The Internal Spiritual Maladjustment That Psychiatry Couldn’t Fix – Wayne B.

my name is wayne butler i'm an alcoholic people be here great Passover thanks Eric for inviting me to come share thank my sponsee Kim for showing up to support all my other sponsees that I invited must be into their own lives right now i'll punish them for that we'll do some sponsoring tomorrow I can tell you that right now. You know, I love AA. I love being a part of AA. My sobriety date is November 8th, 1977, so I've had no booze, pills, potters, potions, or lotions from that day to this. I raised my hand at about 12, 10 p.m. on the 8th of November for the first time, said, my name's Wayne, I'm an alcoholic. Prior to that, I went to meetings for five years and five days, but i'm not an alcoholic uh i got enticed to go to a meeting because someone promised me a handout that's why i went so one reason i went they're going to feed me and give me so that's how i heard it anyway and i went to those meetings because those people were friendly to me they invited me back uh they gave me a couple of cigarettes they uh bought me a cup of coffee after the meeting and a piece of pie and i thought i like these guys i think i'll hang out even though I'm not an alcoholic and when other people would ask me to introduce myself I figured out that you give a diagnosis because they said I'm alcoholic that's a diagnosis so I would give him one of my 21 psychiatric diagnoses I'd say I'm ADD or OCD I remember my sponsor said he's an alcoholic then I said well I'm add and he says I'll bet you are then I said you know what else I am because I'm trying to impress him now he said what's that I'm I'm OCD. He said, I'll bet you are. And then he says, I think you might be ODD as well. Folks, in 1977, it was the DSM-3, the Diagnostic Manual for Psychiatry. And in the DSN-3 there is no diagnosis of ODD. So I asked him, I said, what's that? He said you are very odd, is what you are, and that's how we started it. He appointed himself my sponsor which didn't mean anything to me because I'm not an alcoholic. But if he wants to sponsor me, that's fine because I interpreted the sponsorship. I mean, he's going to pay my way. That's kind of how I saw a sponsorship. I had no idea what this AA thing was. And I wasn't interested in all that talk about drinking. I just wanted to get on with the business of drinking. But on November 8th, 1977, like I said, it was five years and five days to the day that I was prompted by a new guy. uh i was introducing myself to him like barney did to me and i didn't know what to say to him i heard myself say well i'm wayne and i'm an alcoholic and i couldn't believe i said it now it's cats out of the bag i just joined aa and that's how i came to admit i was an alcoholic i didn't believe it i didn' t believe it for a minute but i said so i knew i was screwed right then and there and my self-appointed sponsor heard me say it and he was shocked he was struck by shocked, because he'd been waiting for me to say those words for a long time. And no matter how hard he tried, he could not get me to saying that phrase, I'm Wayne, I've an alcoholic. And so from that day to this, I have not found it necessary to take a drink of alcohol or anything else. By the grace of God, the power of 12 steps and a fellowship that's very important to me. You know, I come from an alcoholic home. I don't want to get into all that too much. I can make myself cry thinking about my childhood. I'm a victim's victim, I have to tell you. I can run a victim thing. You know, my sponsor says, we ought to back a U-Haul up to your head. He says, We need to move you out of that victimhood into a new neighborhood. And he just thought he was funnier. He just thought it was funny as all get out. I was 27 years old when I took my last drink. My sponsor was 67, and he was the youngest guy in the group. The other six men ranged in age from 84 to 91, and they said things like, if you want what we have. And I'm thinking osteoporosis. That's what I'm thinkin'. All I know is they bought me cigarettes and they gave me food, and that kept me coming back for five years and four days. And I're grateful for that. I'm not an alcoholic. I only drink beer. And you know, it's interesting. I think it's important to become an alcoholic as soon as possible in my talk, because if I start telling my story, you might think I'm in the wrong room because of my variety of psychiatric diagnoses. As I said, I've been diagnosed 21 different psychiatric diagnoses. I was medicated from the age of nine to the age 27. I've had been psychiatrically institutionalized 17 times, not once for alcoholism. I was in the Watertown Insane Asylum 14 times. To be fair, I self-signed in four times because that's where my girlfriend lived. That's a true story. My gosh, she was hotter than sliced bread. I have to tell you the truth. She was a diagnosed sociopath. She murdered her family, and she was found not fit to stand trial. So she spent the rest of her life in that psychiatric hospital, and I was on the same wing as her because by then I was a diagnosed psychopath. Hey, Tiffany, we can hear you. There you go. Thank you. I was an diagnosed psychopath, and she heard there was a psychopath on the ward, she wanted to meet me and so she we met i was strapped down in leather restraints when we met she got into my padded room and uh she started telling me her story i started telling her mine and her sociopathy and my psychopathy fell in love i have to tell you the truth and that's why i self-signed in because i'd get lonely out on the street go back and see her that's a true story by the way folks and that was back in the days of one flew over cuckoo's nest there weren't many rules just don't hurt nobody they would let us do basically whatever we wanted on that nut board and uh i didn't mind being there i guess i could say and they never ever talked about drinking because i i only drink beer and i wasn't a daily drinker yet i was a periodic drinker i didn' understand what an alcoholic was i believed all those diagnoses i took the medication they gave me i didn''t abuse that medication they kept trying to help me it's not there now i know because of my work in AA, they couldn't help me because of the dynamic of what being an alcoholic and having alcoholism is like. So I'm really grateful for our literature and not just a big book. You know, I'm a recovered big book thumper and I want you to hear that. I'm recovered. My sponsor called me a big-book thumpert and one book wonder. All I did was preach to big books. All the answers were in the big book! I hadn't even read the book yet, but I'd mimic other people. I'd say, all the answers are in the Big Book. And he says, you big dummy, you didn't read page 164, did you? I said, what do you mean? He says, it says right there. We realize we know only a little. So how can all the answers be in that book? And that kind of shocked me a little bit. He says we have other approved literature that the rest of the answers are in. And I encourage you to read those books, the 12 and 12 and AA Comes of Age, the history book, and open your mind up to the possibilities of Alcoholics Anonymous. He says, you get all hooked up on that one book and you might miss the whole package. And that isn't putting anybody down that believes the big book has all the answers. It did not have all the answer for me. And to this day it does not have the answers for me I have a lot of answers in the 12 and 12, I get a lot from As Bill Sees It I get lots of answers from Pass It On, from Dr. Bob and Good Old Times There's answers everywhere in the approved literature about Alcoholics Anonymous to deal with treating what's called alcoholism. And I did not know any of that on November 8th, 1977. And with all those psychiatric diagnoses I came into AA with, I honestly did not believe you guys could help me. I looked around that room of old people that, I mean, half of them were bent over and couldn't straighten back up again. And I'm this young whip, this insane whippersnapper, they called me. These were a bunch of blue-collar farmers. You know, if you ever met those guys, They're no screwed-around type of people. They're all business. I'm so grateful I landed in there in the midst of those guys. But what makes me alcoholic is so important because my sponsor pointed out that there's eight chapters to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I thought it went through page 160. That's another thing that I mimicked. The program of Alcoholyx Anonymous is the first 164 pages. My sponsor said, you're a special kind of stupid. The program ends at page 103. Where'd you get this page 164 stuff? Oh, you've been listening to meetings, haven't you? You haven't been checking out the reality of what people say. He says the program ends on page 103 The program is the 12 steps That's how I got my education in AA He was a smart butt I mean, the guy was well-versed in our history And he laid that My first sponsor My first grand sponsor Was a guy out of Cleveland And his story is in the big book. And when I met this grizzled old man, he took me to Florida just to meet him because he retired from Cleveland to Florida. And he wanted me to meet his sponsor so that I could understand what the sponsorship thing is like at Alcoholics Anonymous. And Clarence Snyder was my grand sponsor. And he lived, he was alive for the first few years of my sobriety. And it was so cool to sit there and listen to my sponsor and his sponsor talk about the history of early AA. And I began getting, and I'm going to use the word indoctrinated because that's what it was. They were indoctrinating me into the history at Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'm so glad they did because in my 46 years of sobriety one day at a time, there is so much, this is just my opinion, but I think it's accurate. There's so much non-AA crap that's creeping into our fellowship that a newcomer doesn't know if they're doing AA or AAA. And because I've been given this upbringing and the history of Alcoholics Anonymous, I can filter out what that is and I can help my sponsees avoid getting caught up in all that malarkey that has absolutely nothing to do with our work. And you might think I'm kind of extreme, but I'm really not. I'm just an AA-er. My sponsor says, I want you to become an AA er. If you expect to stay sober for the long term, you got to become a AA er And, you know, I was spouting off psychiatric information. I sounded pretty smart when you think about it. I mean, I've had so much psychiatry thrown at me. I got all the answers, folks. I didn't even know that. But they were old-timers who were trying to penetrate the shield of psychiatry I came into AA with. But, you Know What?, they did it with fun. They had fun with me. They laughed a lot. I wasn't laughing so much, but they were laughing a lot, and they'd just say things like, keep coming back, and oh, my goodness. Well, my sponsor, he said there's eight chapters in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, which includes The Doctor's Opinion. And he said, I want you to read those chapters. Now, I wants you to the first four chapters because he knew something I didn't know. The first four chapters are all about step one, which to me, even as knuckleheaded as I am, four chapters out of eight devoted to step one suggest to me that step one's pretty important. I mean, even a dummy like me got that. I'm like, wow, four. But you see, I'm a loophole looker. Anybody else? Are there any other loophole looks in the audience? So I'm in there looking for the loopholes in those four chapters, and I found them. You see, I found everything that makes me not alcoholic. And I don't know if I was consciously doing it. I don' t think so. It was just what I was doing. You see I've never had a morning drink in my life. I never switched drinks ever. I never did any geographics. I found Skid Row and stayed there. It was like divinity for me. And so when I was reading the doctor's opinion and reading Bill's story, I'd been to war, I'd be to Vietnam, but I didn't have the same type of thought process. So that's not me. I mean, I found all the loopholes in the first four chapters, therefore, not alcoholic. And my sponsor would constantly say to me, you're reading the gray area and you're not reading the black stuff. And I said, what? It's like I was out of my mind. And I was drinking an awful lot too, by the way. My heavy drinking started after I came to AA. I met you people and I got thirstier. Jesus God Almighty. I listened to you guys, and I'd have to go drink. I would. I'd go to Larry's Oasis and talk about you people. I'd say, you got to hear what these crackpots are saying down there. They're trying to make me be an alcoholic. Give me another Budweiser, and there'd be a Budweischer on the bar. They had as much fun with me at Larry'sOasis as these old-timers were having with me in the meeting. And I had no idea. I didn't know if I was whining or scratching my watch. I mean, it was just a – and then they had me doing – they had be making coffee, and why am I going to make coffee? I don't want to make coffee. So I made coffee, and I made terrible coffee. Ryan, I made bad coffee. I knew if I made Bad Coffee, they'd fire me. Well, you know what? It's hard to get fired from a commitment when no one else wants the commitment. And so I made Bed – I made this – you're supposed to put two and a half scoops of grounds in this coffee pot. I put in six, andI couldn't wait to see him. Oh, Curly. Curly's this gnarly old car body mechanic type guy. and he was he's like five foot six and mean as a junkyard dog and i knew as soon as he tasted that coffee he they'd fire me from that commitment he comes over to that coffee pot i'm sitting here by the coffee pot and he pours that styrofoam cup of coffee takes a big slug of it and he starts going like this i mean that is really stout coffee kid good job keep coming back i thought Well, that didn't work. My God. You cannot get fired from an AA commitment when no one else wants it. I'll tell you that. And I finally surrendered and started putting in two-and-a-half cups. And within six months, I love making – I'm not an alcoholic, but I love Making Coffee for these people. It's like they kept giving me little things. They said, keep coming back. I'd give a diagnosis, keep going back. They wouldn't let me share. They would just let me give a diagnose. Then I wouldn't have to talk anymore. that went on for five years and five days thank god thank god they said keep coming back i did not have a desire to stop drinking this was an open meeting of alcoholic synonymous and they had a group conscience on me they had a good conscience that i could keep coming and they suspected i might be alcoholic i guess i i was clearly not i only drink beer and wine like booze farm have you ever drank booze form and mixed it with red mountain wine you ever had This is an older crowd, I can tell. Some of you know what Red Mountain Wine was, don't you? Remember it was 99 cents a gallon? I mean, oh my God. I'd drink Boone's Farm and Red Mountain wine and I'd puke and it looked like I was bleeding internally at the meetings where I'd tell women I was dying from stomach cancer and they'd feel sorry for me and take me out and get me something to eat to cushion my stomach. I mean I had the rap going on, you know? But I'm not an alcoholic by God. I had no idea what was going on. It's out of my ever-loving mind. I mentioned I come from an alcoholic home, because if you know, you know. And all the stuff that goes on in an alcoholic Home visited me too. And I don't want to get into a victim log, but the fact of the matter is I was victimized as a kid sexually, violently. It was a terrible home. It was very violent home, very hostile. And that didn't make me alcoholic, but I'm not going to tell you it didn't have nothing to do with my alcoholism, Because I've heard that from people. It's like, this didn't make me alcoholic. No, it didn't. What makes me alcoholic is what I'm going to talk about in a minute. But what I found out later, it has a lot to do with alcoholism. And I didn't understand that either because I've been therapied by the top-notch therapists in the state of Illinois. They figured they could fix old Wayne B. at the Watertown Insane Asylum. They'd get a medal of some kind because I was the impossible case. And I was on the violent ward. I was an extremely insane wing, and it's like I didn't go to jail anymore. They picked me up, took me right to Watertown. That's where I went, and I kind of liked it, by the way. So what happened after November 8th, 1977? Well, my sponsor asked me to read those four chapters. I did. I found all the loopholes. I kept saying, Barney, I'm not an alcoholic. I don't relate to that, that, dat, dat. And he said, okay, okay. All right. and then he kept trying to get me to read chapter 4 which is of course the 5th chapter when you consider Doug's opinion and I read the title of that chapter and if you know chapter 4 it's entitled We Agnostics right well my sponsor wanted me to read that and I said Barney I'm a Christian I can't read that chapter I said if I read that character God's gonna think my faith is not true why do I need to read that chapter I'ma Christian and he looked at me and here's his exact words you are a special kind of stupid ain't ya and it's like i didn't like that so much but i'm not reading he finally coerced me into reading that chapter and who would know that bill took the doctor's opinion and the first three chapters and condensed them into one sentence with no loopholes and if i had not read this page i don't believe i'd be here with you guys today i don' t believe I would have stayed. And here's it, and I want to read that sentence to you if you don't mind. I'm going to put it in the first person because that's how it affected me. It says, if, I know what that word if means. That's a condition. I may be retarded, but I know what that world is means. And by the way, I don't mean no offense to people with special kids, but as diagnosed mentally retarded in eighth grade, they don't know how to deal with kids from alcoholic families. They gave me the IQ test at the eighth grade trying to get a beat on my crazy behavior. I mean, I'm biting people, crayons. I'm eating pencils. I get up out of my chair and run headfirst into the wall for no good reason except it's there. And so they're trying to figure out what's wrong with Lil Wayne. That's my nickname from school. And they gave me the IQ test. How many of you have taken the IQ tests? Raise your hand. Seriously. Call me out if I'm wrong. If you score 100, you're pretty smart. You score a 120, you'RE borderline genius. You score a 150 or above, there's an organization called Mensa that will recruit you to sit in rooms and think for people that'll pay you. Ain't that crazy? I scored a 57. And I didn't cheat, by the way. I didn'T cheat. And I got diagnosed mentally retarded, and I got put in a mentally retard group home. And it was at first better than that alcoholic home, and then it turned bad. And I don'T want to go into all that because it'S not necessary. But it set me up for a thing called alcoholism. So when I came to AA, I was retarded. And I wore like a badge of honor. I did. I got so much sympathy from that one diagnosis that I carried that diagnosis right into AA with me. Because there's, you know, it's like when you got a condition like that, you can't be expected to do nothing. Like read. I can't read. By the way, I could not read legibly. I couldn't write legibly。 I didn't get an education in school. They shielded me all through school after I got diagnosed retarded. They didn't know what to do with this. They didn' t have any of the things they have now for special ed kids who have either dyslexia or they're being damaged at home. So when I read this, bear in mind I'm looking for a loophole that says if, when I honestly want to, do I find I cannot quit drinking entirely? There's no loophole there. I tried if there's no loophole when I honestly want to I knew what the word honest meant do you find you cannot quit drinking entirely guys I tried to drink when I was in the United States Navy I finally fit in for the first time in my life without a drink I fit in the in the US Navy I loved it there I when I went to Vietnam I was okay there I knew what to do I knew where to go what to and when I could get off the ship and go drink That made it even better. But we was in Subic Bay, Philippines, and I'm not supposed to go drinking on Sunday night when the ship's going to pull out on Monday morning. But I met this brown-eyed, brown-haired little Filipina gal, so cute. And she thought I was the cat's meow. And I thought, well, I better have a drink with her. I better at least one. And then she wanted one. Then maybe let's have another one. And pretty soon, I'm no longer at the bar. no more i'm at her place and i wake up monday morning at 10 o'clock in the morning and i'm supposed to be on that ship so by the time i get back to the ship it ain't there it's gone and they left without me by the way they frowned on that and and that's the first time someone called me alcoholic they said you got to go to treatment i said i'm not an alcoholic i only drank beer i refused to go into treatment and so they gave me the option go to treat it but we're going to discharge you. Guys, I made a horrible decision, but it made sense to me at the time. I took the discharge. I shamed myself. I humiliated myself. I cut myself out of a career that I wanted. I wanted to quit drinking, folks, but I couldn't and I didn't understand why. Remember where Bill wrote how it works? Alcohol. He didn't say disease. That's not an AA word. That is a made up word from science. it says alcohol, cunning, baffling and powerful. And guys, it was baffled to me that I couldn't quit drinking. Here's why. Even though I'm a knucklehead, I'm diagnosed retarded. I know one thing about alcohol. Scientific fact is not addictive by nature. Alcohol is not an addictive stuff. People say, well, how can you do drugs? They had heroin in Vietnam. I've been around drugs my whole life but why the hell do i want to do drugs they're addictive i understood isn't that something i understood drugs are addictive so i'm not doing them and i haven't done them to this day but alcohol is not addictive and that's why i was so baffled by it why i couldn't put it down and leave it down i can go three or four weeks without a drink but invariably have to pick one up i'd be so obsessed with it and i just didn't understand i was baffLED by that But there were times when my wife says, if you go drinking, I'm leaving. I went upstairs and packed her bag. Time to go. I didn't know this because I couldn't quit drinking. I didn' t understand that. So when I read that line, if when you honestly want to, do you find you cannot quit entirely? I knew I couldn' t. That's one yes. Then it says, or if when drinking, do I have little control over the amount I take? I said, this is a tough test right here. Or when drinking, you have little control of the amount I take. I know that's true too because when I went to Subic Bay, when I Went to the bar, I had no intention of drinking more than one or two, no intention Of it. But once I took that first drink, I was powerless and I didn't understand that. It cost me my Navy career. So I didn' t understand. Once I take a drink, I don't know what's going to happen to me. I don' t know where I'm going to end up. I don't know where I'm going to go. I have no idea what's going to happen once I pick up that drink. Anybody else had a blackout? How many of us had blackouts? Do you know what the scientific term for that is? I think it's great. I didn't know this. Alcoholic polypset. That's the technical term for a black out. And the reason it says alcoholic polypsets is alcoholics are the only ones that have them from alcohol, only alcoholics. And I had a Blackout first time out of the gate, but I didn' t know what hell that was. So it's a little inconvenient, but it's not too bad. That's another yes. And then it says you are probably alcoholic. And I went like this. That was close. You are probably alcoholic. There's no definite thus to the word probably. I know what that means. Maybe, could be, but not for sure. So that's what that left me with. And then it goes on to say, if that be the case, I may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer. That was baffling to me as well because there is no disease. I want you to hear this. There is no diseased known to science that requires a spiritual appearance to recover. If you know one, please wise me up. But I'm not so much a dummy anymore. I've done my research. There's no diseas known to medicine that requires the spiritual experience. That's why I know our founders got this right, an illness, a spiritual malady. And Dr. Silkworth himself, a double board-certified neurologist and medical doctor, double board certified, in his opinion, he talks about the allergy and the obsession. I have an allergy to alcohol. And all I know what allergy means is to have an abnormal reaction to. And I have an abnormal reaction to alcohol as evidenced by my life. In other words, it's an abnormal react to alcohol to have my perception change while I'm drinking. You see, I understand the science of alcohol. Alcohol is a depressant. That's all it is. It's not a stimulant. Alcohol is depressant, but it had a stimulating effect on me. That's an abnormally reaction. And I also get better looking when I drink. Anybody else? I get smarter. I get better-looking. I get faster, wittier, clever. My personality changed when I get a certain amount of drinks in me. And I don't know it intellectually, I only know it experientially. Dr. Silkworth talks about that in his opinion. He talks about these abnormal drinkers that they drink essentially because they like the effect produced. Now I understand what that means. I drank because, not for the taste, I drank unwittingly trying to pursue that effect produced by alcohol. to get me in a state that I call a state of grace. It made me feel normal. I now know what it's called. Bill called it extemperaneous, where I take a few drinks and all of a sudden my mind changes, my perception changes. Clancy called it disease of perception. I now Know What That Means. I transform. I have a transformation take place while I'm drinking. Sort of like the 12 promises, how they come true when we're drinking. It's sort of interesting when you're now talking my type i didn't know that and so i got that thing where i understand now what alcoholic is but it says that it let me read that again just because i think it's important says an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer to be doomed to an alcoholic death or live on a spiritual basis are not easy alternatives to face that's why that's so important is because there is no other disease known to science that that's the truth, that it requires, if we could treat disease, this meeting right here on Zoom would have a thousand people on it that have cancer, diabetes, tuberculosis. If we had the power to treat disease. What we have the power of the tree is exactly what AA is designed to do. And that's the part Dr. Silforth agreed he couldn't help. Remember at the end of his opinion, he says, the only relief, he's talking about the allergy and the obsession. The only relief we have to suggest, the men and women of science and medicine, the Only relief we had to suggest is entire abstinence. That's all medicine had then. And that's all they've got now. They may one day come up with something else. But so far up to today, all they can treat is those two things, the allergy and the obsession and how do you treat that don't drink but how many of us how many of you are like me and you was restless neuronal discontent before you ever drank i was restless and neuronal just yet before i ever took the drink do you know dr bob was not like that dr bob is an alcoholic dr bob wasn't normal in every regard except for the effect alcohol had on him as a matter of fact i found this out i'll share with you because it saved my life. In 1944, Bill Wilson was invited to New York to address the AMA. And I wondered why they didn't invite Dr. Bob. He's a doctor. Why did they invite this bankrupt stock speculator? Why didn't they invite the doctor? Well, they knew that Dr. Dr. Robb, he stayed right there in Akron and ministered to 5,000 alcoholics for free. But he never went anywhere. He didn't have his thumb on this developing entity called Alcoholics Anonymous. And Bill did. Bill was a spark plug, albeit neurotic, but he was the spark plug. So they wanted to ask him some questions about this fellowship. So he went and they asked him several questions, but here's the one that got to me, and I hope it affects you as well. They asked Bill, of your fellowship of men and a handful of women, had they not been drinkers, how would you describe their personality makeups? Isn't that an interesting question? And he answered them right away. He said, well, half would have been normal in every regard every able intelligent friendly people except for the effect alcohol has on them and then he says the other half and i can see him waving his hand would be more or less pronounced neurotic and you know what i got that i got i'm about as pronounced neuratic as you can get without with it and drinking to me seems to solve that dilemma as it did with bill wilson and the reason that's important is because that that cut through all the psychiatry that i've been dealing with up until the age of 27. And it's like when Dr. Silkworth said, the only relief we have to suggest is entire abstinence. That tells me that they can't help me once I stop drinking. And that's when I was awakened to this. So what is AA? If AA is not designed to treat disease of any kind, which it's not, what's it designed to do? And that'S when I learned about alcoholism. Bill Wilson taught me that from the history, about what the ism is, this internal spiritual maladjustment. Once we put down the allergy and the obsession, then what I'm left with is an underlying soul sickness. Thank God for Reverend Sam Shoemaker, who Bill said was, in his opinion, a non-alcoholic co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, because he got a lot of the information of the spiritual nature from Reverend Sam Shumaker. And what Sam Shoemaker said to Bill was, Bill, I think you guys are suffering from a soul sickness. I think that's what your problem is. Once you stop drinking, you have a soul thickness. And he elaborated on what that soul sickness was. And as I've stayed sober over the years and taken these 12 steps of Alcoholics Novice, what I found out was I came in here soul sick. And you know what's interesting? I came here with a broken spirit. There's no doubt about it. I was depressed. I was anxious. I was frightened. When I drink, I don't feel that way. But when I'm sober, it's to the 10th power. I feel separate, different alone wherever I go, even in AA at the first. I felt separate, different alone until I started taking these steps as I started taken the 12 steps. I didn't feel That Sense of Isolation like I once did. I didn' feel that separation that I felt when I came to the AA. I began to get this strong sense of belonging just like the book talks about after step five, this strong Sense of Belonging came. And what I discovered was, unbeknownst to me, my condition is being treated. My condition, this spiritual malady, this internal spiritual maladjustment that I have. And it laid it out. And thank God my sponsors got me to read chapter four. We agnostics. I'm not an agnostic. I'm non-agnostic to this day. But with the help of Reverend Sam Shoemaker, he talked about agnestic temperament and agnastic inclination in chapter four And what that means is I lean towards self-doubt. I lean toward my ego. I lean into this manifestation of anti-God. It's like this thing pulls at me, and I separate myself. And what I found out is I've got this ism thing. I've Got This Internal Spiritual Maladjustment. And what it means is, I'm maladjusted to the spiritual life. I'm in full flight from the great reality. and because of that i became an outright mental defective and that summed up my whole psychiatric life i'm so grateful that my sponsor helped teach me that stuff and then he got me to read page chapter four and five and got me where i understood what my condition is and you know bill actually writes in the book in the big book that we must we must get a full knowledge of our condition and he talked about it in a letter that's published and as bill sees it where he says if an alcoholic doesn't get a full knowledge of their condition, they probably won't stay for the long term. If we don't get full knowledge about our condition, and I want you folks to know something because I became a student of Alcoholics Anonymous, I got into that big book, I got in it at 12 and 12. Bill called the 12 on 12, the 12-step essays, he called that the supplement. And I had to get educated in AA and I found out the word supplement means to make complete bill wanted to rewrite the big book and put in the information that's in 12-step essays we wouldn't let him touch the big boat and it's a good thing we didn't look at trying to mess with it now and so what he did was he wrote those essays for the 12 and 12 and he called it the supplement he felt he had now made the big buck complete and if you read the 12 step essays you can see and those 12 step essay saved my life and i and i continued to disregard the 1212 because some well-meaning AA people told me to stay away from that book. They said it's Bill's ego. Bill wrote it to make money, and I thought my sponsor said instead of having contempt, go find out the history. And so my sponsor sent me on a historical research of where those essays came from, and I found the history of his relationship with Father Ed Dowling from St. Louis, how Father Dowling took Bill back through the 12 steps from 1947 to 1949 in an effort to treat his depression. And Father Dowling diagnosed Bill's depression, and his term was never used before. He used the term spiritual depression. He says, Bill, I believe you have spiritual depression, and he took him back to the 12 steps, and he added components to step 2, 3, 4, 8, 10, and 11. He added components that aren't in the big book, but they are in the 12 and 12, and to treat his spiritual depression—and you know what? Bill took those 12 steps with Father Downing. his notes became the essays that the 12 and 12 and what happened was bill recovered completely from that depression in 1955 if you read page 231 and as bill sees it he codifies it right there that his depression lifted in 1955 and never returned that one thing gave me the hope that i could stay sober one day at a time the rest of my life and it gave me to hope that this stuff will never come back on me again if i just do these simple little things called the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, and give it away. And I'll close it, and I'm going to wrap it up with this. I've got about five or eight minutes left. One of the things I discovered in Alcoholics Anonymous as I was working these 12 steps is there's three phases of 12-step development. And I like this because I use it on newcomers because newcomers don't know what they're doing and where they're at. And so I think it helps them to know where they are at. So I discovered it in my step studies that there's 3 phases of the 12-Step Development, Desperation, Restoration, and Transformation. And I think there's a lot of hope embedded in those three things, desperation, restoration, and transformation. And I'll tell you what they look like in real time. Desperation, the gift of, G-O-D, gift of desperation. I believe it was a gift because had I not been having the desperation to die, I would have never turned my will and my life over to anything or anybody. I was desperate for a new way of life by the time we got to that part of the big book and the part of steps. and I was willing to follow my sponsor's direction. I used to say I never argued with him, but that's not quite true. I never arguing with him. I argued in my head. You ever done that with your sponsor? Argued in your head but kept your mouth shut and did it anyway? I called him all kinds of names in my mind, and I would say, yes, sir. God, I hated him sometimes. I would have never taken those first three steps if I wasn't desperate. If I wasn'T desperate. And then the second phase of development, the restoration, we all know about phase two. It's talked about in the promises. If we had been painstaking about this phase of our development, we'll be amazed before we're halfway through. Halfway through is step six and seven. Isn't that interesting? Halfway Through the Restoration Phase is Step Six and Seven. And I've got to tell you, I was becoming amazed by the time I got there. And I want to share about that. And Chuck Chamberlain called that the duality step, where being restored to soundness of mind where alcohol's concerned. I have been restored to sanity where alcohol is concerned because Dr. Silkworth told me that I can't drink alcohol in any form at all, in any amount at all safely. And I'm so glad he put that word safely in there. Had he not put that words safely in there, there's not a doubt in my mind I'd have tried to drink again. But I know from my own experience that i can't drink alcohol safely and so that's so i've been restored to sanity just for today in that regard but chuck taught me about a duality to that he said the other one is being restored to standing where life itself is concerned being restored to citizenship being restored to a way of life outside in the earth world where i can become a operating participant in the way of light out there in the earthly world and he didn't say live life on life's terms because that's what i was doing when i came here everyone in my opinion feel free to disregard it every one of us come in here living life on life's turn we're just not very good at it but my sponsor said no you got it wrong you big dummy you got It wrong we're gonna and I thought it was the play on words you know Dr. Paul talked about acceptance being the answer right acceptance is the answer to all his problems and my sponsor Said no no no you you're backwards here kid he He says, what you have to do is accept life on life terms, live it on God's terms. And that almost made me puke a little bit in my throat. He said, what we do in AA is we learn to accept life on life's terms, but we learn how to live it on God'S terms. And I just wanted to slap him because I knew it was probably true. And so by living life on Godís terms gives me a chance to live a life free of the bondage of self. To give me a chance to join the mainstream of life that I never wanted to participate in. To overcome all the labels that followed me into AA. To overcome the belief I was retarded. Excuse me. So, I've been restored insanity just for today. And I had to do steps four through nine to clear away the wreckage from my past and change a lot of my old ideas so that I could recover fully. So, he was right. Steps four through 9. You know what? Chuck C. called the steps one through nine, he called it the dying steps. And he called 10, 11, and 12 the living steps. When I had 18 days of sobriety, Chuck C said to me, kid, you get out of the business of dying so you can get out of the бизнес of living. And I thought, what the hell does that mean? Get out of business of lying. Ain't I here to be living? And now I understand what he meant. Died in my old self so I could reborn to my new. And then Phase 3, Steps 10, 11, and 12, the Transformation Phase. You see, I've been a daily proponent of Steps10, 11 and 12. I was taught to work them collectively, that they're a joint mission to do Steps 10,11 and 12 on a daily basis. And thank God Father Dowling solved Bill's depression by using the page of the Prayer of St. Francis and taught Bill how to break it down and use it as his meditation for a racing mind and an anxious soul. And so I found that history, what Bill did with Father Daly, and I took that under my wing in 1985. And I've been using the St. Francis prayer, breaking it down sentence by sentence every day since 1985, and my life has been transformed. I don't look nothing like I did. If you knew me 10 years ago, and you're judging me according to that, you got the wrong guy. And that's why I'm not going to do it. If you've been around a while if i knew you and i didn't see you for 10 years i'm automatically going to assume you'd probably change and then if your behavior says something otherwise that's but i know i've been changed and i found out that i'm not the change agent the 12 steps are no steps no change and so that third phase of my development i'm still living in i'm being trans by the way i'm getting transformed right here and right now I'm not going to leave this meeting the same guy I was when I walked in here. Something's happening, and it's always happening if I just keep an open mind and keep coming back here and accepting these gifts that AA provide for me, that God and AA. And I'm of the belief that God AND AA are synonymous. I didn't get lost in the God. I've always believed in God, but God never kept me sober before I got to AA, so God ain't going to keep me sober after I got TOAA. And God knows that, which I believe is why he created AA through Bill and Bob and those first 100 members. Because he knew we were the type of people that wouldn't stay sober on God alone. So he gave us this program to keep us sober. Whatever you believe is none of my business, but I absolutely believe this program was given to me to keep me sober. And I thank God every night when I go to bed for giving me AA. And I think AA for keeping me sober." So I've got God in one hand, AA in the other. There's no place left to pick up a drink. If I can remember that just one day at a time, try to grow in this process, train my sponsees to become AAs, and if they don't want to be trained, then I tell them they got the wrong sponsor. There's plenty of sponsors available. It doesn't got to be me, but I'm going to train you because my training, when I went to boot camp, I learned a valuable lesson. I'll close with this. my sponsor literally trained me in AA because he knew I had a head full of psychiatry so he said we're going to have to wash that out with a head full of AA and he said we're gonna train you the AA way and he used my military service to convince me to do it he said do you believe you would have survived Vietnam if you hadn't been trained I said absolutely not and he says your training kept you alive training and good luck And I used to say, God got me out of there. And he said, oh, you're special. You're special, all those people that died, but you got out there because he kept you alive. Aren't you a special kind of stupid? He said, your training kept your ass alive, training and good luck and good people that got trained around you. And I believe that's true about AA. I believe dat many of us are not training our newcomers the AA way. I believe a lot of newcomers are being trained the therapy way, the treatment way, the psychiatry way the medicine way but they're not being trained the AA way and I fear for them because they're not getting the AA message without it being watered down and I'm responsible I'm irresponsible to do something about that in my own little circle of life. I've been fired by a lot of sponsees because I'm pretty devout with that idea that I want them to become AAs and I don't blame them for firing me because they don't want to do it. I don' t blame them good it's like the acid test how's that working for you if it's working for you there's no argument is there and so I had a sponsor as I said it was no nonsense guy I love him when he when he died a part of me went with him and then I realized no no no God's not a taker God's a receiver I've got another angel looking after me that's when I realized that God doesn't take he receives and I've had many people in my life die and at first it really bothered me that they were dying, obviously. And then one day my sponsor says to me, he says, kid, you gained an angel. He said, God doesn't take. That's spiritual intoxication. God receives. And I've had that belief system from then on, and I'm going to hang in there with that one belief because when my fellows, you know, most of my heroes in AA have passed away now. You know, I've got heroes in AAA. My first six members of AA that were speakers at my convention that I went to when I was 17, 18, and 19 days sober was a guy named Chuck Chamberlain, Norm Alpey, Clancy I, Johnny 8, Dottie Shore, and Tom Brady Jr. And all six members of AA, they hooked me that weekend. They hooked me into keeping coming back. I didn't understand half of what they were saying, but somehow they got, they went right past my head and went right to my spirit. And now I understand why. That's one of the reasons I try to keep my talk centered on AA and not bring in all these extraneous things that I've learned along the way that has nothing to do with our AA work here, and I do that for the sake of the newcomer that they don't know if they're winding their ass or scratching their watch. I'll leave it there. Thank you for letting me share.