The Combined Programs of Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous – Bob E.

Okay, here it goes. For those of you who can't see the shirt, it has an American flag on it with a teddy bear standing in front of the American flag and he has his paw raised and it says, In Bears We Trust. And I wear it for a reason because it puts me in touch with my child. It reminds me of a gentle part of me that I tend to forget at times when I travel, drive, think... generally associate with people happy birthday to all the birthday people and it's kind of nice to be back after so many years I forget the last time I was here a long time ago I know I've changed I hope those are you who were here then have changed I was looking at this sign a little gathering of men and women happy in their release I have never seen a little group of men and women in a happy in there really most most release I see is after near death anything I want is usually drug ripped from my bleeding fingertips for those of you have heard me talk before i heard my tapes you've heard me talked for years about the committee all of the voices in the mind that have generally devoted a great deal of every waking day to trying to destroy me ever since i first got sober and uh i'm delighted to report now at 21 years i have gotten down to four it's certainly makes life a lot more peaceful you know and it's easy to deal with now because each separate part of me has an identity and an identity that i can cope with and if you are so insane as i have been in sobriety where you are able to put chairs in a circle at home and have a meeting alone by yourself moving from chair to chair something to do in the middle of the night you know when you can't quite sleep it's a relief to be down to just four you know it's true peace of mind I'm sure it would scatter some so-called normal people whatever they may be but and the four are very distinct personalities and I'll share them because for me it's been a critical part of my recovery and the first one is the child who's a little guy in here and he's very gentle and he's a very soft very fragile little child he needs great loving care because he never got anyone when he was small he he grew up in a typical alcoholic household he had a father who was an alcoholic and a mother who was an extreme neurotic and uh he didn't have a chance you know i mean it wasn't really what he asked for and that's what he got we'll get into that later the second personality is an adolescent I don't know how many of you are in touch with a teenager living inside your somewhat older body but I can assure you he's a pain in the ass he's an never ending source of fun for me about three years ago I got him a Corvette I said well you deserve a Corette I'm going to get you a Corvette. You know, you've been pretty good. So I got him a Corvette. The problem with that was when I got him this car, I was a safe driver. I mean, I wasn't a safe person. I was on preferred insurance. Okay? It had taken me 18 years of sobriety to get on preferred insurance. I had to live down 502s, felony drunk driving, hit and runs, the list of... I mean if I could crawl, I would drive. You know what I mean? It never was an issue as to whether or not to drive so I had an incredible driving record they just wouldn't take it off and it was lawyers and bullshit with the Department of Motor Vehicles and it went on forever and finally I'm a safe driver and I got my adolescent at Corvette and I'm back on assigned risk again son of a bitch just kept getting tickets his last one was in Kalinga so I wasn't too heartbroken when the town fell down with a $150 ticket. That's enough to rebuild one store with, for Christ's sake. The adolescent also doesn't fully understand that he's in a 47-year-old body. He hasn't accepted that and he seems to refuse to. He still seems to think that he has the capabilities that he had when he was very young. And I discovered, and I started to run back about November, and I discovered in running, I run at a high school sometimes in the morning And I can tell what kind of day I'm going to have just by what transpires when I run at this high school. Because if I'm running around the track in the morning and one of the gym classes is out, Beverly Hills High, and the girls are out running in their little dolphin shorts doing their beautiful laps, if I view them with the sense of a mature adult, here are young ladies, young women about to blossom into full-grown womanhood and bless them and their children I know I'm going to have a rather wonderful day because the adult is in charge and it will be a quiet day a peaceful day a mellow day you see but if I'm cruising the track and I have this image of him as potential dates it's going to be a long fucking day you know because the adolescent will give you whiplash too the guys understand this you know you're driving down the street and the adolescents you know he just can't can't get up and he doesn't want any responsibility at all he wants zero responsibility in life he wants nothing to do with anything that represents responsibility I think his biggest goal is what it once was and what it always has been what he really wants to do is find one giant breast encased in a cashmere sweater that he can that he could fondle behind a locker door in the hallway you know at school he was you think I like giving this shit up you're crazy but I found out if I don't share me we got nothing going on here so it's like that's all he's ever wanted and it still seems to be his son's total goal in life the third personality is the adult he and I are relatively new acquaintances we haven't known each other long at all actually a few months to be maybe a year and i find a a very gentle man a very peaceful uh very uh considerate man a guy i would like to know it has it has affected my life a lot just getting in touch with this person because see i've always lived with somebody i hated me you know and that's a tough lifestyle and I see everybody, most people I know go through it in sobriety no self-esteem, it's the self-hatred there's no use for yourself and you're stuck because when you go home the very person you got is you and we say about the alcoholic and his loneliness we talk a lot about the loneliness of the alcoholic and it's true but one of the things that I've discovered lately is that i spent about 17 years in sobriety totally out of touch with my feelings okay i was sat in aa meetings and i would listen to people talk i was 15 years sober and i'd sit in a meeting and i listened to somebody get up and say well today i was at work and the boss said and it hurt my feelings and I sat in a meeting and I literally did not know what they meant my feelings were buried so deep you couldn't get to them if you wanted to get to and I had no comprehension of what these people were talking about and I used to watch guys and they'd get all upset over something and the tears would come or anger would come and they just really go on or I would be in a relationship with a woman and she'd start to express some feelings and I'd have to change them for her. You know, it's like, no, no, you don't feel that way. No, no. Let me tell you how you feel. I'm going to put you in a frame of reference I can understand, see? Because I don't understand my feelings. And now I realize that I've spent the last four years getting in touch with my feelings, I understand why the alcoholic is so lonely. See? because it's like if you go home alone and you're not in touch with your feelings any feelings when you sit down nobody's there I mean no one is home just the voices and they are rather empty you know they don't give you any certainly not a sense of well-being you know when's the last time you sat around thinking and this sucker was telling you how good looking you are and how well your life is going to go you know how much happiness and prosperity you're going to enjoy over the next few months once you get over the cancer and get a job the fourth voice is still that one son of a bitch that is out to kill me he is against anything I want to do that is good for me or others but particularly me I mean, he wants nothing. I can't do anything, particularly anything new or different or change. You know, I heard a line the other day that is really wonderful. It just stopped me cold. There is absolutely no pain. Listen carefully to this because you're not going to like it. There's absolutely no gain in growth. No pain in change. None. And there is no pain in growth, none, zero. The pain is in the resistance to the change and the pain is in the resilience to the growth. And if you think about it for a minute, if you've been sober a little while, the minute you become willing and you let go, the pain goes away. It doesn't matter if you're moved to a new town, if you'RE moved to anew job, in or out of a relationship. It doesn' t matter what happens in your life. Once you just let go and go for the change, the pain IS gone. the pain is in the resistance and I resist anything new I'm into the old, the familiar yeah sure I'd like to go meet those people but I gotta go back here and stay home and talk to me some of definitely the most worthless conversations I've ever had in my life you know most alcoholics 90% of the ones I've met have minds just like mine so we really understand each other even though you try and bullshit me I know your Looney Tunes see doesn't matter what kind of a front you put up I know see because I've been around here too long and I've talked with too many people I know that just getting out of the house in the morning is a bitch you know I know that you wake up with the voices talking to you immediately you know right first thing in the AM the voice says oh good glad you're awake I've been waiting to talk to you like the son of a bitch that's been up all night just a vulture on the headboard looking down, waiting and the very first thing it'll tell you it does not matter how much sleep you have had it will tell you you have not had enough you're really tired today you're not going to be able to do well at all if I was you I wouldn't go to work today but then if you don't go to work they're going to fire you but if you go as tired as you are you're going fuck up, they're gonna fire you anyway so now that you lost your job how are you going to handle it you don' t have enough money to last four weeks you know you're in a lot of trouble son you know that bruise down by your knee that's not a bruise, that's bone cancer so you've been awake about seven seconds, you know right you're in a sweat you've lost your god damn job you got cancer, you're broke and people wonder why the alcoholic doesn't jump out of bed and greet the fucking day isn't this terrific one more day of life to live I mean, I don't know anybody who wakes up with the voices saying, Oh God, cheery morning, you know. We get to go through it all again today. Isn't life wonderful? You know, I still wake up sometimes in a cold sweat. Just total perspiration. The difference is now I know it's all bullshit. See? So they still talk to me. This one negative voice is still there to wish me a good day, you know. But I have learned that probably the single most important thing to living life sober is a term called show up. okay so I show up no matter what this says I've learned that it really lies a lot to me you see and I will show up and I have to show up in little bitty steps okay I can't take the show up at work screw that that's too far away okay that one can overwhelm me I mean I've been told by learned psychiatrists that he's being easily overwhelmed as part of our disease it's a nature part of what's wrong with us. So if I take it that I've got to show up at work, I can be really easily overwhelmed. So I pull all that back in and I just show up in front of the mirror and shave, right? If I can get to the mirror and shave then I can go and I can't get to the shower. If I didn't get to the shower I can give to the closet. Now the closet can be tough sometimes, you know. Picking the shirt can send you into a cold sweat, you know, 12 shirts later shit scattered all over the bedroom, you know your hair's all messed up, you know. God damn! What one do I wear, you know? Going to the firing squad, I gotta get, you know, look good when they give me the blindfold. So if I can get past that, then I try and get down in the garage at the car. If I can't get past it, then I get in the car, I point the sucker in the general direction of where I work and I'm off, you know, and if I get there and I usually will, you know 99 out of every 100 times i have ever occasionally drifted off uh once i show up there it's never as bad as i've been told it's going to be in fact usually something wonderful happens something i would have missed if i hadn't gone which i understand was the goal of my friend here all along you see i read a uh a thing in a paper here a while back where a psychiatrist has written a book and he said that the armchair is the neurotic spaceship. And for any of you who do any serious thinking, I know you can't identify with that, you know. Because the goddamn head never wants to go anywhere. Have you ever noticed that? It never wants to go everywhere. All it wants to do is sit and think, you know, and it needs nobody to entertain itself. In fact, it would just soon not have people around because somebody might say something that would force you to look at reality. You're sitting in a goddamn barbecue and it's on fire. Oh, I see, you know. I mean, it wouldn't rather just work things out, you now. Screw the meeting, I'll solve this one. Sit down, everything will be okay. And the thing I've learned about my head is that it started on day one, my very first meeting of AA. It didn't wait until I had 30 days or 60 days or 90 days or a year. It was waiting in the bushes for day one. When I got here, I weighed about 135 pounds. I weigh about 175 now. So I was about 40 pounds lighter than I am now. You can imagine what a skeleton I look like at 135. I've been living outdoors, so I have reasonably good coloring you know i had the clothes on it had on for i don't know a few months and that was my general condition not too good and the brains were fried from years of turkey basters filled with narcotics of various assortments and degrees and mixtures so there was really not a lot left i just kind of sat around you know and through a set of circumstances eskimos i call them i wound up at my first meeting in aaa in this condition mind you sat very carefully in a chair in altadena california had a nice charming little aa meeting brought a cup of coffee which was put in front of me on the table that i lapped up like a dog you know because i couldn't pick it up because i was like this you know and after i got a little coffee in me and i was aware that people were pretty quiet i ventured to look around the room you know get the head off the chest and looked around the room and my mind says to me, this charming instrument, well, we have sunk to the fucking bottom this time. And it followed that by saying, this is the end of the road. Now I want to tell you how lethal that is, okay? It sounds innocent enough because most of us aren't thrilled with AA when we arrive. No one I'm acquainted with has greeted this program with open arms, you know. Most of them were sentenced, drugged, beaten or some otherwise gotten to a meeting. Hated everybody for years and, you now, have just recently in their 15th year of sobriety come to accept it. You know, maybe they're going to have to stay here. So I don't know anybody that got here happy but I'll tell you how disastrous as that into the road attitude is okay because in reality we have in front of us in the 12 steps of alcoholics anonymous and the fellowship of alcoholics anonymous we have got probably the single most powerful self-help program in the world okay number one no other program of any kind for any disease any affliction physical or mental enjoys the success rate that AA enjoys, that this program enjoys. This is it. This is all powerful. But what my mind has said to me at my first meeting is this is the end of the road. So now from that I can only draw this conclusion. This is something I do here between drinking and using and dying. Okay? So now that I can't drink and use anymore I stay sober until I die. That's it. That's the sum good I'm going to get out of AA. It doesn't tell me i'm going to have a happy life a joyous life that i can so totally change i'll hardly know myself that i'll become a person i enjoy living with that life is beautiful and wonderful that i will be prosperous that i would have a marvelous career that everything is going to be outstanding it has said you just kind of hang out here until you die sucker and then you know that's it well how much energy do you put into a program if it's the end of the road right somebody says well it's all over for you as you know fathead but here's the book this is the end I mean you know you can go in people's houses and write your name on the covers of their book it's so dusty from no use why well why use it if you're not going to get anything here see and that attitude is pretty easy I'll share it this way only because it blew my mind because I began to get into a thing here a couple of years ago where I started looking around and based on the experiences I was going through, I became convinced that the number one problem of the addict and the alcoholic, both drinking and using and sober, is low self-esteem. None. We don't care about ourselves. And so about six months ago, to check this out, I had a couple friends from back east learn as psychiatrists, Highly qualified men. Very brilliant. Don't know anything about AA. I've never been to an AA meeting. They're often to another field of psychiatry, totally. Dealing really with children. And a couple of guys who are very spiritual and have walked the spiritual path for more than 40 years. And to the best of my knowledge, neither one of them have ever drank or used anything of any kind. They were raised spiritually, grew up spiritually, and stayed on that kind of a path. So I'm dealing with the intellect and I'm dealin' with very gentle souls. I mean, so peaceful, being around them will put you to sleep. You just kind of go, you know, like this. And I took him to, I think it was three AA meetings. Big meetings. I let him see a little bit about what AA was like. And then I said, I got him alone afterwards, and I said... Okay, as outsiders, what do you think? What do you thing of AA? Forget I belong, just give me an honest appraisal of AA. And all four had the same response. And they were in shock, in shock at us. And here's what they said. They said, Jesus, you know, these people, by nature of a miracle, by natureof some sort of divine intervention in their life, have had removed from them a terminal illness. They have had taken out of their lives something that can kill them. It is God. They are free from it and yet they sit in the goddamn meetings and they continue to destroy themselves they said they smoke endless fucking packs of cigarettes they drink coffee by the barrel they eat sugar like it was health food or nuts or something good for you right and they get about as much sleep as a nocturnal goddamn guinea pig you know and I had to sit and listen to this appraisal of us while part of me was getting red with anger and this side of the neck was getting big you know and the other side was saying you know what they are absolutely right they are correct we do we get freed from something that was absolutely destroying us and we continue to go right down the drain you know and I don't why what the hell went wrong what happened that we can't come in here and have enough self-esteem that we're willing to go through a little physical discomfort for ourselves. Just a little. You know, that's really what it gets down to. I am unwilling to go through any discomfort to do something that's good for me. It's like, well, I quit smoking but I have to go through the pain of withdrawal. You know the logic? Can you hear that? I mean, that's lunacy. I would really like to do something good for myself but I don't want to do it. I'm... It's okay, fuck it. Yeah, I know the coffee's getting to me but you know everybody drinks it you know I mean the mind is so weak with the crap that comes up with why we should continue to destroy ourselves and yet we go for it and that's the interesting thing why do we go for it why don't we tolerate what the mind says the thing that got my attention about smoking I'll share this one is I was researching a suicide project and I was at suicide prevention I was sitting at a table with the people that run it. And I whipped out my Marlboros and lit one up. And it dawned on me there were no ashtrays. And that no one else at this gathering was smoking. And finally, the guy who was at that time the head of a Los Angeles chapter looked at me and he said, we have an official opinion on smoking, cigarette smoking, if you're interested. And before my head could get in there and stop me, I said, oh yeah, what is it, right? Big mistake. The guy looked at me and said, okay, with all of the scientific information that is in, with all OF the technical information that it is in it is now apparent that smoking is lethal. That it is definitely dangerous to your health. Therefore, after studying it we view smoking as covert suicide. It is a little tiny gun with a little tiny bullet and every time you light one you're killing yourself now I left suicide prevention armed with that piece of information and it fucked my smoking up for a year you know and I quit after that I mean I couldn't do it anymore I was so aware suddenly I was aware of what I was doing suddenly somebody had hit me with you're still killing yourself why are you still killing yourselves now let's see if we can find out why I continue to kill me Because I didn't know any of this. I had, let's see what time it is. In AA the first five years were a bitch, to say the least. And I will just sum them up by saying at four years sober I had done the very best job I could do with every area of my life and I was bankrupt through the courts, lost my car, sleeping on a guy's couch, working in a car wash for a dollar and a quarter an hour. I had started at $1.35 my my hemorrhoids are coming back from years of sitting on concrete in institutions by bouncing in and out off the hot car seats all day long and I hadn't had a relationship in so long I had forgotten how you know I mean I couldn't even get anybody to go to coffee with me you know you cross a line where they won't believe anything you say you know because they just see the look in your eyes and they know you're not sincere so that was my four years you know I mean it's generally just a total god damn disaster I wouldn't even take a cake my friend said take a kick and I said why you know I mean 12 step calls from central office the guy had to be sober and have a car so he could pick me up so I could take him to the god damn meeting right so I said what the hell am I going to tell the newcomer come in here hang on give up your drugs and alcohol for four years and you can have all of this you know I was happy and joyous in free life, right? So they gave me one in the Sunday morning meeting at the Glendale Sanitarium. They figured there even my story was told because at least I was still outside. So I went through a year after that which wasn't about as much fun but it got a little bit better because I hung on to a better paying job and at the end of that year approaching my fifth birthday I was in a lot of misery and trouble I wanted to die in essence I was sitting around for those of you who keep coming back you'll hear someone talk about drinking don't pay a lot of attention to what I say it doesn't have to be this way for you it is for everybody else but it doesn' t have to be this way for you I at five years two months prior to my fifth birthday in Alcoholics Anonymous I wanted to die i uh i had no desire to to for those of you it just sounds like a joke when i say it and it really isn't and it's not meant to be but because for those who have been in this kind of depression you will understand what i mean the thought of suicide would have been a step up in the depression it would have an increased level of awareness because i didn't have enough left to want to kill myself i just wanted to sit still and die right on the spot you know screw the impending fifth birthday I could have cared less less for the big nickel it didn't interest me at all death interested me in fact I never ever thought about suicide until I got sober never entered my mind 11 years of drug addiction alcoholism never thought about killing myself so if you're in a little stress on your sobriety it's okay to be expected and if you are not under a little stress that's okay too keep coming back And give up the grass. The stress will come. If you think speed was a high, wait till you hit the stress. I gotta tell you, it'll get your whole body. Misses nothing. And the intensity in the jaws is just as good as it was, anyhow. So I sat on this couch of mine in my apartment wanting to die and I really didn't have a relationship with God. I had tried to get one but I was very afraid of God because they kept saying, God, if you understand him. And the only God I understood was the old man who kept score, you know, sitting in the throne with the book. and any idiot knows that we're not even right you know i mean i wasn't even with the state of california i knew i wasnít even with god so i figured god is for the good people you know and it really doesnít work for those of us who are not that good and itís like also somehow i donít know where i got it but i had this conception in my mind that in order to get god to work for me i had to accomplish two things one was i had to do a lot of penance in sobriety i had to get good before god would help me i have no idea how you do that but that's what i thought i had to do with get good and then god would help me and then the other thing i thought was that i would have to have the proper metaphysical terminology to talk to god in other words you couldn't just say help you know it had to be some really flowery spiritual petition for assistance you know if when you have a moment you know most high deity would you whatever the i have no idea it was another brainstorm at the mind you know anything to keep me from freedom and happiness so sitting this night on this little in this little apartment of mine almost five years sober wanting to die, I made probably the single most profound spiritual prayer I have made in the entire time I have been clean and sober all 21 years. I looked at the ceiling in my apartment and I screamed at the top of my lungs loud enough to draw the attention of the manager and the neighbors, which I've never mentioned before. I just said, God, if you're not there, I am fucked! And then I waited. You know, like, it's coming in a moment. I know, you know. He won't tolerate that. I know that, you know. Because that's what my head had me believing, you know, it's like now you've really done it sucker. Nothing happened. So I got up the next day, I went to work, I placed a brand new Allen head wrench into a brand-new Allen head bolt, tooled for perfect fit, non- slippage, right? It slipped, I went backwards against one of the furnaces. I was working as a diacaster, crushed two vertebrae in my back and I was taken to the emergency hospital. Now I'm laying in the emergency hospital in this little cubicle and I have these doctors standing around me talking to me and they're saying things like, well you can't lift anything heavy again and you can stand for long periods of time and yadda yadida yadada because my back is in terrible shape. I mean I was totally insane when I was on the streets and everybody came from behind, you know, so every night i ever got hit with anything chains pipes bullets they all came in the back right the pelvis has been snapped in half put back together so generally i'm you know and when you see me go tooling out of here to run you're watching a miracle so these doctors give me this you know prediction of hope and walk out of this cubicle and i'm laying there in my mind this fine-tuned piece of machinery says to me, see you dumb son of a bitch. Last night you surrendered and today he broke your back. I have been telling you for years to stay away. And so from down inside here somewhere came a new voice and it said to my head it said why don't you shut up? i thought god you know i think i will i am so tired of listening to those voices so what i concluded laying there in the emergency hospital was this i decided that maybe breaking my back was a good deal right there was no evidence to prove it wasn't a good thing deal nothing so I said okay this is God's will my life is in perfect order perfect order no matter that it doesn't make sense that has become the single most important prayer of my sobriety whenever anything is going on in my life whether it's I have to face something new whether things are in turmoil whether everything is perfect no matter what's going on I just get really quiet and I say to myself my life isn't perfect order even though oh, it doesn't make sense to me. And I find out, pardon me, a very interesting thing. If I use that little prayer a half a dozen times a day, anything that isn't in order in my life is immediately corrected. What I need is added. What I don't need is removed. And I'm put on a path. Somebody said one time, how do you tell God's will? How do you determine God's Will? And the best answer I have ever heard in my life is you go out the door and start moving and when you hit a wall you turn left. It may sound simple but it's true. It's that simple. Okay? So I leave this hospital deciding, okay, my back is broken. I've got to wear these goddamn braces and supports and things and I'm just going to act as if it's okay. I'm going to do what's put in front of me to do. I'm gonna file for vocational rehabilitation. I'm doing I'm not going to apply for disability insurance. I'm willing to do those things that are put in front of you to do and I go down and I get my disability insurance and I got to voc rehab and that becomes a horror story right because they don't know what to do with me I don't have any education I have no trade I have not I have no profession they want to send me to four years in UCLA and make me a psychologist to work with poor suffering alcoholic and I said I'd do that for nothing and I can't stay in school you know what are you going to put me in school for I was fucking crazy in school when I was a kid I'm not going back now you know I can see me on a college campus right with the little munchkins it would have gone really well so they said well you know we got to find out what you're best suited for so they gave me a battery of aptitude tests i took one aptitude test each week for five weeks and came out something different each week okay i did not do that intentionally i wasn't being cute i wasn'T being funny i swear to god i answered the questions on that given day as honestly as how I felt you know I like this I don't like that I mean have you ever really gotten in touch with your insanity how you believe in both sides of any issue huh I don' t need anybody to debate with no one I can do it at home alone you know I can watch the news and take both sides of any issues you know kill them no give them some help send money you know so I had come out things like a forest ranger I don't camp out and can't stand the outdoors when I run out of asphalt I get nervous you know so I knew that really wasn't going to be my chosen career I came out mechanically inclined which is really a lie unless it's getting into somewhere out quickly came out musically inclined which is even a bigger joke than mechanically came out a social worker that's humorous in light of the fact that the state of California labeled me a homicidal social psychopath which is not I don't think one of the prerequisites for a social worker I'm not sure what they are but I have a strange feeling that's not one of them you know so anyway months went by this happened in July I broke my back and they did not know what to do with me and I'd go get my check and I would go meet with my counselor and I get my check and I meet with my counselor and get my check I can meet with my counselor. And December rolls around. And nothing's happened except I'm not wearing my brace on my back anymore. They don't know what to do with me. And I'm sitting home one night and I'm reading TV Guide. And in TV Guide, I come upon this ad. It says, Would you like to be a writer? I thought, Why not? It just felt like a good idea. It just made no sense at all. but it felt like a good idea. So I tear my little ad out of TV Guide and the following day or two days later, whenever it was, when I go into vocational rehab, I take my little add out of TV Guide and I give it to my counselor who's there to be supportive of anything I might want to endeavor, right? She laughs to god damn hard she almost fell out of her wheelchair, right?! She thought it was hysterical because she knew a lot of things about me, you see she knew I had a 10th grade education she knew I had failed English ever since the 4th grade she had all my applications in front of her she knew I was a phonetic speller right I couldn't spell she knew I had never read much of anything and didn't write anything very well at all so she sort of thought it was really ludicrous my little ad about wanting to be a writer but God in his infinite wisdom had even beaten bureaucracy okay at their game because she took the ad in and gave it to her boss well now remember i signed up for voc rehab in july this is now december they have already placed everybody from october right i mean i am the one black mark on the rolls of the van eyes office of voc rehab i'm still there and they've done nothing with me right this guy would have signed for basket weaving for me he didn't care right he said get in his books sign the thing and out the door I go. Okay? Now, I'm going to tell a little story so you understand about God and God's will because this one's a bitch. Right? I want to show you how difficult it is when you're on the right path. How many walls you run into. I send for my books. I get my books I sit down. I start to try and write a short story and it was really bad. Terrible. But I'm reading my books and I hit a book and it says it's critical to the first new writer that they write for a medium that they're familiar with. I thought, well, I never read much, but I have watched a lot of television. So I thought okay, no short stories, we'll write a television story. So now I sit down and I try and write a story for Bonanza and it was bad, I gotta tell you. I mean, it was really bad. The idea was great, but the execution was terrible. It was terrible, trust me. But I keep reading my books in my books say, not only is it critical that you write for a medium that you're familiar with, but it's also important to write about a topic you're familiar with. And I thought, oh, Jesus, I never lived in the Old West. You know, I don't know anything about the Old West. So I'll write about crime. Right? I know about crime. Crime and I, you know, we can do, don't have to do any research here. So, I watch the cop shows on TV and I zero in on Ironsides and I say, all right, now what kind of a story would I like to see on Irontides or a cop show that I've never seen before. I thought, well, I'd like to see one about a righteous payroll check passer, right? You know what I mean? I hung $35,000 worth of payroll checks one time and did a year for it. I made a small error in the end, the last few checks. You only have to make one. Those bitches get to make a hundred, you know. So I thought I'll write a story about a check passer. So now I'm busy writing my little story about this check writer. And I come home from a meeting with a guy I've known for a couple of years and I had made it a point in my sobriety because of the way I was wired to not know what people did for a living. I never asked, I never wanted to know what they did for living because I could be affected by what they did for life, you know, and treat them accordingly. You know, so, so if Max is a plumber and, and John is the vice president of Beverly Hills bank and Max and John both come up at opposite times after a meeting and want to go to coffee, Max is screwed. You Know What I Mean? I'll fix my own plumbing, but I may need the bank someday. See, so I will go with the banker. So I don't know what anybody does. And this guy brings home from the meeting this night and he drops me off at my house I still don't have a car everything's still the same still in the same apartment and he says what are you doing and I said oh I'm trying to write a story for television and he said oh great far out he said that's what I do I said what he said I write for TV see how hard I had to look for him okay see how much scheming maneuvering manipulating planning anguish and pain went into finding him I want to show you about God's path and how simple it is okay So I said, when you get done writing your story, if you like, I'll read it for you. Maybe I can give you some pointers. And I said oh, great, right? So I finished the story, I give it to him, he reads it. There's about a dozen pointers he gives me. I like six of them and I make the six I like and I ignore the other six. Which is, I found out, just a matter of creative choice and it's fine. Now I'm all done with it and he says to me, look, there's a girl on the program who after work at night she types on the side for extra money. Would you like her to type up the script for you? And I said, yeah, I would. I think somebody better. You know, I don't think Universal knows that dead is spelled D-E-D. They probably would like to see the A in there somewhere, you know, and I'm not sure where it goes, which is why I leave it out, you know. I have a dictionary at home for phonetic spellers. It's great. The words are in there phonetically because a dictionary is no goddamn good to you if you can't spell. you know it's the biggest joke in the world right I mean if you're looking for a word like character and you can't hear the H you're screwed you know you gotta start at the beginning of the C's with a ruler and just go until you find the words ah you know I got it right maneuvering manipulating arranging and pain went into finding her the next step in this remember this is a total loser guys this is no education you know total wiped out dope bean alcoholic wasted with zero self-esteem and the path is being put in front of me she takes it in she gives it to her boss they read it they like it they call me in for a meeting they want to buy it and do this great now my friend jim says to me okay let me tell you what the meeting's going to be like and he forgot i was a literal person it could have been a disastrous mistake he said now look the guy's going sit down and he's going say to you have you ever written the television script before and tell them no um you've never written one and then but that doesn't matter that you'll do a better job for him than his hacks at the studio because it's more important to you than it is to them and they're only going to pay you 2600 for the script and they piss that much away on a mistake on every show okay i'm armed for my meeting two days later i'm at universal studios riding in the elevator going up in the black tower right talking to god in the elevator informing him that if he doesn't get off the elevator with me i am in more trouble than i have ever been in in my life so i get off and i say wait you know i'm waiting to see this guy and i'm just finally i'm in his office now i am dealing but i don't know this i have no ideas i've got no information on this guy i got no book on him i'm dealing with one of the tyrants in the industry but i know that i'm dealin with a guy that everybody walks on eggshells around i'm dealing with a guy who would destroy a career if he could if you crossed him just a wonderful charming human being right i sit down in his office and he says the exact opening line jim said he would say have you ever written a script and i looked him right in the eyes and i said no i haven't as a matter of fact i've never seen a script i said but i will do a better job for you than your hacks here at the studio because it's more important to me than it is to them and you're only going to pay me $2,600 that's when you piss that much away on a mistake on every show silence right the longest five seconds of my life and suddenly he starts to laugh right he can't control himself nobody has ever talked to him like that you know he can believe this urchin from the street had come in and said, what? You know. So I write the script and it goes very well and they like it a lot and the show gets shot and they're really kind to me and they let me hang out for the six days with the director and we get all done and it's all over and I go and see it and he says to me, okay, let's do another show together. Just go home, come back on Wednesday I think it was when I was, I had like three or four days I forget how long. Think of a couple books, think of some ideas, come back and we'll do another show. Well, I mean, This is like seventh heaven. This is, like, the greatest gift in all of the writers. So I go home, right? Now, all I've got to do is come up with a couple of ideas. That's it. That's all, see? And I have here, mounted on my shoulders, a mind that has been talking to me without stopping, right, for 32 goddamn years it hadn't shut up. Not once had it ever gotten quiet. All I want from it now is two simple fucking ideas. That's if, right. You know what I get? Silence. I get silence deeper than I've ever been able to achieve in meditation. Nothing. All I want is one idea. Nothing. The only thing it says to me is, well, you've heard about those guys that write one book? You have just written your one TV show. I hope you've enjoyed it because it's over. well comes wednesday or whenever and i got nothing no idea at all i literally don't have an idea i've watched tv to look for ideas to steal i mean i anything i could do anything if i could go in with ideas my career is over you understand but i learned one thing show up right i showed up in front of the mirror and i showed up in the shower and i shows up in a closet and i showed up in the car and i showed up at universal studios i ride in the elevator one more time and i walk into this guy's office and i know i am just about to have the single most humiliating experience of my life and i sit down in his office in the chair he says well you got any ideas you know for sure and i go well i uh it's been uh he says wow look never mind he said i've got an idea He said, we've not been on the air long enough now and we're a strong enough television show. He said I feel we have some responsibilities. And he said I think as part of our responsibilities he said it's time for us to do a really serious look at drug addiction and the upper middle class teenagers. And he says that to me and I said to him, what the fuck couldn't I think about? You know, I mean I'm the dope fiend for Christ's sake you know I had this straight arrow sitting there in a goddamn chair giving me my whole life history right so I say to him yeah great idea you know see how hard I had to look for the idea see how much scheming had to go in I mean I gotta tell you man when you're trucking on the panel it falls and when you don't it doesn't okay so anyway I said look here's what we've got to talk about we've gotta talk about blah blah blah right blah blah just bomb it he says wait a minute he says how do you know so much about drug addiction I mean we all do this but I won't judge you by it I have a number of instances in my life where my mouth goes and I really wish it wouldn't you know I'm standing there listening to me talk thinking God I wish I could just drop dead right here right now or fucking disappear you know this really isn't me talking you know so please understand that anything but it just goes on by itself you know so I figured this was one of the times that it had gone on by itself and it got me in a lot of trouble so I figure one of my sponsors had taught me when caught tell the truth so I was caught right so I said well look I said I'm a drug addict and alcoholic and I drank and used for 11 years and I've been cleaning sober for a little over 5 years through the combined programs of Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous he says oh that's great and he goes right back to talking about the story no big deal and then about ten minutes later in the conversation he looks at me and says would you be offended if we got a technical advisor for the show I said no that's cool he got a narc from the San Fernando Valley who I had taken a shot at we pretended the other did not exist for the whole show we only said two lines to each other right I said still a cop he said ah still alive we never spoke again I was the writer but he was the technical advisor it was interesting if you haven't learned to forgive and forget so anyway we did the show and it came out very well now we truck on down the higher order of life and I go through life experiences a couple of marriages I fall deeply in love with a woman who was probably the greatest lady I've ever known and four months after we were married she got we got married she died which is a of an experience but i stuck the grief at the time and i put it aside to relive last december which i may or may not get to but anyway some of others life experiences go on and i keep working as a writer and in the career keeps going okay for me but i don't have enough self-esteem to deal with money i mean i had a i had way of dealing with money when you spend it it came in i spent it didn't matter how much came in i thought i could spend it really easy It wasn't difficult at all. So that whenever I was done with a project, I was always done and broke. I kept myself in that constant state of anxiety. But I didn't deserve to have a little peace of mind. I didn' t deserve to be in the studio. I didn''t deserve to some security of any kind. I just stayed right on the scale. So one day, about 16 years older, I guess, I don' t remember, right in there, I had a friend of mine come visit me at the studio He was sober about as long as I was. But he's one of these guys that's not cool. You know what I mean? He gets excited over anything. He's gotten in touch with his child and his adolescent and his adult, and he's having a good time out there. He doesn't know that it's supposed to be miserable. He doesn'T understand that you're supposed to look good at all costs. He has fun instead. Participates in life. he's the one that dropped the line on me that life is what's happening while you're busy making plans so he comes to the studio to visit me and he's never been to a motion picture studio well I might as well have a ten year old right I mean this guy goes nuts okay I mean wow look and screaming and shouting and carrying on he'd see a star walking along he'd say oh that's what's her name god I love her man she's great just on to go I just want to hide somewhere and I think I've got to get him in the commissary for lunch maybe he'll be quiet in there and I get him in the comissary and he's worse the guys from MASH come in and he says oh Jesus MASH is my favorite show wow that's the reference and that's Doc and oh Christ there's Alan L. Cheese you know I mean I'm like everybody's looking to see who this guy is you know I'm not like get him out of the comm I ate lunch every lunch of my life I was like done right are you ready so I get him out of there and I take him down to the stage where they're doing a special effects stunt they do this incredible piece of special effects and it's all done and this meathead walks up to the special effects guy and says how did you do that right and I was surprised the special effects guy was delighted to tell him he said oh well we did that he got all done now I knew how see I didn't know how they did it either because I never asked you know I never ask because looking good you don't ask and look good you know what I mean so looking good is more important than knowledge fuck knowledge where you can look good you know why learn anything you know so finally I get him out of the studio gone and I'm sitting in my office and I don't and I feel uncomfortable and I am angry And I think, this son of a bitch just had more fun with my career in four hours than I have had in ten years. He got more enjoyment, more pleasure, more laughter, more thrills and more excitement out of my career in one afternoon than I had gotten the entire time I had been in it. Because I couldn't let myself feel anything that was going on. i always was listening to the mind i drove into the studio every morning expecting my parking place to be gone you know no more sign that i had ever been there right your job is over robert goodbye i never drove in i came in fact i was here one time i came over here and spent three weeks and i had just before i left i had to write a script in a hurry for a show i had four days to do it. So I did the script in four days, turned it into the studio, jumped on a plane, came to Honolulu, right? I figured I didn't even want to be around. So, I was staying with a friend. I've been here maybe three or four days. We come home from the beach one day and there's a letter in the mailbox. I'd given them a phone number and address where they could get me, and there was a letter In the mailbox from the producers, right. And I'm standing in the driveway holding this letter and I'm thinking, oh, Jesus Christ, I mean, like any good alcoholic, I'm reading through the envelope. I know what the letter says. I know it says, that's probably the worst script we have ever read in our lives. Not only will you not write for this show or this studio again, if we have anything to say about it, you'll never write in this town again. I mean I know how it says. I'm sitting there reading it through the envelop. And a girl with me finally makes this idiotic suggestion. She says, why don't you open it? So I open the envelope and the letter says, it's from the producers of the show, and it says, we wanted to take time out to tell you this has got to be one of the two finest scripts that have ever been written for this show. And because you dealt with it with such sensitivity and such love, it was interesting enough about, it was a Starsky and Hutchins, it was about his girlfriend dying. It said, so that was close to home. He said, because you handled it with much delicacy, we are not going to rush into production. We will wait until you return from Hawaii to make the necessary changes and then we will shoot it with the care and the attention that it deserves. My immediate response to that was, well, at least they aren't pissed off. Okay? Now that's sad. That is so tragic, it's unbelievable. It is so goddamn pathetic that I can't stand in the middle of that driveway, receive a letter like that in my field or my profession or what I do from people who are judges of my kind of work praising me, saying I've written one of the two best shows they've ever had on the series that I can't jump up in the middle of the driveway and go I am a good writer! No, all I can say is at least they aren't pissed off and go on about my day. Well, this kind of attitude led to continuing discomfort to say the least. So when I rolled into year 17 had reached a point where I had done it as good as I could do it with this program. I had written all the inventories I could write, I had worked all the steps I could work, I had spoke all the times I could speak, I had donned all the institutions I could go to, I had been in all the schools, I had gone through everything I could do with this goddamn program and I was still, something was wrong, man. A piece of me was missing and I didn't understand what these people meant when they talked about feelings! because I didn't know what the hell they were. So a friend of mine suggested to me, perhaps I should see a therapist. And I said, I think that's an outstanding idea. I shall do it immediately. Because I had watched somebody I know go through it and I watched the changes and I thought, God, if they can help her, you know, they can health anybody. It was really true. As I went to her, I said who is your therapist? You know, and she said so-and-so. I said great, I'm going tomorrow. Give me the number, I will call. and you know you'll hear a lot of bullshit in AA about therapy and if you're in it or thinking about going anybody just give them this I don't give a fuck they're 30 years over you know Bill Wilson was in therapy needed it critically at four years of sobriety he was in therapy for 16 years so let's not hear any bullshit guys it's in the book and I'll be delighted to show it to anyone who would like to take me on over the issue of therapy after this meeting just bring me a big book and AA comes of age and we'll sit down and discuss it so anyhow because I think criminally we're trying to keep any kind of tool from anybody because it's all is the tool it's another tool and it's a tool i needed desperately really needed desperately 17 years i don't think if i found it we would be having i wouldn't be here tonight and so i sit down with this therapist for our first meeting this lady because i've had a lot of relationships have gone in the toilet and i figured i might as well get a woman for a therapist maybe i'll learn something here and she says well tell me a little bit about yourself start with your childhood and just fill me in right they said well you know when i was 15 years of age they threw me out of main arts high school and i had discovered the wonderful world of drugs and alcohol and i drank and used for 11 years dealt narcotics and just generally you know terrorized the streets until i was 26 and i came to aa and i've been clean sober for 17 years she looked at me she said no no she said wait a minute She said, I said, start with your childhood. She said your childhood didn't, you weren't born at 15 years of age. I said well I don't remember my childhood. I don' t remember anything back past 15 years old age. And she got that great look that the learners get when they know they've got a ripe one right. Well I can write a paper on this sucker, you know. and so she said well I think it'll probably be beneficial for you and for me if we can discover what went on back there right I had always thought what has that got to do with anything you know I'm here today I'm clean and sober today being a kid got nothing to do with what I'm going through today God did that keep me in misery for a long time so any and the reason I never thought anything about it although I probably have written 130 goddamn inventories is I took all my inventories from my sponsors all of whom also can't remember back past 15 years of age, right? So it didn't seem strange to them. It was fine. That's exactly where their life started at 15. Oh yeah, all right. You know, nobody ever said what happened when you were 4 or 2 or 3 or 8 or 10, 12. You know? What was adolescence like? You know. I chose not to even experience it. You know I went for morphine instead. That's true. How the hell do you advise an adolescent about their adolescence when we've all lived ours you know at 30, 40 years ofage? so anyway this lady and I go to work on finding out what the hell happened back there when I was a kid to sum it up to not bore you with the details I can say that my parents were smart enough to never get a dog you see because they knew a dog would be too much work so they had a kid instead I was blessed I was chosen to experience all that they had experienced. Now, in AA, what we hear around here, which is really interesting, is people say, well, you've got to forgive your mom and dad for doing the best job they could with the information they had. I heard that when I was in AA. And I said, yeah, great. Mom and dad did the best jobs because of the information he had. Forgave them. Went right on destroying me, keeping myself in, you know, continuous self-destruction, no self-esteem, just screwing up my life, meaningless relationships, not experiencing feelings. 17 years of sobriety but half of it was half death, right? But I forgave them. See? Because they did the best job they could. Well, let's talk about the job they did for a minute because it's critical. It is absolutely critical to me. i started to try and run and get into running about two and a half years ago and i got caught up with guys that ran a lot faster than i did they were they all qualified for boston i had no business being with them but they were intense alcoholics and they also didn't have enough sense to let me be so i spent a lot of time tired and blistered and injured or asleep or just generally it wasn't going well. I was having a lot of trouble with my feet, needless to say, with this body I've got. I have my own gait. And I had three different pairs of shoes being neurotic, one for each surface, you know, one for asphalt, one for dirt, one for grass, right? What can you do with a neurotic? You know, he's got a lot personalities, you have to buy him shoes. It's like raising a family, you know. You go out in the morning, come on kids let's go run you know so uh i'm running with this one guy one morning he said look what you gotta do is you gotta go see this podiatrist in long beach he will make for you a pair of things called orthotics these orthotics in essence are going to balance out your foot stripe and they'll make every pair of shoes identical so when you go from one pair to the other to the other you're not going to have this terrible blistering problem you have and the guy the marathoner himself he understands well i was living in santa monica you know and long beach is a long way from santa Monica so i said screw it i'm going to go over here to century city it's closer all right listen carefully because this is incredible what we will do to ourselves so i go over to century cities i mean why go to the best when century city is closer so i'd go over a century city and i go to this podiatrist in century city i said well oh, I'm trying to run and I need orthotics made. He added, he added. He says, oh, I don't make them. He said, but I have a girl who's going to be in the practice with me in a month. She makes them. I said, oh, okay, great. I'll wait. So I waited. Now, normally, under any other circumstances other than something good for me, I guess, the minute he says, no, I don' t make them, I would have understood that was a wall. Right? I had just hit a wall and the best thing I could do now is turn left and keep going. I wait right here at the wall. You know? i'll wait for her it's okay you know fuck life i'll just stay here so she shows up in a month makes me a pair of orthotics i go out i finally get them i get in my shoes i go outside and i run three miles go home sit down drink a can of tab get up and can't walk all right absolutely have just totally thrown out my whole lower back because they were made wrong. Now I'm out trying to run with his back limping down the path, and my friends again being supportive say, look, you've got to go over to Pasadena, man. The best sports medicine doctors in Southern California are in Pasadена. They work with runners. They'll run with you. They will fix your back. They have you straightened out in no time. I go home, and I think about it for a minute, and it's like, God, if Long Beach is far, PasadENA it's further you know what i mean so the tragedy here is if you came to me and said i have injured my back the doctors i have been advised to go to are in pasadena would you please drive me i would drive you i would get in my car and take you the person i won't take is me because I ain't worth taking to them so I go to a chiropractor in the marina who's 40 pounds overweight and his eyes glaze over when you mention the word running he doesn't even know he would put my back in, I'd go run 9 miles he'd go out, I'D come back, he'd put it in we went through this for a month finally pain, desperation and I can't stand it anymore and a little piece of guidance from my therapist, I went to Pasadena. I finally got in my goddamn car and drove me to Pasadaena. And I got to Pasadenna and the guys were great and they had gotten me straightened up enough that I felt like I could walk and so now I said, while I'm on a roll, I will go to Long Beach. And I get down to Long beach and I take my shoes off and I'm sitting there waiting for this podiatrist and he looks at my feet and he looked at my right foot and he says, Jesus, no wonder you're having problems. Your right foot is practically a club foot. I said, what? He says, yeah, look. See how it just lays over and curls in? And I'm sitting there, you know, my feet out on the thing looking at his foot and I go, I don't feel well. You know? It's like... I get this really sick feeling. and i said well when did it happen you know i said i mean i was in a severe automobile accident that ripped my pelvis in half once and uh you know I've taken a bullet through that knee and i mean this is not from when you were a kid i said oh and i leave and i drive home Santa Monica and i don't feel good and I'm like i feel funny i feel just kind of sick and just a little angry. I get home, and I'm sitting at home, and I look at my foot, and it's like I can't connect it. It's like something in me is trying to connect it, and I can' t connect it in my mother call. I love God. I mean, God's timing is so wonderful. And she had just come from her podiatry. Right? He's great. And she's bitching about how he cut her toenails wrong. You know? And when she gets done with her standard line, I said to her, Look, as long as we're on the subject of feet did I ever have any feet problems when I was a little child when I Was small she said oh yeah yeah you did she said you had very very high arches as a child and we had to buy you specially made shoes when you were little they were very expensive shoes and in the next five minutes of our conversation she must have reiterated another six times how expensive these shoes were that they had to buy for me when I was a child. I hang up the phone from the conversation with my mother and I want to throw up. And I'm half homicidal and half sick. And I don't know what's going on except I'd like to kill somebody and I think it's her, but I'm not sure. And I're not even sure why. And the other half of me would like to just go in the bathroom and vomit. And I didn't know why. And so the next morning I have my therapist and I get with her and I said, look, here's what's gone on. Yadda dee yadda da. Canada and she said well let's go back you know let's get quiet lay down she said let's go back let's find out what's back there let's see what the hell it was all about and so we went back and back and what we found was this we found an absolutely adorable little boy right about two and a half years old blonde curly hair standing in the hallway in Denver Colorado, in his little shoes, with tears streaming down his face. And he was talking to his mother, and he said to his father, my shoe, my foot hurts, my right foot hurts because my shoe is too small. My shoe hurts. And his mother is saying to him, shh, not too loud. Your father might hear you, and you will be very angry if we have to spend more money on your shoes now i understand if i am not worth buying a pair of shoes for that fit just where i got my low self-esteem the two single most important people in my life as a child can't put shoes on me to sit what the am i worth right now i know when i have the basic feeling or opinion about myself that i matured i mean that's generally how i felt about myself so what i've learned is this which is really interesting it's very true i will stand here today i still have my father's dead disease killed him i still had a lot of difficulty with my mother i mean 90 minutes is tops 91 and i'm ready to kill her right so i go visit for 90 minutes once every six months maybe and i've gone because that's the best i can do right now But yeah, I will honestly say this. My mother and my father did the very best job they could do. They put on to me exactly what was done to them. They did to me what was down to them, they couldn't have done it any better on a bet. They had only X amount of information and they raised me with X amount of information. But that's only half the issue, guys. That's just half of it. And if we look at just that half, we're in a lot of trouble, see? Because that's one half. they did the best job they could the other half is over here the reality is they did a rotten fucking job an absolutely horrible job a criminal job okay and if I just look at this half I start thinking I'm wrong and they're right okay the best example of this I know of recently was a while back a gal in the program was celebrating her first birthday and her mother who was also on the program four years sober called her Listen carefully to this conversation. Her mother says to her on the phone, Look, the only thing I can give you at this time in your life right now is to tell you that I am fully aware that I'm responsible for the majority of the problems that you have in your lives today. I understand I am responsible. And she said, But for your sake, please understand. you are responsible for the solutions to those problems. And that's what we're here, and that's what we'RE about here. You know? I had no desire to turn out the way I turned out, man. It wasn't my idea to run the fucking streets with guns trying to kill people, because a lot of people like to meet my mother. You know. They'd like to discuss what happened to them with her, you know. You raised an angry child, dear. then somebody gave him a gun what has come out of all this awareness what has gone back into the childhood and find out I was raised in a house that could only accept silence no wonder I didn't have my god damn feelings right I'm raised in an alcoholic father who never was sober ever and they never raised their voices the only thing permissible in my house was silence silence was golden if i didn't talk didn't feel especially didn't express any feeling no no emotional highs or lows i mean don't laugh loud and don't cry just no wonder i went to drugs you know you know i was every time feelings would start to come up anytime i start to feel anything i went for the you know let's stop this shit let's get it down here, you know, level where I can deal with it. Because I wasn't allowed to express anything. I wasn' t allowed to be happy or... I was never allowed to being a kid. You know, I'm 47 years old. I've got to be a kid today, you now. I brought a teddy bear with me on the trip. He's in my room. You know? You're walking to the meeting after the meeting. You're like, yeah. My bears are giving me a sense of... My child loves bears, so I let my child have bears. He said, he's a great bear. He'd like it. Has a little Hawaiian shirt on and white shorts. He's called an aloha bear, right? I had all these bears on the bed and I have one bear who's my oldest he's six years old and he travels with me all the time and his name is just Bear I don't have a lot of imagination for a writer and Bear always travels with us so as I'm getting ready to come to Hawaii I've got this little Hawaiian bear who's never been to Hawaii and the little Hawaiian bear wants to cometo Hawaii so he can be real I mean he can become official once he's been here he can really be an Aloha Bear but I got Bear who you know always goes so I have to deal with them when I finally explained to Barry there wasn't enough room for both of them in the suitcase you know it was okay because Barry has been to Hawaii before that's my child see and I have to allow that in my life today yeah I work in a major motion picture studio where they pay me an awesome amount of money for what I do and I am and I have a great deal of respect for who I am and oh yes Mr. Earl you know and I go home and talk to my bears I have two bears on my desk you know nobody says anything they figure, oh, hey, let him have his berries, you know. He's not hurting anybody, you know, screw it. So that's the, anyway, that's gentleness. I forgot where I was, I got in my berries. Oh! The results of all this is that I have learned that I didn't have it coming. I did not have it come. Nothing that transpired when I was a child that I deserved it. None of it. None of It. Didn't ask for it. No child deserves it and it shouldn't have happened to me. So now, that little piece of information has set me free to be me. See? Because I have not liked me for the 17 years I was sober before I started therapy. People used to say, well, go home and look in the mirror and say, I love you. And I would go home and look into the mirror and say... Oh, fuck you. Yeah. Some endearing phrase, you know, but I couldn't say I love You. You know, that's about the shitheel here. let's not be ridiculous you know talk like that to jerks I mean that's how I thought that's true I think about it if anybody said to you if anybody on this planet said to you what you say to you about you you would kill them if anybody talked to you put you down constantly got in your way like you get in your own way like you put yourself down I'm too thin I'm not too fat this isn't right theology that's always it's never man you're never just okay you know because it's always if you don't have any self esteem you can't be okay because you're always trying to like my parents were always worried about what people thought jesus christ take that one to the grave with you you know so the thing that i have discovered is that i'm okay see and out of all that has come you know we talk a lot about about the newcomer is the most important person in the room okay yeah my my opinion is this is just my opinion the newcomER is the MOST important person in the room if you view a like a furnace that that needs coal to keep it going you know what i mean because whether you can accept this or not the single most important person in this room sits in your chair there is nobody in this room i don't care if they got 30 seconds of sobriety that's more important than you are nobody because if you don't take care of you you're not gonna have there's not we're not going to be here to have a program for the newcomers anyway and i by taking care of me i am a better example each and every day of the power of this program and what you can have here you know of what of what is available and it's not by my i had a conversation with a the front. I had a conversation with a learned friend outside of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I asked them how they viewed recovery. And they said, well, what they see is, and they know a lot about the program, they said what they say is when the person first comes into AA, they are rescued. Literally rescued, which is as it should be. I mean we are just picked up and rescued. We're told where to sit, we're brought coffee, we're told what meetings to go to, and people pick us up and take us here, listen to us cry and snivel and yada yada. We are rescued, we are taken care of. And then after we get a little bit of sobriety, we turn around and we rescue others. We pick them up, we bring them home, we feed them, we tell them where to seat, we get them coffee, you know, we rescue them. And she said, then now, the next step in a healthy recovery is you must now accept responsibility for your own life. You must finally realize that no one is going to do it for you. There is no Prince Charming, there is no Princess Grace. There is nobody who's going to come along. I mean, the magic lady with a million bucks in the Rolls Royce isn't going to show up and fix it for me and Prince Charmin ain't goingto come along and make it okay for you, right? Because his horse is goingto sit in your driveway and it's over, okay? And if you remember, most of us are still trying to work it out with our moms, you gals will take another look at us entirely. We aren't looking for partners or looking for moms. The first one blew it. We want one that'll do it right. So you accept what she says. You accept responsibility for your own life and from that point on, what you have to offer is you can tell anyone how you got to where you are and hope that they can take and follow those same steps, but you can't do it for And she said, I see the most common pattern I see. She said, is people in the program get caught up in the rescue rescuing. And I thought about it and I thought, Jesus, she's right. I mean, I know people 15 years sober who will listen to somebody on the phone in their hysterical conversation, solve their problems for them, hang up, pick the phone up, and dial their sponsor and go through the same bullshit, only their own. You know, it's like a vicious cycle. It's like they haven't yet stepped out. And so what has happened to me as a result of the information is I have finally reached a point where I have had to learn I'm this you know I'm all I've got and the interesting thing I've discovered by arriving at that is I'm okay you know I'm really a good guy I mean you should see my place where I live first of all my plants are all alive now I gotta I gotta explain to you what that means that my plants are all alike because a plant up until about a year and a half ago never stood a snowball's chance in hell in my house if you gave me a plant it was sentenced to die okay because a plant required water and water meant attention giving something to something else and if I can't give to me I can not give to something else so everything always died I had a baby bring me this great fern one time big beautiful fern on my birthday and I said oh god a fucking plant he said oh you are fun to give things to you know but I knew it was going to die and it did see now my plants are all alive, but I'm not well yet because I got a couple of them. One of them's gotten so big it needs a new pot, right? I mean, they're healthy. And I looked at this plant that needed the new pot one day. I broke myself up. I looked at it and my mind is saying, Jesus Christ, what do you want now? You know? Why did you every goddamn day take care of me and now you want more? You want a new pot? Jesus, you know. Is it not enough? I have a lot of conversations with myself in the mirror because I like me, okay? And I now walk by a mirror a lot of times and I will catch my impression as I walk by the mirror and I'll wink or I will smile. Right. Yes, definitely. It is such a trip and when I'm home alone now someone is there because there's a lot of feelings going on. I may be sitting on the couch and for no explainable reason start to cry. Sadness will just overcome me But I never allowed myself that before in sobriety. I'd be walking through the house and suddenly I'd feel sad and the mind would say, what do you feel sad about? Jesus, I don't know. Well, you're not working much of a program if you feel bad. You know. Oh, okay, then I don' t feel sad. I really feel good. You know, that's why we have so many tense people telling people they feel okay at me. How do you feeling? I feel good, you know, fine, no problem. there's a little kink in my neck I have learned to be gentle with myself I have learn to be kind to me considerate with me and intimate with me and somebody said something to me years ago and I hated it when I heard it and I'm going to repeat it and it's true and you may hate it too when you hear it like I did a relationship between two people demands communication love consideration and intimacy okay if i cannot give have communication with myself give consideration love and intimacy to myself it is impossible for me to give it to you until i can have a relationship with me i can't have one with you no matter how hard i might try i can give it you if i can t give it me so the old adage and i've heard this from a lot of really qualified people is really true forget what they say watch what they do if you're contemplating anything new with anybody watch what the do how do they treat themselves because that's how you're going to be treated sometimes some point that's exactly how you are going to be treated so it's like today the fact that i will drive me to long beach that i will take me out and run me that i have eliminated jesus from my life what everything i've eliminated beef and pork and sugar and salt and coffee and diet sodas and cigarettes and the list goes on you know water is about the only thing i drink and by i'm you know you can see how unhappy i am uh i hope to come back here uh in december and run the marathon god and i and a bear will come and we'll see what happens um it's like it's okay i guess what i'm trying to say what i're trying to share with you is all the experiences i have so you know it's Okay, you don't have to sit around here and judge yourself. I mean, you can look at the job that your folks did and say, God, you know what they really fucked up. You know, they really didn't do well because I spent a lot of time with people now in a program friends of mine and i we start to talk about it and the childhoods that i have shared and listened to from them are absolutely horrendous horrendous and the emotional damage that's done is lethal one of my best friends his mother walks around the apartment for three weeks saying you and your father are the biggest problems in my life if you people weren't in my life i would be okay and at the end of three weeks she took her life using the gas stove with him in the apartment okay i have a good friend whose mother walked in the middle of the night drunk when he was six years old and poured a pail of garbage on him and said this is what you are garbage i have friends that have been beaten until they were hospitalized and had their bones bent still today and we try and walk around like that doesn't matter it matters a lot because it's off of that is exactly how you take care of yourself today and i gotta tell you something the same thing applies to you that applies to me he didn't do anything to deserve it nothing you're really okay you're the best person in the world and you're single most important person in your life and man i gotta telling you if i can start taking care of me and loving me and caring about me and having a really dynamite life you can do the same thing for yourself. God bless you.