The Contempt Prior to Investigation That Kept Him from the Steps – Paul M.

Oh, thank you so much. My name is Paul and I'm an alcoholic. And I want to thank the Pockets of Enthusiasm Conference for giving me the opportunity to come here and do service tonight. It's a great privilege and a great honor and one I don't take lightly. It good to be with you. and as you can probably see i'm not sitting in my home i'm sitting in my car here tonight and uh you know a few guys have heard this joke before like somebody said to me hey paul you're sober a long time and you're back living in your car i said yeah but the good news is it's a better car you know so if you're new tonight and for no other reason to stay sober if you go homeless you'll be going homeless in a better car but actually i know i don't look old enough to have a two-year-old daughter but i have a two-year-old daughter at home and she's a very cute but extremely prolific zoom bomber and it's weird because my wife's an alcoholic synonymous too and my wife can go down to the back room and go on a meeting no problem at all my daughter doesn't bother her i go into the backroom she's banging on the door like she's got a warrant in her hand you know looking looking to arrest me you know so it's better if everybody concerned if i come here to the car tonight and uh i'm always nervous when I speak at these things, and I'm going to tell a little joke. It might reduce your nervousness, but it'll actually reduce mine, and any newcomers here tonight that can identify with it. There's a guy driving to work, and he's a bit late for work, and he is going over the speed limit, and a police officer pulled him over, and the police officer said, I see you're going a bit over the Speed Limit there, and the guy says, actually, I'll tell you what it is. I'm late for work. And the police officer looks in the passenger seat and he sees this huge bag of swords and bayonets and knives. And the police office says, what's with this bag of knives and swords and et cetera in the passenger seat? The guy says I got an explanation for that. I actually have a cabaret act. I am a juggler and I juggle all these. These are the tools of my trade and my juggling act in fact i'm late that's why i was rushing and the cop says wow that must be some there must be some cabaret act i'd like to see that the guy says i'll tell you what i'll give you a quick demonstration if you let me go with a warning the cop is okay so the guy gets out of the car and he's juggling these knives and swords and bayonets and right across the street there's an a meeting just ending and the old timer's talking to a sponsee and he says are you glad you stopped drinking look at the sobriety test they're giving these days you know so if uh if you're new to Alcoholics Anonymous please stay here with us you know and I've been given a topic to talk on but I'd like to talk a little bit about my drinking before I get started into that and I'm not here to sell AlcoholicsAnonymous tonight it's attraction not promotion but what I want to say to the new people here tonight I'm a great believer AlcoholicsAnalymous are the newcomer it's just a room full of noise. It makes no sense to me. The whole program, the whole fellowship is predicated on helping the next alcoholic. As Bill Wilson, I'm sitting looking across at the Manhattan skyline as Bill Wilson had that vision divinely inspired of a chain of drunks one helping another. I want to say to anybody who's here tonight, I know we throw the word miracle around a lot in AA, but I don't think it's ubiquitous. And I don t think it s overused. There's a miracle here with your name on it. Nobody can take it from you and nobody can take it for you. Come up and get the life you're meant to live in Alcoholics Anonymous before drink took you down a different road. As George Eliot the writer says, it's never too late to live the life that you're mean to live. And that's been my experience in Alcoholics Anonymous. So I'm not here to sell AA, but what I will tell you, and I don't mean cashing prizes, you cannot get where I am tonight from where I came from without Alcoholics Anonymous, it's an impossible journey, and why do I continue to come to Alcoholics Anonymous? I know how the movie goes, but I wouldn't miss it to see someone walking into a meeting on the worst night of their life, and be given the grace not to drink, And it's so much more than grace. It's mercy. And the definition of mercy that I like the best is entering into the chaos of another person's life. And that's exactly what Alcoholics Anonymous did for me when I got here in August of 1992. And don't think because you're new that you've got to go meet AA. AA will meet you exactly where you are. That's the beauty of Alcoholics Aanonymous. A.A. will meet you exactly where you are tonight and everybody I don't care if you're one day sober or 50 years sober everyone in Alcoholics Anonymous has worth and value this is God's economy and in God's academy everyone is worth and valued and the currency that we use is experience strength and hope whether you're sober 24 hours or you're silver 24 days or 24 years you have experience strength and hope i know there's a few people on here that i know and they've heard me tell this story before a friend of mine he'd been coming on the minute he's just a mass he tells a powerful story he said he's at a meeting in brooklyn one night and the meeting was going on for about 20 minutes and the door opened up and then came this woman who was visibly drunk and she's stumbling around and whatnot in the meeting took a pause and someone helped her down to his seat, and they told her, you're more than welcome to be here, but the meeting's in progress. Just sit quietly. Here's a half cup of coffee, and someone will talk to you after the meeting. So she sits down, and the meeting starts up again. And lo and behold, about 20 minutes later, the door opens again, and in walks this guy, and he's visibly drunk. Now what's the old thing? Is it odd or is it God? He happens to sit right across from this woman. Now she's sober 20 minutes. And she gets up out of her seat and goes and gets him a cup of coffee and gives him the cup of copy and tells him, if you sit quietly and drink your coffee, someone will talk to you after the meeting. I mean, that's the very essence of Alcoholics Anonymous. That's the personification of Alcoholic Anonymous, her experience, strength and hope was sit quietly, drink your coffee and someone will share with you after the meeting. And that's what she shared with this guy who was, she was sober 20 minutes more than he is. So don't think you've got to go and meet AA. AA will meet you exactly where you're at. Drop an anchor, get connected, get tethered to Alcoholics Anonymous. And as I said during my story, I don't know why I'm an alcoholic. Nature, nurture, was that a symptom looking for disease? You know whatever. I like what it says in the doctor's opinion. I like the effect produced by alcohol and that's why I drank. I took that first drink and you've heard the different metaphors in AA. My life went from black and white to color. My skin fitted. I felt like I was living in mid-air and I tried to live in mid air for the next 15 years of my life but that's not reality. not real life. It was phony, it was counterfeit and so forth and so forth. And if you'd have told me that first night I took a drink at 15 years of age, if you had told me where I was going to be 15 years later, I'd have said you're out of your mind. You must be thinking of somebody else. But that's exactly what happened. Booze will give you a lift. And the merchant of Venice Shylock just wanted one pound of flesh. Not this disease will take your job, your car, your wife, the shirt off your back, but what it really wants is me six feet under. There's a lot of terminal diseases out there. I'm not familiar with those, but I'm familiar with this one. This disease, like the topic I've been asked to speak on, will kill me stone dead with or without booze in my body. I don't need booze and my body to burn my life to the ground, I almost don't know it because I wouldn't accept these spiritual principles. I wouldn' t accept the fact that there was more wrong with me than alcohol and it was going to take more than not drinking alcohol to fix me. It took me a hard time in Alcoholics Anonymous to realize that I don't have a drinking problem. I have a living sober problem. A drinking problem is solved by not drinking. I have alcoholism and that's a horse of a different color. It's physical. Yes, it's mental and spiritual and wrapped up in a body full of sick emotions. And that's why I need everything that's on offer here. If my problem is just alcohol, I need the first half of the first step and I live happily ever after. And I tried that and it didn't work. I need every single thing that's going off for here. 12 steps, 12 traditions, sponsorship, meetings. I need all that on a daily basis so that on an ongoing day I can impersonate a normal person out there in the real world. And maybe there's somebody who's new and they're saying these 12 steps and 12 traditions, I always say, hey, we'll meet you where you're at. We have a symbol in AA to triangle inside a circle and there's three parts to it, unity, service, recovery. And I believe from right here, right now, you can put all three parts of that triangle into your life and I wouldn't do that when I first came to AA. Yes, I was doing unity. Many meetings make it easy, few make it hard, none make it impossible. There's one lifeboat called AA and I better make sure that I stay in it. My disease would tell me get your own lifeboat. My diseased might tell me you could swim to shore, it's not too far. I got to stay right in the lifeboat of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's none of my business who's sitting next to me that's god's business it is my business i want to help that person or be helped by that person service i was listening to clancy there before i come on and he mentioned sandy b sandy b used to say the has a grade an alcoholic synonymous is servant because service keeps me tethered to AA. It keeps me connected to AA, and I was doing the first two parts of the triangle, but I wouldn't do door number three when I first came to Alcoholics Anonymous. I wouldn''t do recovery. And I'll talk about that in a little bit. I paid a heavy, heavy price, not fully accepting to my innermost self that I have alcoholism. As I said, not drinking is a start. As Bill Wilson wrote a letter one time, he says, it's a start, but it's a brief start. I know you can't drink booze and enjoy the benefits of this program at the same time, but I had to fully accept in my innermost self that there was more wrong with me than drink and I need the other 11 and a half steps to help me do what I can't do drunk or sober and not slip out there in God's world under his conditions rather than my demands. I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I said just briefly my drinking, I started off as a kid, I was a weekend drinker before my teens, I'm a daily drinker. Before my teens I'm taking more than drink and it just got worse and it got worse and the good news for people out there tonight, sobriety is progressive as well and as far as you go with drink you can come back up an alcoholic synonymous now i'm not going to sit here like some snake oil salesman and promise you the moon and the stars there's things i lost through drinking and they didn't come back and there's things you might have lost through drinking under the mountain come back either and that's why i need all 12 steps to help me i can't change my past but to help me to come to terms with my past as i said by the time of 23 i'm out in america on a geographical cure living here in new york and i got a job as a bartender by the time i'm 25 26 i hit my first hospital alcoholic seizures and convulsions by the time i'm 27 i'm doing a lot of what it says in chapter three i'm trying to stop for this and stop for that but here's the problem before i came to alcoholics anonymous i had nothing between me and the first drink the thought of a drink would become the obsession to drink what are the same obsession is an idea that crowds out all other ideas and i find myself drinking again and that's what I want to say to everybody that's new here tonight when I say you can't get where I am today from where I came from people have said oh you're just an arm's length away from a drink and I suppose that's true at a technical level but right here right now I don't know about tomorrow that's none of my business God hasn't created it yet but right there right now God has created it here, right now, I'm 12 steps away from a drink. And that's a far, far cry when I first walked into Alcoholics Anonymous. But don't get me wrong, they're not twelve steps up to anything. They're twelve steps down to humility. I seen people drink again in Alcoholics Anonymous I thought would never drink again and that tells me it's a daily reprieve, not a pardon. And there's certain things I must do to enjoy this way of life. The only way that I coast in AA is downhill. And I started hitting hospitals on a regular basis when I was 27 years of age. But I didn't know what my problem was, step one. I really didn't know. When I was in the bar business, I was a bartender. I didn' t know what an alcoholic was. I didn't know that I had a body That wouldn't let me drink And a mind that wouldn't Let me stop That one drink Creates a thirst I can't quench That when I control my drink And I don't enjoy it I want to enjoy my drink And I can control it I didn' t realize And I realized tonight And I hope I never forget it That one thing One drink tonight Destination unknown And I would hit these hospitals Thinking I had had a drinking problem, having no idea that I'm alcoholism and I need Alcoholics Anonymous. I need somebody to take me from step one the problem through this beautiful program to step 12 the solution of spiritual awakening. Up in this moment in time tonight alone I have never beaten an obsession to drink by myself, and I've got into the ring many times. I'll give you one vignette that just sums this up, and it sort of talks about contempt prior to investigation. I was in a bar, I'm on a bad drunk at this stage of my drinking. I'm a periodic alcoholic. When I pick up a drink, I don't know when I'm going to draw another sober breath. And I ran out of booze, but I'm bartender here in Rockaway Beach I always knew where to get drink in the middle of the night and I go to a bar not the one I worked in and I knocked on the side door the guy was cleaning the place up the bars in New York City closed between 4am and 8am and this was in between those hours and I knocked the side Door the guy looked you who I was he let me in he put a bottle of whiskey up on the top on the counter a glass and a bucket of ice and a bottle of beer and went on cleaning the place up. I took a few more drinks, and I collapsed in the bar in an alcoholic seizure. And I had seizures before I woke up in the local hospital in their restraining sheet. I'd been strapped down before for a drink, and they gave me some Librium or whatever to get me down off the ceiling. And there's a woman standing at the bedside that was close to me at that time in my life, and i took her hand, and it wasn't trying to be cinematic. I take her hand And I said, I don't know why I can't drink. But it's obvious I can drink. And I will never, ever drink again. If you had got a contract, I would have said it was my own blood. As is often said, now you put me on a polygraph. I passed with flying colors because I meant it. Not at an intellectual level. At a visceral level, I'm done. It's over. But you see, I left that hospital. and I really didn't know what the problem was, step one. And I really did know what the solution was, step 12. And I had nobody in my life like these beautiful people to bring me between the two. It would get me against the first drink one more time. And I left that hospital and this is what tells me that I don't have a drinking problem, that I have alcoholism. I left that hospital convinced that i wouldn't drink again and here's what happens to me when i try to stop drinking without 12 steps 12 traditions unity service recovery sponsorship home group being part of a chain here's it happens to be when i go toe-to-toe with the disease of alcoholism a week goes by and i got a week done that before but all of a sudden i've got the stone in the shoe two weeks go by now i've got the knot in the stomach three weeks go bye the top button of my shirt feels tight all the time a month goes by and i got a month you could fry eggs in the back of my neck i'm ready to explode now you put me in any machine in the world you will not find a trace of alcohol in my body i submit to you who's told to me that's not a drinking problem that's a living sober problem and i get back in the ring my two-year-old daughter could say don't you know she's old enough now to say don'T GET IN THE RING but don't get in the means don't take the first drink and i don't know how not to take the First Drink see that's what i said earlier on, the one thing it has given me that I can never thank them for, they've given me something between me and the first drink. So I get back in the ring, perhaps you can identify, and I tell myself the epitaph of the alcoholic, it'll be different this time. I'll stay off the ropes. I'll watch it. And alcoholism is sitting in the opposing corner. See, what I don't realize, the fight is fixed going in. alcoholism is sitting at the other corner like in the old cartoons with a horseshoe in each glove saying you want to go again let's go I'll see you in the middle of the ring what have you got there willpower let's Go I walk into another hair maker and I'm glad look up the lights wondering how did this happen again and this didn't happen once or twice in my life this happened over and over and over again and by the grace of God and it is the grace of God because I bartended the last five years drinking and I bartend the first 12 years in AA and I'll tell you something you probably know already most alcoholics die drunk they don't even darken the door of an AME so why am I sitting here and other people aren't I used to say I know Big Donnie's on here from Brooklyn originally, he lives in Northern Ireland now but he remembers a guy I'm sure Jimmy L from Brooklyn I say oh we're the chosen ones this guy Jimmy L came off a wine gang in Brooklyn and he grabbed my collar one day at a meeting he says does that mean the girl or the guy sitting on Skid Row this morning is unchosen God's grace it's like the rain of falls on everybody I don't know when that drop of rain fell on my face of August of 1992 i got sober and the guy two bar stools down drank himself to death i don't know why that is like they say in the pentagon i don'T have security clearance for that information it's way above my pay grade but i know i must be responsible there was somebody the door for me i mustbe there for somebody else and i was 12 stepped by two guys from the old south bronx group and that group had a mantra we don't give up on anybody and thank god they didn't give up on me and they came to my apartment if you want to call it that bottles all over the place drinking for about 12 days and um i thought they're going to talk about my drinking because that's all anybody that was left in my life in 92 wanted to talk about paul we need to talk about your drinking but they didn't talk about my drinking they talked about their drinking and they told story after story of their own drinking and then the magic happened our most prized possession identification they talkedabout them and i found out about me and what they offered me what is alcoholics namas if you take all the things i talked about steps, traditions, meetings, sponsorship, and you bring it down to us. You're putting it in the spiritual refiner's fire and bring it done to its purest form. What is AA? It's hope in human form. People get people sober. God works through people. That's been my experience. Bill Wilson went to Dr. Bob and he offered him hope. Bill Williamson and Dr. Paul went to Bill D and they offered him hope and we can trace this moment in time back to that moment in time and that's what those two men give me i walked to my first meeting which is a well i was brought to my first meeting on a saturday night funny enough same day as the night about two miles from where i'm sitting right now in rockaway beach and i know this doesn't happen to everybody but i walked in one way and i walked out another way and at this little field inside my stomach i didn't know what it was but i know tonight what it was it was a modicum it was a sliver of hope and that's what i want to offer anybody that's new here tonight hope of alcoholic synonymous that there's a different way there's no way out that you get the ability to live two lives in one lifetime in alcoholic synonyms that there's miracle here with your name on it as i said nobody can take it from you or for you come up and live the life you're meant to live and what is the miracle I should be drunk tonight and I'm not a miracle is a complete reversal or upheaval of the laws of nature and it's in my nature to be drunk right now or dead or both and I am not and that's only because of alcoholics and others and I was telling you about being brought here in August of 92 to talk about this subject tonight and i would like to tell you that I took the ball and scored a touchdown, but I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, and I came in here with old ideas. Barroom mentality. Barroom mentalty that might have served me well at 2 o'clock in the morning, some gin mill under the ale here in New York City, but wasn't helping me in Alcoholics Enormous, And I carried that thinking into the rooms of alcoholics and homeless. Those who do not recover, people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program. You're looking at one person. It says in the back of our book, contempt prior to investigation, you're looking att it. The ego of the alcoholic knows no bounds. I'm in the gutter looking down on people. Do you know who I am? I've got all the answers coming into Alcoholics Anonymous. I was doing unity. I was going to plenty of meetings. I was during service. I said, I'm making more coffee than Maxwell House, but I wouldn't do recovery. I wouldn' do door number three. The steps of AlcoholicsAnonymous, they seemed touchy. They seemed feely. They seemed like warm and fuzzy. I said, I'll do these steps. The next thing, I'm going to have wind chimes hanging up around the house, you know? I'll be wearing flip-flops even in the wintertime, joining Oprah's book club, you know? Where does it all end, you know? Contemporary investigation. I tried every other way in those first two and a half years of getting the vital spirits to experience that the book talks about. at some symbolic victories but nothing of any permanence it's a god-shaped hole and only going through the 12 steps of alcoholics and armists can fill that hole i found out the hard way that we don't do the steps because they're nice we do them because they necessary for recovery if i want to get physically and mentally and spiritually and emotionally rehabilitated I have to work this program. You can go so far in osmosis and alcoholic synonymous, but it was said to me one time, Paul, this is your miracle. The very least you can do is participate in it. And I had looked at the steps of alcoholics synonymous. I'll be honest with you. I looked at them. I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm two and a half years into AA on my life. I didn't realize at the first half of the first step, my life's unmanageable, drunk or sober if I'm running it. And I was running into the ground in Alcoholics Anonymous just doing two parts to the triangle. It has to be all three parts and it has to быть every day. I go right to the triangle. Anytime I'm off in my life, I go straight to the Triangle. I want to tell you a big comp. see what I want to do is I want my I think my I'm sure my sponsors on here tonight and I love them dearly but I would like to come on and tell them a big song and dance complex story of why my life's not going the way I think it should go it's unity it's service recovery sometimes guys will come to me sober for years and their lives are all over the place and we They want to tell you a whole big story, and she said, and I said, and they said, on this. And they've got big problems. And I go right to the triangle, unity, service, and recovery. It's so simple, I almost missed it. I remember, I don't know if Bob's on here, but I remember Bob gave me a phone number. I gave my phone number to a guy, and he called me. And this guy was sober like 20 years. and he got himself in a lot of problems and problems with the SEC and Wall Street and problems with his wife and problems with his kids and we were talking on the phone and I only asked him this because I was asked this when would you say you're a happiest in Alcoholics Anonymous oh I can tell you that my first year what were you doing in your first year that you think you were so well I was going to meetings almost every night and I had two detox commitments and a $500 car it was held together by string and bubblegum with three guys in the car every night we were driving all over New York going to meetings listening to other guys talking I said how about we do this only because it was asked of me I said however we do this for 90 days We go back to doing what you were doing In your first year There was silence on the phone And I know why there was silence Because I was in the same position He was thinking To himself I've got 20 year problems And this guy is giving me a 90 day solution The wonderful thing About Alcoholics Anonymous And thank God for this No matter how complex my problem is And there's people on this call tonight And I'm sure there's people sitting out there tonight with complex problems, but we only have really one problem at the end of the day. One problem that all our problems stem from. And if I take care of that one problem, I'll be all right. And how do I take her that one program? Unity, service and recovery. And if i keep that the central fact of my life, all those branches might be going all over the place. But I will be okay, and my roots will be okay. And I will be rooted in AA, and I will be connected in AA. I will be tethered in Alcoholics Anonymous. And things around me may not be alright, but I will be alright. The solution is so simple in Alcoholic Anonymous, I almost missed it. You see, my ego wants to get involved. And the ego wants whatever. We talk about this simple program. And you hear some people say, oh, it's a simple program for complicated people. No, it is not. It is a simple problem for people who like to complicate things. I can complicate a brown paper bag. And I am sitting in Alcoholics Anonymous at two and a half years sober. And my life is completely unmanageable. I came into AlcoholicsAnonymous, I didn't owe very much money. I'm two and a half years into AA, doing two parts of the triangle, and I'm thousands upon thousands of dollars in debt. And I know why today. I was still trying to fill the hole in my soul with outside stuff. Story of my life, always looking for an outside fix, but it's really an inside job. I have my credit cards mixed out. you know buy a new jacket i feel good for a half an hour but i always end up back in the same equation me on me i can't get me off of me i'm shackled to self by the very nature of this disease i need the 12 steps in my life and i refuse to do them and my life's going deeper and darker and deeper and darker in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. I had a sponsor but just a name only. You can bring a horse to water, you can make him thirsty but eventually you know where that story goes and I'm here to tell you that you can fill up the coffee pot at 7.30 at night. I've done it. You know when untreated alcoholism came to visit me two o'clock in the morning with the could-haves and the should-hives and the would-havs and the guilt and the shame and the remorse and another sleepless night and quote unquote sobriety. And every night, almost religiously, there'll be a book that would appear on my table, on my bedside table about two o',clock in morning, and the book was titled, Where I Should Be in My Life by Now, by Paul McQuaid. And I take that book out and start reading from that. You know, you're no good, you this, you that, blah, blah, oh my God. Into the pit of negativity. I'm at a meeting one night, and a guy come up to me, and he wasn't my sponsor. He says, Paul, can I talk to you for a second? I said, sure. He says, you're dying. And you're dying right in the middle of AA. You know what you're like? You're like a starving man at a spiritual banquet. There's all this food on offer and you're living over here in bread and water, keeping everybody at arm's length with your one-liners and your glib phrases. You talk about being exposed? It was like he walked into my bedroom at three o'clock in the morning and pulled the covers back and threw a bucket of cold water over me, shook me up, and I'm in so much pain. See, I'm from that old thinking, if it's not hurting, it's no working, you know? I'm thinking because I'm so much in pain and alcoholics and almas, I must be getting better. Believe me, the steps of Alcoholics and Almas, the program is the easier, softer way. I always like, there's a story there, a little side story. St. Patrick who brought Christianity to Ireland when he was first bringing Christianity to Ireland, he was trying to convert one of the kings from the old pagan Druid ways. That was Ireland's problem. We had four kings but one of them anyway and he figured if he converted the king then the subjects would accept baptism and take Christianity also. so he anyway convinces the king to become a christian and was baptizing him and he's going through the ceremony and he had a big what's called a crozier like an a staff with a circle on top and the cross in the middle at the high point of the ceremony he drives the crozier into the ground and he inadvertently drove it into the king's foot and the king winced but he said nothing. At the end of the ceremony, St. Patrick looked down at the king's sandal and he saw this blood oozing out of the king sandal. And he said to the king, what happened? The king told him what happened. He says, well, why didn't you say something? And the king said, I thought the pain was part of the testimony. I get that as an Irish person. I'm sitting in alcoholics and I'm just thinking, oh, if it's hurting, it's got to be working. And that is not the way at AA done. The steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm telling you, it is the easier, softer way. As I said, I'm thousands upon thousands of dollars in debt. And I still wasn't convinced. You know, we talked about that last day that I drank, I had that moment of clarity. I've had moments of clarity in Alcoholics Enormous. those God like Bill Wilson talked about at Winchester Cathedral God whispering in my ear I've had those moments in sobriety too and the next day after that guy said that to me at that meeting the next Day I'm driving this is two and a half years of drinking some of you have heard me tell this story before I'm driving out of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel here in Manhattan onto the Gowanus Expressway. It's a six-lane highway. I'm rush hour traffic, and a guy cut me off, and I chased after him. I jam him against the guardrail. I'm blocking three lanes of traffic in rush hour travel. I go back to the other car. I don't care who's behind the wheel. It could have been Tony Soprano. I don' t care because I'm out of my mind. No drink and no program I go back to the car There's an Asian man sitting behind the wheel Shaking His wife's crown in the passenger seat And his three children are crowned In the back of the car Two and a half years off Drink, no program Stark, raving sober I apologize profusely At his car I got back in my own car I hit my head off the steering wheel I said, I'm crazier off drink than I was on it. And in some respects, that's true. I've been to jump enough places twice in my life to talk about the big book, like The Abyss. Once with drink and once with no drink and no program. It's a different type of pain, but pain nonetheless. I go to my sponsor's house in name only and he was sober a long time at that stage and he was sitting on his porch smoking big cigars and I pulled up and I says Jimmy I gotta talk to you and I told him what I just told you and he sat back on his couch and he said how old were you when this happened I said what do you mean how old it happened 20 minutes ago in the Gwalins Expressway where I got like lost in translation here maybe I need to get you hooked on phonics the shamrock version here we're not connecting and he coined that phrase Harry Thiebaud who was not an alcoholic but he really understood alcoholics unlike very few in the medical profession talked about the recuperative power of the alcoholic ego and he also coined a phrase His Majesty the Baby and that's who I was NAA, no drink, no program 32 years of age a child in a man's body he says paul you need to grow up you need to grow an alcoholic synonymous he said i'll tell you something they don't make cribs in your size it's about time you've been ducking and diving and tiptoeing around this program he said i'm going to tell you if you don't get into this program if you can't get free from which is you and start living the one place that you can live which is right here right now. Your life's going to go unlived, my friend, and that's on you. And that's exactly the truth. See, I looked at those steps in the wall. I looked at them as information. Yeah, I'm an alcoholic. Yeah. I need God. I should make an inventory. Yeah, defects, shortcomings. Yeah, tell people I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah, I get it. I didn't realize at the steps of alcoholics and armists, they're not informative. They're transformative. They change who you are as a person. Now, I know there's people talking about that at meetings. I'm not going to use that as a get-out-of-jail-free card. I didn'T know. I know there was people talking about the problem, the solution, and how to go between the two. But as Chuck Chamberlain used to say in one of his talks, you'll eventually see what you came here to see, and you'll essentially hear what you came here To hear. But you have to have eyes to see and ears to hear. And I was a closed circuit. I had built these walls high, and I'd built them deep in Alcoholics Anonymous. You weren't getting in, but guess what? I wasn't getting out." Robert Frost, the poet says, a war is a good thing, maybe if you're a New England farmer, but not if you are an alcoholic of my variety, and why is it? I have to look back on what is the secret sauce? What is the magic? What separates, why do people get sober and other people drink? I was listening to Clancy there and thank God I listened. I know there's people because I was almost going to say it but I would give him credit for it. I didn't know Clancy as well. I just like to say this. I didn' know him as well as some of the people on here But I met him on a few occasions, quite a few occasions. And actually one time we were in Las Vegas together and usually with clans, there's a group of people around. We actually spent the day together just the two of us in the Las Vegas Museum. I always treat people as I find them and he couldn't have been nicer to me. He was so nice and so helpful. He used to go to Belfast a lot and speak with a mutual friend, John the Book from BelfAST that's passed away and i just want to what just i just say you know i know he's carried his light to a different room but man did he leave did he live a long shadow on this side of the curtain and he was saying and for him he just said in that talk that was being recorded what separates like you get five people that come out of a rehab they're all 30 days sober you put them on any machine in the world there's not a trace of alcohol in their body you give them the same sponsor you send them to the same meetings and why do some get sober and others don't what's the magic what's special sauce what's X factor I don't know I think it's that he says it's willingness it's willingness to drop your judgment that's how people leave AA or don't go into AA it's the judgment it's the inability in my case and that's why I'm going to talk for myself personally when I talk about somebody else's experience, I'm playing God and the book says we have to quit playing God but from my own personal experience what was it in me I wouldn't have thought I was an egotist I wouldn'T have thought that I was judgmental But I was all those things and then some. As I said, our book talks about letting go absolutely of your old ideas. And that's I think... We often joke, I'm sure in your part of the country, the part of the world, wherever you are, they have a similar joke. And here in New York we'll say, because they're always saying it's not for people that need it. It's not people that want it, it's for people to do it. This is a do it program. This is not a spectator sport. You got to get into Alcoholics Anonymous, you gotta get your arms around these steps, you got to get right in there. And we talk about like, we make that joke, you know, New York will say, if everybody who needed to come to AA came to AA would have to have the meetings in Yankee Stadium rather than church and we all laugh at that but there's an element of truth in that dr silkworth now he saw more alcoholics at that time than anybody else in the country bellevue was the only hospital in the county that had a dedicated alcoholic ward this before even worked at knickerbocker i used to work down there on first avenue to call it bed pan alley all the hospitals and he worked in bellevUE and he saw thousands and thousands of alcoholics and he from a doctor from a medical point of view he said there's something going on here there's people that come in here yeah they're drinking bathtub gin it's prohibition we dry them out you never see them again but there's these other ones that keep showing up like the old line in the last weekend the guy says oh this guy here he's like the gas bill he comes back every month. There's these people that keep showing up, there's something else going on here. And using like the scientific method of observation and hypothesis, he said, there's Something else going on Here. Some of them tell me that they don't want to drink anymore, but they keep showing Up. And he put it about 10%. And those numbers I think hold true to today. I'm just talking about in America there's 330 million people in America so that means there should be 33 million people sitting in AA in America alone and we have just over 2 million worldwide and why is that? I think like it says, the inability to absolutely let go, it took me almost to the graveyard to let go absolutely of my old ideas that ego my ego will prefer death over recovery left unchecked and unfettered my ego will prefer death over recovery what's the old joke I think it was Bob told me you know they're putting the alcoholic into the ground and they're putting the dirt on top and they hear a voice in the coffin what's that noise and they hear a voice the alcoholic says I was right I mean it's crazy it's insanity and that's why we need the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous because we need to get physically, mentally and spiritually rehabilitated and well and I think that's what we need and I don't think that is why we don't have 33 million people sitting in meetings because it took a lot for a guy like me to come into Alcoholics Enormous and not only let go of my old ideas and admit to myself that my old way of doing business, my old raison d'etre, my old reason for being, my old ways were completely erroneous. And then we let go of those, but accept 12 new ideas that seem so radical, so revolutionary. They're almost a bridge too far and they were that case for me. And that's why I think in my case, I know you speak for myself, but the inability to let go of old ideas and the inability to pick up new ideas is why most alcoholics die drunk, never even darkening the door when they are meeting. And it took a lot for me to fully accept that my innermost self, that there was more wrong with me than drink and it was going to take more than that drinking to fix me. And to talk about the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, and the pride, and the ego of the alcoholic. And see, I didn't realize I'm sitting in AA with untreated alcohol as I'm dying in the rooms of Alcoholic Anonymous. And I'm saying they're lying awake at night full of resentment. See, I did not realize that these resentments have no IQ. These resentments don't say, oh Paul, this happened 25 years ago, 3,000 miles away. Forget about it. I'm experiencing this stuff like it's happening right now, and all the spiritual toxicity that's released in your life when you're living your life under those parameters. I had to get into the cause and effects of my drinking and open that prison door. Emmett Fox says it takes two to make a prison, the prisoners and the jailer, and add all these people up here in this mental prison and it was only when I opened the door let them go free that I got to go free too as I said there it was a close call it was just a photo finish at two and a half years sober I don't know if I would have drank but boy my life was completely unmanaged but unbearable and the program just seemed it was so simple I almost missed it and is it nice to go through the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous Yeah. Is it nice to get a full knowledge of your condition? Absolutely. But for what reason? When I turned around and took another man through the program, that's when great events came to pass in my life. That's when things really started to come together for me. And I don't mean cash and prizes. To watch a fellowship group around you and help you through, as Bill Wilson says the certain low spots that lie ahead not maybe some people know they're coming and if you don't have something you're in trouble I've seen it myself I thought you know come into Alcoholics Anonymous especially when I finally did this simple program I thought I'd walk between the raindrops and everything would be just wonderful hey it doesn't give you immunity from life. It gives you the ability to do life on life's terms, something I couldn't do before I came to Alcoholics Anonymous and went through that program. Life would knock on the door and I would get a bottle of booze and climb out the back window. I would tell you all my freeze spurred. There's no coincidence I'm sitting in America with an Irish accent. I was a runner, a long-distance runner somewhere someday out there. Because of Alcoholics synonymous in this program. Life keeps knocking on the door, but I'm not climbing out the back window anymore. I'm able to open the door with unity, service, recovery, with sponsorship, a home group, sponsees, all that stuff. I've been able to reopen the door and look life's terms right in the eyes and deal with it one day at a time. I went through worse things. I don't want use worse as a bad term. Difficult times and so I went through a divorce at 20 years sober, almost put my head away. Resentments to here, how about up to here? And I'm sitting in Alcoholics Anonymous at 20 Years Sober and thank God that people around AA and the people in my life that I didn't go through it alone. I found out the hard way on Alcoholics Anonymous, if you're going through something alone in AAF because you want to, there's not one thing in this world that you have to go through alone. That's like this program, the ego, like that simple, the ego and the pride will say, you can do this yourself. Even at 20 years sober, my pride was telling me, don't go to the meeting don't raise your hand don't tell him right in the middle of AA that your marriage is falling apart that your wife's having an affair with somebody else and wants to marry him don't do that don't get into the room and do that protect your pride, protect your ego but thank God I didn't because Alcoholics Anonymous I don't have to go into the details and do a PowerPoint presentation but AlcoholicsAnonymous is a reality check on how my life is going today not how i think it should go where i want to go i said to my sponsor i was asked to speak at something i said i'm not speaking at that thing he said why are you not speaking i said what who wants to hear what i have let me go on and speak and tell him how my life's falling apart a 20 year sober right in the middle of aa goes yeah what do you think this is rainbows and unicorns go ahead and tell them how you're trying to stay sober under very difficult circumstances How you're trying to practice this simple program and all your affairs, even your wife's affair. Tell them how you're doing that. And you're trynna stay sober one day at a time. I was like, okay. It's funny but it's not funny. I get off the airplane and there's a guy standing with a sign with my name on it. And I said, oh, that's me. and I get, I'm sure Bob's on here. I'm just having many people. I get into this car. There's a complete stranger. I know David's on the air and same thing. David met me, same thing, you know? And I get in the car with it again. I'm sitting in the passenger seat, just like I am now. It shows you how spiritual I am, right? I'm in the passengers seat, you know, rather than the driver's seat. But, and this guy says to me, we're driving out of the park. How many got out of park and lad? He goes, how's it going? I said, how is it going my wife's leaving me for another guy and you know I'm sitting looking straight forward and I realized you know that TMI too much information I just blurted it all out we hadn't even left the parking lot and the guy was driving the car and I could see him out of the corner my auntie sticking himself and he goes are you Paul the guy that's going to speak at our meeting tonight as opposed to some wacko paul that just come down to the airport see somebody with a sign oh yeah that's me it gets into their car but for the throw them out the first exit you know what i'm saying is it wasn't nice it wasn'T perfect it wasn' t beautiful but it was sobriety it was life on life's terms we don't drink you try to go along spiritual lines you keep yourself over the simple program. It doesn't matter if you're 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 years sober. And that's a wonderful thing about AA. The program, like I said, will meet you exactly where you're at. It's not like you're 10 years sober and they go, Paul, here's the set of steps for when you're10 years sober or you're 20 years sober, here is another set of step you're 20 years over. It is the same words on the wall. The words haven't changed, so that can only mean one thing, that I've changed, that I have grown along spiritual lines. And I got through that difficult time of 20 years sober and my daughter's good and whatnot and she'd be crying herself to sleep, ah daddy, I don't wanna get divorced. I'll be sitting with my head in my hands at 20 years sober and I got though it one day at a time. Like they say in the old Bronx group, it's a cinch by the inch and it's hard by the yard And we do it one day at a time. And this is life on life's terms and alcoholics' numbers. And I've tried both ways in AA. I've tired the Irish, stoic, don't tell nobody nothing. I know I'm dating myself here. The John Wayne program doesn't work for a guy like me. Getting into the simple program. Letting somebody into my life. Letting people in. my sponsors on the meeting i had to call them last week my alcoholism was was was was beating me around the place i called them up they give me like a spiritual pep talk and that's what i just needed i need to be i what's the old story when you're inside the jar you can't read the label i need somebody in my life who's not as emotionally connected to my life as i am who can see the wood for the trees and say paul it may appear that way but that's not what's going on. Like Clancy was talking before the meeting, perception. This is a disease of perception. I don't see, what's the old thing? People don't say things as they are. They see things as THEY are. And when I'm caught up in my alcoholism trying to do it alone, trying not to put these steps in my life, trying to the solo one-step, half-a-step program, It's like I'm living in the fun house at the carnival. Nothing looks like it really is. Chuck Chamberlain was right. It's a new pair of glasses. I see things differently now by coming through that program, that simple program. I see thing differently today. And that's the beauty of alcoholics. The steps are like life. They're lived forward but understood backwards. And I can see, yes, yes. That's why that had to happen that way. you know. That's why that divorce had to happen, that's why it had to happen that way, you know? And it's not all good going through this program. I'm not gonna sit here and sit there and put a happy face on it. This program, it's hard. To admit that your life's unmanageable and get God in and do those steps and put stuff down you thought you would never tell anybody else and share with another person or work your defects and shortcomings and knock on doors and say you're sorry. It's not easy, for it's a price that must be paid to smash the ego and smash the self-centeredness. Because that ego, as I said there, ego deflation. I need this program constantly to keep the ego at bay. I often say it's like that, I know I'm up on my time, it's almost like that movie, You know the Terminator 2 movie? If you've ever seen that movie and the cyborg gets smashed into like a hundred pieces at the start of the movie and you think, okay. And then the pieces come back together, the plasma and the thing's standing there like nothing ever happened. That's my ego. I've seen times in AA that I thought, oh, that's the end of my ego that's gotta be that. Total bottomed out, self-will run rat, fingerprints all over my life, disaster. And all of a sudden, the ego returned. The recuperative power of the alcoholic ego. That's why I need to have these steps in my life. I got to keep constantly. That's where they're fresh. They never get stale. It's constant, constant. And I need them every day. The disease of alcoholism. People say, oh, my disease is in the park and not doing pushups. Not my disease. and every meeting I've been at, it's heard everything I've heard. It was like the disease of alcoholism said, oh, there's a pandemic? Okay, I'll see you in six months. No, in fact, it can make me harder and try to keep me disconnected from my people, try to get me to do the disunity. Ignore all that, you know? So I said, that's that topic, you now, give ourselves over to this simple program. And I said that I've had life before the steps and have life after the steps and believe me, like the old Al Smith line in the big book let's look at the record, it's not even close because what A has given me is the ability after going through the program is to turn around and take another man through the programme because I think, and I'll end on this I think somewhere, someday I'm going to be asked one question What did you do with the gift that was given to you? Well I worked on myself and I worked on myself some more and then I worked Look at me, am I wonderful? I'll ask again, what did you do with the gift that was given to you? Shame on me if I put it in my back pocket. There was somebody there for me. I got to be there for somebody else. And as I said, the newcomer, the newcomers is a room full of noise. The newcomer is the bright spot in my life today. When I was going through that tough time of 20 years sober, a guy says to me, Paul, I don't think I should call you. You've got a lot going on. I said, for God's sake, don't stop calling me. Call me more. Call Me twice as much because I know you're the spiritual oxygen left alone to my own devices. I'm in big trouble. I got to be right in the lifeboat. Somebody to the left of me, somebody to the right of me with my brothers and sisters in Alcoholics Anonymous. This is where I belong. My name is Paul and I'm an alcoholic. I know who I am today, what I am, where I am and where I need to be. And I just want to end on a few words that sums up how I feel about you and how I feels about Alcoholics Enormous. It's the Irish blessing. May the road rise to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May sunshine warm upon your face and the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again may god hold you in the palm of his hand thank you so much guys for letting me share it's a privilege and an honor and that's all i'll say thank you very much