The Cunning Baffling Powerfulness of the Alcoholic Ego – Scott T.

Good evening, good morning, good afternoon or good happy Thanksgiving day. Welcome to the Box of Chocolates AA meeting where you never know what you're going to get. My name is Ramona and I am an alcoholic. This is an open meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous so everyone is welcome to attend. And we're so glad that you're here, especially the newcomer. The audio portion of tonight's meeting is being recorded and will be found at recoveryspeakers.com, and you can look under the box of chocolates section or look under this speaker's name. All attendees are now muted and the chat feature is turned off until our special guest concludes tonight. You may keep your video on or turn it off, but in order to avoid distracting others in the meeting, we do request that you disable your video if you are moving around. We also ask that you refrain from profanity. So here is the AA preamble. Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of people who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is the desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA membership. We are self-supporting through our own contributions. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution, does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety. AA 7 tradition states that Alcoholics Anonymous is self-supporting through our own contribution. Box of Chocolates has a Venmo account to accept your contributions at Box of Chocolate. All contributions will be used to pay for our digital format venue, contribute to our local district, central office area and GSO. All contributions are greatly appreciated and we do thank you. If you are a newcomer with us tonight and would like to receive a digital newcomer package, or if you are here as a result of a nudge from the judge and need signature of a meeting attendance, please send an email to boxofchocolates11.20 at gmail.com requesting a newcomers package or meeting attendance. We will reply with a digital newcomer package or scripted signature page with your name and attendance date on it. Email and Venmo information will be posted in the chat. Now let's have a moment of silence for the alcoholic who still suffers, followed by the set-aside prayer. Lord, help me set aside everything I think I know about you, everything I feel for you. Everything I think about myself, everything I know my fellows, everything I want to know about my own recovery for a much-needed new experience in you, myself, my fellows and a new experience in my own recovery helped me to see the truth I am so excited about this guy speaking tonight and I know I say that every week um I met Scott this past summer in June in Vegas and he told his story and I just sat there you could have driven a truck through my mouth because I was just going i mean y'all it's just so precious and it's so such a beautiful example of the miracles that are here in aa so mr scott it is all yours baby everybody scott trainer i am an alcoholic it's uh great to be here great to see some of the people I know some of you, I don't know all of you But you're just friends that I haven't met yet It's such a privilege and an honor To be able to participate in the program That absolutely saved my life You know, today's Thanksgiving Got to spend it with the family And see a lot of grandkids And get together It hasn't been like that for a couple years With the COVID and everything That we've been going through as a nation to actually get together and so what a blessing it was to get to see that and to participate in the family that I could have missed you know I could have missed it and I like it because my grand sponsor said to me recently is that I still could miss it I don't want to miss it you know box of chocolates what a great great intro I don'T get to do these zooms too much anymore since we're in person again meeting in person and uh to have an intro like that with leonard skinner and it's just like yeah i mean i got a little bit of rock and roll history behind me and uh uh to be able to to get introduced like that and see forrest gump and uh it's it was great and it'S JUST AN HONOR TO SEE PEOPLE FROM ALL OVER THE COUNTRY AND OUT OF country new zealand's here in the house and stuff and i'd like to welcome you to the the greatest show on earth okay if you're sitting out there and you're new i don't know if we got any new people there but i know what it's like to be sitting in a meeting and decide that i'm done and have 10 11 days 17 days and just make a decision i don t want to do this anymore and then walk out the door and get drunk anyway our book talks about this type of thinking when it's fully established in the alcoholic he's probably placed himself beyond human aid and then unless locked up he may die or go permanently insane i didn't know these things at the time i didn't no these things growing up that i was in an absolute fight for my life i didn t know that this was an illness a disease that affected me spiritually physically and mentally i didn that when i put alcohol in my body i was trying to overcome an obsession i had no control over And that drink was going to demand another drink. And there was a terrible, terrible price that was going to be paid. I didn't know these things, but you know, chapter three more about alcoholism talks about through the experimentation of self-deception, we'll try to prove ourselves exceptions to the rule, therefore non-alcoholic. And I was to live out the book. I was still living out the program through the insane, strangely insane things that I did when I was drinking. I'm not an alcoholic because of things that happened to me in circumstances growing up i'm an alcoholic because the thing that differentiates me from normal people or other people is is that phenomenon of craving that develops inside of me once i start drinking you know not understanding these things not knowing these things the terminal uniqueness and and growing up in new england grew up in boston i don't know if we got anybody from boston here but i grew up uh you know starting out in the projects and uh quincy and germantown and um you know i know what it's like to stand in line and get the blocks of cheese and powdered milk and hand downs catholic charities taking my brothers and i out for a christmas salvation army my dad was that alcoholic the tornado roaring through the lives of others you know if you're sitting out there and you're you're an alcoholic of the type that says i'm only hurting myself that's just not an accurate statement because we heard everybody where the tornadoes run through the lives of others it talks about the family illness being uh to the effect of warped lives of blameless wives and children the sweet relationships that get deadened those are the things we do i i'll tell you when i finally read these things and incorporated these thingsand took that prescription that's outlined in the book uh you know i was the one that that was the producer of confusion though i didn't think so it was you and I just had some bad luck you know you're sitting out there you're wondering I got first introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous 50 years ago this year will be 50 years coming up in January 50 years that I've been at AlcoholicsAnonymous and I was not looking for a 12-step program a solution to a soul sickness I didn't think I had okay I just wanted you to leave me alone. And having a lot of misconceptions on what Alcoholics Anonymous was and what it wasn't, this is when the second edition was still being used. One of our founders, Bill Wilson, had just passed away in 1972. My dad had already been in AlcoholicsAnonymous. I thought that that didn't work because naturally he was still drinking. You're a young kid growing up you're in the 60s and your your mom and your brothers are crying in the kitchen and you wake up and go out there and find out that your dad had hit killed a woman in a blackout you know how do you how do you reconcile that stuff in your head and then uh see him going to Alcoholics Anonymous seeing that it didn't work seeing uh him taking Darvon and Librium these are some of the old drugs young people may not recognize those names but uh going to alcoholics anonymous and I'm a question or you know i would question these things and and that didn't count you know that that's um as long as you didn't drink that was sobriety and so i believe in alcoholics anonymous what we come looking for we come looking with okay and uh there's old sayings that we saw if we want to soar with the eagles we don't surround ourselves with turkeys and and and that's what happened to me i had already been to halatine now on none of that work because i didn't want it to work you know that's just the truth of it i just didn't want it work it was a place for me to manipulate kitchen feel sorry for scotty and the way i was being raised and uh you know i got introduced to aea for myself it was church dance and i was drinking tango i don't know if anybody remembers tango and strawberry hill in these wines never saw a grape in their lives and and uh drinking i had a blackout and ended up deciding i wanted to fight a cop you know if you have authority figure complexes like i do like most alcoholics do i love it because it says defiance is one of our chief character traits as alcoholics and if you were a babysitter teacher police officer trying to tell scotty what to do i i tended to rebel against that in a drunken blackout i ended up fighting this cop and i got introduced to alcoholic synonymous for myself and when i went into aa the youngest young person in the group was in their 30s and they were old i love it now because when i think about that in their 30's i'm in my 60s and it's like geez that was in the 30s that was old okay and to me that was old now i don't think it's that old but uh that was the youngest person and how they i talk about customs all over the country how they did it back then was if you came in and and you were recognized as a newcomer, they interviewed you. And they actually sat you down and interviewed you at the end of the meeting just to make sure that you belong there. And that happened to me. All the old-timers came up, sat me down, started questioning me, asking me all these questions about my drinking. And when I say the old timers too, I'm talking about the guys with like 60 days and 90 days sober, the guys that really knew the program, their sponsors said, go talk to this kid. And they came over and talked to me, and they basically precluded me from AA, saying that I was too young, that I Was more of a juvenile delinquent type, that if I learned to deal with my anger, I might be okay. And through that experimentation, the self-deception, trying to prove myself an exception, I kept going out there defending my right to drink. I grew up in the Irish Catholic neighborhood. You could drink. I'm talking 14, 15 years old. You got money. The bartenders at the Irish pub, Kelly's Pub, did serve you. These were bartenders from the old country. And if you had money, they served you. And so I got served and the drinking age was 18. And I always hung around with older people and in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous, in and out of one jackpot after another, never read the book, never worked the steps, starting to pay the price, going into jails. You know, the vicious cycle has started for me in Boston and the combat zone and all the insanity things that are going on. I, you know, start getting diagnosed suicidal, homicidal, manic depressive, all these wonderful tales that they're putting me on. They're putting me on Haldol and Thorazine and lithium and chloral hydrate to sleep and strapping me to beds and just, just all this insane stuff, but not, not an alcoholic, you know, cause I was such a con artist. I like it because it says we seldom told these psychiatrists the truth I never told them the truth okay ever and so I'm getting diagnosed with all these things and I'm thinking well maybe I should try to work these steps that they're talking about get a sponsor and I've been in AA for you know going on going on four years at the time and and the youngest young person was taking a four-year medallion and let's just say that John is my sponsor and i'm taking an anniversary medallium tonight John would tell you all about me he would tell you the step that i've taken this year or the steps i've taken this year i like it this year because that's what they do this year see the main thing was meeting makers make it just don't drink and go to meetings you know i didn't hear about that 12-step program of recovery out of the big book or taking that prescription that's outlined in it i just heard don't go to meetings i mean don't drank it just go to meetings meeting makers make it and that stuff was killing me because the stuff that was inside me was like gangrene you know i didn't know these at the time i didn t know that i had a spiritual malady the soul sickness okay that that needed to be fixed i didn' t know that the main purpose of the book was to show me precisely how to recover from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body i didn d know that the main object was to enable me to find this power that's going to solve my problem that power had a lot of power in my life meaning the catholic church and my aunt was a nun and you know i was going to be castrated for some of my these are the things as a little kid as a young kid man they're telling me um i didn't even know what castration meant at the time years later when i read it i'm thinking oh jeez i'm glad they didn't do that to me but these are some of the things i'm being told my uh you know with god sitting on the throne and i was being cast in the lake of fire for all these things i sought you know saw thought did and i knew i was in trouble okay and so now they're they're telling me i'm going to find this power and and please understand if you're listening this is not a religious power okay this this is a god when it talks about came to believe in our second step came to belief that power okay it's a year as we get through this stuff we develop this relationship with the loving god we get to experience this this um this spirit that that's not the religious dogma um that that we're scared of okay it's a relationship that we can develop and grow uh and understanding as we proceed it's not something that happens overnight our 12-step used to say having had the spiritual experience and they changed it to awakening because a lot of us get this out of the educational variety okay this guy dr i mean james um william james wrote this thing that talked about the varieties of religious experiences and this was codified and put in our book as the experience and the awakening um you know that that uh we get to i see what i'm trying to tell you is as a kid i didn't know these things and in naa and i'm seeking and and one of the things that our program talks about teaches us that the man that's properly armed with the facts about themselves can easily win the confidence of another the magic of alcoholics anonymous is one alcoholic talking to another alcohol no lectures to endure no access to grind i'm not here to speak to you and tell you what you need to do i'm here to tell you like some of the stuff that i did didn't do that caused me a lot of heartaches and one of the misconceptions is getting a sponsor or someone you can relate to i didn't relate to anybody but this guy was taking this four-year medallion and i'm listening to this guy and his sponsor said all this wonderful stuff about him and then the guy get up and i don't say this to disrespect the program of alcoholics anonymous this is just what it was like in in boston at the time but the guy gets the medallion and he's looking at it he says you know i was really nervous this morning when i woke up because i knew i was going to have to get up here in front of all you people so i smoked a joint to take the edge off OK. And he went on and at the end, everybody clapped and he sat down and I got to tell you, I love what he had to say. And I went right up to him and asked him to be my sponsor. That was my first experience with sponsorship and Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, make no mistake here. Years later, when I read the book and I took that prescription, Dr. Silkworth closes all those loopholes when he says that we can't take alcohol in any form and that the only treatment we have to offer is complete abstinence. That's a little marijuana maintenance, little social heroin, little rock cocaine, whatever your trip is, that's not sobriety. Just not drinking is not sobrietty. I didn't know these things. And so, you know, I continue to have problems with sobrieti and getting sober in a meaningful manner. I never worked the steps, never did any of that. 70s was a vicious cycle. That all the drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs were just coming into existence at the time and they used to have the old detoxes where you go in and and uh you'd be in there for three four days that detox you out um give you an abuse okay an abuse was a pill you took that if you drank that uh made you violently ill i don't know if we have any people there that have ever been on an abuse or try drinking on an abused but i'm one of them and because my case is different oh you think you're gonna die but it's a different different experience and so you know I'm just trying to tell you they tried every imaginable remedy with me I tried every imagineable remedy and uh I kept coming back to Alcoholics Anonymous because I had to I ended up getting getting a girl pregnant and I was a senior in high school and I ended UP quitting high school in January of my senior year and I married her because that's you did back then it's called a shotgun wedding you got married you moved down the street you got a job in factory that's what happened uh lasted two weeks and she was back home with her family and i was out with my buddies drinking and running and gunning and the feelings like i don't need her anyway when inside it really hurt you know i mean it really hurt i couldn't even i couldn t even be honest about some of that stuff and i i wondered why i was doing some of these things these strangely insane things and uh i found myself in the combat zone in boston red light district my buddies and i were rolling prostitutes that's robbing them i ended up getting arrested for armed robbery and i went into the charles street jail the oldest jail in new england five tears and a guy got thrown off the fifth tear and killed and it scared me to death you know i had heard all the the richard pryor and gene wilder movie stir crazy that's right we bad and i had heard from the the scared straight programs of the mid 70s all these convicts tough convict with you know tattoos all over their body when i get you in there i'm gonna bend you over and then start telling you all this stuff they're gonna do to you when they get trying to scare you straight problem is you can't scare a real alcoholic we don't scare that easy and uh you know all of a sudden i'm in there and and it scared me to death and i ended up getting bailed out massachusetts is a commonwealth law state where you get to face your accuser if they don't show up three times in the court they dismiss it lack of prosecution i didn't know what was going to happen i just knew that i was facing into 10 years walpole state prison and this is where living out the alcoholism of the book it talks about the jumping off point that there'll be those of us that choose to make the supreme sacrifice and to continue the fight it's talking about suicide that's what it's talking about and uh our souls become really really dark and and i went back to my little dingy apartment and i ended up drinking a lot of beer cut my wrists all the way down that's how i was found the next day and i came to five days later on the critical list and you hear people joke that they can't even do that right but that's really what i felt i couldn't couldn't even do that right and found myself as my friend jim buckley would say in another homes of the bewildered strapped to the bed i was in medfield state hospital and i ended up beating that case there was another suicide attempt i'm strapped the bed again and this woman came and saw me she told me about this guy named jesus christ that if i accepted him as my personal savior behold everything would be new you know and i don't know about you but alcoholics it might go from one extreme to the next we're either really really good or really really bad and she was telling me about this loving god that would forgive me and i said why not and so i i went into this program right out of the uh the state hospital i went under this program called teen challenge and i quit smoking swearing watching tv listening to rock and roll i started going to bible study seven hours a day church seven days a week i started traveling to england giving my testimony how christ had saved my life i would go into you know revivals and pentecostals born again christian big big rooms you know they'd be talking in tongues and passing out and um i'm that square peg just trying to fit you know these christians they had something in the eyes that i wanted it's and i liken it today to like some of these old timers you see these old-timers and they got that shit eating grin right they got something in their eyes you just you don't quite know what it is but you want it and that's what i wanted and so i'm an actor right that's what our book says that we're actors we can be more demanding or more gracious whichever the case is but i'm still trying to get my way and i ended up uh wanting to fit so bad into this that that i'm watching these people talking tongues and passing out that i decided i'm going to do what they're doing okay and so you got to follow me here because i call it's my throne of judgment so i'm in a revival and and let me let me say this first okay please understand this is a real experience for them okay this is the real awakening for them for me i'm the actor though okay and and so they're past they're getting filled with the spirit and falling out and i i decide that's what i'm going to do and so i get filled with despair and i fall out the only problem was I was hurting my back and my neck right it hurt when I hit the ground it wasn't hurting them because it was real for them I'm acting and it's like oh man that hurt and so I'm a quick study and I said well I'm not gonna I'm Not Gonna Do That Anymore What I'm Gonna Do Is I'm Gonna Talk In Tongues Okay Now Follow Me Here Because I'm In A Revival and all of a sudden i start making this up what what i feel the spirit's telling me okay and i'm making this upp and steve over there is telling the congregation what the spirit is telling him that i'm saying as i'm talking in these tongues so i know he's full of crap right because i'm full of craft and in my mind this whole thing is full of crab now i don't say any of this. I don't say any of this, right? I'm just watching and I'm observing this. And I woke up three months into this program and we call it in AA a moment of clarity. And I awoke up and I had that moment of Clarity. And my moment of Clarity was, you know what Scott, you're still full of crap. This is a game for you. And see, unbeknownst to me from being in AA, never working the steps, never reading the book, never never doing it okay and I had been in AA at that point for almost seven years you know I the misconceptions that I had with the first step and the second step and you got to hit your bottom and I would think things when I would crack up the car I don't know what your moment is but when I crack up a car get out of jail lose a job whatever the moment was I would think of something worse. And I would thank the people in AA said, Oh, you got to hit your bottom. And what's your bottom? You know, and I hear people joke, well, my bottom always had a trap door. You know? And so I had these, these conceptions on, on what your bottom was in this first step. And i really didn't understand where we admit that we're powerless over alcohol that our lives had become unmanageable. The unmanagability was simply not achieving one's purpose okay the surrender that's involved that doesn't deal with the the severity of the moment okay of the going to jail or whatever or the way your kid looks at you it's what happens inside of us this this dr tebow wrote this wonderful thing that's that really what's happens to us as alcoholics is our egos get deflated just enough just enough so that we can experience that psychic change. Some people call that a spiritual experience, but it's a psychic change sufficient enough for us to recover. That's the surrender at depth that happens, okay? And that had happened to me. I had never had it explained to me because I never had a person that was properly armed with facts about themselves explain any of this to me, that never took me through the book or talked about what it really meant. See, and again, water seeks its own level. I was not looking for that answer. But unbeknownst to me, through the osmosis, if you want to call it or, you know, I'm sitting there in this Christian program, thinking all about Alcoholics Anonymous and that surrender and what happened to me and coming to believe that not in but that this power can restore me to sanity. I used to think it talked about the sanity of the world. And it's not it doesn't mean anything about the sanity of the word. It's as we go through this process, and get up to or through we work the steps we get up to the 10th step it says for by this time sanity will have returned. Sanity is a form of sound judgment. I didn't understand that finding this power that's going to help me solve my problem. That's the main thing. See, the main object is to it. I mean, the main purpose is to show me how to recover. The main object is To enable me to find the power that it's kind of solved my problem, my problem is I'm drinking against my will. I'm drinking when I put alcohol in my body making these choices knowing not knowing that i have no choice okay i've lost the power of choice and so all of a sudden i'm coming to believe that this power can restore me to sanity it's actually talking about the insanity of the first drink i really want you to understand this because it's when our minds when my mind convinces my mind that it's okay to get loaded again knowing i just got out of jail knowing this just happened or that just happened or I got a restraining order against me. See, I didn't know these things, okay? And then making the decision to turn my will and my life, which is nothing more than my thoughts and my actions over to this power, okay. So I'm in this program three months. I come out, have that moment of clarity that I'm still full of it. And my moment of Clarity was I gotta get this stuff out. See, step four and step five where we do this inventory of ourselves, okay, It's a moral inventory, not an amoral inventory. We think that it's all the bad things we hear about this inventory and people say, oh, that's the toughest step, all these things. And so we build this boogeyman in our heads from listening to people that really aren't even qualified to give advice. And that's what that's another thing in Alcoholics Anonymous. There's a lot of people that me included, OK, I don't give advice if I am not qualified to give that advice. okay i'm here to tell you what i did okay the steps i took okay that have changed my life okay there's other issues and other things that people just want to take on this mantle and try to control and give advice that that kill people and i hate to say that like that but it's it's the truth and and and one of the things is these fourth and fifth steps is how many people are they killing when they're getting up they're saying it's the worst step it's a hardest step And you've got to tell all the, you know, dirty secrets that you have and stuff. And it's all that's not what our program is. I'm here to say that is not what Our Program is. That's what I thought it was. I didn't know that. I got a cup of coffee right here, black. And if, you Know, we got half hour left in this meeting. If I took this cup of copy and put it underneath the cold water right now and let it drip into it at the end of the meeting, I look inside. It's a little cloudy. okay it's still dark and dirty inside i didn't know that the fifth step was designed to dump that stuff to try to let me see some of these things so that maybe once i get rid of it i can try to retain some of These good positive things okay good attributes good assets that i have and work on them so i wake up into this program because see the stuff inside me is like gangrene I know I got to get it out. So, I go to the director of the program. I said, I need to get this stuff out. And this is where the defiance came back. See, the 12 steps, the way it says is they're designed as a system here that relieves me, the obsession, and leaves me usefully and happily hold and so that's what i'm trying to become here as a person there's there are a set of principles here and i'm try to get these principles okay um he didn't want to hear it he said that i had been given forgiven through the power of christ jesus didn't i believe that i say yeah i do believe that but i did a lot of things that i need to get out he didn' t want to hear it and this is where the defiance came back we started uh quoting scripture at each other and stuff and i told him what he could do with his program and i walked away and i went into the same project same acquaintances firm conviction i'm not going to drink anymore i know i'm an alcoholic see i knew i was an alcoholic i i knew it i'm just going to smoke a little weed because that's not my problem okay now i do not disrespect the program of alcoholics anonymous saying that well-versed at the steps the traditions the concept world service everything this is my experience in alcoholics synonymous back in the 70s okay where people would talk about drugs and they get pulled off the podium because that's an outside issue outside issue okay and so you didn't you didn't even talk about those things. So years later, when I read that in the book, and it talks about alcoholics and trying the different imaginable remedies, it talks about people like us taking gin and sedatives. Well, what is gin and sedatives? It's drugs and alcohol. That's what these people did. They tried the magic elixir, they called it, so they could work more, work less, go to work show up and everything. I was doing the same exact thing, but I'm terminally different, not understanding because of some of these misinformed people trying to carry a message that they had no knowledge of. Maybe what they did work with them. I'm not saying it didn't, maybe they stayed so, but it's not the sobriety that I want, okay? It's not The Release and in the guidance from the spiritual aspect of it that I want, okay? Because these are the set of spiritual principles that if I practice them as a way of life, it's going to expel the obsession in me and leave me usefully and happily whole. And from the time I was a little kid, that's all I wanted. I wanted to feel good about me. I wanted To Feel Good About You. I looked for it through the alcohol. see I'm an alcoholic of the hopeless variety that the book talks about okay that's what that's what I am I'm also a blackout drinker and when I drink I do everything I'm a garbage bill so all those other outside issues that really aren't outside issues I did too okay I did but see the baseline let's get to the baseline here okay what is an alcoholic see when I came in, they had 10 questions on what an alcoholic was. Then they went to 20 questions. Then they went, John Harvey, 44 questions. The only two questions that it asks you is in the book. Imagine that it's in the book if when you drink, you have little control over the amount you take or if when drinking, you can't quit entirely. What is to quit entirely is that without some thorazine or lithium or chloral hydrate or a little marijuana a little social i don't know what what does it mean quit entirely well if i can't do that that i may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience is going to conquer for me right at that i gotta i gotta find this power and i i didn't know that it was never explained to me and so I get out of there, and I smoke weed thinking that I'm sober, but what happens is you get that cotton mouth, a bear passes in front of you, and how be darned if I don't read it in the book years later where it says that I can't bring to sufficient force the pain, the misery of a week or a month ago. We succumb at so many of us do, and i took that drink, and the drink took the drink and the drink took me one more time fast forwarding here on november 14 1979 i find myself on this bridge called the bourne bridge in cape cod massachusetts uh 169 feet up over the cape cod canal and i'm at my rope sand and a big drama state police blocked off the bridge corps of engineer coast guard underneath suicide prevention league they're talking to me on bull horns underneath is the campground the born scenic park and all these campers came out and set up lawn chairs and they're yelling at me job i'm looking down at these guys go man these guys are crazy don't they know if i jump i'll die i had that self-absorption you know i got me on me and i can't get me off of me and the resentment number one offender not the number two the number one defender base route latin ward recentari refill rethink replay and And that's what I'm doing up on this bridge, four and a half hours thinking about me and the woulda, coulda, shouldas. And I should have turned left when I turned right. And I joke sometimes, you know, I saved a kid's life and I got honored by the House of Representatives. I was a Boy Scout. I could recite the pledges. And I'm sitting up there on stage getting this award. And I'M remembering on the bridge my dad being drunk and not showing up. you know, these are the, I'm remembering coming home from school and getting my dad grabbed me by the back of the neck and putting me in my room. And he had put a lock on the outside of my room and it was so dark. I couldn't see. And I found the light and turned it on and he had sheet metal and riveted the window in my bedroom would let me out in the morning to go to school and lock me in at night. You know, I, I I'm not an alcoholic because of that. To me that now today, yeah that's child abuse yeah they'll put you in jail back then that was just the price for getting caught okay i was a hard kid to raise i never thought of that as child abuse you know i didn't know that my dad's alcoholism the tornado roaring through our lives my family's lives was affecting everybody and making everybody sick you know but i'm on this bridge thinking of me you know me me me be all right enough about me let's talk about you walter what do you think about me right that's how i'm sharing right because it's all about me and in my mind i just what do i do what do I don't want to die I really don't wanna die there's got to be something out here and I made the conscious decision to get down now I tell this story to show the cunning baffling powerfulness of alcoholism because I got up to get done I was there four and a half hours you know and and my mind jumped in and it said Scotty if you get down you're gonna look like a pussy to all these people that have waited all this time for you to jump you gotta jump that's what my mind told me and so I turned and I jumped you know I don't remember hitting uh they say I died they the only bone I broke was my sternum bone and chest cavity that was from them giving the pericardials i'm bringing me back to life they don't do that anymore because it caves in your chest and can kill you but uh you know they they drug me out and everything and just two stories real quick i'll make this real quick so uh maybe 20 well would have been 22 23 years ago i was given a talk in middleborough massachusetts about 20 miles from this bridge and my mom was still alive my mom brother a couple of my brothers and sister-in-law they were all there at the big church giving a talk and i told the story of the bridge and that meeting got over and this guy this is the guy not me he comes i was living in california at the time he comes busting through the crowd he goes oh i owe you what amends i owe and i looked at the guy i said dude i said i don't even know you he goes no you wouldn't know me he goes we were at the bar and toby and wareham he goes and it came across the scanners that they had a jumper he goes so we rolled some weed got some jack daniels he goes and that was me yelling at you to jump he goes and you did right so he was a sober member of a my mom's there and i said see i told you they were yelling at me to jump right so maybe 16 18 years ago i've given a talk in in palm springs california some of you old-timers that are listening may remember Keith Carpenter and Sally Carpeter and stuff but I was out there and uh I told that story and that that meeting got over and this guy real distinguished suit and tie comes through the through the crowd and he goes you know he goes I always wondered what happened to you and I go sir I'm sorry I don't know you he goes no you wouldn't know me because I was a practicing alcoholic at the time I was the captain of the state police barracks in Buzzards Bay there he goes they called out all the rescue vehicles on you you know the Corps of Engineers the coast guard he goes and i heard you had died he goes in them they brought your baby goes i just didn't know what happened to you he was a sober member of a he was a practicing alcoholic at the time and so you know you hear jokes like is that odd or has that got three different people three different walks of life all sober members of alcoholics anonymous you know but i'm not done because we're no quitters okay back in the homes of the bewildered and i ended up lying and getting out of that and And went down through Pennsylvania. And what I really need is discipline. And so, I joined the United States Army. Alcoholic needs discipline. And I found myself at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. And then Fort Benning, Georgia. And going through basic and AIT down there. And before my Army career was over, in six months, I had four Article 15s. I was on the Benninghaus program of alcoholism, taking antabuse every morning in front of the CO. And I was such a failure again. And I ended up getting a chapter five honorable discharge unfit for military life. They basically kicked me out. I went to California, the land of golden opportunity, Hollywood, Beverly Hills. I'm going to go out there. I'm gonna be discovered. I'm be in the movies, you know, all these delusions of grandeur. And I got out there, I was out there six days and I came out of a blackout and I was in l.a county jail and i heard a saying real quick that you come on vacation and you leave on probation and the only problem was they weren't letting me out in between three counties um i ended up getting 23 years sentencing in the state penitentiary in california now this is um back when californIA only had 11 institutions at the time and uh you know if you've ever been in there you know their prison is nothing but a human kennel that breeds violence and i let it the violence of me i became an absolute animal thank god i never hurt anybody you know when we talk about the crimes and being a gangster and all this i never heard anybody okay thank god i never hurting anybody uh but i'm in there running and gunning and and the the race issues just everything is insane in the penitentiary and i ended up making it up to this institution um to hatchaby and i was told that they had a meeting of alcoholics anonymous and what i like to go and i went and i walked in and it was done by southern california h and i hospital and institution work and uh you know i sat down in this meeting you know I've been an aa almost 10 years at this time and I'm like okay what are they going to teach me here and and they started the meeting with the reading of the portion of chapter five from the big book of alcoholics anonymous on how it worked i had never heard how it worked i've been in aaa almost 10 years never heard how it worked that that's a custom that was started actually in southern california that is spread out worldwide but it it was never read see the meetings that i went to in new england there were commitments that you'd go to different meetings and if you were uh your own group wouldn't even share it your own group and you had to have 90 days to share okay um you know and all of a sudden they're reading how it works and sometimes I reflect and I think about the the youngness and what I was like back then because it was like a Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus okay I remember going to them all the time in the 60s in the Boston Garden and you know getting that program with the three rings and what happened where and stuff and I always used to think when are they going to give me the program you know in aa when are they going to give me the program and so all of a sudden i'm hearing this chapter five on how it works realizing this is the program and no one ever gave me the program where are they getting this and and uh then they read chapter three more about alcoholism okay uh and the pitiful incomprehensible demoralization they're reading this stuff and and i'm going man that's me and then this guy eddie miracle got up and he says, you know, if you're new, you've come home. You need never be alone again. You're like the prodigal son who had to venture out there. He started talking that this is a disease of perception. Our glasses, it's half empty or half full. He started talking how we're all children of God and for me to love you for your color, are you not for your colour? That there's no room for hypocrites in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Either we're All God's Kids or none of us are. What was my choice to be? He started taking a lot about his sponsor, which became my grand sponsor uh chuck chamberlain okay and um you know how just just the the beauty that came out of this man riveted me and in the meeting ended and they read a vision for you where they talked about our book being meant to be suggestive only we realize we know only a little that god will constantly disclose more to you and to us and i'm not going to recite it to you here but it's like you got to ask him in your morning meditation what you can do for the man who is still sick, right? All these things. And I'm sitting there and I'm going, man, where are they getting this stuff? And you hear people joke, but it's the truth. I'm sitting there going, Man, where Are they getting this? And I've come to the fundamental idea, okay, at that time, that if you ever wanted to hide something from the alcoholic, put it in the book, they'll never find it, right. It was the least read book in the meetings that I went to, they never read the book. Oh, they were good parents. And they would, you know, parrot this said and that's it and everything real good parents but as far as the book goes and what was in the book to grasp and develop that now let me say something real quick about the book because they didn't have the book when they got sober okay and and they relied on god okay they relied on their relationship with god did a lot of praying in between the meetings and they only had one meeting a week to start they didn'T have you know uh 33 in the week at your clubhouse okay that we could hide out in there and stuff and not develop and build this relationship with his power and stuff, and pray, and then slide and go, I made it the week. Okay, they had to work at it. And so all of a sudden now, I'm there, and I'm listening to this. And I jumped into AA like my life depended on it, because it did. And i worked all 12 steps. Okay. AndI got that sponsor. Okay? and i became usefully and happily whole inside the walls and i changed okay what i thought was my darkest day in my life ended up being the best day of my life what i taught alcoholics anonymous as my punishment for my bad behavior actually became my reward okay for bad behavior see and i was being rewarded with the opportunity to do the deal here and i did and and i became a gentleman and i stopped affiliating and i went back to school and got my ged and what got four years of college and and excelled as a person i got divorced in there from that first wife and i met a girl and then we became pen pals and stuff and uh i ended up paroling and went through a couple governors there and all the laws changed. And I got a lot of time knocked off in the one for one laws and the old SP laws is a little insane there. But anyway, I got out and I was told if I wanted to make it, I owed myself a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't know myself a weekend with my girlfriend. I Didn't know this that yeah, I needed a meet. First thing I did is I went to a meeting, I went To the rafters in Newhall, California. And I walked up those stairs and uh I was at home and I went to an AA dance the next day and a breakfast meeting the next Day after that and I walked into this Pacoima group and and this uh old big guy he wasn't old but big guy beard and banging the podium at the elevator to sobriety is broke you must use the steps nothing this guy's crazy and they called him crazy Ted and uh he was later to become my sponsor. But you know, my first Monday night I was at a panel and acting rehabilitation. That's how I started my walk in Alcoholics Anonymous and all the dreams came true. And all the dreams came True. I got married on this program, I became what we regard around here as a circuit speaker. And I started traveling all over the country, sharing with you what you could become if you were honest and willing enough to try this thing. You know, I started businesses, I joined that rock and roll band, I always wanted to join, I became a lead singer of a couple different bands, I having had that spiritual experience or awakening, if you please, as a result of the steps, I carried the message of Alcoholics Anonymous, which is, you know, the message is hope and the promises of freedom of the bondage itself and so all of a sudden now um you know i'm i'm living this this dream in this lifestyle and traveling all over my sponsor died okay eddie miracle died and i uh i didn't get another sponsor i know aa i know i know you know god's my sponsor um you Know chuck chuck used to say god was his sponsor and stuff and so i started what i call mental masturbation and i started in my mind listening to my mind okay and all of a sudden i'm not carrying this message anymore i'm carrying the message of scotty look at me look at where i came from look at where i am now i had houses on coast to coast i i had 13 cars i would fly between la and boston four or five times a month get chauffeured by limousines uh this program really worked you know we work the steps in order and i'm here to tell you tonight that we can give them away in order too okay because all of a sudden i gave that 12 step away okay and now all of a sudden seeking through this is this is a program of action where we become seekers and all of sudden i'm not seeking anymore you know i'm listening to myself and i'm not uh trying to develop that prayer meditation and i know when it started i was about five years over six years sober the first time there and And all of a sudden, I got out of the habit of getting on my knees, praying to God. I would get on my needs every morning. I would Get on My Knees Every Night. But all of A Sudden, I Start Listening to Other People. And You Can Talk to God Anywhere, Which Is True. You Can talk to Him in The Shower, Driving Your Car, Blah, Bluh, Blur. And All Of A SudDEN, That Humbility, As It Was Explained to Me In The Beginning, Where We Don't Crawl Before Any Man, But We Don'T Step On Him Either, Right? Except For God. All Of SudDEN It'S Like, I Don'T Need To Get On My KneES Anymore. i gave that 11 step away 10 step you know continue to take personal inventory when i'm wrong promptly admitted it i go into meetings i'd owe john and the men's i'd say john i owe you in a minute john would say thanks god you'd walk away and in my mind i'd saying oh you want them i'm going to give you one okay you know the cunning baffling and powerfulness of this you know steps eight and nine i owe people amends now step six and seven i start backing myself up step six or seven where we're entirely ready to have god remove them okay and then we humbly ask them i didn't understand the implication because it's only two short paragraphs in the book not connecting the dots where it talks about this is the step that separates the men from the boys the men being the perfect objective which is of god and my objective i'm back into my objective i'm doing things a married man shouldn't do you know i'm killing my spirit but i'm not going to drink i'm i'm a circuit speaker i'm getting up there sponsoring all sorts of people you know living the AA lifestyle, judging you, coming into these rooms and judging you. Oh my God, can't he come up with anything new? Oh, she's full of crap. And I walk out the door. I wouldn't say those things, but I'm judging myself right out of AA and I don't even know because I know I'm an alcoholic. I know. I am to the depths of my soul. This isn't a dispute on this time it's going to be different or anything. The insanity returns and then we drink. Please understand that we don't drink and then get insane. And we become as sick as our secrets, okay? And all of a sudden I back myself right up to that third step, okay, where it talks about my will and my life, my thoughts and my action. My friend Lou Adler said, Scott, he's pretty hard for one God to recognize another God. Think about that. And the insanity returned and I drank. double-digit sobriety okay mr circuit speaker i drank and then trying to come back was the hardest thing that i was ever gonna do because of such a tremendous ego and arrogance that i had displayed towards spiritual principles how am i going to raise my hand people i mean i sponsor people you know today um that i did sponsor um that I'm still you know we've become friends but that that damn they're 40 years sober you know in their 30s 20s and all of a sudden I'm drunk and some of the some ofthe funny ones coming up to me oh can I be your sponsor now oh and I'd say no and I'D walk out the door see that's why I said when I in the beginning I know it's like to make the decision to stop and walk out the door and get loaded anyway and any part that leaves the physical out is incomplete please understand that we got to get physically sober and see i didn't get physically silver and to make a long story short on christmas night 1996 i took a 25 automatic and i shot myself in the head boom and the bullet went in and blew out the top of my head and uh i came to all full life support systems and uh I still drank even after that and this is where I joked that the my story gets a little strange because the state of California stepped in they charged me with ex-felon with a gun and they remanded me back into custody and again long story short I found myself at chino state prison and they're striking me out there they had a three strike law at the time and they were going to give this as my fourth strike and they were going to give me 25 to life. And I had a thought and my honest thought was I want to be sober now, right? I'll work the steps now. I'll get a sponsor now all these you know things that we'll do now we get spiritual real quick when those things happen to us and I'm no different. And i jumped in AA again like my life depended on it because it did. And if you've ever read the Bible Daniel in the lion's den Peter sitting there and the lights coming and the gates opening that's basically my story because on october 7th 1997 judge chelsea mckay in the lancaster superior court pulled me out of state prison stood me in front of him and he he didn't understand how i could do this to myself you know he didn t understand how we can build this pretty picture to our families our loved ones at this time is different okay please give me another chance and we're such good con artists they do and then we get loaded and uh tear the house down and if we're honest we don't know why we do it either but god touched him he struck two of my strikes he released me the next day and i got out not with my wife or family or anything i had several restaurants in california i lost everything before you know when i when i had shot myself restraining order just everything it that you talk about losing everything i lost everything you talk you talk about pitiful and comprehensible demoralization i'm 129 pounds standing across from one of my restaurants in the antelope valley in the rain crying hoping that the busboy or dishwasher will bring me out a plate of biscuits and gravy or something so i can eat okay you know bill's story one who had thought so highly of himself that was me and i jumped in a like my life depended on it and and uh made the amends worked the steps i got ted as my sponsor ted summers um you know and did the deal not that i was going to get any of this stuff back um not that I was going to become a circuit speaker and I joke about circuit speakers because I wasn't what I what my friend said to me then he goes why don't you just become a circuit talker because it's one alcoholic talking to another that's all it is and that's why i said to you i'm not a speaker anymore i talk i you know you have some people that you can hear 10 years or 20 years later they say the same exact things and uh don't their stories change don't they their lives change well my life absolutely changed because i i did the steps i made the amends i i renewed my vows with my wife um my wife stayed sober i i 12 stepped my wife and married her when She had 30 days sober. She has 38 years sober now, okay? She stayed sober, you know, through that experience and the kids and having five kids, eight grandkids, now another grandchild on the way, the businesses, the restaurants, all that stuff's good. Traveling the world, you Know, in part for Alcoholics Anonymous, uh speaking all over the place from you know egypt to italy to every state whatever it is that's all good but see this is good too this one-on-one going into into food banks and jail and i go in a go in the jail i have panels okay i'm a member in good standing and and and if you're wondering you know how and what this is all about it's it's so much more than just not drinking it's to be able to walk with a little simple dignity with your head held high okay and and to be free and really that's what it is is to be frei I'm free today you know and I could lose it if I let that insanity come back I don't want to let the insanity comeback I'm just about done here. I'll leave you with this because I can literally talk for hours. There's so much more. I mean, there's so many things that have happened in the last 25 years of my sobriety and my life. And I am in my 25th year of sobriete, not because I'm any great person, but I backed away from the gates of insanity and death. That's what I did is I backed the way and I looked at what could do. you know i want to say this because it says what the main purpose is to show us precisely how to recover the main object is to enable us to find the power that's going to solve our problem and i missed what the mean thing was and that's in working with others and it's the main thing is that i believe in this power and it uses the word and live along okay these principles i wasn't living along these principles you know it says that deep down in every one of us god's there he may be obscured by calamity pomp the worship of other things but it's here and it's only there that he may defile it was so with us well that's what it was with me and that's where it'll be with you there is hope you don't have to drink anymore even if you want you don'T HAVE TO IT'S AMAZING THIS PROGRAM REALLY DOES WORK I'LL LEAVE YOU WITH THIS WHEN you get what you want in your struggle for self and the world makes you king for a day let's go to a mirror and look at yourself and see what that man has to say for it isn't your father or mother or wife whose judgment upon you must pass the fellow whose verdict that counts most in your life is the one staring back from the glass he's the fellow to please never mind all the rest for he's with you clear up till the end and you've passed your most dangerous difficult test if the man on the glass is your friend you know some people may call you a straight shooting chum and call you a wonderful guy, but the man in the glass says you're only a bum if you can't look straight in the eye. You may fool the whole world down the pathway of life and get pats on your back as you pass, but your final reward will be heartaches and tears if you've cheated the man in the class. I say that because I cheated myself for a long time, both in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't cheat myself anymore. My hope is that you don't treat yourself anymore. I didn't like my booze watered down. What do I want the program of Alcoholics Anonymous watered down for? This is the real deal. If you're an alcoholic, I'd like to welcome you to AlcoholicsAnonymous. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Scott. I knew it was going to be amazing especially on Thanksgiving. Thankyou so much for joining us tonight where you never know what you're going to get. You'll have to keep coming back. We surely hope to see you here next week. Our special guest next Thursday is Dawn M., and she is from Laguna Beach, California. And if you like this meeting, please do as Bill Wilson says, pass it on. You can help others right from your phone or computer and tell them about this special meeting thank you scott it was beautiful and um we had we invite everybody to hang out with us on the back porch only i have to run because my family is doing thanksgiving tomorrow and i'm cooking today so i've got to go finish making cakes and pies and when we're addressing and so scott do you have any um last minute words of wisdom and then lead us out in a prayer of your choice the only words of Wisdom is today's the day we don't drink that's all it is that's how you got to remember today's The Day We Don't Drink keep it simple we can pontificate and talk about all this wonderful stuff, but really what have we learned? And I think what we really need to, what I've learned, what my hope is that you learned is not to take that first drink. That's really it. And if you can help me close with the Lord's prayer, I would appreciate it. You can all unmute yourselves or I don't know how you do that, but all right. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Amen. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.