The Rebellious Youth and the Lowerarchy of AA – Jay S.

So let's be quiet for a minute together before we wrap this thing up. Thank you. Thank you. So when it comes to step 12, we have the entire body of kitchen table AA with gumbo all about. Duck gumbo. Duck gumvo. With no shotgun pellets. Not canal duck either. Not canal buck either. And nobody who speaks English had anything to do with the preparation of this meal. but we'll talk for just a few minutes on step 12 Sam Shoemaker who was Bill Wilson's spiritual mentor said that in order to get a spiritual experience you had to give it away you did not know what it was until you have given it away. He's in the process of the giving that one receives. Okay? And one of the difficulties in the fellowship is that there are lots of people who have never actually given this stuff away. And they say, well, I can't. I've tried it a few times and it hasn't worked well. Bill Wilson worked with hundreds of people his first six months of sobriety and no one got sober. Why should it be any different for us? Why should it be anything different for them? As I said, the overarching philosophy of this entire kitchen table thing that we do is that if they're sick enough to ask you for help you can't possibly hurt them. that the higher power is in charge God is everything at a question it says isn't higher power always there ever present yes I'm the present omnipotent omnipoten and so we don't have to worry all we're doing is showing up you know it's the higher powers responsibility I'm not can you imagine trying to take responsibility for built Cleveland sobriety and you said yes in the Akron manual it says you are absolutely responsible for my life for your life for saving your life but not for that I don't know I think ladies my apologies to ladies anyway so and and so that's the that's the overarching thing in this is that another thing that they are they always you see in the Oxford group if you're not winning your Senate when Sam Shoemaker had his crisis and asked Frank Bookman to help him with this group of Chinese students what Frank said to him was what's wrong with you that you can't transmit the message so you know if you not transmuting the message maybe there's something you haven't finished up and we've talked about all those steps in detail lastly this uh this is the great pleasure this is the great um this is the great joy if you ever meet someone you know i mentioned pray and meditate the way that you used to drink drink and use, just try stuff and see what happens. And you will come across, I've come across lots and lots of people, I've been involved in many, many splendid groups of spiritual-seeking groups. And all of them at one point or another said, well, Jay, why don't you come along with us now? Because that AA is, it's human consciousness, It's not really that great a thing. And they will never understand, and you will never win an argument with anybody about AA being spiritually sound because they're not alcoholic, and they don't need to know. They have their level of understanding, and that's fine, but we do what every spiritual master ever said to do. we feed the hungry, we clothe the naked, we go to the hospitals, we go into the prisons, but what we really do is we raise the dead. I think I'd like to do something worthwhile with my life. Why don't you just come along and I'll teach you how to raise the deaf. Be a Lazarus. Huh? Be a Lazarus. Bill's dad said and he died with 45 years of sobriety Gordon used to say that every woman and man in this room there is a person whose life you have the power to save and if you aren't here available on Alcoholics Anonymous when that person comes through the door what will happen to them because it's your story not mine that will leave them out of the darkness. Part of the illusion about this format that we have and this celebration of sponsorship is that there is hierarchy, as you can see. I get corrected frequently by members of the lowerarchy and the rebellious youth. The newcomer. And, but I want you to know that the Alcoholics Anonymous that I came into in 1979, that the alcoholics anonymous in 2011 is far superior. The evolution of spirit, the effectiveness, the amount of people that are carrying the message, the availability of the message is far superiour. and that my job is to share this with somebody and to give them the tools so that they are a better AA member than I was. Matthew has more information than I ever had at 18 because of what's happened and the people that he sponsors and that we're sponsoring now. So this is not hierarchical. The reason that we spend this time and that our families are generous enough to share us with you is so that you can become better A.M. members than we are. And I know these guys. Believe me, they were nothing special when I met them. That's enough out of me. So I want to just give an example about some of the things that Jay said. and we do three days on sponsorship. Some of you have been there for that, but I just want to give an example of the effect in my life and just a snapshot. One of the things, when I read the book with a guy, we usually get at least to where Jim and Fred are drinking. Jim owned the car dealership and then he goes out of town to find somebody to buy a car. I just love his thinking. I'm going to go away from the humans to find a customer. but one of the things that's interesting that always kind of sends a chill down my spine is it says in there all went well for a while for Jim but he failed to enlarge his spiritual life and so a few years ago I sponsored this guy named Liver Mike we called him Liver Mike because when he drank he turned bright yellow like yield sign yellow because he had no liver left. And they knew, when I was sponsoring him, he was doing okay, but he knew from the doctors if he drank again, he would die. Well, he wound up in a hospital about two blocks from my house, ready to die. He was in ICU and in a coma, an alcoholic coma. He had filled up every wastebasket in his house with his own blood that he was vomiting up. And they found him and drug him off at his hospital. And I had been to visit him when he first got in there. He couldn't hear me, or I don't know if he could hear me. He was in a coma. And you know, it's hard to get into ICU if you're not a member of the family, but Mike's family drank themselves to death, the whole family. So I would say, hey, you know he's in here in an alcoholic coma. I'm his sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous. Do you think maybe I could see him? And they'd take my card and stick it in his you know I have to convince the nurse and go in to see him and he lied there you know he's In a Coma. So I promised him one day that I'd come visit him every day. And I was so mad at myself for making that promise. So this one day, I'm up in Pasadena, which is about, on a good day, about half an hour from Long Beach where I live. I'm working in Pasadaena and it's raining and that doesn't happen very often in Southern California so I took it really personally. And my doctors were being real jerks. I'm trying to talk to these doctors and it just seemed like, I don't know. My wife calls them broken shoelace days, but everything was frustrating. and I was in a bad mood and I knew I was in a particularly bad mood because Derek and the Dominoes version of Layla came on my radio and that's a masterpiece of rock and roll and I said God this song is so stupid I've overestimated it my entire life you know and that just to give you a spiritual temperature I know I know Dwayne Allman and Eric Clement were like these guys are hacks and so I'm in a bad spot and I'm driving down and i remembered my promise to mike and i'm like oh crap i don't want to go to the hospital you know it's raining everybody in california thinks it's rainy we must tailgate and so i'm trying to keep my company car from yeah that's what i thought he's in a coma he won't know but when i have these thoughts i often remember that alcoholics anonymous is a place the first church i've ever been to where they showed me and they didn't tell me they just show you they don't say go on panels they go come on we're going on a panel they don't say take your commitment jay with 30 something years of sobriety is the greeter at the monday night meeting he's showing me people from coming in because they don t want to yeah they see jay and they run to the next one and he swept up the house the other day i just watched jay and they showed me and so i knew i had to go and i did not want to i was you know why i didn't want And I want to be honest, I didn't give a shit about the guy. I had nothing for him. I'd love to tell you I'm full of love for all these newcomers. It's just some days I barely can stand them. And I was mad because he's going to die now of alcoholism. He didn't have to. So in my bad altered state, I was like, I don't want to go see this guy. I just don't wanna. But I knew I was gonna. My car went there. You know, my house, I Was trying to go to my house but my car's like, aren't we going to see Mike? So I actually sat in the parking lot in the rain and I had a really nice suit on And I thought, I don't want to walk in the rain. I was telling myself all these reasons I did not have to see this guy in a coma. So I go in there and it's a rainy day in Southern California. An ICU at a small hospital is probably the most depressing place. These nurses don't love their jobs. They're watching people die all the time. They're standing there and there's a whole new crop so I got to argue with them about who I am and why I should see this guy. And I don' t even want to see him so it's hard for me to get behind my own argument. And I go on there and say yeah I know he did I'm not next to Ken but he really doesn't have next to ken and if I think my cards in there she turned the page of like four of my business cards in the stapled and I said that's me she said okay you can go see him and every time I asked him I go how's he doing they'd all look at their shoes so you know he's not coming out of there so I went in there and it's dark in his room because he's in a coma he doesn't need any lights and I'm sitting at the end of his bed and I've got his mouth on he's a great big guy his arms are strapped down, and he's got no teeth. I'm looking at his mouth, and I remember he used to tell me he hated dentists, and I didn't realize he had false teeth because his teeth were gone. And I'm look at him and thinking about the day, and it's just dark in there, and I'm feeling terrible. Nothing's gone right. Again, I'm going back to that place. I got the wrong job. I'm a crappy husband. I'm lookin' at him, and I thought I'd give him 15 minutes. So it's been about 15 minutes, and I stand up and I walk up next to the bed and I'm looking at him more closely because I'm a little curious you know I've never seen someone die of alcohol right in front of me and I lean over and I slip my hand into his hand and he sat bolt upright and he went I almost shit my pants and I was like yeah and he and he squeezed my hand and he looked around the room like he was looking around lost in the forest he didn't know where we were and he's holding me he's got my hand and he looks at me and he kind of, his gaze falls on me and he says why do you love me so much? And a minute ago I didn't. And I looked right at him in his eyes and one of those days where you don't know why you say what you say and I said because you're just like me. You're just like me and I felt that room fill up with light. I felt my heart fill up with life he felt it too and we sat there for a while he was toxic from his liver so he couldn't make any sense and he laid back down and I hung out with him and I walked out that door and thanked God for that guy thank you God for this guy everything lined up the universe lined up I had not failed to enlarge my spiritual life I didn't want to go you don't have to want to go i didn't do anything i sat there and judged his dental work that was my function and and i happened to stop by the side of his bed so he could grab me and impart to me a spiritual experience any one of us could have had it i just floated home I'm going to be the best man at Mike's wedding in December he's sober he's alive we don't worry about him all the time but I don't know how that happens I don' t know where else this happens they say that you've got to give it away to keep it. No. You've got to give it away to even get it. If you're not giving it away, you don't have it. The way you find that out is by doing it. he raised me in AA and he called me one night in the middle of the night and he said God is drunk in Wilmington and he needs us now I've taken a lot of acid hung out with some strange people and I don't remember anything stranger than that and he came and got me and we drove down to Wilmington on this 12 step call and he's giggling all the way, I'm scared to death because we're going to Wilmingham in the middle of the night which is not a friendly place and he says giddy like a teenager and that began a series of midnight rides He would take me on 12-step calls with him and laugh and giggle about it. This is going to be fun. We're having a good time. This is fun. It's not serious stuff. We get to point and laugh at the alcoholic, give him some shit and listen to a great story and take him to the Ilano Club or something's going to happen. It's an adventure. It's a new adventure. And then pretty soon it was my turn to take somebody, you know. It was my time to call a guy up and say something weird. Which is fun to do, you now. I got this one guy one time, it was Memorial Day, and Memorial Night on the weekend, Saturday night. And this guy Derek with me and we get in the car in the car, and I go, we got a half a tank of gas and a half a pack of cigarettes. We're on a mission from God. Now when do you get to actually say that? Live it! And then burn rubber on it. Yeah! Here we go, man. And just crazy stuff. if you open your heart to this work because there is no other job in AA there's nothing else to do should everybody sponsor people? absolutely, there's nothing else to do well there's all kinds those are activities we're talking about the action now you want to change your life if I want to change my life get rid of caller ID quit screening your calls have faith that whoever is calling you is supposed to talk to you that's why they're calling it's not a mistake you know answer the phone no matter what you're doing no matter which time it is no matter whether your favorite rerun of Law and Order is on and you're watching it, you know? It's like, what's more important than answering the phone to whoever might be on the other line? I'm not hiding from anybody. I don't have any secrets to keep. You just answer the phone all the time. That simple fact alone. I mean, some of you are sitting out there going, oh God, I can't do that. You've got to look. I don'T want to talk to him or her. They're a pain in the ass, you Know? And just answer the phone. Don't look anymore. Just answer the phone. That'll change your life. Rule number two. Rule number two. Just my opinion. I love that. Rule number two. Never say no. Have faith that what they're asking you to do is what you're supposed to do. Whatever it is. Whether it's in or out of AA. Whatever it ist. Just whatever it is, have faith that your life is being directed. One of the things that we talked about in the first step is that my life had become unmanageable. My life doesn't need to be managed. It just unfolds. I mean, it's obvious what I'm supposed to go through. do. They call me and ask me all the time. And I go, well yeah, okay. Sure, why not? You know. I mean sometimes you get to come to Louisiana which we just love to come down here. We love you people. And I mean that seriously. We love the warmth and the hospitality and we love the humor. We just love it down here, we love the food, we like the music. There's nothing about this place that we don't like. But there are quite a few rednecks here. but we try to get that right and there might be some in the room here you know you know who you are and then other times you end up in rialto california which is not a happy you know bakersfield isn't a classic one but you know it all works i mean it's all about me getting in the car. Now, if you open your heart to this word, I promise you something. Whatever prejudice you have, whatever it is, will walk across the room and ask you for help. Now you have a decision to make. Send it away. If you want to hang on to the prejudice, if you want to keep your life small send it away and you can find a lot of support for sending it away there are people that will back you up yeah man, we don't have to work with people like that whatever it is you can fine support for it you find a whole bunch of people you find alot of people that would tell you well I don't sponsor people, I do other things it's just not my thing and my feeling about that is what other things what replaces that what replaces that story what could you do that would replace that story and all of us have those stories he's got more than one I mean I've had I mean I'm serious stunning experiences I mean things that just like shook me to the floor experiences that I've had and they're my experiences when you relate them it doesn't come across like when you're standing there one of the early ones I was probably three years sober maybe four I don't think more than that and I'm sponsoring lots of guys I'm real active and I've got this guy Al and this is before cell phones and stuff and Al was taking care of his mother who was dying and this was not a really nice woman she was a pretty ugly situation they didn't have any health insurance He had other family members, but nobody was willing to do it. And this guy was changing her diapers and popping her hip back into place and doing all this stuff, and he wasn't doing it gracefully. He'd yell at her and stuff and then feel guilty and then come and talk to me about it. And I'm observing this from afar. I'm not going to the house and seeing her and staff because I don't know anything about this. I don'T know what's going on. There's limitations, right? There's boundaries, right ? You know, there's some things that we just don't have to do. It's your life. It's not really got anything to do with me. I don't want to insert myself into a clearly very intimate and delicate situation. So, you know, I'm basically scared shitless so I can stay out of it, you know? And I have no idea what to do about it. I have nothing to do anything like this. And he's bringing me some information that's just stunning. And I'm, like, impressed by what he's doing, yet I can't really show him that because I'm the sponsor and he's the sponsee. I'm his spiritual guide, right? so I'm playing this role. So they finally take her to the hospital, and he leaves the hospital and leaves my phone number with him because he's coming to my house, and she's in the throes of death. And he's really agitated about all this. He doesn't know what to do. It's a new experience for him. So he's standing in my kitchen, and we're talking about the situation, and the phone rings. It's the hospital. And they're essentially telling him, Al you better get over here she doesn't have much time left you better come back and so he tells me that but he's not leaving he's just standing there and I know what he wants and I don't want to go I've never seen anything like this I've barely known him that well how long have I known him I'm reading the book and working the steps, but I just don't want to go. There's limitations. We don't have to do all this stuff. It's like, oh, I'm here to do is read the book with you and work the steps. I don't really want to get into your life and stuff. So finally I said to him, I said, do you want me to go with you? And he looked at me and he goes, would you please? I mean, he was scared. Now he has a family. He has a sister. He's got aunts and uncles. But for some reason, these people trust us more than their own family. They feel closer to us than they do their own family. Isn't that interesting? What is that? Why would that be? So I go with him. I go there and I walk in the room and it's awful. I mean, she looks like hell. There's tubes and lines and there's monitors going off and it's just creepy. It's ICU and I walk right by the bed, you know, and I go find a chair and I sit over in the corner. and Al's pacing back and forth he's all jacked up you know so finally I look at her and she's laying on her side and she is kind of facing me her eyes are closed and I look at her it's like Corbin I'm just staring at him and this feeling came over me very difficult to describe essentially what the feeling was is that everything's ok here, Bill. There's nothing wrong. This is not a mistake. It's all right. Just relax. And I just kind of took a deep breath and I just relaxed. And I understood that feeling to be the truth. I got it and I really relaxed. And I looked at Al and I said, there was another chair sitting next to mine and I said, you know, Al, come on over here. Sit down, man. And i held his hand and he's a great big guy like me he's even actually kind of larger he's a carpenter it's a big calloused hands you know and i and i held his hand and i looked him right in the eye and i said everything's okay there's nothing wrong just relax this is the way it is it's all right it's alright just relax and i say let's say a prayer and we lowered our head and we said this right i have no idea what the prayer was i said something it wasn't just a serenity prayer but i made some stuff up you know and I'm good at that, you know. I mean, there's no depth to my prayer life but I say really good prayers. I've got good language skills. And while I'm saying the prayer he's holding, really gripping my hand and I can feel his hand relax in my hand. That is intimacy. that's intimacy and I miss it all the time I'm looking for a head rush and it's very quiet it's real soft and peaceful he just believed me and he relaxed 10, 15 years later I'm taking care of my father as he's dying do you suppose the significance of that moment going to the hospital with him missed me it took that long for me to look back and go what if I said no what if i just said no to him would i have been ready to take care of my father because what happened saying yes to him there was a chain reaction and i have Jay and I, and Matthew as well have sat with many people over the years that were dying guys that we sponsored people that we've known Patrick Kelehan or the devil of all liars we were with him when he died Jay was in the room with us saying prayers to the family let us in and we took care of him essentially spiritually for a long time as he was dying and it was tragic broke my heart when he passed I loved him I loved him. My friend Chris Gantner's seven-year-old son died of leukemia. Just the same age as my children. Scared the living shit out of me. I went into that hospital room to see that kid, and I walked out of there, and I called Jay, and I said, I can't go back in there. And so he came, didn't even know these people. He came down and went in there with me. And for the last few months of his life, we were there almost every day, the last two weeks anyway. We were there all the time, just sat there with that little boy and with Chris because he wouldn't take the medication that they wanted to give him to get through the experience. And so we let him go outside and yell at us. You know, sometimes what you and I can do as alcoholics is we can walk into a horrible situation like that and say outrageous, off-color stuff and make people laugh. Family members can't do that. but we can walk in with the alcoholic that's going through it and we can say dark, horrible dying kid jokes and they'll laugh and break the tension and that was kind of our job I had what I felt was a heart attack while I was in there one day I think it was just indigestion Chris looks at me and he goes God you don't look good, I don't feel good they put me up in the cardiac care unit and hooked me up with monitors And Gantner, the father of this little boy, my alcoholic friend, came up and he goes, This is the most shameless ploy for the center of attention I've ever seen in my life. You can't stand that my kid is dying and he's the center of attention. You've got a fake heart attack. Remember that? Never forget it. No one was surprised either. But you know, my wife had a pretty serious stroke about 10 years ago that altered our lives forever. And she was hospitalized a couple of times after that for other things, and her great line about this is, when I open my eyes and there's fluorescent lighting and Bill and Jay are hovering over me, I know something awful has happened because these guys just show up. And the theme is God does not bring two people together to help just one of them. We are not saving them. they are expanding our spiritual consciousness whatever fear that I have whatever prejudice I have will be confronted through this action this is the mechanism that the steps use that the manager uses to correct our defects of character and to add depth to our emotional life by adding those things that we're missing completely. This is how you learn compassion. This is how you learned patience and tolerance. This is by doing these actions. People say pain is the touchstone of spiritual progress. I'm not so sure about that, but uncomfortable is definitely part of that. And I don't know if it's pain. But the only time I change or I have an experience that I wouldn't have had before, which is what change is all about. If I keep doing the same stuff over and over and again, and I'm in a certain comfort level, nothing really is going to change. I'm In My Comfort Level. If I step out of that and I become uncomfortable, I'm going to have a new experience. It's going to cause me to deepen as a person just by having these new experiences. And when I get on my knees and I ask for help, I shouldn't send it away when it shows up. And it's going look a lot like you. You're going to come into my life. You are going to ask me for help. I had a guy walk up to me and say, would you be my sponsor? I think I should tell you that I'm gay. And I said wouldn't you rather have a gay sponsor? And he says no. He says I don't have a problem being gay but drinking is an issue. You know, I mean who knew? I'm supposed to be the sponsor. Who's really getting educated here? Really? It's a good question isn't it? I mean, you've added so much richness to my life. And if I'm going to stay here for the rest of my life, just going to meetings is not going to cut it. You hear this stuff, go to lots of meetings, don't drink in between. Bullshit. Meeting makers make it? I'm not so sure about that. Is going to meeting important? Absolutely. Is it part of the program? You bet it is. Of course it is, but is it everything? Why are you going? But are you going to get something out of it, or are you coming to add something to it? I mean, the best thing I can do, no matter how many years sober I am, is when I'm walking up to my home group or any meeting, is look around for people I don't recognize. And just walk up and say hi. That simple. That simple, you know? You got a cup of coffee? I had one guy sit out there in front of me. He goes, I don'T know anybody here, and I feel so uncomfortable. And I looked at him, I go, you KNOW everybody here. And he goes, no I don't. I've never been here before. I said, you know me and I know everybody. You're in. You're one of Bill C's kids now, man. We got you, dude. Step back. You looking for some help? You better watch out. Here it comes. We got lots of help for you. That kind of thing. That's all you're doing, making people feel comfortable. so these experiences sitting across the table from some guy in the middle of the night and reaching across the table in some coffee shop somewhere and holding his hand and look him right in the eye and go you're okay now man it's all over it's over the war is over man you're alright you're with us now you're safe that'll change your life I mean when I look at them in the eyes like that scares the shit out of them because I'm holding their hand for one thing you know but I mean it To the depth of my soul, I mean it. I know that that's the truth. If you come and do what I do, you'll be okay. This guy Gantner was with me on a 12-step call one night, one day, and we're in the living room of this guy's house and he's sitting there in his underpants and the guy is sober seven, eight years and he'd gone out and he had been out for a bunch of years and we go on this 12-stepped call and he sits there and he looks at his TV and he goes, what happened to me? What happened to my life, man? I watch religious television all the time and I asked God for help and God has forsaken me. God has Forsaken Me. And I looked at him and I went, No he hasn't. He sent you us. And my friend Chris goes, God you can't say that. And I reached out and I said, Take my hand. I'll save your life. And Gantner goes, You can't, you can not say that! That's not right! He's yelling across the living room. He said he would have left but I drove. and then the guy took my hand in his underwear oh shit what am I going to do now there's no script for any of this and I looked at him and I go brother seemed appropriate do you have any alcohol in the house and he goes yeah I do I got a whole half gallon of Kessler in there And I go, well, let's go pour it out because you don't drink anymore. And we all went into the kitchen and Gander's looking at me going, geez, man, the devil's going to get you for this. This is not good, you know? And we go into the kitchens and the guy takes the bottle out and he hands it to me and I go no, you've got to pour it out and he goes, oh, I can't do it. And he took that bottle and he poured it out and we all cried. Oh, man! you know and then we all stood in the middle of the kitchen and hugged and I was going to start singing Rock of Ages or something but I knew Chris had hit me and we took the guy to the Alano Club and a couple years later he died you know he drank himself to death people there remembered him and knew him you can't buy this kind of experience it doesn't come in a package it comes in Alcoholics Anonymous and you know this is just my opinion but just a second they didn't get that right it's just my idea but it's a really good one there we go but there's nothing else to do here this is why we're here this is what we're doing this is how our lives were saved to do this work and do we receive something for it it's immeasurable. It's hard. All we can hear, we've been talking about the change that has happened to us and hopefully you can identify. And the core of this change is doing this work. It's the reason the three of us are here. You know, we're all sponsors and we're also sponsees. We're all doing it because it's been handed down to us. This is the heart and soul of Alcoholics Anonymous is sitting across the kitchen table from each other and reading the book and sharing our lives with no parameters, no boundaries. Fully open. I'll do anything I can for you. If you would let me, I will enter into your life and what I offer you is my time. You can come and enter into my life if you want what I have and you can have all of it. There's nothing I have that I wouldn't give you. My wife sponsors a lot of girls. I sponsor a lot of guys we try to keep them separated you know and sometimes she tries to pair him up which is not given the gene pool you know but I live in the kind of house that I was raised in and there's no better way to live do we talk about you all the time we sit and talk about our sponsors about what's going on what's up with Angela how's it going I mean we're out of ourselves and into other people That's the whole key to AA. How do you do that? How does that happen? You start working with people. You fall in love with them. Initially, maybe out of the ego of it to get the hash marks, that goes away. You can't maintain that. You come to realize that you're just a conduit. The wisdom isn't springing forth from you. It's flowing through you. You know, you're part of this chain. You're an important link in the chain and there's many, many links. But I'm one of them. I'm connected to you in a way that I can't get away. I can't get away because I'm too connected it's a wonderful way to live thank you I think it's good Henry now yeah and then will you sing the sing a song but the one thing that I'd like to to pass on is a line from Henry Nowlin. And it's that in this work your heart will be broken. We do fall in love with it. But every time my heart is broken, it is broken open. And there is more of it to share. And over 32 years my heart has been broken open repeatedly. And I have a very, very large And there is now space for all of you and that call. Your liver's ready. What are we doing with the pump? Are you going to do the pump. I'll do the pumping. Yeah, good. Questions? No questions? Okay. Oh, questions? Okay. Well, here, we'll work with what you've got so far. Because we'll save that for the course, yeah? These 12-step questions. This is Mundini ground, by the way. Okay. how do you share your spiritual experience with your spouse if they aren't in AA I think I'll take this because I'm the only one with a spouse that's not in AA very gently particularly my wife when she was in the hospital initially in ICU with the stroke Jay was going to go bless her he had oils and all this stuff and I go Jay if you pull those oils out her head will spin around and pea soup will come out of her mouth She is not down with us So he blessed me in the hall And I went and kissed her My mother was dying When Jay would show up I said, Jay's coming She goes, oh God We're going to have to pray again So, you know I pray every night I pray on my knees Next to the bed That she's lying in My wife has had many challenges Many more challenges than I have she has much more courage she has more strength than I do and I pray with my hands on the bed and we've been married for 15 years this July and I'd say maybe 6 times she's reached across and held my hand that's how I share my experience and I demonstrate through my life I did hear this once because we have guys in the house you know my wife is so funny she's never seen me drunk and I do a lot of service work and she doesn't complain and one time a newcomer came over and he was pretty new, twitchy and after he left she said darling is that what you look like when you're drinking and I said yeah and she said you keep going to those meetings but I will tell you once I overheard her on the phone to her sister, her sister's her best friend and her sister got a good life in Cambridge England and married to a doctor and Philippa ran away to the United States and I heard her talking to him. She said, well we don't do it that way. She said Matthew has this way to live that works. So you're sharing your spiritual life if you're just demonstrating it. How do you find a good balance between tough love and empathy with sponsees? you gave him a good balance question I think they deserve they deserve it that we tell them the truth as we see it we shouldn't be afraid to tell them the truth as we say it I mean we could be wrong but I'm not a tough sponsor even in my halcyon days of really thinking I had the I was the light in the way even then I was never I wasn't tough I don't believe in firing people I think we've been abused enough over the years the way we have gone through life I don's think anybody needs me to holler at them or point the worst thing I do is I preach at people You know, I do less of that now. But my tendency is to preach. And the times that I've been tough on somebody, I think you could probably count maybe on two hands. I mean, ultimately, I will tell you what I think about what it is you're doing. You know? If you're living in such a fashion that I think that you're going to get loaded again or get drunk or you've just been really out of line, I'll tell you, you know. And that's, I've had varying results with that. You know, some people hear it, some people actually hear it. I think that our, the watchword is what Dr. Bob said, is it's love and service. You know, I'm here, I tell guys now, a few, some years ago I started doing this, I heard this somewhere, I don't know where, probably one of the teachers we listen to but I get a new guy now and I look up right at him I tell him you're not broken you're all fucked up you're not broken you perfect you're exactly the way you're supposed to be it couldn't have been any different than the way it is it what went down needed to come down and you're here with us now you're okay you're safe you're gonna be fine and I believe that I believe that's true and I start off like that you know and I read the book with them and stuff and if they're not doing their inventory I'll give them a hard time and glare at them and make them feel uncomfortable and stuff like that you know, if some guy comes to me with a problem, I'll tell him, I say well you're just self centered, they're looking for sympathy and stuff you know they want me to I'm not interested in coming into your world what you want to do is you want to come into my world so I'm nicht going to get hung up in your drama so I will like cut you off, you know I'll tell guys things like, well, you haven't done your inventory. I don't want to hear you whine about this anymore. I'm not interested anymore. I'm no longer interested in this. I'm going to sit here and talk about your girlfriend. I don' t even know her. But I'm pretty well convinced it's probably your fault. How do you know that? I just know because you're a lot like me and I'm a dickhead. You've done something to cause her to hit you with that board. It just doesn't come from a vacuum, so I'm opting that it's probably your fault. And I'll say things like that, and they think I'm kind of joking, but I'm really not. I think it's your fault, and I'm here to work with you, not them, that kind of thing. And I think over the years that the way that I was initially has just gotten more so that way. I think I am more sensitive to you. I hear you better and stuff. but I'm not really interested in all of your drama. I'm less interested in the drama today than I used to be. I usedと get intrigued by it. Anymore, I'm just not really that infatuated with the drama. What does it mean to be constitutionally incapable of being honest with oneself? If you say to me, I think I'm constitutionally incapable of being honestly with myself, I know you're not. it's constitutionally capable means you don't know what the truth is what right it's it's a it's deep damaged mental illness and what bill was trying to say is we see this and it's tragic because they can't have it you know are we the devil of all liars hell yes you're constitutionally able to be a great liar that doesn't mean you're unconstitutionally incapable of being honest with yourself. It's pretty cut and dry. Really, if you can entertain this thought, you're sorry, dude. You fell on the wrong side of the line. Now that I have seen the light... I think that person is constitutionally incapable of being a sponsor. How do I go about getting a new sponsor or sponsee? I don't know which it is, but the answer is exactly the same. With the sponsor, we come from a tradition of not firing people and working through relationships and because of that we've had a very rich time in Alcoholics Anonymous together occasionally some of us trade up but my decisions have all been based on either somebody running away from home or dying but when Greg died or not when Greg died when Fred died I said a prayer and the prayer was God please show me the person that will help me to help you the most and then the guy showed up a couple days later, and of course I forgot about it for another three months. But then when he presented himself again, I recognized him and asked him to sponsor me. When Greg died, my current sponsor, I was going down to Fred Ellis was the man that I admired most in Alcoholics Anonymous, and my current sponsored Paul is the man that I admire most in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I didn't even think of asking him to be my sponsor. I was going down to talk to San Diego, this guy's a generous, wonderful man, and I called him, he's a friend of mine, I called up and I said, hey, I'm going to be down in town and I'm talking, can we get together? Because I enjoyed time with him whenever I could. And he said, well, I can't be at the meeting, but we can hang out in the parking lot for a little while afterwards, I'll come back to them. What kind of a man is that? He's got a wife and a kid. And I tell Adele that, and I'm putting my tie on, and she says, are you going to ask Paul to be your sponsor? Because Greg was gravely ill when I looked at her, and in my mind I said, I get to pick my sponsor. Who do you think you are? driving down to San Diego and it's about a two hour drive and about a half hour down I go that's not a bad idea by Costa Mesa it was that's a pretty good idea she loves my sponsor as I love hers when we were talking in the parking lot I said you know Greg's really ill and I said when he passes I'll be knocking on your door asking you to sponsor me and he looked me right in the eye and he said I'll do it. I'll get really happy to open that door. 32 years of sobriety Tuesday night at 930 I call my sponsor and I get a half hour of this guy's time. I get goosebumps because this is a guy that I admire who's enthusiastic loves Alcoholics Anonymous who's got a rich full life a depth of experience a quality of intellectual curiosity that's inspiring and I get to hang out with him he abuses me well that's because you only call actually you don't well okay ladies let's get to this so anyway but okay so the other thing is is that we're sponsees how do I get a new sponsee which is even more important and that's you pray you ask God in the morning to send you a plant and then you walk out in the day looking for it it'll appear. It may not be one day or two days, but they'll come around and you'll be prepared to see them. So just ask the power and you will be amazed at who you've met so far. When you share in meetings, share about the steps. Share like you have a solution. Don't talk about yourself and they'll come and ask you to help because you'll look like somebody that knows some stuff. And that's what they're looking for. The other thing that Jay has always said is hang around the literature rack, only newcomers hang around it. None of us read the literature. This is a poem that was written by Sam Shoemaker. Shoemaker as you heard earlier was the minister of Calvary Chapel where Bill Wilson went when he went looking for Abby Bill started going to Oxford group meetings there Shoemaker became, I always like to think of Shoemaker as kind of his sponsor really you know I mean he was a major influence. Wilson called Shoemaker one of the co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous Bill went to Sam and asked him to write the book when it was time to write The Book and Sam told him this is your gig man I'll help but you Billy Graham said about Sam Shoemaker that if he hadn't have died if Shoemaker hadn't had died in 61 or 62 from cancer he said if he had not died you would never have heard of me very charismatic really wonderful speaker highly intelligent guy wrote many books really neat guy and he wrote this poem his autobiography is titled I Stand By The Door and it's not about AA but I just love this thing and I think it really describes the Alcoholics Anonymous that I know so you listen to this and tell me if it doesn't describe your AA and if it doesnt you might want to go look for this because it exists within AlcoholicsAnonymous this is what it's all about I stand by the door I neither go too far in nor stay too far out the door is the most important door in the world It is the door through which men walk when they find God. There is no use by going way inside and staying there when so many are still outside and they, as much as I, crave to know where the door is. And all that so many ever find is only the wall where the doorway ought to be. They creep along the wall like blind men with outstretched, groping hands, feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door. Yet they never find it. so I stand by the door the most tremendous thing in the world is for men to find that door the door to God the most important thing that any man can do is to take hold of one of those blind groping hands and put it on the latch the latch that only clicks and opens to the man's own touch men die outside the door as starving beggars die on cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter Die for want of what is within their grasp. They live on the other side of it, live because they've not found it. Nothing else matters compared to helping them find it and open it and walk in and find him. So I stand by the door. I admire the people that go way in, but I wish they would not forget how it was before they got in. Then they would be able to help the people who have not yet even found the door or the people who want to run away again from God. You can go in too deeply and stay in too long and forget the people outside the door. As for me, I shall take my old accustomed place near enough to God to hear him and know he is there but not so far from men as to not hear them and remember that they are there too. Where? Outside the door thousands of them, millions of them but more important for me one of them two of them ten of them whose hands I am intended to put on the latch so I shall stand by the door and wait for those who seek it I had rather be a doorkeeper so I stand by the door I heard there was a secret chord That David played to please the Lord But you don't really care for music, do you? Well it goes like this The fourth, the fifth The minor fall The major lift It's the baffled king Composing hallelujah Hallelujah, hallelujah, well your faith was strong but you needed proof You saw her bathing on the roof. Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you. She tied you to her kitchen chair. She broke your throat. She cut your hair and from your lips she drew a hallelujah, hallelujah. Hallelujah, well baby I've been here before, I've seen this room, I walked this floor, I used to live alone before I knew you I've seen the flag on your marble arch But love is not a victory march It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah Hallelujah I can't hear you. Hallelujah Now I can hear you Hallelujah Hallelujah There was a time when you let me know What's really going on below But now you never show that to me, do you? But I remember when I moved and knew The holy dove was moving too And every breath we drew Was hallelujah Come on now. Hallelujah We're praying. Hallelujah Well, maybe there's a God above, but all I've ever learned from love was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you. It's not a cry that you hear at night It's someone who has seen the light It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah Last time Hallelujah, hallelujah Hallelujah, halle-lu-u-u That was great, you guys. Thanks so much. Thank you all so very much for a wonderful weekend. Thank you for all the love.