The Only Way to Quit Playing Higher Power – Paul D.

Well, I'm actually nervous. My name's Paul. Hi, Paul. I want to thank Chuck and the other members of the committee for inviting me to come talk. and Chuck said I could take an hour so I'll take two or three if I could get by with it they tell me they rock they put the siren on at ten o'clock so I guess I'll have to quit at the end of the hour congratulations to people because it took birthdays. I love birthdays, especially the guy who got 20 years because my good friend Posse says as soon as you're 20 years sober then you're able to go get coffee without messing it up. And pretty much that's my story in Alcoholics Anonymous. Now that I've got 25 years without a drink, I'm getting that old-timer wannabe status. You know, another five years, I can join the ranks. I was surprised listening to the online speaker because I've been around alcoholics and non-musics. for 48 years without ever leaving it. And the first 23 years, I proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that alcoholic synonymous would not work for a real alcoholic. And at that time, And I thought that sobriety was a sexual transmitted disease. And when I got to AA for real, well, the first thing my sponsor for real said to me was, Paul, are you sick? I said, I sure am. And he said, that's right. How sick are you? Oh, I'm pretty sick. And he said, that's right. And anybody sick enough to go out with somebody as sick as you are is too sick for you to be going out with. The guy saved my life there, you know. That's why my favorite serenity prayer is God grant me the serenety to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things that I can't and a sponsor that knows the definition. the thing about getting a sponsor if you're like me you got your sponsor that talks louder than your head you know that's why I needed them guys that yelled at me my sponsor the one I got for real I'd be walking to an AA meeting and then it would be raining and then soaked to the skin and they would come back in that big cat rack in the early 80s all sober alcoholics had to get cat racks because they could be 25 years old you know but if you were sober you had to have a cat rack you know that's how they knew if you were making it I tell my babies when they get rid of the radar detectors they're on their way you can always tell so here come by in that big cow rack and honk his horn and leave them because he wouldn't take anybody to a meeting. And I'd get into the meeting and I'd be drenched and they'd hand me a cup of coffee. He'd say, Paul, I can't take you to a meet-in but you know where they're at. I'll take you home. And it took me long, you know. But he's one of them retarded sponsors, you know. He only had about three sentences he could ever say. So now shut up, dummy. It's in the book, dummy, dummy dummy. Grab a pencil and paper, dummy but then man save my life. And I was about eight years older before I'd ask you to anybody that called me dummy, you know. I thought that was my name, you now. And I love alcoholics and I miss them so much. But more important than me, alcoholics, and I'm a squad man. So much. I love everybody in this room tonight, not for what you are or for what I become when I'm with you. I forgot to mention what I learned from the Alnott speakers. I didn't know Alnott had 13 step calls I thought that was something to read so that helped out a lot I went to my like I said I went through my first day in 1958 I got sober for real in 1981 in May when I went to my first AA meeting I had already been kicked out of the United States Marine Corps I was on my third schedule and I just got arrested 22 times in 21 days one day I missed it For two days, I got it twice. So they took, I guess, one of the beautiful things about the staffs, you know. I don't know if the staff's doing anything for me or not. All I know for sure is Paul worked the staff in the Portland Police Department as spiritual awakening. so anyway they reprimanded me into adult court they sent me to Manteo State Hospital and first thing that happened was the doctor gave me a shot of peralba hide and that's ether and alcohol now God might have made something better in Peralta High but if God did make something better he kept it for himself I guarantee you but when I took that little 10cc's at Peralto High I become an old most which was the reason I drank like Johnny Harris says so eloquently Paul was a nothing or his wife today I'm glad to be here and I'm glad to feel right and I don't want to be dead no more ever but I was a nothing I was a mistake and when they told me I was an alcoholic, my first thought was, thank God. That means it's not my fault. That means I can drink as much as I want to, you know. And I could hurt anybody I wanted to hurt, do anything I wanted to do. And it wasn't Paul's fault because Paul was born to an alcoholic. And then they sent me over to an AA meeting. And the first speaker got up there and says, if you want to stay sober, buy a big book. Buy a basic textbook of alcoholics and numbers. So during halftime I bought one. and then we got the next speaker that got up there and he says take what you're right spread the rest out the window for them guys that tell you that they forget to tell you that you're going out the window with it you know and at the end of the meeting there's this old lady she must have been at least 30 and she come up to me and she said young man and I was 18 probably maybe 17 that time is kind of funny you're so lucky that you got here in time in time for what before you go through the things I went through. What did you do, lady? Well, I got so bad at my drinking that I burned my husband's birthday cake and I knew I had to get help and quit drinking. Right then I knew there were no alcoholics in Alcoholics Anonymous, and I spent the next 23 years proving it. My last big run, my last four years, I went to three AA meetings each and every day that wasn't locked up in a booby hatch. I have farsha birdie days every day, but I make my three meetings. The last year, I could no longer go an hour and a half for an AA meeting. so halfway through the meeting three meetings a day I'd go back and take my three fingers at Wesley so I could stay for the last half of that meeting so meetings were not my answers but I knew in my mind somehow, someway if I got the right spark shooter or if I get the right girl or if i got the right talent where the cops wouldn't pick on me everything would be alright and I quit drinking it kept getting worse and worse I'm not going to go on a big drug war but I'll tell you a couple thanks. Our book tells us that having suffering from this disease will not hold us together. What holds us together is we've got a common solution one that we can absolutely agree on and join and harmonious action. There's only one AA program. Some people say, I got no fashion program. There's only one AA program either you do an AA or you're not doing an AA and I want to me and I couldn't stand it. So I decided to kill myself in Orange County somewhere in the early 60s and I took some poison stuff and I injected it into my arm and what happened was they sent me to a hospital and they ended up charging me with a phone because back in them days having a hypodermic needle was a phony so they took me to court and let me go into court with a .5 foot length of chain they didn't have them playing to the leg irons like they got today but they had me wrapped in them chains and the reason they did was the last time I was in that court these flying gray apes were coming at me and I was throwing the chairs to keep them gray apes away from me. Turned out I wasn't really a fine gray ape, but was a judge. So this judge had the option of either accepting my plea or pleading not guilty. I was always pleading non-guilty. There wasn't one time that I ever pleaded guilty and that was in Wampy. and I woke up on a cell and I was on the floor and there was that biggest cop you ever saw in your life and he was laughing and I said, who am I charged with? And he said, murder one. So I laid there until they got me up in front of their judge thinking I was arrested for murder one and they ran out to charge and I was drunk and disordered and I so relieved and flabbergasted well that freaking I just said guilty but that's the only time I ever pleaded not guilty so he said take the kid over to county jail told the Orange County Marshals take me over to county jail for lunch, and he would render his verdict where to accept my plea or take it to trial. And I pleaded not guilty due to insanity. So they marched me across the street, opened up the door of the county jail, Lawrence County jail and the deputy chef threw his hands up in the air says I'm not going to take that kid as a prisoner in that jail that was the first jail I ever got 86'd later on I got 86'd at the L.A. County jail and they took Charles Mattson in that jail and they went and took me you talk about resentments how could they take Charlie and not take a nice guy like me but the reason they let take me in that county jail I couldn't stand Paul and every time I took a drink he blew I'd become almost there were times if I could got one more drink in me before I got arrested or passed out I would have been a somebody but I always fell one drink short and when that booze started to leave my system and I started having to face who I was I'm mistaken enough I would light the mattress on fire and I'd stick my head down in that mattress because I knew that would get me to the hospital and they shot a morphine a morphin stops you almost as good as it moves almost not quite so that's why he wanted to take me I was back around 1962 or 63 a judge accepted my not guilty due to insanity and I became institutionalized over 45 state and federal looming bans if he would have seen me for court I would have still been institutionalized but I would have been in the legal system like Norm Alfie used to say it's a matter of seconds and inches sometimes and I'm sure grateful now that I spent my time in the hospitals rather than in the prisons so I needed Alcoholics Anonymous at that time needed it desperately but Alcoholics Anonymous is not for those that need it and I don't know if you know much about the disease But alcoholism is a progressive disease. And ten years later, my disease had progressed to a point that it started to get a little bad. And I wanted alcoholics, and I'm just pretty desperate. And I was in Saltel Veterans Hospital. and I got a lawyer to make the doctor let me go to AA means. That's how bad I wanted alcoholics. And the doctor said I could go to AAA means on condition I weren't in a state jacket. now some of you have never been to an AA I mean a straitjacket and you feel it's an opportunity and you don't want to miss so if you come out and see me after a meeting I'll tell you a shortcut to accomplish it but see your alcoholics are not there's not for those that need it And Alcoholics Anonymous is not for those that want it. And I continued to drink. And I knew if I could just get one thing, that was me, I'd be all right. so I finally found a woman sick enough to go out with me and we got I got 19 months and I have a plan to have baby cause I'd get baby and it'd be something that loved me but no stranger attached so right after the baby was born this relationship kind of went down the way so I had to leave that house and I was 19 months over and I decided to kill myself so I took and was in a cool shack I had rented and I turned the gas on and I put towels and sheets in all of the cracks and then I got one of them brain storms well as long as you're going to die you might as well go out with some booze so I shut the gas off went down bought two bottles I don't remember now if they're fresh or quite but they're two big bottles and I pretty much drank them all and then I while I was drinking them I had turned the gas back on and the doctor told me the next day that I had drank so much booze so fast I'd become comatose and I wasn't breathing deep enough to breathe the gas in and that saved my life so it did save my life that day and they had me in San Diego Veterans Hospital all these guys from AA were coming and you know the kind if you don't know them look at Roger they got them big grins they talk about them biggrins you know in chapter 3 God I hated them grins when I got it everybody that carried their message to me always had that big grin and so anyway they took me to a big book studying me and at that meeting there were two guys arguing about what the big book said so I grabbed the text book and I said you're both wrong and I showed them where they were both wrong and I turned away from them and I had the most god-awful feeling I ever had in my life because I knew what the big books said and they didn't but they had a year of sobriety and I didn't so Alcoholics Anonymous is not for those that need it it's not for others that want it and it's not for those that understand it. And I continued to drink. I met Chuck Chandler and I was still trying to treat alcoholism as a sexual transmitted disease. I was getting all these women's sponsors, you know. And I got drunk about five times in one week, and my sponsor says, I'm not going to sponsor you anymore if you don't go talk to Chuck Chamberlain. So she took me over to Laguna Beach, and I got to hear Chuck Chamberlin talk. she took me she grabbed me and pulled me up the way where I was after the meeting right in front of him she said well what did you think of him and I looked up at Chuck and I said you are so dumb you don't realize how miserable you are see and during them first 23 years I went out many times and I'd come back and I would be sober an hour such hours and I would tell them guys for 20 25 years what was wrong with their program and how they could improve Alcoholics Anonymous. So Alcoholics Anonymous is not for those that need it. It's not for those that want it. It's not for those that understand it. And it's not for those that talk about it. And before I went to work at the treatment center that I spent 14 years at, I had called up Gammie State Hospital. And I asked them if they would let me apply for a job out there. and they said well we're going to check your records and we'll call you back and let you know so they called me back and they said Paul you can come out and file an application to go to work but if you go back to drink and you still will not be able to come there as a patient see so they'd let me go work at them but they wouldn't take me back as a patient so there was nowhere else to go but AA means and you talk about that screwing feelings you know you go to AA means with the head full of AA my body full of booze it was a god awful feeling but I had no understanding of what alcoholism was there was no doubt in my mind that I was alcoholic but I have no idea what alcohol is one of the things that showed I was alcoholic was you take a first person he goes out and he drinks and he wakes up in the morning and he's got such an awful hangover and he says he's afraid he's going to die I'm not the alcoholic of my type I wake up with that same hangover and I'm afraid to death I'm not going to die. Alcoholics are not free to death. Alcoholics of my type are free to live. Alcoholics and I must have not saved Paul's life. Alcoholics, and I'm escaping Paul's wife for the very first time. an earth person goes into a new town and I was in the carnival business and circus business for years and they'd go into a new town and they would find a place to stay and they will find a place to eat and they'll go find a place to drink and then they would make friends but I would come into Newtown and I had Newtown every ten days to two weeks first thing I did was I'd go to the mail bondsman establish a line of credit here's the page and then I would go to the bar so people told me that I was probably like a hawk and if you see flying gray apes and pull that big eight-legged spider off your stomach you know coming up in the room coming up to here you're probably an alcoholic but I still don't know what an alcoholic was there's two stories that demonstrate to me what an alcoholic is and the first one let me get a little gas here this drunk was walking down a four lane highway and he walked across the street and there was a sign in this saloon going out of business all you can drink for a dollar and he starts and he looks at that sign and that can't be right it works again this is all you can think for now I'm going to go check it out I know that's not true so he runs across the street and the buses are piling into the tracks and the cars are squeaking and he goes through them four lanes and he grabs that door and he pulls it so hard open it comes off the hinges and he gets up to the counter and he says, Barking and barking. That's right, that's right son. Oh you can drink for a dog? You don't really mean it. Oh we do. Oh you could drink for the dog? Yes sir. yeah well you can drink for a dollar give me two dollars worth now when I'm drinking that's the kind of drunk I am see now when I'm sober before I pick up this book and follow directions it's like the earth person there's people when they go in a room and they get hit on the head with a hammer and the guy drags them out of the room. Next day, they don't go back in that room. But I go back in the room I get hit all over the head with ahammer get dragged out next day I go back in that room I get hit on the head with a hammer get drugged back out next day I go back in that room and the guy with the hammer ain't there so I go looking for him laughter laughter Back in the 80s, they didn't have those simple tests for your alcoholism, you know. But today we've got that new simple test, you see, you all. All you've got to do is go out and buy a third. and if you spend all winter teaching that bird to talk then you're an alcoholic if you're spending all winter teaching that parrot to rush then you are an alabaster read the book Roger read the box So you can see I'm wrong here. But there really is only one question you've got to ask yourself. Am I now? or have I ever been in attendance at the 98 meeting? And if the answer is yes and you're not here for somebody else, then it's already too late. You might as well pick up the book right away and follow directions. Save yourself 5, 10, 20 years of suffering. but you know things kept getting worse and I could no longer take it not one more time so I decided that I was going to kill myself and this time I can talk about this because I did not use heroin and I wasn't a heroin addict but I went out and I bought a hot load of heroin and I was guaranteed the minute I put out of my vein, I would die. And I got all ready to pump it in my vein and end this mess because I told you people I don't believe in God, but I knew there was a God someplace picking on me because there's no way anybody could suffer the way I suffered if God wasn't pregnant on him. And he got all the women on the west coast to help him, and they just couldn't take it anymore. So I'm getting ready to put that needle into my arm. And just before I did, a thought crossed my mind. What if Clarence Schneider or Wild Bill Scully were right and you died for no reason? And then I remember something that Class C had said the year before. I mean, not a year, ten years before. It was kicking me out of an A8 meeting in the midnight mission because I was drunk. You can go to the A8 meetings drunk, but you can't go to the mission drunk. So I got kicked out of it. and as he was kicking me out of that meeting he said, if you're having trouble with the program of Alcoholics Anonymous go to the guy you hate the most because he's got the most of what you need. And I knew who that guy was. I used to go to the 88 means and I'd check the parking lot for his car. And if his car was in that parking lot, I'd go across town to a different meeting. One of the greatest spiritual experiences of my life was when I found out they were checking the parking lots for my car. So I went up to him and I said, Nick, will you help me? And he had that big grin. And that big, big grin even got bigger and he says, I've been waiting for you. And he said, I'll help you. I'll health you on one condition. And you know what I was getting ready to tell him, don't you? but before I could say it to him he stopped me cold and he said what I tell you to do is going to be right because it's going to come from the basic text book of alcoholics and nimbus I didn't know it at the time but Paul made his first surrender and I said okay it was years before I knew that's what I did but I had surrendered to the big book Alcoholics and Amish it's worked so well that I still do it today and he told me if I read that book every day for at least 15 minutes I would never drink again and in the last 25 years I read that book every day by one and I have 40 books in my car I have other kind of AA big book there is you know big ones, little ones first editions all kinds and I went to a doctor and the doctor called an ambulance and she didn't let me go out of the car to get my big book. So I ended up in the hospital without a big book, you know. I got a new doctor too back in the day. But he says we're going to take it word for word. we're going to take three weeks and do it and we're not going to leave anything out the first 83 pages and we'll not go put nothing in and the first 83 phases for those of you that have read this text book know this is the first thing I ask that and I said well suppose it don't work and he says well if it don' t work you still got that needle you can go kill yourself and then he took me to chapter 5 the most important part of that part of the book it says if you want what will you have and they're willing to go to any lengths to get it He said, now Bob, they're not talking about you, people you meet in meetings. They're not talkin' about me, they were talkin' bout the 40 people that wrote that book. And if you want what them 40 people had, then you gotta do what them forty people did. So he shoved me to work readin' the book And I had to highlight every time there was a promise. And every promise in that book has got a condition. And I highlighted the promises in yellow and the conditions in orange. I'd call them up, I said, kind of heavy promises. And I'd have to keep reading. Call them up. got 150 not enough keep reading come on got 250 not enough keep reading I got 300 that's more than I got you can quit now and he says do you want them times and I says I sure do and he says then you got to do what they did and he made made me read the doctor's opinion chapter 2 and chapter 3 after page 35 ten times and then he met with me and read it to me because he didn't trust me to read the black parts and I found out some things the most important thing I found out was drinking does not cause alcoholism and as long as I thought drinking caused alcoholism I didn't have a prayer to get most of you people back alcoholism causes drinking and I had finally took them step one after all them years and I come to find out in sobriety that I was powerless over alcohol when I was sober and that's why I went back to drinking I found out in sobiety my life was immeasurable sober not when I wasn't drinking sober But drinking was my solution until the side effects of the medicine become as bad as the original disease. And step two was pretty easy for me because my sponsor said, if there's not God someplace you're in pretty big trouble and I say yeah you already proved what you can do so if you are there you might as well take that needle and we read ten times the rest of chapter three where it talked about the alcohol faking and how my mind was as abnormal as my body. And that tells me I had to believe that. And I did. And there's a question in there that says here God's going to be everything or he's going be nothing. What is your answer to that? What's your choice? and there's the only place except when it comes to denominations and religions that gives me a choice and I told him everything so we went on to step three and at step three after reading it ten times he read it to me I found I met the first requirement and the first requirement is I got to be convinced that any life run on self could hardly be a success and I knew if there was a God in any place there's no way he could do any worse with my life than I had already did and there's a possibility you might even do better and my sponsor was one of them guys that says you don't have to believe in God to take steps free there's only two things you gotta know about God in order to take steps free he can't do no worse than you've been doing if there isn't God. And the second thing is that God's name is not spelled B-A-U-L. The big book says first I have to quit playing God. It tells me how, why. Because it don't work. I tried so hard. I've tried everything I heard in 80. I try every cockamamie. I The way I stayed sober there was from electric shock treatments to being put to sleep for weeks so I wouldn't be angry when I woke up. And then everything was supposed to be all right. I tried everything but this. And that text book says, though mighty says it was a vital or crucial step, that what had no permanent effect was for all that once by a strenuous effort to face and be good at the things that blocked me. All them things that made me do what I didn't want to do. All them thinks that kept me from doing what I did want to. So we need five ways resentments and he put a column in there that says Paul's part what should have Paul did instead what's Paul going to do next time so the same thing with fears and with sacks and with shortcomings and with the people I hurt. And I went up on a hill and I told that guy my entire life story. And when we got done, he handed me that list of resentments. So put some of those resentments out so in case you change you can't keep them. So in case you change your mind and you want a little drinking pool you can still go back and drink. And I'm pushing them resentments away. He says, what if you want to drink? Well, he did the same thing with the fearless and with the sexless. And I push them away. He says Paul, I'm going to give you one more chance. Check out some of them character defects. that way if you change your mind and you want a drink you can do it and I'm pushing them character defects away you don't want any of them no I don't wanna go back on that floor you mean you're ready entirely ready for God to remove all these things what are we asking at step seven for God to remove everything we found in the first five steps you know so we got on our knees and we asked God to remove some character defects he did one of three things with each and every one of them he eradicated lifetime habits that never come back in over 25 years some of them he says his times may come and I'd have to go back if I get him and make amends for him And the third thing he did was nothing, except he took away the guilt. For the first time in my life, I was not guilty. Coming down off that hill, he handed me the first four quarters and said, That's your hardest demand. Make it now. We stopped at the first phone booth, and I made it. And that was no longer a mistake. I knew God didn't make a mistake when he made me. You become entirely ready only one time, I know of. And that's in the half hour after taking that fifth step. And if you really want the benefits, you'll do step seven and eight. Six, seven, and eight right there in that half hour. Because the longer we wait, the less willing we are. And so I've never had to go back and reworked them steps, as we did according to the book, the first one. So today I live in alcoholics and nuns. I got life that day. And we live on steps 10, 11, and 12. And I continue to watch for these things and ask God when they crop up. At night, I look at everybody I've met through the day and see how I measure up to the four absolutes in my 12-step inventory. Absolute love, absolute purity, absolute non-selfishness, absolute honesty. and this is where I fall short when I ask God to correct these things I get more of the goodies each and every day I was told I'd never be able to work never beable to go to school never beble to be in a relationship well over two years ago my AA wife at 21 years died a success she was 23 years sober and we had been married for 21 years and she's waiting for me up in heaven now I personally don't like these long distance relationships but in order to cope with that I had to touch it like my AA was and it kind of became a dual purpose on the one hand I'm the wise old primer who's got all the answers doing that And on the other hand, I'm going to more meetings, reading a book half hour a day instead of 15 minutes a day, talking to more people on the phone, praying more. And it's just like being a brand newcomer. I change groups. There's three things you need in order to be sober. one is a sponsor one is a sobriety date and one's a home group and for your home group to work you've got to have the best home group in the world it's funny over a million alcoholics tomorrow have the best phone group but they don't It's all right for you to have a different one, because yours is the best for you. So I love you today. And my program, I've done more in the last two years. When my wife first died, God sent me 14 wet drops in a three-month period. I always keep one or two wet drops after 25 years. My sponsor said when the time comes, work with a wet one is going to save your life. And when the times come, it's too late to go with it for a wet ones. So you better have one or 2 hanging around, you know. And I've done that. But when she died, I got 14 wetlands in one three-month period. God's been so good to me. And the people of the alcoholics and the homeless have put me in their bosom in the last almost two years in January. And it's taught me how to live without my wife. and I love you so much and I see each and every guy in here and some of you are pretty hard to look at, you know but I don't see you as you are I see you as you can become if you pick up this book and you work the 12 steps of alcoholics about it. And the other few textbooks we got are A.A. Comes of Age that gives us 12 traditions and then I only works in A.E.A but works in a group of people and then there are 12 constant men so I got 36 principles to live by and I don't want to be dead no more and I don't want to be drunk no more and it don't matter if it's a wet drug or a dry drug they both hurt too much for me to pretend so when all else fails you'll pick up these three blocks and you too can have a brand new life God bless you each and every one but God already did that because you're in an alcoholic synonymous meeting. And if you're an alcoholic that's feeling sorry for yourself, remember things could be a lot worse. You could be in an alimony. Thank you.