The Pilot Who Was Lost but Making Da*n Good Time – Joseph M.

I see that we're all here primarily because we're not all there, and that is why we're here. I am an alcoholic. For those of you who have wondered, if you've seen anything I've done and were not able to figure that out all by yourself, you still need considerable care. I mention that first, my alcoholism, because it's the core and the center of my life. It will be with me until I die. My name, like yours, is nothing more than a verbal identification tag that can be legally changed. So it's relatively unimportant. I'm here to tell you what it was like, what happened and what it's like now. What it was like was not overly bizarre. So if any of you have come here tonight to hear the lurid details of the drinking priest's past, you may as well go home because if I told you everything about my drinking, it would put you to sleep. My drinking put me to sleep often. I drank for ten years from the year I was ordained at the age of 24 until I was sent into treatment at the edge of 34. It was very unspectacular. I will share only enough of my drinking to let you know, and to let me know, that I belong here. My drinking was gradual. In the beginning, if anyone had told me that I had a drinking problem, I would have thought they were certainly not right. If I had taken a lie detector, I'm sure I'd have come out clean. But as the drinking progressed, I began to live the lie. When my superior first mentioned my drinking to me, and that should be an indication, if there's anybody here on the fence, just answer this question with a yes or no. Has anyone ever spoken to you about your drinking? people usually take a minimum of two years before they get the courage to do that anyway he said I heard that when I was first ordained I was sent to California to teach I was in seminary work and the boss used to come around to each of our seminaries and he interviewed each man on the faculty and he said I heard when you were home in Baltimore which is where I'm from he said I hear you did a little drinking is that true? I said yes I mean it wasn't spectacular it wasn' t out of the way but it was noticed I think that was the first and only time I ever told the truth about my drinking except when I went to see doctors and I was starkly truthful with them one of the things that indicates that we're getting a little bit dingy some jackass once said that we alcoholics are a cut above average intellectually there's so many of us here there's got to be a brain rattling around in here somewhere you know what gigantic problem used to baffle us when we were drinking how to get rid of empty bottles a child would look at you and say throw them out we save them and out west I had a walk-in closet in which I had two suitcases and I would fill those suitcases with empty bottles until they got full then you had to empty them but you know what is bothering these great intellects of ours What will the garbage man think? He's got problems of his own. Well, I would wait until the two suitcases got full and we were out in the country down in the Santa Clara Valley and we had a dump behind an old barn that had been converted into a gym. I'll show you how smart I was. I waited until the students were in class and I'd set out with these two suitcases. Of course, the house dress then was a cassock which is a long black kind of a garment that reaches to the ground. All the students had to do was look out the classroom windows and they would have seen Mrs. Martin's little boy with two suitcases long black cassocks heading into the hills. It never occurred to me that they might have thought that fairly strange. But I got down to the burial grounds and I buried those dead soldiers one at a time on top of the funeral pyre consoled by the fact that every one of those dead soldiers had a priest with him when he died. So, God, don't turn those lights out, please. I like to see... God, I can't tell where rocks are coming from or anything. That's about the only vaguely humorous thing that I can think of because my nerves began to get worse as the drinking got worse. And every time the boss came around and I used to almost die inside. I was hospitalized in 1956 in St. Mary's Hospital in San Francisco. I was just shaking to pieces, I thought, and I'm pretty sure that I was headed for a nervous breakdown. I spent three weeks in the hospital and the doctor I had knew little about alcoholism, but he was a wonderful, caring, compassionate man and his wisdom fit his name he was Dr. Solomon and I only wish I could have stayed in touch with him afterwards but he said to me one day suppose somebody came to you with a problem and you didn't quite have the answer what would you do? I said well I'd try to find it he said suppose you couldn't I said well I'd send them to somebody that I thought had the answer and he said well that's what I would like to do he said father would you be willing to see a psychiatrist I said of course he never once mentioned the word alcoholism he simply said to me well you've got to get something to occupy your time and I hope you take up golf or something well years later I once played nine holes. That cured me of that. Anyway, my closest priest friend drove up from the college to pick me up. We went to one of the fine San Francisco restaurants and began with the three double martinis, and it never occurred to me that there was anything wrong with that. My friends, ten days later, I was on an airplane flying back east by orders from our provincial superior. I was worse than when I entered the hospital. The significance of it is this. I believe that an alcoholic is anybody whose drinking makes problems in his life. This was April of a school year. Three other men had to pick up my classes, give exams, and correct them. All of that. I was transferred 3,000 miles. That has never happened to me as a result of eating French fries. It was alcohol. Alcohol. I could connect alcohol with the major problems of my life. The inner misery that was beginning to take place here. For the next two years before I went into treatment, I kind of slowly sank into a despair of kind because I literally tried to quit drinking and discovered that I couldn't. And the only thing that eased that pain was a little bit more of what caused it. And every time my superior would talk to me, I'd be so scared, I thought I'd keel over with a heart attack. Once with tears in his eyes, he said, What is it that you want? Name it. It's yours if it will help you stop drinking. And I just stared at him. Another time he said teaching seminarians and drinking just do not go together. And a third time, the poor man, he wanted so desperately to help me, but he knew as much as I did nothing. What are we going to do with you? And I was so scared. And during the last months of my drinking, I was afraid to say Mass six days a week. I would go down to morning prayers and meditation, go back to my room until breakfast. I'd lie on the bed, look at the ceiling, and just shake. I knew that God did not hate me. I knew then. I felt that in utter disgust He had just given up. And I was alone. somebody once said the alcoholic is alone in a crowd well whoever said that didn't even come close and you know what I'm saying actually we're not alone but that's our feeling I was just so scared Father McDonald called me again just before the Christmas holidays see if this has ever happened to you he said when the school let out I said the 20th he said I would like to see you I thought good God what's he going to say what have they been saying about me because he told me he was getting daily phone reports I walked into his office and he said have you been drinking no father I knew I was lying and of course he knew I was lying. I knew that he knew it and I couldn't say yes. Yes would not come out of my mouth. I believe that that's the most self-degrading thing that any human being can do because a lie is a prostitution of the mind, the soul. It's really a sin against one's own nature and I stood there like a fool wishing that the floor would swallow me. He put me in St. Agnes Hospital over the Christmas holidays just to keep me from drinking. I can remember Christmas afternoon looking out the window and thinking, what in the name of God are you doing here on a Christmas day? You ought to be home. My family all are in Baltimore. And I thought I was more evil than anyone else could have judged me. What's wrong with you? Why can't you do this? And in April of that year, he called me for the last time. And he didn't have me drive over to him. He drove over to the school. And I just thought, this is it. he'll just put me somewhere where I won't scandalize any students just one of our houses where I'll just live the rest of my days and he says son we're sending you away this summer now this is not punitive we just want you to be well and he told me about Guest House a sanatorium just for alcoholic priests that had been started by a layman when he said that 98% of my problem went right off my shoulder I've been waiting for two years to hear that you see I was not in denial those last two years I knew exactly what was wrong what I didn't know was anything about it and I knew less what to do about it on Sunday June 15, 1958 I flew to Detroit I was met by one of our priests a man who had taught me and he was then rector of a seminary near Guest House and Rip had allowed him to come down and bring me out there well Guesthouse is 75 miles from the airport and all the way out Father Fenn was trying to put my mind at ease telling me what a wonderful place it is and so on. When I stood at the front door of Guest House I felt I had a jump to touch bottom. I was empty. The only thing that could be done was to fill me up. And the man who met me at the door please bear with me I want to read you what he wrote. See if you hear anything in it, because this is a picture of me. The alcoholic, of course, is many things, as we all know. He is the world's supreme paradox. He drinks not because he would, but because he must. He does not drink for pleasure, he drinks to pain. Yet he drinks. He will mortgage the wealth of the future to pay off the debts of the past so that he may drink up the non-existent present. He is the only one in nature, I think, who seeks stimulation and a sedative only to find that it acts upon his nerves as excited misery. He seeks to inflate his puny little ego in the provocative wine of Bacchus and succeeds in shriveling his soul in a bitter gall of remorse. He escapes desperately to free himself from the facts of reality and runs headlong into the prison of fantasy. Success is just as fatal as failure to the alcoholic. He will drink with exhilaration to success and to sadness and misfortune. He drinks to get high in the evening knowing how low he will be in the morning. When the alcoholic smilingly gets to the first drink he can get, he is transported to heaven. And when he is unable to get the last drink he could pour, he is transferred to hell. The alcoholic, like most people, thrills to the beauty of life and then how frequently he seeks the ugliness of existence. When he is sober, he craves to be drunk. When he is drunk, he prays to be sober. Such is the weird paradox of the alcoholic that the only way in which he can feel better is to drink that which makes him feel worse. He starts out on his drinking no matter who he is with all the dignity of a king and winds up his drinking like a clown. so he goes his incredible incomprehensible paradoxical way leaving in his wake his human wreckage that which he does cherish most down the road of alcoholic oblivion he stumbles and staggers until he either finds himself at the door of AA or death intervenes that's a verbal photograph of my soul the day I walked into Guesthouse. What happened? It all changed with a handshake when Austin Ripley welcomed me to Guest House. You know what puzzles me is people who go through life without a sponsor. My God, we functioned alone drinking. Who would want to do that sober unless he wants to live his own life. Within five minutes of meeting that man, I wanted to be just like him. I wanted everything he had. And for those two reasons, I would have died to please him. If he had told me, Padre, for the first month, I want you to sleep on the floor every afternoon at 18 minutes after 2 I want You to blow Your nose I would have done it but I would've done it without asking why you see, I knew that He knew and within that 20 minute interview that I had with Rip God I can't define charisma but I know when I'm near it and He had it I've seen some of the most brilliant minds in the world follow him like little puppies. He's the greatest man I ever knew. And he gave me a piece of advice with your permission, I'd like to pass it on. He said, Father, I know all about your background and your education. He said it didn't work, did it? I said no. He said leave your brains right outside the door. We don't need brains to get sober. We need desire. Burning desire to be sober more than we want to be drunk. And in effect, He said, if you want what I've got, all you have to do are these twelve simple things. He didn't tell me quite how hard they were, but He said they were simple in the end. We then had a lovely supper. It was June. It was a beautiful summer evening and after supper I was walking up and down a driveway with a Father Charlie Curtin. He was a priest from Hartford, Connecticut who was about ready to go home. And he was a lovely, quiet man and he just gave the impression of peace. And He assured me of the good things that happened in Guest House. I was so excited at last, here it is. You know what's going on back here? I know you're excited now, but but will you be drinking ten years from now? And that was a very real fear. And a lot of people feel that until they hear and learn about living and staying sober only one day at a time. And there's only one way to learn to live a day at the time, and that's by living a day and a half. A day at that time. I went to my first AA meeting the next night. And walking into that room, I experienced a very sweet dependence on these people. A lot of people in the world, a lot of parents especially, try to teach their children, stand on your own two feet. No one on earth can do that. My God, we depend on supermarkets to stay alive. What do you mean stand on our own two feets? We need each other. I need you and you need me. and the fact that you need me makes me useful on this earth. And every person at that meeting who opened his mouth, I could identify with a bit of each one of them. It was an exciting time. We had two outside meetings and one in-house. You know what treatment was then? It was uncluttered. Old Doc Green gave his lectures on the nature of the disease and I took notes on those lectures and that's where the chalk talk came from. And Austin Ripley explained AA. He knew Bill and Dr. Bob intimately and I like to boast to myself that my sobriety came from Bill and Dr. Rob's second hand, not 100,000, second hand through Rip. Rip was an unusual man. Came into AA in 1940. The big book was only out one year. AA was only five years old. He read the Anderson article on AA in the Saturday Evening Post, and he called AA in Washington. And three people came and put him in the hospital. And he said, give up on me, I'm going to die this way. I intend to get drunk when I get out of this hospital. And one old man, you just call him Bugler Bill, he said to hell with him, he'll never make it, and he left. But one man stuck with him. He did get out of the hospital, he did get drunk, and this fellow put him back in. And every time Rip opened his eyes, that man was seated on a chair at the foot of his bed. He said, don't you work? And the man said, yes. He was a pharmacist. But every spare minute he was in that hospital room. And Rip said, what do you want? Everybody wants something. Well, he said, I want to see you get sober. well Rip had heard that from family and employers and friends but never from a stranger and that stuck with him when he got well enough to go home and he lived in a little town outside of Eau Claire and he called and there was one meeting and he went to it Rip never drove a car in his life his wife drove him down and it was in a small house in a very little bitty room up over a bar and when he went in there were four old fellas there ordinary men and Rip sat there and listened to them and he kept looking at his wife finally he said well when in the hell does this meeting start and one of them said what do you mean start you've been in it for 20 minutes and he couldn't grasp that he said do you want me to tell you do you need to tell me this is what this great movement is all about this AA business and a man said what did you think it was about and Rip was so intrigued with it took a solid year of his life off to get to meet and know and probe the minds and hearts of Bill and Dr. Bob and he passed on to me everything he learned from them and I've learned one thing in the last 35 years everything he taught me was right and I try to follow Dr. Bobs keep it simple partially because it appeals, and partially because I'm too lazy to pursue anything else. The Twelve Steps. It is my passionate belief that the depth and the seriousness with which I live the AA way of life depends directly on the depth and the seriousness with which I accept my condition. It's almost amusing and treatable when you hear somebody say, well, I did the first step, I'm on two now. We're never finished with the first step. It lives with us until we die. Step one is a growing awareness of my condition I am an alcoholic. I cannot drink alcohol. I drink, I die. And that conviction just deepens every day of my life. I live with it, I sleep with it. Powerless. Very, very difficult for people. Well, I didn't get drunk every time I drank. Neither did I. What do you mean by powerless? Look at the record in its entirety. Does your drinking get a plus or a minus? I always like to ask our patients have you ever in your entire life drunk more than you determined you were going to drink if it's more than one sign up bunkie and yet we find it very often so difficult I had no problem with that our lives have become unmanageable a lot of people have terrible terrible problems with that writers, creative people you know I could still read a book I could write a book I could run a company my friends I know that thoughts of alcohol occupied 90-95% of my waking thought it controlled my mind it determined the people I like to be around and those I like to avoid. It dragged me around by the nose. Alcohol, an inanimate object. You know, remember from science class, the definition of a liquid? It's a substance that takes the shape of its container. It doesn't even have shape. And it controlled our lives. Determined the restaurants we went into and those we stayed away from. My life was not manageable on the surface yet. But it controlled everything in here. I believe that the greatest blessing that God can give an alcoholic is to have him look into a mirror and experience an undeniable, overwhelming desire to vomit because he can't stand what he's looking at. When I hurt bad enough to want to stop the hurt, then I'll do something. my drinking looked like a girl scout picnic compared with many of yours and yet I had all the hell I wanted well what are we going to do about it that's a negative isn't it I can't drink my body can't handle alcohol what's all that mean I remember one night in an AA meeting in Baltimore a man said you know what's wrong with me my filter is busted I've made as much sense to me as any of the scientific stuff. It means that when I swallow alcohol, my body doesn't filter the way other peoples do. I just can't handle alcohol. When I drink it, it handles me. I've always said it's hard to be good even when it's easy. Drug your conscience for 10 or 15 years and and see what kind of a pig you turn into. What does an ordinary human being want? Don't we want to be normal and be decent? You don't have to read a psychology book. What do your parents want for your children? They want to Be Good and Be Happy. There's only one way to be happy, that's by being good. Didn't we prove it by doing the opposite? Where did our unhappiness come from? from the way we were living, dictated by our addiction. I wanted out of that. I wanted to be normal. I wanted it to be like ordinary people. I wanted a good life. I wanted me to be decent. I wanted her to be respected. I wanted respect myself. I wanted him to be able to love and be loved. I wanted them to be in control of myself. So I went to this meeting and very quickly looking at people like you who have gotten well I came to believe that I could get that way too it was very quick hope you know Mike Deaver went through our place he makes no bones about it he's written about it and he has a wonderful saying he picked up from someone despair not at the door hope answered and no one was there my despair went right out the window I knew I knew there was hope I knew I could get well because I was looking at it in people who were in one way I guess a whole lot worse off than I was and they got well ahead of me and this is that binding force we do need each other A Restoration to Sanity. I was privileged to meet Bill Wilson once. My only regret was that I had only two years of sobriety instead of 20 so that I could have appreciated it more. But I heard him explain what he meant by the insanity of the alcoholic. It's not the nutty things we did when we were drinking. Non-alcoholics will perform drugged acts when they're drugged. the insanity of the alcoholic is when he is physically sober and begins again to put into his system a substance that is killing him I know there are people who have trouble with God and so you know Bill when he first wrote The Twelve Steps he changed one thing in it he had written we came to believe that God could restore society. And that was so threatening to people, some, who were living in a way that they knew God didn't want them to live, but they simply said there is none. So he put a much more generic term of power greater than ourselves. And I always tell, especially our patients, if you're having trouble with accepting a higher power than you, when you go up to your room and look in the bathroom mirror, And if you can't come to the conclusion very quickly that somewhere there's got to be something bigger than what you're looking at, you are sick. What is a power greater than self? Too often I've heard this from good AA members. I know what they're saying, but, well, if you don't have a God, try that coffee cup. I don't belong to Coffee Cups Anonymous, I belong to Alcoholics Anonymous. People get people sober. Try the power of the group. Isn't that why we tell people to go to meetings? Because there are coffee cups there or because there are examples of sobriety there? If you had told me that I could get sober through the power of a coffee cup, I'd have kissed you goodbye. You see, I've got one of them at home. Try the power of the group. That's a power greater than I am. It's a Power Greater Than Any Individual. You know, the magnificence of A.A., the brilliance of Bill Wilson, when he wrote the steps, he numbered them. Two comes after one. If you know how to count, you can get well. You do one of them after the other. But then the wording of the steps, watch what happens to a human soul that is in the pit of slavery from the bottle. Out of fear we refer to a power greater than ourselves but as the compulsion to drink and alcohol disappears in the third step we say God as we understood him I'm a Catholic priest I have a background of theology I'm not here talking as one I'm talking as an alcoholic and I share my beliefs and I listen to you when you share yours I believe in a God a supreme being and I believe that he acts through people in one of many different ways that he asks you come to step five admitted to God step seven humbly asked him notice the references as we get weller the farther away we come from what separates us from God the soul is like a homing pigeon it goes back to where it belongs power greater than ourselves God as we understood Him just plain gob, and then the warm personal hymn. You see, we have no need to fear love itself once we get rid of our irrational alcoholic fears. I always tell our patients, don't ever lose two fears, the fear of our own human weakness and the fear of alcohol. I don't fear alcohol, I respect it. Oh, horses. I hope I die with the solid fear that a drink will kill me. The day I lose that fear, God knows what I'm going to try to do. You just heard the words, didn't you? Powerful, baffling, cunning, it's waiting. And you know the most frightening words that Bill ever said to us? Be on guard against the unguarded moment. When nothing stands between you and a drink except those hundreds and thousands of meetings that will instinctively make you run. If I stand up and fight it, I lose. You know what we alcoholics are like when we're drinking? Otherwise intelligent men and women who climb into a boxing ring with a champion every day and get beat up. And we keep doing it. Sixteen years of this. Here we are crawling toward the ring. How can I not get beat up today? and A.A. leans over our shoulder and says, don't get in the ring. If you don't take a drink, you can't get drunk. That's, you know, the simplicity of it. But I have to believe that a power stronger than I am can give me the strength not to get in. then we make a decision to turn our lives over to the care of God what's God's care for me? the program once I decide to adopt AA I have automatically placed myself under the care of God now I have to spend every day thereafter carrying out that decision you know the beauty of AA it is a classical blueprint for rational living You know how mature people function? They prepare before they execute. But not us. Lots of pep, no judgment. There's a wonderful story, I've never heard a better one, that describes us. An Alitalia airplane took off from New York for Rome. And it's in the air about an hour when you're familiar with the whoosh and the PA system comes on, then the voice. Hello! This is your pilot. I've got two announcements to make to you. One is a good news, one is a bad. I give you the bad news first. We're lost. He said, I've no idea where we could be. He said hold on for the good news. We're making a damn good of time. Perfect picture of the alcoholic in action. he has no notion where he's going but he's getting there quick AA grabs the spot of the seat of the pants and says hold on Bunky, easy does it to illustrate preparation before execution the animals of Africa were having a ball game, football game and the zebra's team was playing the rhino's team rhino kicked off, zebra brought it out the ten, three plays later nothing had to punt now zebras are good kickers and he banged that thing clear in the other end zone. Well, the Rhino grabbed it. Now, you know they're not known for good vision. So there was no broken field, dazzling open field running. He spotted the opposite goal post, took aim, knocked everybody down, scored. And that's the way the game went. Halftime, 56-0 in favor of the RhINO. Of course, the Zebra's team is demoralized. They come out for the second half. The Zebra had a kickoff. Rhino grabbed a store at upfield. He got to the three-yard line, and down he went as if he had been shot. He got up and staggered. They had to take him out and replace him with an alligator. Meantime, on the zebra's team, they're all saying, Who tackled the rhino? Well, it wasn't the lion. It wasn't a cheetah. It wasn' the bamboo. On and on it went. Finally, they heard this little voice from the ground. I did. I hit the rhINO. and they looked and they saw a little helmet about the size of a half dollar they lifted the helmet and under it was a one inch long centipede you hit the rhino he says yeah no sweat they said where were you during the first half he said putting my shoes on you prepare before you execute watch AA step one we admit we're sick we take the medicine to get well we come into a room and we look at well people we come to believe we can get that way we make a decision to turn our lives over to God's care we carry it out every day when we open our eyes we take an inventory and then make known the bad we become willing to have faults removed than we ask. We become willing to make amends than we do. Being what we are, holding membership cards of the human race, we continue to fall down and continue to admit wrong. And that watched the progression from step one up to eleven. This is written by two alcoholics. They determined to deepen their love affair with God and they do so through prayer now the first eleven steps are nothing more than a preparation for the twelfth which is to carry out our human nature by loving one another four and five are the fifth step was the single most difficult thing I have ever done in my life I went to Austin Ripley one afternoon and I said, Rip would you hear my fifth step as soon as I said it I wanted to shove it right back down my throat I don't want this man to know me not that well the exact nature of our wrongs. You see every one of us is three I am who you think I am that's fairly accurate what you see is what you get with me now I am who I think I am a little more accurate I've lived with me longer than you have then there's me the real me I'm asked in the fourth step you know AA is the only therapy that I know of that recognizes morality the rightness and wrongness of human behavior we are told to take a moral inventory of our lives we find that there's much good in our lives I'm very proud of a lot of the things that I've done I'm ashamed of a whole lot of things I'm really ashamed of a load of the things I've got the fourth step lets me know what I've got and my friends please God never made a nothing I believe that to deny the gifts that God has given us is a direct insult to him. And this is what I can't stand. Most people don't know how to accept a compliment. If you get a compliment for something, just say thank you. Have you ever been to a party and there's a piano player there and you want to sing and you go up and say, hey, we'd like to do some singing. Would you play the piano for us and you'll get one of these? Oh, I don't play very well. Next time you hear that, say excuse me, I thought you did. And walk away. Go to an AA meeting, some guy gives a rousing talk, and you go up and say, I want to thank you for your talk tonight. It helped me. Oh, I wasn't really prepared. You say, you know, on second thought, it did stink. In other words, if you want to know if someone is honest, agree with them when he knocks himself. I think it is an insult to God to deny the gifts he has given us but God grant me the serenity to accept everything you've given me acknowledging where it came from and how and why it's to be used what I haven't got this is very very hard a lot of us like to think we have talents that we don't have there's a psychiatrist friend of mine in Washington, D.C., whenever he got drunk, he sang and he thought he was the predecessor of Pop. And people got so disgusted with his off-key voice that one night at a party somebody taped him, played it to him the next day and he wanted to leave town. We do have to acknowledge what we don't have and that's what makes us interdependent on each other. I'm liable to say something to a brand new alcoholic and turn him off and somebody else come up and say exactly the right thing and bring him around I'm strong and I'm weak you're strong and you're weak but my strength one day will help your weakness and your strength one way one day helps mine that's the way God built us to be dependent on each other It's a beautiful thing. I believe that the most certain and sure way to humility is through humiliation. And I find that there was nothing in my life more humiliating than taking my fifth step. You see, one other human being knows the real me. there's a lot of therapy in that God the wisdom of AA why do we have to become willing to get rid of our faults they're our friends I've spent my lifetime acquiring mine I'm congenitally lazy I don't want to be energetic I like to watch other people sometimes I'm just not willing to get rid of some of my shortcomings to me the most difficult ongoing working of this way of life is 6 and 7 humbly ask God to rid me of my shortcomings. You know the old saying, don't ask, you're liable to get. I think that one of the universal shortcomings of all human beings is impatience. And very often I'm not really aware of being impatient except internally until you say something in a snappy way and you see that it has hurt somebody. Oh dear God, please make me more patient. age 35 happens again look Lord I'm serious I mean come on age 48 hey look I'm half way there I need patience age 56 I'm seriously I'm curious Lord and when you get up in your 70's it's getting late and he's up there saying I'm trying I'm crying please try to understand what I learned if God were simply to remove my impatience I'd get no credit for any kind of effort at all God removes our shortcomings like He removed our compulsion to drink He said, I'll give you the strength now you have to use it you want to be patient? I'll gives you the strenght to be patience and then I'll supply hundreds of opportunities to use them. Have you ever heard somebody tear into an AA meeting? Oh, geez, I had the worst day of my life. Everything went wrong. Boy, do I need a meeting. And he begins to enumerate all the things that happened to him. And there's usually one old quiet reserved AA sitting there who says, sounds to me like God gave you a dozen opportunities to grow and you blew them all. And so often, that's part of my life anyway, making amends. We owe a lot, and we are owed a lot. How many alcoholics have been condemned and brutalized verbally by people whose ignorance makes them say things dictated by their ignorance. We have been hurt. Now suppose I owe one to you and you owe one of me. Who goes first? I do. This has helped me immensely. I believe that most people to whom we apologize are gentle and kind and understanding and compassionate. Austin Ripley worked for Look Magazine. He was a writer. And by his own admission, he was a very arrogant drunk. And he said, I owed apologies to everybody in that organization. And he flew from Chicago to New York to the Look building and he made appointments with everyone from the CEO up top to the doorman. where Rip had the soul of a saint and the tongue of a poet he could sell refrigerators to Eskimos and he was explaining to these people this disease and what it had done to him and what had turned him into and he told them with all the sincerity in his soul that he was genuinely sorry for having caused them grief and they were all more than forgiving except one man made him wait for 20 minutes when he came in he said Ripley what do you want and Rip told him and when he finished the man took the pipe out of his mouth and he looked at him he said Ripley you were an SOB then and you're still one get out of my office he was crushed he was hurt and he was angry and he pressed the elevator button he wanted to go down get a cab go to the airport and fly back home But while he was waiting for the elevator, these thoughts hit him. Haven't you forgotten the forgiveness you've been given? Haven't You forgotten the Forgiveness You Must Yet Ask For? And then he came to a realization that man didn't have to accept his apology. He said, I had to give it. and when the elevator came he pressed to the next floor and went on with it. I learned a great deal from that man I don't know quite how faithfully I follow him. Prayer has been a part of my life from the beginning but it kind of astounds me some. Did you ever notice when you're sober three weeks you suddenly become a spiritual expert? where AA is a spiritual movement, it's not a religion, and so one's good and one's evil. Bill Wilson said this to Austin Ripley. Whatever you were before you got sober, you ought to be a better one afterwards. I've heard people say, my social life has improved, my family life has approved, my work life has proved. Very rarely do you hear a word about their faith. AA is absolutely embarrassed by people who substituted for their religion. They say, I'm not your religion. I'm going to open the door to God by setting you free. Now you take it from there. They go hand in glove. My faith means more to me than it ever has. having had a spiritual awakening oh yeah, don't compare prayer please you know why there are different kinds well meditation is a whole lot better than memorized prayer isn't it? have you ever meditated after major surgery? have you every meditated with a toothache? you know what I mean you know how there are different kinds of prayer for the same reason or different kinds of clothing. You don't wear a bikini up in the Arctic. You don'T wear a parka down on the equator. I remember once after the Second Vatican Council when people were supposed to grow up spiritually, this was written up in Newsweek. A young priest in Missouri got up in a pulpit one Sunday and took a rosary and pulled it apart. He said, It's time for this type of rote prayer to go. I have news for that young man in the last two years my drinking rosary is the only chain that bound me to heaven don't ever knock the prayers you said when you were drunk there was nothing flowery about them they were the best prayers you ever said aren't you here he answered them I believe that the cry of a soul in pain is music to the ear of God. What do you mean by a spiritual awakening? This is Bill Wilson's definition. Look at yourself now. Look at your life now. Look at myself in the middle of your last escapade. Do you see a difference? Isn't there a difference in thinking and attitude and feeling and functioning. How did that come about? By trying to work this way of life, by trying to live it. And it amuses and often angers me when people refer to... You hear this in married couples. You work your program and I will work mine. There's only one program. And if you've got one, it's not the right one. That is. How do I live that? Not my interpretation of that. You know what Austin Ripley's definition of sobriety is? Look for the man or woman who would have been if alcohol or drugs had not entered his or her life. I always say plus, the plus that only suffering can bring. We use horse manure to fertilize plants and pain as the fertilizer of human growth. And I think that it is the most wasted resource on earth. We waste it by letting it use us instead of making ourselves use it to grow. well having had this change what do we do with it we tried to carry the message to our colleagues have you ever heard this in AA oh yeah the guy a couple of doors down from me has a terrible drinking problem but he knows where I am and he knows I'm in AA he knows when to come when he wants to you know what we're saying out of this side of our mouths we say he has a disease of body mind emotional soul and out of this side of her mouth would say, but I'm not going to help him until he comes begging. Ladies and gentlemen, that 12th step does not say we tried to carry this message to alcoholics who picked up the phone, called AA, and begged us to. A non-alcoholic saved my life by sending me to treatment. The fifth tradition is almost frightening. Each group has but one primary purpose to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers. People who are against intervention are blind to 12 and 5. AA is a difficult way of life. Every day at AA is not Christmas. But Bill Wilson, paradoxically, we're speaking of the paradox of the alcoholic, he had to start with the 12th step in order to find the first eleven. And we live the first eleventh so that we have something to offer. He was the man who dreamed the impossible dream and fought the unbeatable foe. He bore with unbearable sorrow and ran where the brave dared not go. But he knew if he'd only be true to his glorious quest that his heart would lie peaceful and calm when laid to its rest. And the world has been better for this. One man, scorned, covered with scars, still strove with his last ounce of courage till he reached the unreachable star of sobriety. Men and women have been looking for it for centuries. But in the process, he had his human nature restored to him. What is human nature? a reflection of God. And so when he stood on the top of that mountain of sobriety, his heart was too big to keep it to himself. So he acted like God. If God is explanatory of His own happiness, why did He create? Well, only God knows and He won't tell. The only thing theologians can do is look and describe what they're looking at and the only thing they can come up with is goodness tends to go out. It tends to diffuse itself all over and that's what Bill did. If he had not gone too, don't we know how it all began? Dr. Bob didn't call him. He called Dr. Bobby. Do you know a drunk I can talk to? And when all else fails, that's the one thing that kept him sober and that will keep us sober. I learned a lot from Austin Ripley. The convictions I have are mine that I got from him. I made them mine. There's a friend of mine by the name of Carol Hinn who is now dead. I knew Carol for about 30 years. and he had a wonderful way of stating A.A. When somebody would be having difficulties, he'd all, well, I've heard him wind up every meeting with this line. You know, when I first came to this program, they told me if I said my prayers, went to meetings, and didn't take a drink, I could stay sober. He said that's worked for me for 29 1⁄2 years. I think I'll try it again tomorrow. so I hope I try it again tomorrow and I hope you try it again tomorrow tomorrow I'll be on Long Island then I'll go home Friday but right now it's time to say goodbye to you and I hate it I've spent the last twenty years saying hello and goodbye and I'm in an age now when And I don't wonder when I'll get back, but if I'll get back. And it's not overwhelming, it's not overburdening, but it is a sad part of my life. You see, when I leave here tonight, I'll be richer than anyone in this room because God and His goodness through AA, has given me all of you. It's the likes of you that keeps the likes of me going. Rip had a wonderful expression. He used to say, The tongue is silent, it is mute, when it comes to the impossible task of expressing the simplest feelings of the heart. the words I love you mean something different every time they're spoken if I say I love you how can you really know what I mean there are some words from Roger Whitaker's wonderful song The Last Farewell that come closest they don't come close but they come closest of an evening. For you are beautiful and I have loved you dearly, more dearly than the spoken word can tell. So, a couple hours I'll be gone. You'll go home. but I wish we could keep each other there's an old friend of mine many years dead now Walter O'Keefe used to be an old radio early TV entertainer and he had a saying that I've adopted for myself come live in my heart and pay no rent. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Don't sit down yet. I've got to break the order here just a little bit because yesterday was his birthday. So, Father Joe... we would like you all to join us in wishing him a happy birthday happy birthday to you happy birthday to you happy birthday Father Joe happy birthday to you I was 69 yesterday. You know, they tell the story of three old ladies in a nursing home and they're complaining about their memory. And the first one said, you know, I have one foot in the tub and one on the floor for the life of me. I can't remember whether I already took a bath or I'm about to and the second one said well I'll stop at a landing and I forget whether I'm going up or coming down and the third one said doesn't bother me I have a wonderful memory knock on wood was that the front door or the back I'll be going back to the home on Friday I'll remember you all this is one of the best birthdays I've ever had thanks so much