul and I'm actually a very mild alcoholic. Things that Max said were grossly exaggerated. Truth is, at the time she was talking about, I wasn't even an alcoholic. I didn't become an alcoholic until I'd been coming to these meetings for seven months. It wasn't funny, it changed my life dramatically. I'm glad to be here. I've had a wonderful weekend already and it's just now getting started And for the rest of you, Denny and Phyllis were our hosts and hostess. And we've had a wonderful time and really enjoyed it. Everybody should have a chance to be hosted by them at least once in your life. I had a great meeting this morning at 7 o'clock. I'm just delighted with that and looking forward to a great weekend and particularly looking forward for Earl's talk tomorrow night. and stand up and wave to the people I know you love that come on come on too bad you can't see the blush that I can see jeez I just made a terrible blunder one of the things I learned early in AA is that you never smart mouth anybody who is going to follow you to the podium oh dear i was uh it was interesting the way the um kristin opened the meeting with the serenity prayer uh it reminded me i went to colorado one time to talk they were having a fundraiser and it was the second year that they'd had it then the first year that was on a saturday afternoon they had a meal at noon and then followed by a speaker and other stuff and uh the first year that had 150 people and they were quite happy with it but wanted to have it again and uh but and they asked us to ask me to come and talk and then uh what happened was the fellow that was setting it up doing the work got what he called a resentment uh i don't know if you have those here in this area but he quit and called it off well that made everybody in town have a resentment that he called it out and they decided he couldn't do that by god they were going to set it up and do it themselves and instead of having 150 people in they'd shoot for 300 well they worked so hard that they uh had 500 come to the thing and what that did was it put a strain on the caterer it was a catered meal and cater said but it's okay he could do it it was just to take him a little extra time to get it ready and the other you know the other problem was that the local minister was supposed to come and read the invocation and he hadn't shown up and so that way they solved that was they went to one of the old timers and ask him if the minister doesn't show up would the old timer give the invocation and the old timer said well yeah he would do that and he started thinking in terms of what he would say meanwhile the caterer is working and getting things going and the alcoholics are getting hungrier and hungrier and the Old Timer is making notes on what he's going to write on his invocation and finally the caterer says well the food's ready we can serve now and the alcoholics all wanted to go you know no they said you can't eat now you have to have the invocation first and so they called up the old timer to come and give the invocations before they could eat and he got up there and he started to read and the first word was the word god and they all recited the serenity prayer and Ran for the food. I don't know what the moral of that story is. I guess if you're ever, when you're an old-timer, if they ask you to give an invocation, don't bring God into it too soon. Anyhow, we're glad to be here. People asked if we drove up or flew, and I said we flew up. And if you fly someplace, one of the first things people ask you is, did you have a nice trip? Did you have an nice flight? And what we had happen on this flight was there were two flight attendants, a man and a woman, a boy and a girl. And they were going down the aisle with the cart giving the drinks out. And they're right by us, and he served us. and he turned to the man in the seat behind me and he said, what would you like to drink, sir? And gave him his peanuts and napkin. And he said he would like some white wine. And she went through her cart, didn't find any white wine and she turned to them and she asked the man attendant and said to him, do we have any white wines? And this is all happening right here beside us and the man said, no, we don't have any White Wine but we have plenty of Red Wine. And so the woman, the woman attendant turned to the man behind me and she said, Sir, we don't have any white wine. Would you like red wine? And he had to think about it. Yeah. until he thought to thinking about that I hadn't realized what a serious social blunder it would be to drink the wrong color wine with airline peanuts which actually it brings me to I'd like to ask a favor of somebody I've been looking for somebody who is planning a slip what it is all the airlines have a magazine they put out and American Airlines I think it's American Way or something. And in this magazine, I was reading through it, one of the department things, this gal writes the thing every issue on the best buys. And she'll talk about the best audio and the best video and the most popular stuff. The best play and the worst movie and the book and the rest of that. And under the best drinks, she has the thing under the worst wines. And what she said was that the 1992 Napa Valley Chardonnays have a crisp pear-apple flavor with a touch of clove at the end. Now, what I'm looking for is somebody who's planning on going out there anyway I really it's it's and remember it's the 1992 Napa Valley Chardonnays I know I don't really care too much about the crisp pear apple flavor but I really would like to know does it really leave you with a touch of clove at the end. Thunderbird never left me with such a close. Thunder, Thunderbird was my favorite white wine Ripple was my favorite red wine if you're out there it's not worth me going out to check it out in fact I haven't had a drink the last day of last month was my birthday my 30th birthday oh no you're nowhere near as impressed as I am 30 years is the longest I have ever gone without a drink 30 years is a long time between drinks for me you know another part about it too is 30 years without a drink and I'm not even thirsty. You know, when I was drinking I was always thirsty. It seems like nothing makes me thirstier than having a drink. Alcoholism is a self-perpetuating thirst and the best way to not be thirsty is to not drink and it took me a long time to figure that one out. Doesn't make sense. Actually, one thing I noticed we didn't ask for newcomers can we see the hands of the people with less than, who are in their first year of sobriety oh my goodness oh my witness that's wonderful that's one of the places crawling with them we love that We love that. We love to have newcomers. I mean, Chuck, his name was Bill, Bill W., one of the two. They haven't been around long, you know. People are always changing their name. Every time I learn what their name is, they change it. Bill W. One of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous said someplace, It was written that I read that he had said, he said that carrying the message of Alcoholics Anonymous, carrying the massage that alcoholism is a disease and that AA is a spiritual answer to that disease, carrying the messages of Alcoholic Anonymous he said is our primary aim and the chief reason for our existence. And I thought, God, those are pretty strong words. our primary aim and the chief reason for our existence. And then I get the word are. Does he talk about us as individuals or us as groups or both? But apparently carrying the message is the most important thing we do. And one of the main ways, the most common ways of carrying the message is by filling seats in an AA meeting and participating, being part of it. and carrying the message to newcomers especially and to each other even and it's particularly fun to carry the message to the newcomers I'd keep coming back to AA even if it wasn't keeping me sober just to see what happens to the new comers it's exciting to see the thing the change that takes place in the people when they get sober and when the Al-Anons sober up so you newcomers they say you're the lifeblood of the party and you're one of the most important people in the room and all that crap, actually I'm the most important but so we're really glad you're here in fact we're so glad you'RE here that we don't care whether you're glad you'Re here as a matter of fact if you're really new here tonight and you'Re just really happy happy happy happy to be here we may not be able to help you at least not until you get off of whatever you're on that's why they say keep coming back and so anyhow we're glad you're here I'm glad to be here I talk about me being the most important person in the room you thought I was kidding but I'm not we have one of our new meetings there we had started a topic discussion meeting and the format is for the leader to pick a leader for each week and the leader comes in with a topic and then we talk on that topic for an hour and this gal came in and she announced that her topic was going to be bondage of self and I thought that's a dumb topic she won't get anybody to participate with that well she did and uh i thought of a lot of good things and they didn't even call on me uh but you know that bondage itself i hadn't paid much attention to that until she said that and i got to thinking about it and um that bond is yourself uh i i came to realize that i am basically the most interesting person i know uh i really find me fascinating I love to think about me and somebody asked me the other night well have you figured out what you're going to talk about tomorrow night I said yeah, me I love to think about where I've been where I wish I'd been where I wished I hadn't been things I've done things that I wish I hadn's done things that maybe do things that can happen things that might not happen things to worry about I'd love to think about me you are interesting but you're nothing compared to me that relieved me of the bondage of self I mean I hope he doesn't take that too seriously what would you think about if you anyhow in fact somebody said to me do you still get nervous when you're going to talk? And I said, well, I don't think of it as nervousness. I'd rather think of It as anticipatory anxiety. Sounds a little more scientific. And besides, what I do is I love the third step prayer. And I tell God in third step prayers, God, I offer myself to thee to build with me and do with me as thou will. relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do thy will and I modify that when I'm going to in fact the first thing in the morning before I really get out of bed I say the serenity prayer third step prayer and the seventh step prayer and then at breakfast Max and I say those three prayers and we read some stuff that we read and we have a period of meditation and then during the day frequently if I have something that I'm gonna do or something that's a little bit scary or whatever I'll say the third step prayer and sometimes when I got nothing nothing to do I'll say that but like me who I'm going to talk I'll stay gone I offer myself and this situation to you to do with as you wish now I would like it to turn out to be phenomenally successful I'd like to say things that will ring in their hearts forever but if you have it in your mind that this is the night for me to make a complete fool of myself well at least one of us will have a good time and sometimes he really has a lot of fun refers to it as having something to do with humility and I don't enjoy that so anyway, I leave it up to him speaking of humility I think I'm really impressed with my humility I, she bumped me. I'm proud of my humility. I think I handle things very well. Anyhow, I guess that's enough for the introduction. I should get into my story. I was born November 3rd, 1918. It was a cold and blustery night. I remember thinking to myself I wasn't talking very much then I remember thinking to yourself what am I doing here why wasn't I consulted on this and I think I carried that thought the rest of my life I used to drink social drinking I didn't have a drinking problem I was neurotic in fact I remember this should be added to the things we have tried in chapter 3 I was reading a medical journal and it talked about how Now, carbon dioxide inhalations were a good treatment for psychoneurosis. And I've always thought that I was neurotic and I came from a very neurotic family. I used to endear myself to my family by telling them how neurotic I thought we all were. And not alcoholics, but neurotics. And I thought this carbon dioxide inhalation should be good for me. what it is, is carbon dioxide is the thing that makes you breathe it's the thing that keeps you from holding your breath longer than you can hold it it isn't lack of oxygen it's fact that your body builds up carbon dioxide and makes you breath and if you hyperventilate you're over breathing you're blowing off the carbon dioxide and you feel breathless but actually you need to hold your breath or breathe in a plastic bag and accumulate the carbon oxide I'm going to send you all a bill on this you don't get all this physiological instructions for nothing uh but anyhow when you're breathing carbon dioxide and you keep breathing too much of it you breathe faster and faster and faster faster and deeper deeper deeper and the lights flash and the bells ring and you go blind and you it just goes things get louder and louder and lighter and all of a sudden your brain explodes and you pass out i thought boy that ought to cure something uh i will try that But I couldn't see my way to going to any doctor and saying, I'm neurotic and I want some carbon dioxide inhalations. Here's it written in this medical journal. And besides, I'm the best doctor I knew. And so I just called up the gas company. Not your gas company, but the gas country that sells tanks of gas and ordered a tank of carbon dioxide gas and the guy delivers it in the big truck with these big tanks. It was a tank about so big and so big around must weigh about 250 pounds added on a dolly runs it up to the front door and says where do you want this? I said well in the master bedroom naturally you know where would you think I would want it? With a hose and a mask and a valve you can turn it on. So it didn't take any medical degree to know you should lie down to do this. You put the mask on, and you turn the gas on. But you didn't have to be a genius to know you needed somebody to turn it off. So I go into the living room, and Max is watching TV. I said, I'm going to take this treatment, and I'm gonna breathe faster and faster, and finally my brain's going to explode and I'm going to pass out. And when I pass out, will you come in and take the mask off and turn the gas off? And she said, I suppose. Anyway, it didn't work. Didn't take care of my drinking problem. I didn't have a drinking problem, I had a sleeping problem. I had lots of marital problems. Jeez, Max, as she said, he drove me to drink for 28 years. In fact, as we were growing up, we'd known each other since we were four years old, and the Gansline boys, her uncles, they were alcoholics, and they were always getting their name in the Alliance Review and put in jail for common drunken. As we were drawing up, my parents were not at least a bit happy for me all the time playing with the Gansling girl. They were afraid that when we grew up that we might get married and I might turn out to be an alcoholic. And by God, they were right. It's not really funny. Most people don't know how they got to be an alcoholic, and I do. I'm an alcoholic by marriage. anyhow yeah we had our problems here and there and it caused me to have trouble sleeping I used to I found out that I could when I went to pharmacy school I found that at night I'd go to school all day work in the drugstore all evening and then study all through the evening and then jump in bed and everything I'd been studying had been running through my brain. And in the morning, I'd be both tired and stupid. And I found that I could drink a couple of beers, jump in bed, sleep real fast, and wake up smart. And that's how I got through pharmacy school, drinking more and more. And as the time went by, I found it took more and More to get me to sleep. And it kept me asleep for a shorter and shorter period of time so that I had to repeat whatever I had taken to get to sleep and then that increased to the point where it was harder and harder to get up in the morning and finally I started taking amphetamines to get going in the morning I shouldn't mention drugs this isn't anything but I feel I do owe them at least an honorable mention I don't know that I could have had the stamina to have completed my pre-AA training period if it hadn't been they did tend to affect my voice in that I sometimes couldn't I affected my hearing in that i couldn't listen fast enough to hear what i was saying i think my god what are you saying that again for you've already said again i don't know it just sounds so good i think i'll say it again you know so i got to take it and finally the ultimate of trying to working on a sleeping problem that's an oxymoron if I ever heard one working on the sleeping problem because if you're working on your sleeping problem and you find something that works you've got to think oh what was that so I can do it again and you're constantly alert to see whether or not you're sleeping the epitome of that was that I finally was shooting amytol at night in order to get to sleep go through the day taking pills and in the evening drinking and then it was time to go to Betty by and I would go to keep the amytol or pentothal or anything at all I'd keep it in my bag and the bag in the car and the car in the garage thank God it was attached to the house and I'd go out and I tried I'd mix up the stuff and get it in the syringe and then I'd try to figure out how much of it I had to take of the uppers and how much of the downers and how long I could squirt it and take it out throw it in a bag slam the car door and run down the hall so I could jump in bed and it was very tricky to judge it took a lot of experience wasn't entirely practical because the least little bit too much and I just zinged right under the car but that wasn't too bad the worst part was the least a little bit not enough and I'd squirt it in take it out throw it in the back slam the car door run down the hall jump in bed nothing would happen half measures got me nowhere at all and even when it did work when I did get just the right dose you know, you take the needle out you're supposed to put a band-aid on and keep it antiseptic I didn't have time for that I didn'y have time to put band-aide on so I would put my arm up like this and hope that gravity would take care of it and I'd do all this one handed throw it in the car and run down the hall with one arm up the hair and I'd run into Max and try to act casual you know actually it's hard to be casual when you're in a hurry and anyhow I ended up in the nut ward that's what I did I remember sitting there in the net ward they wanted me to make leather belts in fact at that particular hospital there were fanatics fanatics on leather belts you can't graduate I'll bet if they had a senate investigation they'd find their people have been there for years and they won't let them out until they make something useful they wanted me to do it they wanted to make a leather belt And they tried to convince me that the quality of my life would improve if I learned how to make leather belts. I told them, I said, I have a whole wall. I have an all full of licenses and certificates and diplomas and papers to prove that I've been educated way beyond my level of intelligence. And I don't see how making leather belts would improve my life in any way. I didn't understand the philosophy. And besides, I didn' t understand the instructions. Which is not my fault. That's the fault of that dumb occupational therapist. Because I've always known if you don't understand anything well enough then you can explain it to me so that I understand it and you don' t as well as you're supposed to. And she had explained it to be three times and I wasn't going to embarrass her by asking her a fourth time. So I was sitting there in the nut ward commiserating with myself. What's a nice guy like me doing in a place like this? And this dumb psychiatrist, who couldn't see that my problems were strictly marital, walked up behind me and wanted to know would I be willing to talk to a man from Alcoholics Anonymous. And I thought, my God, don't I have enough problems of my own without trying to help some drunk from AA I could tell by looking at his face that he thought it was a good idea and I decided right there that happiness on the nut ward is having a happy psychiatrist and I said yes and in no time at all this clown comes galloping into the room yelling at the top of his voice my name is Frank and I'm an alcoholic I was embarrassed for him meeting a perfect stranger and the only thing he could think about to talk about himself was he was an alcoholic for God's sake in fact everything he said he said in a loud voice us drunks and us alcoholics and Alcoholics Anonymous I thought my god man why don't you lower your voice these people all think I'm a nut why don't we leave it at that another thing I didn't like about the nut ward is they wouldn't let you stay in bed in the morning you had to get out of bed and if you wouldn't go and make moccasins then you had leather belts you had go and sit in the day room and the dayroom is a big room one whole wall was glass and on the other side of the glass was the sidewalk to the main entrance of the hospital, which was right there. And I could just see my patients walking by, looking in. Oh, hello, Dr. Paul. How are things in the nut ward? Anyhow, this Frank told this loudmouthed story. I don't remember, long and on, very interminable story. I don't remember anything he said but I know it ended by him saying well that's my story, I'm going to a meeting tonight would you like to go along and I said hell no, I won't like it but I'll go and we went and I have no idea what meeting we were at in fact I don' t know how many meetings we went to before I knew what meeting we were in but I knew that meeting had a profound effect it had a profoundly effect on the psychiatrist now he was suspiciously very interested. Want to know what's this about a book? What's this about meetings? How often do they have meetings? What's This About Steps? What other kinds of meetings do they have? When are you going to another meeting? And I thought, my God, I've got me an alcoholic psychiatrist. He's ashamed to go, so he's sending me. So So I wanted to go to every meeting I could, so I could get enough brownie points to get out of that dump. And I told Frank I wanted go every night. Frank was good about that, except for one Friday night, he didn't know that he would be going. He thought maybe on Friday night he might have a date with Carolyn. And I thought well that's a hell of a way to run an organization and I reported him to the psychiatrist who got somebody else to take me on Friday night and I finally got enough brownie points and I got discharged from the hospital and I had no intention of going back. Why would I go back? I wasn't an alcoholic. The only problem was that Max liked the meetings and of course once I found that out it threatened her if she didn't shape up I wouldn't go to AA anymore and I said that once too often and she did what she couldn't do she drove down Laguna Beach for Mannheim went by herself went to the meeting by herself she couldn't drive the freeway she didn't know how to get that far but she did it anyway she went off went to AA meetings by herself have you ever tried that? have you every tried sitting at home on a Saturday night drinking while your non-alcoholic spouse is off laughing it up in an AA meeting I found it boring I had to go back to meetings find out what they were laughing about I found out the alcoholics laugh at anything laugh at nothing laugh just to be laughing I sat there trying to figure it out seven months and I ended up going to one meeting too many and one night I laughed with them haven't had a drink since laughter is very spiritual to me in fact I'm convinced that my higher power laughs every time he hears alcoholics in Al-Anon's laugh even if he doesn't understand a joke just enjoys the laughter so I've been coming back ever since And when I first became an alcoholic, I was just a very, very mild alcoholic. Very mild. Just almost a non-alcoholic. But I had to keep coming to meetings in order to drink. In fact, I decided that I came into this thing embarrassed to be here. I thought my condom at the bottom of the social barrel and I had this overwhelming sense of failure in all areas of my life and I turned into an alcoholic I found out I had to become an alcoholic in order to quit drinking and then I thought if I'm going to be in AA if I failed in everything else I ought to at least succeed in this for God's sake if you can't get any lower than this then you've got to at least succeed here and I decided I wanted to be a successful member of AA simple request it seemed to me and I didn't make a pact with anybody else, just with myself I decided I was going to be a successful Member of AA in fact I even went so far at that time they talked about stick with the winners stick with them if I'm going to stick with the winners I ought to find out what a winner is so I asked Chuck C he'd been sober a hundred years or so and he knew everything and I said what's a winner and I was surprised when he had to think about it and he said well I guess you have to die sober and I thought die sober God that reminded me of how I used to plan on being one of the saints haha yourself I was really going to do it I went and got the book Lives of the Saints big thick book I decided which one was going to be my role model I was goingto be a saint trying to pick my role until I found out that the final thing about being a saint you can't be declared a saint until you've been dead 300 years and I thought well screw that I've never been happy about anything you have to die to get the accolades for I lost my sainthood and I thought well if I have to die to be a winner I'll just be a successful member of AA and over the years I've changed a little bit what my criteria is to be successful member but I don't know any successful members of AA who drink and then I found out that if I want to keep from drinking I've got to keep going to meetings it takes a lot of meetings to keep them drinking but the more I went to meetings the more i realized that if i want to stay sober i've got work the steps to stay sober and then once i worked the steps i kept going to go into meetings and working the steps and seeing what was going on around me and i found there are a lot of people seems to me a lot who go to meetings long enough to stay sober to find out they have to work the steps in order to stay sober and work the steps then find out they don't need the meetings anymore and end up getting drunk after 15, 20, 30, 40 years. So I thought I've got to do both. I need to keep on with the meetings and keep on with the steps in order to stay sober and I've been doing that very long and it's been working real well for me and I plan to keep that up. I plan to keep on doing what I'm doing I was going to say I enjoy working the steps and I stumbled over that well only in the sense that working the steps isn't always fun fun fun but I enjoy the life that I get from living, from doing the steps and I have gotten involved in a pamphlet on how to study the first 164 pages of the book and how to do the steps when you come to it. It's not a step study, it's a step do it. And being involved with that as a part of that, I have redone the steps, it turns out, about every five years. And what my experience is that every time I've done that, I've moved to a new plateau in my sobriety. I'm not saying that's what anybody else should do. I know a lot of people say you do the step once and that's all, and then you do maintenance steps. Then there are other people who say you do these steps every year. I don't care what you do. just saying what I do and what has worked for me. And I like it that way. And I enjoy the steps. I touched on the third step before, and I really enjoy the third set, turning my will and my life over to the care of God. And I tell him, God, you take my life and do what you want with it, and I'll pedal and you steer, and for God's sake, watch where you're going. I'm sick of some of the places we've been in fact I have at my den in my office at home I have a plaque like thing it's a photocopy of one page of the magazine book section of the LA Times and it has a picture of the author and the name of the book and there's a quote from the book and I have it up there because I like the quote from the book and the quote says I suppose if I'd got the job I wanted at Montgomery Ward I never would have left Illinois simple enough statement I suppose if I had gotten the job I wanted at Montgomery Ward I would never have left Illinois The officer didn't get the job at Montgomery Ward, and he did leave Illinois. And he became a radio sports announcer, a movie actor, a union president, the governor of California, and president of the United States. You know, that's so much like what we hear. We don't get what we want, but we get what's according to God's plan and I need to remember things like that it's often best when I don't get my way and I it's a business of enjoying working the steps the more I think of that, the more I think about it uh like the i it's such a profound difference the sixth and seventh step are such so profoundly different than what i feel i was taught all my life i was always taught as i understand that i could have done better if i'd have tried harder all i had to do was try harder and and today i look back at and i was trying as hard as i could all the time i really think I have been doing my best at every moment of my life, up to and including this moment. And so has everybody else. If we could try it harder, we would have tried harder. But the thing that I like, I always thought that it was up to me to correct my defects of character, that I should work on them and that I Should ask God to help me get rid of my defective character. And anything I wanted to do, I need to ask God to help Me do what I wanted to do. That was an epitome of that was, I was asking him to help me with my drinking problem. Help me, help me, for God's sake, help me. And I thought he was saying, screw you, Paul. But he wasn't. What I found is that God won't help me. God won't help me do his will. My will. He won't help me to do my will. But he's perfectly willing for me to help him do his will. talking him into helping me do what I want and it's the same way with my defects of character I have to become friendly with them I used to fight them and they love that they're really energized by that I have become friendly with them and hope to have them removed whenever he removes them I'm having a little difficulty finding the words to what I want to say now. It's not that having difficulty knowing what I want to say because the people in my head are arguing about what I ought to be talking about. You're sitting there very quietly and very attentive and I appreciate that. People in my hand are chattering away like man, one of them says something I oughta talk about and before I can say anything about it another one over here says no, no, don't talk about that, talk about this and before I do anything about that a third one says no no talk about this thing and they get the fighting back and forth among themselves and it's really very distracting uh and i think well shut up up there you know and they shut up and i can't think of anything to say in fact that's one of the biggest things about doing the steps and live in this program I've gotten much more comfortable with them up there I don't fight them anymore just no fighting them I don' t do everything they suggest I'm so glad you can't hear the stuff I have to listen to a lot of this stuff is illegal and even more of it is lewd but I don't fight them and the things they suggest are out because I don' t fight them thank you for participating now if you'll sit down I'll call in somebody else I listen to everybody and then I decide what I'm going to do and how it's going to be from there anyhow I really enjoy living this program and I enjoy being married with Max Max mentioned at the end of this year we will have been married 58 years we've known each other for over 70 years and last December 2nd was our 57th wedding anniversary and I told her that my gift to her for our wedding anniversary was that I was going to do everything that I could think of everything I could thing of, not everything she could think up to make our 58th year the best year of our marriage and every day since that time I've reminded her of how lucky she is she mentioned about communication, learning to communicate I have come to the conclusion I don't know if it's true or not but I do think it's truth and I know it's good for me to believe that it's true and live my life as if it were true that people treat me the way I have taught them to treat me that if I don't like the way somebody is treating me it's up to me to change my behavior rather than to try to get them to change theirs remember one time I said a thing on communication by Sister B. You ought to get her up here if you haven't had her wonderful gown and hear her talk. She was talking about communication and she got to a question and answer period and somebody asked the question, what is communication? And I thought, well that's a stupid question. But then I was surprised when Sister B couldn't answer it. And I was not only surprised, I was disappointed when she says, Paul, how would you answer that? And I couldn't think of a good definition for interpersonal communication, but I did remember having read someplace that a measure, a measure of communication is the result it produces. A measure of your communication is to be solved. It produces. If you don't like the results you're getting, don't blame the other person. Blame yourself. If you've taught them to treat you the way they're treating you, you can teach them different differently different whatever the right word is teach them to do it differently but anyway and I find that a real challenge I have become very conscious of the max of my communications and communications generally life is basically a communication problem I have relationships with people places things in situations and communications about those relationships and I really think that an interpersonal relationship marriage and partnership it really is a ongoing test of one's communication skills enough of that for God's sake let me say this I was thinking yeah somebody showed me a computer program that makes charts and you use this program in a computer and you put in data and it'll make a pie chart and cut it up in pieces and color it all and stuff like that or make a bar graph and all that fancy stuff and I thought if I had a giant computer and put all the facts of my life into the computer with that program what would a graph of my wife look like and I came to conclusion that it would be like that Jelinek chart that it would be a giant V. My life started way, way over there and it's going to end way, away, way, over there and it is a V. When I was born in 1918 until July 31st, 1967 it was on a downhill course. It wasn't a straight line down it was up and down just enough ups to keep me confused and when it went down it went further than it went the last time and it ended up in the nut ward of the hospital I was on a staff of and that wasn't bad enough I had to go to AA and I went to AA for seven months and one extra meeting too many and finally I accepted the fact that I, of all people strange as it might seem and even though I had no choice in the matter I was a mild alcoholic. And from that point on my life's been getting better and better and better and today it's far better than it's ever been. And as far as I can tell Well, the only limit to how high it can go is how long I stay around doing the things I'm doing that's keeping it going up and with what intensity I keep doing this program. And again, it's not a straight line-up. It's up and down, up and done. But even when it goes down, I know a lot of things to do to get it to go back up. Go to more meetings, read the book, talk to a newcomer, call people on the program, start a new meeting. That's what I can't think of anything else to do. start another meeting, anything, doing service, doing part of the AA, and reaching out to others. Or doing nothing. I know that when it goes down, it's going to go back up. That's what they say, sit still and hurt. Or as Winnie Eddy used to say, the Al-Anon speaker, she said that was the only Bible quote she ever used. She said, the Bible says, and it came to pass. He says, the Bible did not say, and it came to stay. It's always going to get better. I want all I can get out of this program. I don't think, I know nobody can live long enough to get everything this program has to offer, but I want All I Can Get. I want to get all I Can get. And it all started, the thing that fascinates me is the point of the V. One act of acceptance of one reality changed the course of my life. And I thought, wouldn't that be something if I would just automatically accept every reality in my life as it comes without even evaluating it? Because my tendency is to decide whether or not I like it. And approval, as Max said, I was going to say approval has nothing to do with acceptance. It does have a lot to do avecceptance. It's an impediment to acceptance. It's a serious thing. Answering the question why is an impedament to acceptance because the answer to the question of why or why me is why not? Why not you? As Robert Shuler used to say, when people ask God why, they don't want an explanation. They want an argument. But my point... The thing that bothers me when I think about it, the change in the direction of my life as smart as I am and it's good looking why did it take me that long to realize that I was an alcoholic and the only thing I can see is it has to do with that approval thing I didn't approve of me being an alcoholic and I thought if you accept something that a priori means you approve of it. I mean, if you buy merchandise and obviously you must approve of or you wouldn't have bought it. Or you get it home and you find out it's not what you thought it was and you don't approve of It. You don't keep it. You take it back for God's sake. And that's the way it is out there in that world. But in God's world and the world of reality approval is... I can't think of a single significant thing in reality of my life where anything was changed just because I didn't approve of it. In fact, when I picture God up there creating reality, working day and night, holidays included, working like a fiend, creating reality. I can just visualize one of his messengers coming up and saying, oh my God, God, we got a problem. Paul doesn't like the day we sent him. I can just see God saying, well, you can tell him where to go. And I think that's basically our life. That's what it's all about. Our job is to accept life whether we like it or not. And I love that line in the middle of page 132 that says we absolutely insist on enjoying life. Absolutely insist on... I've read many textbooks, studied many textbooks. never before ever saw a textbook on how to recover from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body a serious medical illness where part of the recovery was that you absolutely had to insist on enjoying your recovery I find if I'm not enjoying my relationship with Max I'm doing it right if I don't enjoy my program I'm enjoying it right I'm saying we have to be happy, happy, but in AA we can enjoy AA funerals somebody died sober I mean all kinds of things we get joy even in the ministry that we're going through the people in my head are arguing half of them keep telling me your time is up shut up and the other half are saying no this is fun let's sit in here and talk some more and one of them keeps telling say tell them that you love them and sit down but I hesitate to say I love you all because when I was new I'd hear people say that and say and I love you all and I think oh crap you don't even know me and if you did you wouldn't like me but anyway I love you all whether you like it or not thank you very much Thank you very much.