The Oxford Group Soul Surgeons Who Taught Him to Pray – Bill C.

And welcoming our speaker today, Bill from the Hamosa Beach Group. Bill Alkoholic? Good morning. Joe took me to a health food restaurant this morning and I'm glad I was able to get here and offset it with a couple of muffins. It's feeling weak. I'd like to start today with a moment of silence, maybe a minute or even less. And what I'd likely to do is think about picture in your mind's eye when you were brand new and you walked into AA the people that were kind to you. The people that got you a cup of coffee or told you what the rules are or helped you find a seat or simply stood outside the club and talked to you for a few minutes. There was a gentleman in my life named Larry Larkin who has passed away and he stood outside The Alano Club in Hermosa one night and talked with me for 45 minutes and made me feel special. I later found out that Larry would talk to anybody. That was Larry. but he was kind to me and I don't remember anything he said I just remember that he paid attention to me recently we've lost a lot of really good people old timers, Keith Lewis, Serenity Sam, Keith Carpenter, Clint Hodges we're losing the old guard the oldest sloughing off in the news replacing it we find ourselves in the position of being those people that are kind to the new people coming in. So let's just take a little moment and just picture that in your mind's eye. Thank you. Okay. First off, I've got a little sign-up sheet here. It's got a place for name, email address, and phone. Please print so I can read it. And I'm going to be quoting from some documents this morning a little bit. We don't have a lot of time, but I'm going to touch on some of it. And if you'd like to get copies of any of this stuff that I'm quoting from, I'd be happy to e-mail it to you. I also send out daily quotes. It's not all big book stuff. There's some other stuff. There's Woody Allen and Tom Waits, some of the great spiritual leaders of our time, and Eckhart Tolle and some big book staff, some stuff from The Grapevine. Every day I send out three little quotes. And it's a little bit different. And if you'd like to participate in that, I also send out some AA history stuff. And I've got some cards here with my e-mail address. If you'd Like to e- mail me or sign up on the list, please feel free to do. If anybody is listening to this, my e‑mail address is BillC at CraigTools.com. And I'd love to communicate with you. I do this around the country and I've Got some weirdos that e‑ mail me every day, man, from all over the world. It's really cool. I love it. Sponsorship. Last night we talked a little bit about how does God work in our lives? What is God's will? Why are we here? What's going on? Last night I talked a little bit About is it just about going to meetings and getting a better job and raising the kids and stuff, you know. Is that it? Because that by itself is not bad. But isn't there more? Isn't there mehr happening here? I think so. One of the problems that you and I confront when we get sober with this emotional immaturity is the selfishness and self-centeredness. The book is riddled with it. It says it is the root of our problems, this selfishness and self centeredness. I think I was probably three years sober when it hit me truly how self-centered I was. I can't stand outside myself and have a separate experience and then judge me and say, Jesus, he's self-centred. It doesn't work like that. I mean the thief thinks everyone else is a thief. That's his reality. The selfish and self- centred person believes that everybody else pretty much feels as he does. How could I know any different? That's been my experience all my life. So how do we get out of that? How do we break loose from it? I think that there's a couple of key things. One is the understanding that this is not about me. It's not about us. It's about me, Alcoholics Anonymous is not a support group. It's not a self-help program at all. It is the absolute antithesis of that, the polar opposite of it. It is not therapy. It is nicht being introspective. It's about me getting out of myself in a spiritual way, getting out, stepping outside of who I think I am, having a series of new experiences that reconnects me to the human race. I step back in the circle. Chuck Chamberlain used to draw the big circle on the board and he'd put a bunch of dots in the middle of the circle and then he'd but one dot outside the circle and there we are. We are not participating in what's going on. We don't even know it. We think that we're in the world that we are in life, but we're not. We're sound asleep, in sobriety. So what is the mechanism that's used? Well, AA came from an organization called the Oxford Group. The Oxford Group called themselves first century Christians. What a first century Christian is, by definition of the Oxford Group, is this was before there was a church, before there wasn't any dogma at all, before there was a belief mechanism of any kind. And they were out in the streets with the hookers and the thieves. And if you look at Jesus' life, he didn't spend a lot of time in church. Matter of fact, when he was in there, he tore the place up. He was a little pissy. He was an activist. He was also a political activist of the worst kind. Some would say a terrorist. but he was out in the street and when they were throwing rocks at Mary Magdalene who are you to be throwing rocks at anybody this is the kind of stuff he was doing you also remember he is the one who brought the wine to the wedding party he was a party kind of guy so the Oxford groupers put themselves in this kind of category street preachers out there doing work. They were not a church in and of themselves. They had no dogma. They had No Way of Raising Money. They did not solicit money from anybody. They figured God would provide. And before World War II, they were huge. They're still around today. They are called Initiatives of Change. I've been to their center in Coe, Switzerland. I've had some meetings of Oxford Group people in my home. My sponsor is very involved with them. So they're still very alive and well today. For your information. You'll notice on my card, it says Bill Cleveland, soul surgeon. Little arrogant. Just a little. The Oxford group people called themselves soul surgeons. And what they did, if you came into their organization and say you had a specific problem, like drinking or gambling or some aberrated sexual activity, they would connect you with a person that had the same problem and who had overcome it. And you would sit alone with them and you would pray and meditate with them and write down what came to and share it back and forth. Morning meditation with your sponsor was a big deal in the Oxford group. Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob grew up in this organization Prior to even being sober, Bob was very involved. His wife Ann Smith was really. Henrietta Sieberling, who put the two of them together, Bill and Bob, was Ann Smith's sponsor. So when Bill and Rob got together and they were putting Alcoholics Anonymous together, this ethic came along with it. The house meetings, sharing. God as you understand God is an Oxford group concept. One day at a time, you know, all of a sudden. When you really look at it, like any speaker in AA, we all steal from other people. And Bill and Bob did not come up with anything original. Even the traditions are rooted kind of in the Oxford group. You know, the whole idea of corporate poverty, of having no money, no possessions, You know, not being part of the material world was all Oxford Group stuff. So people will say sponsorship is not mentioned in the big book. That is not true. The big book is much larger than 164 pages. Read the entire thing and it talks about sponsorship a lot. Bill and Bob talked about sponsorship a lot. That's what they did. And they talked about sponsoring people into the meetings. And what they did is they would go to the hospitals and they'd go from bed to bed of the loser ward and they would go in there and they say, are you ready to get sober? Do you want to get sober for good and all? Are you ready? And somebody would say yes and they go, okay, you can come. And They would sponsor, they would bring him to a meeting or bring him to the group. Now, I'm going to read from you a little bit and I can't go over the whole thing but it's really interesting. This is a document called The Akron Manual. And in 1941 they figured this was written. Bob put this together. Now, this was after the big book. The big book says that these are suggestions. and the big book says we not you there's no finger pointing this all came in the editing process if you've ever read some of the pre-drafts or the lithographs of it it was about what you're gonna do and throw the book away if you don't like you know it's like and they went well wait a minute we got to sell this thing somebody looked at that and go come on you know thank god they had Hank Parkhurst, who was like an evil used car salesman. I mean, these are the guys that came up with the phony stock certificates, you know? I mean these are the guys who said the first 100 of us and there were only 77. They lied to us up front, you know? But they had found something, hadn't they? They had found something that seemed to be working. Their lives got saved. These guys had the fire and they used the tools that they had. They wanted to sell it. Remember the story. Bill wanted to build hospitals across the country, which is essentially what we have now. We have hospitals across the country. Everybody has access to this thing. It came to pass. Maybe not in the way he thought, but it did come to pass He worked very diligently with the Alcoholism Council and Marty Mann They pushed very hard to have the American Medical Association declare alcoholism as a disease, even though there's a lot of debate about that. But behind the scenes they pushed for this and the reason they wanted it is so that they would quit jailing alcoholics and put them in recovery. That's what they wanted. Around the time when the big book came out in 1941, Bob came up with this Akron manual and the manual is how to, how do you do this thing? When somebody comes in and they're newly sober and it's time to go out and get the next guy they needed to give them something to show them how to do this. Well, they had the big book, but that was how they were selling AA. This is what they were really doing. And just listen to some of it. I'm not condoning this. I just think it's really cool. Explain that we are not in the business of sobering up drunks merely to have them go on another bender. Explain that our aim is total and permanent sobriety. what happened to one day at a time nowhere in this document does it ever say or allude to one day at a time definition of an alcoholic anonymous an alcoholic anonymous is an alcoholic who through application of and adherence to rules laid down by the organization has completely foresworn the use of any and all alcoholic beverages the moment he wittingly drinks so much as a drop of beer, wine, spirits or any other alcoholic drink he automatically loses all status as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. You're out! AA is not interested in sobering up drunks who are not sincere in their desire to remain completely sober for all time a little stringent to the newcomer listen up it is your life it is your choice if you are not completely convinced to your own satisfaction that you are an alcoholic that your life has become unmanageable if you are not ready to part with alcohol forever it would be better for all concerned if you discontinue reading this and give up the idea of becoming a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. What happened to just a desire? A word to the sponsor. Us. You must fulfill all pledges you make to him, either tangible or intangible. If you cannot fulfill a promise, do not make it. You have in your hands the most valuable property in the world, the future of a fellow man. Treat his life as carefully as you would your own. You are literally responsible for his life. Dude! Alcoholics Anonymous is 100% effective for those who faithfully follow the rules. it is those who try to cut corners who find themselves back in their old drunken state rules before long you will have a new thrill the thrill of helping someone else there is no greater satisfaction in the world than watching the progress of a new alcoholic anonymous no whiskey in the word can give you this thrill above all remember this keep the rules in mind as long as you follow them you are on firm ground but the least deviation and you are vulnerable as a new member remember that you are one of the most important cogs in the machinery of AA without the work of the new member AA could not have grown as it has you will bring into this work a fresh enthusiasm a zeal of the crusader you will want everyone to share with you the blessings of this new life you will be tireless in your efforts to help others and it is a splendid enthusiasm. Cherish it as long as you can. For you are ready to sponsor some other poor alcoholic who is desperately in need of help, both human and divine. So God bless you and keep you. This next one is just killer. You aren't very important in this world. If you lose your job, someone better will replace you. If you die, your wife will mourn briefly and then remarry. Your children will grow up and you will be but a memory. geez in the last analysis you are the only one who benefits by your sobriety seek to cultivate humility remember that cockiness leads to a speedy fall it's very good advice and here's where I got the emotional immaturity medical men will tell you that alcoholics are all alike in at least one respect they are emotionally immature in other words alcoholics have not learned to think like adults. Cannot be resolved through intelligent, informed sponsorship. Bill Wilson says right after the ninth step our next function is to increase in understanding and effectiveness. In the ninth concept he says a very powerful thing. He said, let's not get too carried away with the idea of principles before personalities lest we become mindless, faceless automatons. Every sponsor is a leader as well as a teacher. So I think what Wilson is saying is step up. Step up. You want to get humble? Hang your ego out there. Give God a big target. It'll happen. you know it'll happen you know but if you pretend to be humble nothing will happen you know nothing will arrive my dad used to say he was sober long time and he'd say the problem with humility is as soon as you think you got some you don't you know so this sponsorship thing what do we do you know what's it look like and what are the benefits to us because we always want to know that what am I going to get out of it I'll pretend to be selfless that works for a while you know I mean fake it till you make it is a pretty good concept because if I wait till I feel correctly nothing will happen you know I mean truly the most spiritual thing said in AA is get in the car get inthecar we're going somewhere Recovery by its very nature is uncomfortable. I have to get used to that. I have to somehow paint myself into a corner to where I will go places I do not want to go. I was probably three years sober and I'm sponsoring this guy named Al and And my sponsor, once again, if you remember last night, he says, You don't ever say no. Ever. You let the manager run the show. You just go wherever you're asked. You never say no." You always go. Stop making those decisions. This instrument that you're using up here is not good for these kinds of decisions. It's a great calculator. But as far as making really good value judgments, it's not really good. Because if I look in there and I say, well, this is going to make me uncomfortable. I don't know the rules. I don'T know how to talk. I'VE NEVER DONE IT BEFORE. NEVER done it before is a good reason to never do it in my mind. I'VE never done it. We'VE never done It like that. That's why we don't do It like that because we never have. Oh, yeah. I mean, I've been in business for a long time. You know, the first time somebody says in my office, well, we've never done it that way. They have to put a buck in the bowl. You know? Because probably the fact that we've never done It like that, we've probably missed something somewhere. So this guy asked me to sponsor him. And I'm doing it. I'mdoing it. And my motivation for sponsoring people originally is I wanted to look good. You've got to picture this. This is very important. I'm clawing my way up the AA corporate ladder. I am trying to make my name for myself in an anonymous organization. I have no rational explanation for that. It sometimes still rears its ugly head, but now I can spot it and go, there you are again, you know? It's like, you don't want to be the worst, the best loser in the group, I guess is the idea. So my motivation was impure, as it always has been impure. They'll tell you around here, they'll say, go do something kind for somebody and don't tell anybody. I don't think I've ever pulled that off. You know, I've kept quiet for a while, but it leaks out. You know? I mean, there's just some shit that comes slow to me. And so my motivations are always suspect. So I'm sponsoring guys, and I'm trying to make a name for myself. That's where I am at three years sober, three or four. And this guy is in my kitchen, and his mother is dying. And I've watched him take care of her. They did not have health insurance, and he was living in the house with her, and this was not a very nice woman. His mother was not her saint. and he was popping her hip back in place and changing her diapers. And I was impressed by this. I mean, I stood there watching him do this thinking I could never do that. But here he was and he wasn't doing it gracefully. He was upset, he was angry, he was frightened, all those things. He would yell at her and come and tell me I yelled at my mother in the wheelchair again. It's like God. I go, well, go back and say you're sorry. And he goes, oh. You know? And so he would. I mean, it was like that, you know? The blind leading the deaf and stupid. And she was in the hospital and he had left my phone number with the hospital telling them that that's where he would be. So sure enough they called and they said, you better get back here. It looks like she's going to pass. And he stood up to leave. but he wasn't leaving. He just stood there and I knew what he wanted and I did not want to go. I had never seen anything like that. I didn't know this guy that well. I didn' t hardly know her at all and I didn not want to go and I thought, well we don' t do that. All we do is just read the book with people, right? We just work the steps with them. There's limitations. There's parameters. There's boundaries. There's boundaries is a good one. I've set my boundaries. I'm just a people pleaser. I'm a workaholic. I've never met an alcoholic that's a workAHolic. He just hides out at work. There's a difference. I think we're basically lazy by nature. That's why we found some of us get quite wealthy by finding shortcuts to shit. And so I said to him, do you want me to go? And he said, would you please? Now, stop and think about this. Look at this picture for a second. This guy has a family. He had a brother and a sister, aunts and uncles and stuff. And yet he wanted me to goes with him. I mean, if I hardly knew him, he hardly knew me in the scheme of things. We've known each other maybe for a year, maybe two. They have faith in us. They trust us for some odd reason. There's something going on here that I don't understand. There's Something that's beyond my capability to grasp. Something of a spiritual nature that I just don't get. I don't hear that wavelength. I don' t see that color spectrum. But nonetheless, it's going on. It's happening. And my job, I believe, is to sit back and watch the show and it becomes very apparent when it's my turn to get up and get on stage and be part of whatever it is that's going o n. It isn' t unclear at all. It' s real clear when it' s my turn. like when they say would you please come you just say yes it's obvious no matter what it is you feel inside I should deny myself absolutely because you will limit the experience I will always limit the experience as soon as I get uncomfortable I'm out of the pool so I went with him and we walked in this room and she was in ICU and she's all hooked up and it was awful. And there was a chair over on the side near the bed up against the wall and I went over and I walked over there and I sat down in the chair to kind of catch my breath. I was shook up. I'd never done this before. And Al, my friend, is pacing the room and this is his mother. She's dying. She's clearly dying. And I sat there and I closed my eyes and a feeling came over me. and the feeling that came over me was everything's okay there's nothing wrong this is not incorrect everything's as it should be it's alright, just breathe and I sat there and I closed my eyes and I just relaxed all the muscles in my body I just relax and I looked at her and it wasn't horrifying anymore everything was okay and Al's this great big guy He's as big as me, but he's a carpenter. He's got great big hands, big, strong guy, surfer guy. And I said, come on over here, Al. Sit down. There was a chair next to me and we sat down and I held his hand and I looked at him and I said Al, everything's okay. There's nothing wrong here, man. It's all right. And we were holding hands and I said let's pray and we said a prayer and while we were saying this prayer I could feel his hand relax in my hand. That's intimacy. That's it. Right there. That's It. And I miss it all the time because it's quiet. It's subtle. Emotions are quiet and subtle, and I'm loud, and I're looking for a head rush. I want all the cells of my body to just explode right through the top of my head and God present himself as Krishna right before me, you know. Then I'll know. And it just hasn't been like that. It's been those quiet little moments sitting in the hospital somewhere where somebody bears their soul and I'm there. and I just happen to be there. Most of the time, there's nothing to say. It's just being there is enough to feel the presence of God. You take me to those places. I do not go there by myself. I can't find them. I don't know where they are. You take Me there. You invite Me into your lives. I'll sit in a room with a guy and I'll do 20 minutes on how he should live his life 20 really good minutes should have recorded that one minutes 20 really excellent advice excellent spiritual advice I have a good command of the English language my language skills are really pretty good and I can paint a beautiful picture for you Then the guy leaves the room and I think to myself, that's good shit. I should do some of that. I am confronted with my own hypocrisy. I'm a liar. By nature, I'm not a liar, but by nature, I'm just a hypocrite. I'm still a liar by nature. Now, the words I said are good words. The truths are universal truths. The picture I paint is that I am doing that stuff that I'm telling you. That is a lie. I am disingenuous. I will lead you to believe things. I will lie by omission, by not saying something when I should say something. I'll take credit for things that I didn't do and just allow you to belief that I did it. Things like that. I never see that without you. I need you to show me that when I look at you and I say just trust me tell me what you need to tell me trust me am I trustworthy can they trust me have I violated the confidence of somebody I sponsored yes I've said stuff that I should not have said that somebody told me in confidence I've been fired as a sponsor for doing that. That hurts. Do I do it anymore? No. Because I learned that hurts. And I'll do it under the guise of, well, I'm just trying to help. And maybe that is my motivation. But should I do It? No, I am not trustworthy if I do stuff like that. And I've had to confront those things. If you open your heart to this work, I'll promise you a couple of things. If you have any prejudice at all, it will walk across the room and ask you for help. Invariably. Any prejudice at All, it will come right up to you. It's how He works. Send Him to me, Father. He's going to like this one. And I've had to confront that. My friend Patrick Kelehan, his mother called him the devil of all liars. He was a little Irish and he was an awful man. He used to tell his wife that he was going to go on retreat with us and we would all go off on retreat and he would go down to the Viscount Hotel and get an eight ball and a couple of hookers and have a great retreat weekend and then come back and tell his wife that the retreat was wonderful. God, I had a great time. I learned a lot, you know. He took several birthday cakes and in no way was he sober. You know, he just was a liar and a sneak, awful guy. Finally, he got sober. Finally, it came clean. It got bad enough, he came clean, he became sober. And Patrick and I were good friends. He was sponsored by my sponsor and the night he really got serious about it, I happened to be with him at this meeting and we stood out in the parking lot and he broke down in tears and I just held him in this darkened parking lot outside of a church and told him it was going to be okay man you're going to do alright, you're with us now it'll be okay and I watched him get sober and we had a great time together this was a guy my sponsor had a coffee shop and the front of the The coffee shop is a big plate glass window. And I'm standing outside smoking a cigar, which as we all know isn't really smoking. And I don't want to talk about it right now. And my wife is on the inside sitting at this table. And she's quite a pretty woman, I think. And other people would agree with that. And Patrick comes up behind her and he waits until I'm watching. and then he leans her head back and just gives her a big one and she just took it and then he puts her back up and looked at me and grinned that was my friend Patrick and the bastard and my wife loved him, I loved him you just couldn't help but love Patrick and he got lung cancer and it took him about three years to die. And we would bring him on retreat because he would actually go. And he had an open wound in his back that they would use to drain the fluid from his lungs and the doctor had to show us how to pack the wound so that we could take him with us. And I'd never done anything like that before. It frightened me. But I loved him. i loved him i don't know that i'd ever felt that before that kind of love the strength of it is frightening around here you have to love fearlessly and recklessly because sometimes it hurts sometimes it just hurts and uh he said one of the most powerful things i've ever heard in an aa meeting, my sponsor and another guy would pick him up and bring him to the Monday night to the home group. And his head was all swollen. He looked grotesque near the end. And he would come as long as he could. He would come to the meeting. And, uh, he said one night, he says, if you're not grateful, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. And I'll never forget those words and the way he looked when he said in the strength and the conviction that he said them with we're on retreat one time we did a healing ceremony and it was people that were there still talk about it to this day it had to be over 10 12 years ago and uh at the end of it we were all kind of in a pile together putting hands on him and another guy that had a brain tumor and uh it just it was electric it was a powerful thing afterwards i'm sitting in this metal folding chair, which is kind of a symbol of God to me. And I'm sitting in this metal folding chair and he's across the room and he sees me and he is all overcome with emotion and he comes walking over to me and sat down on my lap and put his arms around me and whispered in my ear, he says, Bill, I'm so frightened. I'm so scared. And there's nothing to say. You just hold them. You don't leave them. We don't shoot our wounded here. We save souls, we save lives. And sometimes we lose some of them. And it doesn't seem fair, but I don't get it. I don' t understand all this and And it's not up to me to have to understand it. But I don't have these experiences without you. I can't learn to be intimate without you You are an integral part of this thing. And the mechanism God has given us is to sponsor each other in a formal, official way. If you're sponsoring people, you're always in the steps. You're always on the fourth step. You're also in the fifth step. You're in the ninth step. always. It never stops. You read the thing incessantly. There's always something new in it. You know what makes it new when people say, you know, they must have snuck that in the book? You know, what makes that new? The person you're reading it with, they hear it when you don't. They hear it and they stop. And then you think, well, I never noticed that before because they noticed it because they need to hear it i'm convinced that when i go speak at meetings you hear what you need to here doesn't matter what i say this guy billy used to speak a lot and he said this woman came up to him one time and said you know i came here tonight and i was going to kill myself and i thought well i'll just go to one more meeting and after what you said about suicide, it changed my whole mind. I think you saved my life. Billy says, I didn't say anything about suicide. He went and he got the tape and he went home and he played it. He goes, Suicide was never part of my story. I'm a homicide guy. And Billy would say, and I'm convinced of that, but he says, It doesn't matter what I say! You hear what you need to hear. And when I'm alone in the room with you, my friend Chris Gantner how are we doing my friend Chris Gattner had a 7 year old son the kid got leukemia took him 2 years to die and this was after the owl thing I'm not sure about Patrick But my friend called me up, and he said, this is what's going on. I'm in the children's hospital with him. Will you come? And I went there, and I walked in that room, and it scared the hell out of me. My children were about this kid's age. The little boy's name was Aaron. And it was like looking at my own kids. And I walked out of the hospital that night, and I called my sponsor, and I said, I can't do this. I just can't do it. I can't go in there again. It's too much. That's enough. There's limitations, God damn it. You know, you can't ask me. I'm just this lunk head that got sober and this crap's going on. This ain't right, you know? And he says, I'll come. I'll go with you. And he went with me. He didn't even know this guy. And she went in there with me one time i was in that room with that kid and i started having chest pains and they put me in the cardiac care unit upstairs and my friend chris comes up there and he looks at me and he goes this is the most pathetic ploy for the center of attention i've ever seen in my life my kids down there dying and you're faking like you got a heart attack I mean, only in AA. I think our job was to take him out of that hospital and let him yell at us so he wouldn't yell at the doctors. The kid's mother, they would medicate her, but he wouldn'T take the medication. He's a sober guy, so he had to do it raw. He had to doing it raw We stood around that little boy's bed and prayed for his death so that he would stop suffering. It was awful, and it didn't have a happy ending. I know now what I would do if that happened to one of my children. We all say we wouldn't do those and we couldn't do these things. Yes, we can. I changed my father's diapers. My mother died in the living room of my house and I changed her diapers because I watched Al do that with his mother. I'd seen the face of death. So when it was my parents' turn, I was ready. And it all came home. It all came home. How do I know that something I do over here is going to affect who I am way over here? I can't make that connection. I can's see it beforehand. I just have to go wherever I'm invited. Whenever the phone rings, that's how God teaches us intimacy. we get close to each other and then we can bring that home hopefully to our families to our wives and husbands and children but you and I are practicing on each other that's what the fellowship is about I need to sponsor you and the time comes where I take off the sponsor robes I quit playing even that role and I just invite you into my home and into my heart because I know you're the teacher You're the mechanism, you're the vehicle that God uses to show me how to love fearlessly, to love recklessly, and not be afraid. Thank you. Once again, during the question-and-answer period, if you have a question, please raise your hand and make your questions brief and to the point. I'll turn it back over to Bill. Go ahead. Yes, ma'am? Hi, The Alcoholic. What do you do when you're sponsoring someone, you bring them into your home, and your family thinks you're a whack job for doing so, and they don't want you to bring strangers in the home, your kids, your grown adult kids? What do I do? What do we do when your family thinks you are a whack-job? when you bring newcomers to your house and your family doesn't care for it? That's a really good question, actually. I'll tell another little story. I got sober, and for about the first six months or so, my wife, nobody believes we're actually going to stay sober. We get 30 days, we won a trophy. And it wasn't long before pretty soon I was bringing people home, and I met this new group of people, and I was away from home a lot, and I'm going to these meetings, and the family's looking at me weird. And I just had to tell them, you know, I'm gonna get sober. I just need to do this. And everybody was pleased that I wasn't drinking anymore. It was hard to argue with. But all the emotions, all the background noise that had been suppressed or I couldn't hear for a long time was starting to surface. People were not happy with my behavior over the last 20-plus years. And when I started sponsoring guys, I would meet them away from home. So I was gone more than when I was drinking almost. and i heard a speaker at a meeting say when i sponsor guys i bring them in my home or do i have something to hide i went whoa and the kids were small and growing up so i started bringing them home and we'd sit out in the garage and there's a whole bunch of guys that have gotten sober sitting inside that garage with me while the kids are kicking the soccer ball up against the door. When my daughter graduated from college, the Al guy from the ICU thing came to the graduation. It was like watching his kid graduate, you know? And it was rough at first, but I'll relate a story. My daughter, she's 26 now. A couple years ago when she was in college at Long Beach State, she was given an assignment to write a story about three people that she admired the most. And she had to write this story about them and then part of the assignment was to call each one of those people and tell them how she felt about them. And when she was on the phone telling me this, I didn't get it right away. They can't watch us do the work we do and not admire us. It's impossible. it's impossible not to admire us. We're wonderful people. Absolutely wonderful. We take these losers and try to save them. Mostly we're not successful, but a lot of times we are. We are the mechanism that God uses. And if somebody is looking at you saying, why are you doing this? Ask them to record themselves asking that question and see if they can't figure out the goddamn answer. You know, it's what we're meant to do. And if they don't like it, tough. I mean, that's been my attitude. How could you not let me do this? Look what I'm doing. This is good work. People say, well, you know, I have my family to take care of. What better way to take hair of your family than to involve them in this? What better way? What an example. What better example could you show your children or the people around you other than this kind of work? There is none. There's no better example. I grew up in a house where people's lives were being saved and I didn't recognize it. My kids have grown up in houses where people're not being saved. Where people's wives are being saved and they recognized it. And they knew. They knew what's going on. So I think it's hard if they think you're a whack job. Well, there's a lot of truth to that probably. I was telling this to somebody earlier, but last Christmas, Christmas before last, we had this Christmas Eve party at our house for my wife's family mostly, but my kids come. And afterwards, we're all standing around the Christmas tree. my daughter and my son and myself and we're all three talking and we all three came to the conclusion that I had grown up quite a bit over the years. And I looked at my daughter and I said, you really think so? She goes, Dad, you've come a long way, man. It's been a long time. She's serious. She says, it's been along time since you've had a tantrum. And I said well, you just aren't around me as much as you used to be. But I'm on an equal level with them, I think. And I've grown up. Yes, sir? I'm Curtis. I'm an alcoholic. Curtis. What's your experience with, say, a guy that's less than six months, isn't calling you on a regular basis and not really taking actions? Do you let some go or just kind of nurture them with a soft love? Or what do you do about that? You never fire them, ever. Oh, what do you do about a loser that's six months sober? And he's not calling you and he's not doing the right stuff. It's like live minicam report, there's an alcoholic behaving badly. What do you do with that loser? I mean, most of them are like that, you know, at one level or another. And you never ever fire them. You know, you never hired them. Don't fire them, you know. It's not an employment gig. I absolutely heartily disagree with teaching them a lesson by shoving them away. I think those days are over. Nobody deserves to be treated that way, ever. That doesn't mean that I have to be nice to them. and I will reach a point with a guy where I will have this conversation with him I'll look at him and I'll say you don't want what I have oh yes I do no, you don' t because you don''t do what I do clearly you don'T want whatI have and I don't fire them but I'll let them know that I don'' t agree with their behavior don't waste my time kind of a thing And usually those ones that don't call, they don't waste much of your time. They just aren't around. Has anybody here had the experience of you know this guy around AA, he asks you to sponsor him and then you never see him again? That is odd, isn't it? I mean, it's like they get close to you. They really like you. They've come to your house and they say, you know, I really need a sponsor. And then they run like a scalded dog because the relationship changed. Well, that's what they're working through. My job is to keep the door open. So there's this illusion that I'm a hard-ass kind of sponsor. I'm not. I am not a hard ass sponsor. I just am not. I mean if you really want to get into the steps with me I'll take you in a long way. We'll do some pretty intense stuff. But if you don't want to go there It's your decision. It's not mine. But I'm easy to get a hold of. I'm easily accessible. You can find me really easily. I always answer the phone. I always do. You can call me any time, night or day. I'm accessible. It's up to you to take advantage of that. There are times I will be proactive and when I was newer in the program I would chase you around. Those days are kind of over and it's not because I think that there's anything wrong with that. It's just my life has changed and to be quite honest with you, I kind of forget who you are. You know, I'm old and I forget, oh yeah, you're all right. I mean, it's like that. It isn't because I'm consciously not doing it. You have to kind of come and get it now but you never fire them. You can shake their tree a little bit. My friend Clayton Brown says the thing that you do, This is not what I do, but I think this is really cool. He calls them up when he knows they're not at home and leaves a message on their answering machine or on their voicemail. And he says, why don't you get a set of balls and call me? And Clayton's thing about that is that he says no man can ignore that message. Yes, sir. I've taken on four new sponsors in the last week. So you just found my favorite doctor's opinion. What is the length of time did you feel, how long did you spend on the first step? My sponsor teaches taught teaching how to internalize and he stayed there a long time. Is that normal or how should the first be handled before moving onto the next steps? how long should you spend on the first step with a new guy? How long should it take before you move on? As I've gotten older in sobriety and as I have looked at how other groups and entities work the steps, different from how I did it, I put a lot more emphasis on the First Step now than I ever did before because I think I get it now. It only took me 20 years, you know? But I think I get that. I get it. So what I do is I have to be careful with a new guy that I don't lay more on him than he's capable of understanding. The reason in the U.S. school systems that we teach English for 12 years from first grade all the way through senior, the reason we do that is for the first five or six years kids don't get it. They haven't developed enough to really grasp language at that depth. So we waste that first five or six years, then we try to make it up on the tail end. And I think that working the steps with new people is along the same lines. Sometimes we emphasize too much. And I'm a pretty sharp guy. And what I understand now is a long way from what I understood when I was 37 years old and I was six months sober. my job as a sponsor in working the steps with you is to get you up through a fifth step as quick as I can. Because if I do that, you have a better chance of staying here if you can take the pressure off. And if I can dump you into the ninth step soon after that, we might be around a long time so that when you're three, four, five years sober we'll finally go back through the steps and really do it. the fourth step inventory is important enough to do poorly get it done don't jack around with it you start dredging that stuff up and if you don't process and get to the other side of it you'll medicate it so get it down I kept all my inventories the one I did at 10 years sober was a killer inventory I mean I had some distance and I could really look at it and I did a really comprehensive inventory that really helped me a lot. So to answer your question specifically, I'll read the doctor's opinion with him. I'll explain the concept of the allergy. I'll ask them to find themselves in the four or five different kinds of alcoholics it describes in there, circle it, put a star next to it, you're in the book, you know, that kind of thing. I'll asked him, have you ever drank a day or so prior to something really good that was going to come down for you and screwed the whole thing up and they nod and go, tell me about it. So that I can kind of get an idea if they're really alcoholic or not because some people just don't have that experience. So hopefully they can grasp that. I think the allergy thing, there's that paragraph where he defines entire abstinence, we lose touch with all things human and I'll spend a little time on that. But then I move right on. I don't waste a lot of time with it.