The First Thing He Got Back Was His god**** Opinion 😆 – Bob D.

My name is Bob Darrell and I am an alcoholic. Through God's grace, sponsorship, the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous as they're outlined in the big book and bushels of newcomers, I've been sober and free from all mind-altering, mood-altered and emotion-aldering chemicals since Halloween 1978. and that is a miracle I want to thank Reggie and members of the committee for asking me to come down here and share with you it's a privilege to participate in Alcoholics Anonymous and really to share with you the life that you've given me and I want to thank Gary for being such a great host and driving us around and he's just been a hoot to be with. It's been a really good time. I want to welcome all the people that are reasonably new. If you're in your first year of sobriety, I'm really glad you're here. I also want to tell you that if you're in your last year of sobiety and you don't know it, I'm real glad you'RE here. There may be some people here that are leaving Alcoholics Anonymous and your mind is already gone, your body's still here. I want to tell you, I'm real glad you're here. Maybe you'll hear something this weekend or see something this weekend that will ignite a fire in you and your heart for AA and that you will get to stay here. I didn't want to come to Alcoholics Anonymous. I went to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1971. I was a young kid. Wasn't even old enough to take a legal drink. I was in an institution. I was made to go to that meeting, and I didn't finally get sober until 1978. And from 1971 to 1978, I kept ending up in AA meetings. And I don't know what that was about, but I knew it wasn't. That's not my problem. So I went to a lot of therapy. I couldn't think it was alcoholism because when I stopped drinking it didn't seem to get any better and so I was in therapy with some great guys I was a founder of rational emotive therapy and Ed Silverman, a contemporary of Fritz Perls I was into transactional analysis I primal screened I've done all that stuff looking for an answer out here for something that would fix this thing that I don't know what is quite wrong with me, and as the years went on, booze isn't making it as better as it used to. And I'm looking everywhere out here, and through all of that, I kept ending up in AA meetings over and over. And it's not that I'm an alcoholic, but every time I drink, I end up where all the alcoholics are at. I don' t know what that's about. And I didn't know that God was trying to tell me something. I'm looking everywhere else for an answer, and the answer is being put in my face continually. And I'll tell you a little story that's a true story. I read this probably 20 years ago when I read it. I just thought that's exactly what happened to me. and the story's about this guy that grew up in South Africa back in the 1800s and he inherited a farm from his family and it was a nice little farm, he could have made a nice living off it but it was at a time in South America when people were discovering diamonds and there were people that were getting mega rich overnight and he started watching these people become rich and he became dissatisfied with his farm and he didn't really work the fields and he kind of started to ignore it. And finally, he was so obsessed with becoming rich and finding diamonds that he sold his farm. He took the money that he got from the sale of his farm and he went out into the bush to search for diamonds. And he spent his whole life out there. And he died poor, broke, alone, miserable, frustrated individual. And the farm that he sold turned out to be the largest diamond deposit ever recorded in the history of the world. And it was bought by these two brothers who were developers, and then when they discovered all these diamonds on his property, they formed a company to market these and mine these diamonds, and they named the company after that poor idiot that died out in the bush, and his name was De Beers. And to this day, it's the largest diamond-producing company in the world. And I'm that idiot. I'm the guy that's looking everywhere for the answer, and it's right there in front of me all along. And I couldn't believe that AA, even though I keep ending up in AA, is what I needed because Alcoholics Anonymous, to me, didn't make any sense. I'll tell you the kind of drunk I am. I'mthe kind of guy going to run, and alcohol will strip me to the bone. It will take everything away from me, and I end up in Alcoholics Anonymous, and the first thing I get back is my goddamn opinion. It's my opinion and my judgment of what you're presenting me that kept me from getting everything that you would ever give a guy like me. And I just couldn't get it. I was too defended. I think from what I've learned about alcoholism that I was an alcoholic before I ever picked up a drink I was like a freeze dried alcoholic waiting for alcohol and I believe that because of what it says about alcoholismo in the big book Alcoholics Anonymous it says that we are bodily and mentally different from our fellows and there was something wasn't quite right about me even as a little kid And I can't blame it on my family. I didn't come from an alcoholic home. I came from a family that loved me, that took very good care of me, that were always on my side. I sit in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous sometimes and I listen to people talk about how terrible their childhood was and sometimes I'm envious. I wish I came From an alcoholic Home then I could hang my weirdness on somebody but there was nobody to blame. There was just something about me that wasn't right. And even though intellectually I understood that I was loved as a little kid, there was something about my that couldn't feel it. I was that internally focused, even as a small kid, that I disconnected from the stuff going on around me. Now my sister could feel it, she always experienced and felt the love in our family, but I was very self-involved even as little kid. I'll tell you a little story. I was thinking about this at dinner tonight. When I was about three, maybe four years old, I went with my folks one day on this outing and on the way back to the house we stopped at this farmer's market and we stopped there because my dad wanted to buy this horseradish that he'd heard about that had won all these awards and it was hotter and spicier than any other horseraddish. So I'm going in there with my folks, and I'm listening to my dad brag to my mom about this horseradish. And I'm a little kid. I don't know what horseraddish is, but I'm hearing the commercial. So they get some, and we're on our way out to the car, and say, Papa, can I try some? And he said to me, he says, Rob, you can't have any. It's too powerful. It's Too Strong. It's only for adults. You can't Have Any. Well, there's something about me that I may not really want something until you tell me I can't have it. But then I just can't stop thinking about it. to this day, I can barely make it by a do not touch wet paint sign without going like, there's just something about me that's like that. And here I am, a little kid, I waited until my folks weren't around, I snuck in that kitchen, got that jar of horseradish, got a big spoon. I sat on the floor of that kitchen opened that jar or horseraddish, stuck that spoon in there and this was before LSD but I think I saw God that morning. snot's pouring out of my nose and tears are running down my eyes i spit horseradish all over that damn kitchen sick sick sick six six six that was over 40 years ago i have not once sat with a jar of horseraddish big spoon didn't need no sponsor no meetings no 12 steps nothing but i gotta tell you square business if that horserradish would have done for me what alcohol did for me i'd have spent the rest of my life making myself sick with that crap every chance i could get because i was born with a hunger and an incompleteness and an itch in my soul that kept drawing my attention into me and i didn't know that i had alcoholism and i my disease of alcoholism was touched by alcohol for the first time when i was 12 years old and i i'm with a bunch of guys. We pulled a little burglary in our neighborhood. We stole some stuff and one of the things we stole was some whiskey. Didn't know about drinking, didn't really want to drink. I just wanted to fit with these guys. And I was the kind of kid that was driven by a vacuum inside of me that I'd have done anything to fit. And we're passing around this bottle of whiskey and after the burning went away, I got to tell you it made me feel so good that the way I was without it from that moment on was never enough again. And I live for it. And when you're 12, 13, 14, 15 years old, you can't get drunk every day, but I got drunk every chance I could get. I've never had a social drink in my whole life. I'm the guy that Dr. Silkworth talks about in the big book when he says that we have this phenomenon of craving, this allergy to alcohol. Oh, when I drink, something happens to me where I just break out this phenomenon of craving. It's just one drink just says, yeah, oh, more, more. Oh, yeah. More. And not everybody's like that. And I didn't get that when I first got sober. I knew that I was the guy for some reason I couldn't start because once I started, I couldn'T stop. But I didn't understand what Silkworth meant when he said that we are different, that this phenomenon of craving differentiates us and sets us apart as a distinct entity that it never, ever occurs in the average tempered drinker. I didn'T understand that because to me my alcoholic life seems the only normal one. So I just assumed, and why wouldn't I, that everybody who drinks gets the same effect from alcohol that I get. I wouldn'T think anything else. That would be like trying to, I'd like to be imagining that strawberries taste different to you than they do to me. It never occurred to me and I don't really get it until I'm about four and a half years sober and I'm dating this gal that's not an alcoholic and we'd go out to dinner and she'd order a drink. I swear to God, take her a half hour to drink one drink. I mean, she'd sit, sip, forget it's there, talk, stir it. I just sit there sometimes and watch the ice melt. That's like alcohol abuse, you know what I mean? I asked her one time, I said, were you ever drunk? And she said, one time in college and it was awful and she'd never do that again. I was at her apartment one night. She pulls out this glass case and it's got a marijuana cigarette in it. And she told me the story. She says, yeah, a couple months ago I was at this party, some guy gave me this marijuana cigarette from Thailand, so I took two hits off of it and I'm saving the rest for New Year's Eve. I mean you might not live that long I never saw her drunk I asked her one time probably two or three occasions when I was with her I would see her have two drinks I'd see her order the second drink but I can never remember one instance where she ever even finished the second drink. She'd drink two thirds of it a half of it or a part of it. After a while, she'd push it aside and she'd say, I don't want any more. I'm starting to feel it. It'd be easier for me as an alcoholic to have sex and after two strokes, say,I don't need any more of that. I am starting to FEEL it. And do that with two drinks of alcohol. And I started to get it from a contrastive experience. What Silkworth was talking about when he says that these people aren't like us. You see, when my friend, who's not an alcoholic, took two drinks, she got a feeling like she was losing control. I take two drinks. I get a feeling that I'm getting control. Alcohol does something fundamentally different down to the core of my being than it does to normal non-alcoholic people. And I remember saying one time in a meeting that I liked alcohol because it took me there. But you know, the real truth is that most of my drinking it didn't. It might have in the very beginning. But what it would do is it would take me so close to being there that I could almost touch it. And it would make me crazy. And that's why I think I drank with such a sense of urgency because I got a sense through most of mine that maybe on the next drink, man, going to be there. And so I couldn't get them down quick enough and I drank with that sense of urgency, and I was a pig, basically. I've never had the experience that a non-alcoholic has. Non-alcoolics will frequently go to a bar and be sitting there drinking for 45 minutes, and the bartender will come by and say, Bob, would you like another drink? And sit there and go, No, this is just right. I've never been there. I have never had one moment in all my drinking where I ever was just right. It's always about to be, maybe on the next drink. And that's what it is to have the phenomenon of craving. Now if that was all there was to my alcoholism, then in 1970 or 1971 when I started getting into places where they started telling me about alcoholism I would have quit drinking. I could have done the Nancy Reagan program recovery, just say no. But there's something about me I can't, I can say no. I'd say no good for a while. I'd Say No, No, no, no no, No! No! no! no, all right. And for an alcoholic of my type, there is a yes in every barrel of nose and it might be on the top and it may be on bottom but it's in there and it's every barrel a nose for a guy like me. And I can't stop that thing, and I started coming in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous, and tell you, I know what it's like to get to that point where I just, I don't want to do this anymore. And, I would swear to myself, I'm never going to, I don' t want to touch this stuff anymore. The problem with me is no matter how tremendous my resolve is not to drink, the emotions and the feelings of abstinence gradually grind away my resolve. And sometimes they'll grind it away a week after detox, and sometimes it'll be six months down the road. But it's like every time I put down my last drink, it's lighten a fuse, and it's coming. The drink's coming, and I can't stop it. And I was a short-fused kind of guy. And I have friends that are, God, they could just tough it out for years without the steps and sponsorship and without AA. My friend Billy, he talks about going seven years dry without the Steps or nothing. Seven years. I can't imagine that. I'll tell you the kind of man I am. I'm not the kindof guy I am, I saw this in a movie when I was a kid. there was i saw this movie about uh it's during the cold war and the russians were had captured an american spy and they were going to torture secrets out of this guy so they had him strapped naked in his chair and they had this doctor with these electric wires and they'd put these electric fires on this guy's nuts and he would scream and yell and wither and just be in such pain and they would do that to him for hours and hours and ours and eventually After a couple days, he would give up and tell them what they wanted to know. I'll tell you the kind of guy I am. I'm the guy you just show the wires to. And I don't like being that way, but that's the kind of guyI am. So when the emotions of abstinence starts putting the screws to me, I don' t have it to stick it out and tough it out. I go get some relief. And sometimes I don't always run out and get a bottle of whiskey. Sometimes I'll go crazy and go to a psychiatrist's office, you know, put me on medication. The problem with me and medication is that medication gives me a little bit of relief from alcoholism. But a little Bit of Relief has never been enough for me. And it just starts a slow burn inside of me. And eventually it's not enough. and I got to go get a jug of whiskey or something stronger. Sometimes I would just get to the point in abstinence where I'm just going crazy and I'd get a couple bottles of NyQuil. It's not that I got a cold, but I can feel one coming on. And I've started runs that way, you know, thinking, well, I'll just drink NyQuill. That'll be all right. Then I'd be off. Next thing I know, I'm drinking Quartz or Richard's Wild Irish Rose again. Oh, a homeboy. I have a special love for Richard's Wild Irish Rose. If I ever go out again, that's probably what I'll drink. It's terrible going down. It's better coming up. It's a good thing. So here I am. I'm going in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I can't stay sober, and there are times when I make up my mind I'll never drink that stuff again, and I go back to it, and I sit in AA meetings, and sometimes I try to listen to you people and try to understand what's going on here and nothing I hear or see here makes any sense. And the more I'm exposed to you, the more convinced I become that I am not like you because what I see in AA on a regular basis is I see people who stop drinking and they're magnificent. They're wonderful. They're happy. They love life. They have great relationships with people. They just seem to mix. They laugh a lot. Their life is really good. I sit there in the halfway houses, in the AA meetings, listening to people from the outside come into the meetings and listen to an endless procession of miracle stories, of stories of how wonderful your life is. And I come to a conclusion that whatever's wrong with you can't possibly be the same thing that's wrong with me because I quit drinking and I'm prone to deep depressions. And I quit drink and I am so full of anxiety and feelings of restlessness and I don't fit anywhere. It's almost as if when I stop drinking as if this invisible yet impenetrable barrier exists between me and everyone else that i can't seem to break through or surmount as if everything in life of any meaning or substance just seems to be just beyond my fingertips and i live in a world where it appears especially in alcoholics anonymous where you people got it and whatever you got i don't got. And the only time I ever had even any kind of semblance of what you have was when I'd have about five shots of Jack Daniels and the barrier would come down and I could come out and play and I Could fit and I can be a part of. And one of the things that I didn't understand in Alcoholics Anonymous is that I kept getting the message that alcohol was my problem. But on some very deep level i knew that alcohol wasn't my problem it was my answer it for some reason it was an answer that i could no longer jump start but it had been the only answer i'd ever known and if you have the same disease that i got you you remember the times when alcohol was the most immediate and effective treatment for alcoholism that you that there exists it was awesome I remember in ninth grade this kid in our high school his parents went out of town he lived in this big home and he invited everybody in the high school there for a party and I remember walking up to the front door of his house and and walking inside and standing inside the front drawer and looking over in this one room and there was a whole bunch of couples sitting on the sofas in there making out and then over inthis other room this family room and there was a bunch of people dancing. And then way in the back of the house in the kitchen, there wasa bunch of guys, a lot of the real popular guys and the guys from the football team, and they were around this keg of beer, and theywere laughing and telling jokes and stories, and the laughter was rolling through the house. And I remember standing inside that front door with this sick, lonely feeling of separation, a sense as if it was all of them, and then there was me. And I wanted to run and bolt out of there. I was, if you, that sickness of separation was overwhelming. And instead of leaving, I slunk around that house and I found this coffee table, this card table had a bottle of 151 rum and some glasses and ice and Coke. And I made myself a couple 151 rums and Cokes. And man, within 20 minutes, I've got a girlfriend. I'm dancing. Later on, I'm back in the kitchen with the guys from the football team. and we're like lifelong friends, and it's just awesome. At that point in my alcoholism, alcohol was a treatment for my alcohol. It was the most immediate and effective treatment I ever found. Because when I walked into that party, I walked in there suffering from the soul sickness of alcoholism. My spirit was depressed and alone and sickly. and a couple rum and cokes vitalized my spirit. And it was a tremendous treatment. But alcoholism is a disease of diminishing returns. The big book of Alcoholics Anonymous says it's a progressive illness. And as the years went on, the fun and the effect got less and less and the problems got more and more. And it's like every time I'd start a run it was like spinning a roulette wheel. And in the beginning days, On that roulette wheel, there was like a slot for getting laid, dancing, going to a party, shooting pool, laughing with the guys, making new friends. There was one in there for jail and there's another one in here for getting sick. But it was a lot of fun stuff. And as the years went by, somebody's slipping in there and changing the deals on there. And they're putting jail in there more often. They're putting detoxes in there. Till the very end, I'm spinning that wheel knowing there's got to be a good one in their somewhere. and it's coming up it ain't coming up party no more it's come up all bad stuff and I can't seem to change it and I tried everything that we all try to control it I tried mixing drugs in with it I tried eating right I tried vitamins I tried anything I would have done anything to jump start that party but one of the cruelest blows of my alcoholism As the years went on and as I'm losing everything of any value, my family, my self-respect, my ability to work, my freedom as they sentenced me to two years in a state penitentiary. As I'm loosing everything of value, when I finally got to the very end and there's nothing left of me, the saddest thing of all is that I can't even get high right no more. I can't even have any fun you know it would have all been maybe worth it on some kind of weird alcoholic balance scale if I could have still got an hour every once in a while of fun like it was in the old days and at the very end I'm drinking because I can' t stop and I can''t stay away from it and it's not fun no more now I've entered into a phase of my alcoholism where I'm just as miserable and lonely and depressed when I'm drunk as I am when I're sober. And I go through the last period of my alcoholism where I am in and out of halfway houses and I'm one of those homeless guys and I get sober and sobriety. It feels like I'm doing time and I can't stand it because I'm so restless, irritable, discontent. I'm such a person. I'm depressed, sober. I have such feelings of shame and guilt for all the things I've done to my family and the people that have cared about me. And abstinence is unbearable until I can't take it anymore. And I seek relief in the bottle one more time, one more futile vain attempt to recapture something that was unrecapturable. And I start the run, and it ain't no party no more. And I started the run and now I'm just as depressed and lonely and sick of spirit drunk as I was when I was sober. And that brought me to a point in my alcoholism where I started to think about suicide. In 1970, 1977, I was sober for several months. I was in a halfway house. I was sobre about as long as I could stand it. And I was at that point where I just, I used to get to a part of myself where I was like, I used so lonely and so depressed, sober, i would just feel like my god if i don't do something to change the way i feel i'm going to lose my mind here and there was a guy that i'd been in a detox with it back to drinking he had a little trailer down in a little town and called aliquippa outside of pittsburgh and i called him up and he told me about this new bar that he found this rock and roll bar and he said there's a great band there there's great women there and it's just it's awesome and i'm like drooling you You know, I'm sober about as long as I can stand it. I'm ready. So I get a weekend pass and I go out with the intention of going down there and I'm going to have a good time that weekend. Drink Friday night all day, Saturday, Sunday morning, sober up so I can make it back to the halfway house Sunday afternoon. Still a victim of the illusion that I can control and enjoy my drinking. Now, I am not an idiot. and I know that there's probably a chance here that it might not be exactly like I think it is going to be, that something bad could happen. But I thought, what's the worst case scenario here? They find out I was drinking, I get thrown out of the halfway house so I get down to the Hope Rescue Mission or the Salvation Army or I get in another place. It's not a big deal. Not the end of the world. I can live with that. Acceptable limits of casualty here? Okay. I start that run Friday night And I've got to tell you, on the square, the best time of that whole run was the hour before it started. It was awesome. The anticipation was just incredible. And then I started drinking. And the minute I started drinkin', that phenomenon of craving kicked in. I couldn't stop. And I'm not comin' out and playin'. I'm no mixing it up. I'm dancing with nobody. I'm shootin' pool with the guys. I'm drinking myself into oblivion, looking at everybody else in the bar that's having a good time and wondering what's wrong with me. Because I could remember the days when it was like that. I could Remember the days When it was a party and I knew I knew a truth about me that I did not want to know. I knew that the party was over And man, I got to tell you, I didn't want to Know that. And I don't want to know that because if that's true, what's the use of living? Because what do I got to look forward to? Sobriety? AA dances? Potlucks? Oh man, to me, AA had good news and bad news And the good news is, well, Bob, maybe if you go to thousands of these stupid meetings, you'll stay sober the rest of your life. And the bad news is Bob, you're going to live a long time. See, I'm the guy that they talk about in a vision for you. I can't imagine life without alcohol. I can imagine with it anymore because it's killing me and there's no more fun. But I can image life without it either. And I was stuck, and I was at the jumping-off place. And I started this run in my intention to be back at the halfway house Sunday. Monday sometime I'm coming to in this county jail, and I'm facing two years in a state penitentiary for a hit-and-run DUI in a stolen car. Unacceptable limits of casualty. I went before a judge after. I tell you, I'll never forget this moment. I'm in that county jail and they came down And they said that I could have a phone call And I Can't even describe the Sick feeling I had in the pit of my Stomach when I realized that there Wasn't a person on the face of the earth That I could call I was totally alone I had burnt out my parents years before They wouldn't take my calls I had no more friends, I had No more running partners I'd used everybody up And I was totaly alone and so I started calling bail bondsmen. And bail bondsman are weird. I mean, they want you to have like an address and a job and stuff, you know? And I don't have any of that stuff. So I sat in that county jail for several months until I went before a judge. And I went Before this judge, and he knew a lot about me. He had all my record there. And he sentenced me to two years in the state penitentiary. And I got to tell you, when I heard that sentence, I thought I was going to die. See, I don't jail well. Some people jail well, I don't bail well. I hate it. I've always hated it. I hate having to go in there and put on that phony gorilla outfit and act tough in front of those people, those crazy people, and act like when I'm secretly just a scared little kid inside. I still got scars on me, several scars on my body from beefs I've got in in county jails with guys where I had to stand up and swing at him to show him I'm not afraid. I hate living like that. This judge said two years, and I thought, my God, I can't do two years. I'll be the guy that hangs himself. And then he cut me a break, and he said, we're going to stay your commitment. We found this place that will take you. It's the only place it would take me because I would burn out every other treatment center a place in that part of Pennsylvania. It's a place called the Ark House. It wasn't really a treatment center. It was run by a guy in AA, and they housed about 200 skid row winos and guys out of prison. It was just like that, one of those kind of places. And the judge said, if you go in there and you stay in there for a year, good UAs, good PO report, make the restitution, and you do everything you're supposed to do, you come back before me, and we'll take a look at whether you do the two years or not. But if you can't do all that stuff, you're done. You're gone. So I went into this place, and I've got to tell you, if sincerity and desire was enough to overcome alcoholism, that would have been my sobriety date. But I'm the guy that they talk about in the big book when it says, lack of power is my dilemma. No matter how powerful my desire not to drink, eventually the emotions and the feelings of untreated alcoholism will grind away my resolve and desire to be sober. and I can't help that. I can not stop that process and I have hated myself for years for being that way and I go into this place and I am determined now I am not going to drink and I'm not picking up day in and day out and week in and week out and month in and month out and I just get it up to here and I so irritable and uptight and depressed I just can't stand it and I scared because I know what is happening I know what's coming. I've been down this road before, and I don't want to drink no more. I don' t want to do the two years in prison. I don''t want to stay. It's not even any fun anymore. And I went on my last one guy in AA tried to help me, tried to tell me about the steps. I don ''t know if you ever looked at the steps when you're in a place like that. They're bleak. Oh, jeez. I mean, I look at the step and I say, oh, man. And it wasn't that I was philosophically opposed to the steps. I mean, they looked like a nice set of actions. I mean if I ever got my life together, I could do something like that. I might join a gym too. Who knows? But it doesn't seem to affect me immediately. It doesn't seems to apply to what's really going on in me. And so I went on my last run and on that run I couldn't even get any more relief. and I took my bottle of Richard's Wild Irish Rose and I walked down to this bridge out in Pittsburgh and I'm standing on this bridge looking about 100 feet below down on these railroad tracks and I am sobbing uncontrollably and Iam out there to kill myself because I just want to stop it I just wanna stop this madness and I got to tell you when abstinence sucks and drunkenness sucks, suicide starts looking like a good deal for a guy like me. And I'm on this bridge, but I'm there to jump, but I am a coward. You know, I am just... And I am facing the dilemma of alcoholism when you can't drink, there is no relief in the bottle and abstinence is unbearable. You got a dilemma here. It's like neither alternative works and that's when suicide starts to look like a great idea. If you don't know what a dilemma is, I'll tell you a story. The first example of a dilemma I ever saw was I heard this as a little kid. I'm around the schoolyard one day and this guy's telling this story that he'd heard from his father about the Japanese during World War II were going to torture, were going to kill this American spy. And instead of killing him, they wanted to give him an alternative to death. So what they did is that they immersed his private parts in a concrete block that was part of the foundation of a wooden building, covered the wooden building with kerosene, gave him an old rusty hacksaw and lit the building on fire, and he had a choice. Now that's a dilemma. And that's the spot that a lot of us get to when the time we get to alcoholics and armists, we know we've got to stop drinking. But it's like, oh man, stop drinking or die. Well, if somebody would have said to me, Bob, you keep drinking, you'll be dead in three days. Oh, good. Give me a jug. The problem is that to die from alcoholism sometimes takes a long time. I've been real active down on Skid Row in Las Vegas and detoxes, and I've seen a lot of people die of alcoholism. And the problem is that it takes such a long time, and by the time you're dead, everyone you've ever loved or cared about or wanted their approval is all glad you're done. They're so sick of you, and you die in such shame and loneliness and feelings of self-hatred. And I don't want to die like that. I'm going to die someday, but I ain't going to go that way. And here I am on this bridge, and I want to kill myself, but i'm afraid. I really want to Die, but I'm afraid it's going to hurt. Or even worse, with my luck, I might not Die. I might end up paralyzed from the neck down in some charity ward stuck there for 50 years while members of Alcoholics Anonymous bring their newcomers into the hospital room and I get to hear them say well this is what happens to you when you don't work our wonderful 12 steps you know and I can't even I'm paralyzed I couldn't even give him the one finger salute I'm just stuck there and when you I tell you something when you can't drink successfully and there's no relief in the bag and the bottle, and you can't stay sober. And abstinence is unbearable. And you don't have the guts to commit suicide. There ain't nothing left except AA. And that's where I was in 1978. And I came off that last run on the run from the police, trying to make it to California. And as far as I got was Las Vegas, Nevada. And I ended up there on a detox, and I'd gotten to the place again in my drinking as i always got to where i couldn't drink anymore physically i couldn'T keep it down and i used to be it's detox time because i'm one of those kind of guys that has seizures and all that stuff and i a cop helped me get into this detox in las vegas and uh i was reintroduced to alcoholics anonymous one more time and i don't know why i've thought about this a thousand times over the years and i i wondering what happened to me why all of a sudden i sat in those meetings in those aa meetings in that detox and i could hear things that i could never hear before and i've come to the conclusion that maybe for whatever the bottom is maybe the view is different from the bottom. And all of a sudden I sat in those meetings and that mechanism, that defense mechanism inside of me that always kept me separate from those people by my judgment was gone. And all of the sudden I'm sitting in the meetings and I'm nodding my head and I'm identifying. And I'm realizing that I'm like these people. And I was sober not very long and a guy after a meeting i grabbed him and i told him about some of the problems i was facing the two years in prison and i didn't have any place to go and i was unemployable and unemployed and i had nothing to my name and he told me something that i guess i was just ready to hear it he said to me says kid he says none of that stuff's any of your business he said if you will make Alcoholics Anonymous the center of your life and put it in the place in your life where staying drunk was, and you make it the most important thing in your life, he says, I guarantee all this stuff will take care of itself. And when Joe said that to me, I sat there and I thought, what the heck? I don't have an answer to how I'm going to stay out of prison. I don' t have an answer how I' m going to get a job. I don't have an answer to how, what I'm going to do with all these crazy insane emotions and this weird mind that I have that won't shut off. It spins out of control constantly. And I said, okay. And I guess that was my moment of commitment to put Alcoholics Anonymous at the center of my life. And I've never undone that. I'm sober over 23 years. I still go to eight to 10 meetings a week. I have a sponsor. I sponsor guys. I Still get physically on my knees every morning and every night. I try to do a 10th and 11th step every day. I read something out of the big book on a regular basis. I'm an active, I have commitments, four commitments a week in Alcoholics Anonymous in Las Vegas. I am an active vital member of AA because I have alcoholism, not alcohol-wasm. I am not the guy that comes in here and as the years go on, I got a little bit less alcoholism today than I had five years ago. So I don't have to do as much Alcoholics Anonymous. If anything, I get a sense that maybe I got more alcoholism today. At least I seem more sensitive to it. When I was new, I got this two years in prison hanging over my head and I am just scared to death. I don' t know what I'm going to do. And I'm just, I can't I'm ducking And I grabbed this guy in AA one night after a meeting And I told him about it He said You're going to have to turn yourself in You're gonna have to contact them Write them a letter And then followed up by a phone call Talk to your PO And offer to come back there at your own expense And do the two years And anything that they would tack on And I thought No No. Hey, I'm not drinking here, you know? I'm doing good, aren't I, huh? He says, you got to do that. And I says, what do you mean I got to do that? He said, well, he says, do you really think you're going to stay sober with that hanging over you? He said you're never going to be able to get a job. You're not going to use a social security number. You're now going to get driver's license. How long do you think you're gonna be able stay sober, hiding out. I thought, oh man, Jesus. I don't want to go to prison. I don't wanna do two years in prison. This other guy chimes in and he says to me, he says, well Bob, he said, you know from our experience, I don't think you're gonna have to do the two years in prison unless there's somebody in there God wants you to help. I said, what kind of crap is this? I don't want to help anybody in there. Jesus Christ, these people in AA are just off the charts. But they convinced me to do it and so I did what they told me. I wrote a letter. I told them I was in AA. I said that I wanted to change my life and that I'm willing to come back and do the two years and anything they wanted me to do. And I sent him the letter and about 10 days later, I called up my PO and he was expecting my call. And he had talked to his supervisor in the courts and they said, I don't have to come back. And yet it all set up with a place called CRS is court referral service and I was supposed to go down there and he had signed me to a PO in Las Vegas and I had a payment schedule. I had to start sending money back there and doing all this stuff for a two-year period in Las Vegas, and I was free. And I remember coming away from that phone call thinking, man, this might work for me. And I never forgot. Years later, see, this guy's sober, 16, so it would have been. Seven years later, I'm at the Skid Row Detox. This guy comes up and asks me, his name's Eddie, and he comes up to me and asks if I could help him. He comes up with a name and asks him to sponsor him. so I said sure and we start talking he's a three-time federal loser and he's he was on federal parole he crossed state lines he committed some additional crimes and he is facing a minimum of five years in the federal penitentiary then he's telling me all this so I can't wait to tell him so I say well here's what you gotta do you gotta call you gotta write your PO you follow up with the phone call. He got offered to come back there at your own expense, and he's looking at me, and I'm getting a kick. I had shame to say I was getting a kick out of the way he's looking at me. And he's looking at me with that look like I'm crazy, and I told him the same thing. I said, you think you're going to be able to stay sober, hiding out and everything? And he nods, and says, all right, all right. He says, I don't want to do this. I said, well, I couldn't wait to tell him. I said, Eddie, I don't think God's going to have you do the five years unless there's somebody in there he wants you to help. And he looks at me with this look, and I'll never forget. I got his face printed on my mind, and he did what I told him to do, and the federal marshals came and locked his ass up. I couldn't believe it. I get the phone call from the treatment center. You could hear this big oops. And I'll tell you what happened. And the federal marshals had to come and get him because the paperwork was already in place. He was violated. And they took him away, and they held him for several weeks. And his PO, Federal Parole Officer, went to bat for him because his Federal Parol Officer was impressed with his sincere desire to change his life. And they un-violated him. And about several years ago, he got his record sealed. And now he's the general manager of one of the larger car dealerships in Las Vegas. And he just bought his second huge house, several hundred thousand dollar house up on this group of this hill where all the big homes are. And he drives around town in this Mercedes convertible and he's free. And he's been waiting for years for somebody that's on the road. that he can tell the same story to me. I found that as the years go on, it seems like I'm more and more sensitive to my own alcoholism. You hear people say that the road gets narrower. I don't know if that's true because sometimes it seems to get broader and I get tremendous freedom in my sobriety. And then there are other areas where the road seems to get so narrow and my choices seem to diminish. And when I took that third step in early sobrietry and I said to my father, I said, God, I offer myself to thee to build with me and do with me as thou wilt. From that moment to this, God has been working on my life. and it's sometimes it's very hard for me to see his hand in my life sometimes a long period of time has to go by and I'll be struggling with something and all of a sudden one day I'll look at some area of my life and I realize that it is different that it has ever been and I didn't do that and I I guess I've come to trust and believe in this power that we call God here. The only way a guy like me could is to actually experience his grace in my life. I'm not one who believes because you tell me. It has to be real for me. And I've had things happen to me, so many coincidences happen to be over and over and again in my life that I've become convinced. I'll tell you, one of the ones that really impacted me a lot was when I was in early sobriety. I was about a year and a half sober, and I was going through a really, really tough time. I WAS ENDING MY FIRST SOBER RELATIONSHIP. Now, I've got to tell you something. There's not a human being on the face of the earth that is more self-obsessed than an alcoholic ending a relationship. I mean, you can go to a guy like that and say, well, I just came from the doctor. I have terminal cancer and two weeks to live. And he'll say, and you know what else she said, man? And I am nuts. I am going through this nuts driving by her house in the middle of the night to see if any guy's car's there. I'm just insane. And I'm at this late night meeting and I've been asking God for help. And there's this guy shows up in this meeting who's from California and he's sober 28 years. And after the meeting, we go out to a coffee shop. And we sit in that coffee shop and for 20 or 30 minutes, I'm telling him about this relationship. I mean like I have told him about his relationship until his eyes are glazed over. And he sat there very patiently and listened to me go on and on. And then when I was done, he said some things that just blew my mind. He said to me, he says, Bob, he asked if you ever thought about the first commandment. When he said that, I got a little uptight. I said, I'm not into that. I'm just into AA. He says, yeah, yeah. He says you and I are a lot alike. He says I always thought that the Ten Commandments were threats. I never got past the thou shalt not. He said I discovered from a little bit of research that as they were translated from the Hebrew into the Greek that the Greek put a little spin on it. That they were originally written as statements of spiritual cause and effect. He said, the first commandment is we have it in the English. I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not have false gods before me. All we ever hear is that thou shalt naught. He said what the truth is. He says you can do anything you want. You can do absolutely anything you Want. You can put anything you WANT between you and God. It's perfectly all right. The problem is you've just put something between you and God, you've obscured the light. And he said, you want to know what you worship? He said, worship just simply means to lean your consciousness towards. He said you want to find out what you worship? At the end of the day, make a pie graph of everything you've been thinking about during that day. And the thing that has the biggest piece of the pie is what you keep leaning your consciousness towards. And when he said that I imagined in my mind this picture of a pie with a little sliver for AA and a little slip for work and the rest of the pile was her. And on page 55 of the big book, it talks about an inner source of power. It says he calls it the great reality which is deep down within us. And it says that I will find that great reality in the last analysis after I've looked everywhere else and I will find it after I unobscure it that it's obscured by pomp, by calamity, and by worship of other things. and I started to get a glimpse for the first time of what separates me from God and what separates me from that part of me that just is in love with life and in love with you that allows me to be external that allows me to live right here right now with you right this moment and I started to look through the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous at the things that obscure me and I wish I could tell you from that moment on that I haven't worshipped anything else or been obsessed, but I've found myself in that exact same position and sometimes it's the job that has the big piece of the pie. Other times it's a resentment. Other times it's prestige. It's what you think of me. It could be a lot of things. It could mean money. And my job is to unobscure the source so that I can be an instrument. Oddly enough in step three, it doesn't say in the third step prayer, I'm not asking God to take away my difficulties so I'll be happy or so I will be wonderful or so I will impress you. It says take away My difficulties so that victory over them would bear witness to those I would help of Thy power, Thy love, Thy way of life. May I do Thy will always. And I finally after several years of sobriety, I understood the basic truth that Alcoholics Anonymous is not a self-help program. It's a program of self-abandonment and service. That for some peculiar reason I was given a blessing called alcoholism. And that blessing has put me in a place in this universe where i cannot fill my holes with anything and i it's not like i haven't tried i don't know a group of people on the face of the earth that haven't put more time and energy and effort into making themselves happy than we have in the end result is we are the most miserable people onthefaceoftheearth and in alcoholics anonymous you guys taught me that I had it backwards, that I will never fill my vacancies in the hole in my soul by anything I can bring into me. You can't love me enough to make me whole. But when I start caring about you, it feels like the way I always imagined it would feel if enough of you loved me the right way. And I love the theme of this conference, giving rather than getting. If you're new here and you're full of fear and you don't feel very good, I hope that you have a sponsor that will push you against your better judgment into taking actions of self-abandonment. And you will find that you will cross a line in Alcoholics Anonymous from being a taker into being a giver. and if you can do cross that line you will find everything there is to find here you will never find it by being a taker there's not enough money there's not enough love there's not enough attention there's not enough well wishes in the universe to fill my holes I God knows I know several years ago I tell you something I several years ago, I sat in my living room one day in a deep, deep depression, wondering if maybe some of that Prozac stuff would be okay with a guy like me. And I sat there in this deep depression in a big house looking out over Las Vegas in the garage. I had a brand new Jaguar, a brand-new Corvette, a 740 IL BMW, and two custom Harley Davidsons. I had more money in the bank than I knew what to do with, and I felt desolate and alone and vacant. And you know what had happened? Unbeknownst to me, my life had become the center of my life. And I had a great life. The problem was that it's all about me. And I've also had the same experience in early sobriety of driving a $100 car with the door tied shut and the windows, electric windows all stuck in different positions full of new guys from the Samaritan house and we're going to meetings and we are laughing and I'm more alive and vital and happier than I've ever been and that I it is only through God's grace sponsorship that pushes me into actions that are other centered and the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous that allows me to live with a terminal illness called alcoholism. When I can be concerned with you and I'm out of the way, God's grace works very well in my life. When I'm concerned with me, I feel shut off and abandoned. And what changed? Nothing. I'll tell you, one of the earliest experiences I had in sobriety that really gave me The first glimmer of this deal called the self-centeredness. I was at this meeting one night, and I'd had a great day. I mean, I'm working as a cashier in a store. I'm making about $4 an hour. The customers are treating me well. The boss is not on my back. There's no big problems in my life. I had dinner with a couple guys before the meeting. I've come into the meeting, I've had a good time. It's been a great date. This guy, Wade, comes up to me before the meet starts. He looks me right in the eye and he says, Bob, how you doing? How you really doing, Bob? I said, fine. I sat there and the meeting started and I thought to myself, what's he know? And I started thinking about it. I thought, Jesus, I bet you something ain't right here. Maybe I'm in that denial thing that they talk about. And I, you know, now that I think about it, I don't even feel very good. That job that I thought was so good, you know it's really going nowhere. I'm going to be old. I'll be 60 years old making four bucks an hour eating alpo out of a can and some old folks. I started looking around the room and it just became really apparent to me that everybody there was happier than I was. Everybody was getting laid more often than I Was. Everybody had more money than I had. And I just started sinking into this abyss. And what had changed? My perception. That is all. My sponsor talks about alcoholism being a disease of perception. And it is the actions of Alcoholics Anonymous that are designed to take a guy like me and do the same thing that five shots of Jack Daniels were designed to do. I could walk into a bar so locked up in me and so depressed, I wished I were dead, I can't talk to anybody, and five shots of Jack Daniels, and I could come out and play. And if I can't find a way to externalize myself and get free from the bondage of self in sobriety the way that alcohol got me free from the bondages of self, I will die of alcoholism. And I guess that's the reason, the main reason I'm an everyday member of AA because I have alcoholism every day. And not everybody in AA is like me. It took me 15 years to realize that. There are some people in AA that all they've got to do is just stop drinking, and they're fine. But I'm not that type of alcoholic. I'm the guy that's a member of AA because of the tradition, the membership requirement in the long form of the third tradition where it says that membership should include all who suffer from alcoholism. and but for the grace of God people like you rooms like this and sponsorship I would die of alcoholism I want to thank you for my life