The Recuperative Powers of the Alcoholic Ego – Bob D.

My name is Bob Darrell, and I am alcoholic. And I'm sober only through God's grace in the program and Fellowship Alcoholics Anonymous. I want to thank Mary and the members of the committee for asking me to come down here and spend the weekend with you. It really is a privilege. I wantto thank John for picking me up at the airport and all the hospitality in the bucket and the room, and it's just been a great weekend. you guys have a great lineup of speakers telling you this is a great conference Mildred who's going to be your Sunday morning speaker is one of my favorite women speakers in AA she's unbelievable and Wayne tomorrow night I've watched Wayne in action I've watched him work with newcomers he sponsored a guy that named Mike who was one of the great teachers and lovers in Alcoholics On It's one of greatest ones I've ever met. I watched Mike get sober, I watched Wayne work with him and I've seen Wayne in the trenches I loved Teresa's talk this afternoon when she was mentioned for those of you that heard it that she was talking about putting the KY jelly on her mouth before she talked. When she said that Wayne got excited. It was like and I could tell he got excited I was sitting behind him and the top of his head got red and Mark Mark what a great story I listen very listen very carefully it was one of the great talks I've heard in a long time and I listen very attentively And as a result of listening to your story, it became very, very clear to me, Mark, you shouldn't drink. It's a bad deal for you, man. I'm telling you. I'm glad you're in AA. And I'm Glad I'm in AA Don't know why I'm here sometimes. My parents weren't alcoholic. We've gone through the phase the last 10 years where it's been fashionable to almost talk about your childhood, almost with a subtle implication that I'm alcoholic because my parents were alcoholic or I was abused. But my parents weren't alcoholic. I never saw them drunk or even drink that I can remember really. They never abused me. They just loved me. They were always on my side. I sometimes have sat in meetings in Alcoholics Anonymous especially as a newcomer and had a peculiar kind of envy of the people who had been beaten as kids and it came from alcoholic homes. At least they had somebody to hang their weirdness on, you know? But there was nobody to blame me on except me. I mean, I was it. You know, I came from a family that loved me and they were always on my side. And I tell you, I think that I look back over my childhood and I think I had alcoholism before I ever took a drink. I think I was like a freeze-dried alcoholic waiting for alcohol. And I believe that because I had an inclination for self-involvement and self-focusedness even as a little kid. My mother used to say, Rob, you're full of yourself. And I didn't know what she meant until I got into AA. I look back over my childhood. The only thing I can really remember is me. I remember all about me. I can't tell you too much about my sister or my mother and father unless it had to do with me. I mean, I was it. I was the center of the universe even as a little kid. If you're new here, I really want to welcome you to Alcoholics Anonymous. Not to embarrass you, how many people are in their first year? Just, oh, wow, whoa. I am excited you're here. I am really excited youre here. And I know people haven't been excited you showed up anywhere recently, but I am exited youre her. And I'm exited your here because there's a tremendous amount of hope here for very hopeless people. and if I could tell you to do one thing I would tell you and I don't know how to tell you to do it I'd tell you to surrender and I wish I could tell you how to I wish I could find it into words to tell ya I started coming around Alcoholics Anonymous as a very young kid and I I'll tell you a little story I was in 1977 I was in a halfway house again and there was a guy in there that used to come in from Alcoholics Anonymous and do some of the meetings there and talk his name was Woody, and I never heard anything that Woody said, but he made me laugh sometimes and I went on another drunk out of that place and I got a felony hit and run DUI in a stolen car, and i was sitting in a county jail facing two years in a state penitentiary and Woody was one of the guys that came in there, and ill tell you i didn't want to see Woody because Woody was one of those enthusiastic happy members of Alcoholics Anonymous you know and I don't want to see anybody like that is I saw him and I you know I'm always properly ashamed of myself and I I go up to Woody and I said oh I'm so sorry I slipped and I let all you guys down and all you know all this stuff and I sit I donno what I'm gonna do I can't get out on bail and I'm facing two years in the prison and there's nobody left. And it's my life's a mess. And I started to tell him, but if I can get out of here, I'm going to do this. And then I'm gonna do that. And he said to me, he says, you're not ready. He said, you haven't hit a bottom yet. You haven't surrendered. And when he said, I didn't say nothing to him. But my head was screaming. What do you want? There's nothing left to me. What have I got to lose? My family hasn't talked to me in a couple years and will not have anything to do with me. There's no one left in my life that cares about me. I'm facing two years in prison. I've been homeless for a couple of years. There is nothing. And you're saying I haven't hit a bottom. What do you want? What do You want? And he was right. I hadn't hit the bottom. I hadn' lost the one thing that a guy like me has to lose, the one things that keeps me from surrendering. And I didn't know what it was for a long time. It's not the house. It's nicht der Job. It's niet der Selbstrespekt. I lost my self-respect years before I got here, doing sleazy, disgusting things to get $1.29 for a bottle of Richard's Wild Iris Rose. It's neither guilt nor shame. I just lived with that for all the things I did to my family and the people who cared about me. What is the thing I have to lose? it's my judgment it's my opinion of what's good for me and what I need, and I couldn't give it up because I was so afraid I couldn'T give up my own self-concern and it kept me from getting everything that you people had I'm the kind of guy, I go on a run alcohol will take everything out of my life strip me to the bone and I'll end up in a meeting of alcohol exonymous, the first thing I get back is my damn opinion. And Dr. Thiebaud in AA Comes of Age talks about the amazing recuperative powers of the alcoholic ego, that guys like me can be laying in the gutter or just crawling into a detox somewhere begging people, please help me. I'm dying. I'll do anything. I don't know anything. Lead me, show me, teach me anything, please. And three weeks later, I know what's wrong with everybody i know what i need i know what's wrong with what you're suggesting i you know the recuperative powers of that ego it's like a bad tumor that just grows back over and over and over and in 1977 i sat in that county jail facing two years in state penitentiary with when they gave me my phone call, there was nobody to call. There was nobody left. I didn't have a girlfriend anymore. Not that I didnít want one. Itís just, itís hard to get a date when youíre homeless. Itís like, hey baby, you want to come to the TV room in the halfway house? I mean, you know, itís really hard to getting any action like that. I mean itís really it's a tough deal. I don't have any running partners left because I'm a pig. You drink with me a couple times and you don't want to drink with my no more because I get crazy and I drink more than my share and I'm the hog, right? And so I'm all alone. As a result of my very best efforts just to try to make me feel better and make my life better. I don't know a group of people on the face of the earth that have spent more time and energy in the pursuit of happiness and trying to make themselves better than us. And the end result is that most of us get to a point where we wish we were dead. I got sentenced by a judge in two years in a state penitentiary. I almost didn't hear what he said next because when he said that i just i thought i was gonna die i i i don't jail well i mean i just I really don't gel well I you know I don't like it I tell you some people do but I I've done I've never done any hard state time any long seat time but I've been a lot of county stuff and I hate it I hate having to pretend like you're a tough guy and put on that gorilla outfit on the outside when the real truth, the real honest raw meat inside of me is I'm a pathetic, scared little boy inside trying to act like I'm tough. And so I got to sucker punch people to show them I'm not afraid. I hate living like that. I hated it. And when that judge said two years, I thought, I can't do it. I just, I'm going to die. And then he said something I almost didn't hear. He said, we're going to, we'll cut you a break and we're gonna stay the commitment. I didn't know what that was. He said, you're committed to two years. And he said, we're going to put it on hold. We're not going to carry it out. The PO department found a place that would take you called the Ark House. And it was the only place it would take me. I'd burn out. I've been through every other rehab. They didn't want me. They had my action already and they didn't want me in this one place. I went back and visited there a couple of times since I've been sober. It's not really a rehab. It'S kind of like the bottom of the food chain for rehabs. I mean, it's like – it's almost a mission. I mean it's just – it is down on Skid Row in Pittsburgh and it's run by a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, Chuck, and he's sober a long time and they house like a whole bunch, like a couple hundred guys like me that are just at the bottom of the barrel. And I went in there because this judge told me he was going to cut me a break. And I'll tell you something. I went In there and I really – this time I was determined I'm not going to drink no more. You see, I've had this illusion all my life. And the illusion was, yeah, okay, I know I really got to cut this crap out. It's killing me. And the illusion is that one day I'll get to a point where I'll want to straighten up bad enough and then I'll be able to. And one of the horrifying things about alcoholism is guys like me, we get to the point where we want to strengthen up bad and then we don't. Bad enough and I can't. I can for a little while. I can for a couple months. But abstinence to me feels like I'm doing time. And I'm the guy that Silkworth talks about in the book. I'm restless, I'm irritable, I'm discontent. I'm prone to deep depression sober. I get my life just on me and I can't get it off. I had a therapist tell me one time the problem is Bob, you're just not in touch with your feelings. and I thought to myself, if I was any more in touch with my feelings, I would kill myself. The problem is, I get my feelings on me like that creature in that movie Alien that attaches itself to your face, and I can't get anything off, and I drink again, not because I'm not in touch with my emotions, not because of my feelings. I drink, again, because I am consumed with my feeling, and I have five shots of Jack Daniels, and it's like, and that thing just, so i go into this place uh this ark house and i got to tell you if determination and commitment was enough to overcome alcoholism that would have been my sobriety date but i'm the guy that it talks about in the book when it says lack of power that is my dilemma the gal that was talking this afternoon she says lack of dilemma. And I thought to myself, boy, I think lack of dilemma is my power today. Really? Really? I was thinking when you said that, I thought, wow, isn't that funny? But I can make up my mind I'm never going to drink again and mean it. But abstinence is just a very painful place for me. and I don't want it to be painful. I just don't know how to fit sober and so I don' t drink and I do' n't drink day in and day out and week in and week out and month in and month out and I just start to go crazy and it's not a running down the street screaming, pulling out your hair crazy. It's a sicker kind of silent sickness of heart in here. It's a loneliness because you don't fit anywhere. It's depression because you can't get your own emotions off of you, and you can' t get yourself unfocused from yourself. And it's an awful thing. And I don't drink, but it's wearing me down. I'm the kind of alcoholic that the most tremendous resolve in the world to not drink, and the emotions and the desolation and disconnectedness of abstinence gradually grinds away that resolve. And I got a screw-it switch in my head. And one day, no matter if I'm facing prison, no matter si all the evidence is in that this is a bad idea to pick up a drink, when the screw-its switch goes, I'm going because I can't help it. Lack of power is my dilemma. There comes a time when I have absolutely no mental defense against the first drink. And I'm in this place and I'm not drinking and several months have gone by and I am just nuts. And I grab a guy and I just said to him, I said, I need help. I am dying here. And he said, what's wrong? And I started to tell him. And I told him about all my other attempts at trying to stay sober and how I failed. And you know something, I started to really hate myself for being that way. And I run into newcomers all the time that are in that place where they slip again and they come into AA and they feel like a failure. Well, that's ridiculous because you never had the power to beat this disease anyway. Your only hope, if you're an alcoholic of my type, is to completely surrender to this simple program and through the process of the 12 steps and good sponsorship and a lot of newcomers and a lot of action in AA you'll eventually find yourself in the hands of something that will do something for you you can't do for yourself it's the only hope a guy like me has and I'm telling this guy about my failures at uh trying to stay sober I told him I tried to explain to him about I there's something wrong with me and the therapists don't seem to find out they give me pills that kind of take the edge off of it for a little while but eventually it's not enough and I drink again and I don't know what it is but I'm the kind a guy I can sit somewhere and be fine. And then all of a sudden, without anybody saying nothing to me doing nothing, I'll just sink into this deep depression for no reason, no apparent reason at all. I got mental problems. And I one time I thought I had a brain tumor because it made sense to me because I thought weird stuff. I just just crazy stuff runs through my head. I can't turn it off. And it's not good stuff. It's stuff like, I've been working somewhere and I'll get a little note saying the boss wants to see you two o'clock this afternoon. By two o´clock, I'm going to kill him for nothing. I mean, he wants to give me a raise or something, you know, but I build this case in my head. It´s just crazy. And I get headaches. I don't get headaches, I get brain tumors. I just go there. I make leaps and bounds in logic that normal people wouldn't even go there i mean it's just and i tell him about that trying to explain i think i'm crazy i can't stop this thing in my head the only piece i ever had was about five shots of whiskey or a pint of wine and it would just kind of cool it down a little bit i can'T work uh get i get good jobs interview you well, just can't seem to hold a job. I don't know why. I'm, it's, I don'T understand that you take alcohol away from me. I get restless, irritable and discontent. And part of the irritability is that I either get so withdrawn from life that some psychiatrist thinks I'm clinically depressed because I go in here so deep and get so disconnected from you because you threaten me or i get i react the opposite i get on the muscle with people and i get that i get to be one of those you know just real jerk guys you know that's always on jumping on people's cases and imagining you're thinking stuff and questioning about it you know and jumping you know so i can't hold a job i there i'm the guy that they're telling me stuff like You're a hard worker, Bob, but you're not a team player. He said, yeah, I'm not. I knew, I knew I'm Not. Give me a pint of Jack Daniels, I'll lead your goddamn team. It's sober. I don't know how to fit. I don'T know how TO BE LIKE THESE PEOPLE. I stopped drinking and it's almost as if there's this like invisible, unsurmountable, impenetrable wall between me and the rest of the world that I can't seem to break through. And it seems like everybody on the other side of that wall is connected to each other and they're a part of and they are all that stuff. It's a sense, it's like all of you and then there is me. And I think alcoholism, the ism is I separate myself and I don't know how to not do that. I don' t understand that I have a spiritual illness that condemns me to live in a lonely state of separation left untreated. I don''t know that. I don't know that I have an insistent yearning for the effects I'd once found in alcohol because alcohol gave me an illusion of community and unity. It connected me to people, even though at the end it didn't work like that. At the end, I was just as alone and pitiful and pathetic and full of self-pity drunk as I was when I was sober. But there was a time, oh, there wasa time. there was a time when alcohol was the most effective treatment for the illness of alcoholism I've ever found. You all know those are times, walking into a bar or into a party or something, just that loneliness, you're stuck up in your head and you can't talk to anybody and you're full of anxiety and anxiousness. Five shots of whiskey, man, you'd come out and play. You can talk to people. eight shots of whiskey and you just kind of love them all. I love you, man! For a guy who lives most of his life in desolation, hey, that's the best I ever got. That's the best sense of community I ever had. That's the best moving away from the loneliness I experienced I ever and I'm telling this guy all this crap and we're in the dining hall in the basement of this bank in the north side of Pittsburgh that had been converted to this rehab and I told him about the two years and all the other stuff and he reached in his coat pocket and he pulled out his business card and he gave it to me and he said, Bob, if you'll put those steps in your life and he pointed to the steps on the wall and he says, I'll help you. and it'll solve all these problems for you. And he gets up, and he walks way to the back of this big room to get a cup of coffee, and I sat there, and I'm looking at these steps, and I'd looked at the steps hundreds of times, I suppose. I've been in a lot of meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. I know what it's like to sit right in the center of a meeting, well, actually in the back wall, and die of alcoholism. I know that. I have been there for years. But I thought to myself, man, I'm going to read these again. I know that, okay, he says steps and I start reading them and the more I read them, the more aware I become that this guy hasn't heard anything I've told him. There's nothing in those steps that relates to my problems and it's not that I was philosophically opposed to them. I thought that's a nice stuff. I mean, hey, if I ever got my life together, I could do that. I might join a gym too, who knows? But this is, I got immediate problems here. I need a set of steps like, step one, make Bob's police record disappear. Step two, bring her back properly ashamed of herself. Step three, give him $1,000. I mean, that would have increased my sense of well-being tremendously for a week. You know, get my parents to realize how wrong they'd been about me. But turn your will and your life over to God. Oh, my God. I mean, that's good for you, good people. That's a good thing. But I knew about God. You know, the book says, in step two, it says the first thing I got to do is get rid of all my prejudices. I had a lot of prejudices about God, but I didn't even know I had them. Just preconceived judgments and notions and a sense of God based on stuff I heard as a kid. And I'll tell you, one of the things I heard is God existed to judge me. That's what he did. And he could see in the dark, which is not good for a guy like me. He could see under the blankets too. That's really, really bad. So, you know, turn my will and my life over to God. I'd rather turn it over to an attorney. I mean you know in the immense step oh my god the immense tip the immense step terrified me more than anything I've ever seen in Alcoholics Anonymous I remember looking at that in the years I was in and out and after I got sober new in early sobriety looking at it just being overwhelmed looking at and thinking oh my God I can't oh if I didn't known that I was gonna have to do this one day I wouldn't have done all that stuff. Oh, my God. And you people, I can tell by looking at you, that's a good step for you. Oh, yeah. I'm sure some of you drank too much and said something unkind to your wife. Oh, go make it right. Be good for your marriage. Great. You may be a padded-your-expense account. Make that right. Build character. Nice for you, but I lived on the streets like an animal. There's a guy, Mildred tried to help me find him last year. I thought I found him. To this day, I've never been able to find it. I opened his chest up with a big hunting knife, and he'll never be the same. There's guys that went to prison as a result of me because I got stuck between a rock and a hard place, and I was facing 10 years of prison, and to walk, I dimed them out. How do you make amends to somebody like that? how do you make amends to a mother and father who the worst thing they ever did was love you and you punished him for it and you punish them for it until my mother who's not an alcoholic ended up on tranquilizers and my father slept 16 12 16 hours a day he couldn't take it anymore he loved me very very much and he couldn t he couldn take what had happened to his son And the sad part is he blamed himself. How do you ever make amends to people that you've battered emotionally over and over and over by getting up again and giving their hopes up that you're going to be fine, and then six months later you're in jail or you've stolen their TV or you're just – you've lied to them one more time or you have embarrassed them in their community? My parents ended up with no friends at the end. They were too embarrassed. because they couldn't go out places, and they didn't want to go outdoors because the neighbors would ask them about me. And it just hurt too much. How do you make amends to people like that? So this guy came back down to the table, and I just walked off. I said, no thanks. And I shuffled off to my bunk, and i was to start my last run. Didn't know it would be my last one. I started the last run, and I'm the guy Silkworth talks about. I pick up a drink, the phenomenon of craving kicks in. I've always been that way. I was that way when I was 12 years old and drank for the first time. I have never had a social drink in my life. I am always the guy that once I start, I can't stop. I have a physical allergy to alcohol. It expresses itself in a phenomenon of grieving. And I didn't know that for a long time. I know it today. And Silkworth says, any picture of alcoholism that ignores the physical is incomplete. And I'll tell you something, you can be sober 30, 40, 45 years, so I've got a 45-year drink. And that phenomenon of craving waits for you. It is part and parcel of who I am. And it will always be there. And I got that thing. I've never had a social drink in my life. I've never had the experience of being in a bar drinking for an hour or so and had a bartender say, hey, Bob, want another one? Sit there like a non-alcoholic and go, no, this is just right. It's never just right, but you know what happens to me? I get close to just right I get so close it makes me crazy. I get a sense that maybe on the next drink I'm going to be there and I drank with a sense of urgency. I drank quickly, and I always drank that way. If you're sitting here and you're new and you'RE not sure if you're an alcoholic, hang out here. Listen. Hope for identification. There's a test in the big book. I don't recommend it personally. It's in Chapter 3. It says, you know, if you don't think you're an alcoholic try some controlled drinking. Try to drink and stop abruptly. I don't recommend that test because I would never want to have it on my shoulders that if you take the test and the phenomenon of craving was stronger than you ever imagined and you got so drunk that you were out of it and got in a car and killed yourself or somebody else, man, I'll tell you something. I would feel bad that I was the guy told to take the Test. So I don'T recommend the Test, and for another reason, I don' t think it's a viable test really for an alcoholic who has the kind of mind I got Because if you think about it, okay, I'm going to take this test. I'm gonna go into this bar to see if I'm an alcoholic. I'm gunna have two drinks, that's it. Go home, don't smoke nothing, take nothing, nothing, nothing, two drinks that's in. Well, about halfway through the second drink it's gunna become real clear to me that this is not a good test day. It's a good, it's a test. But this is no the day, cuz Joe, Joe's here and I got to drink with Joe and Mary Sue's over there and this blonde's over here. You know, because I start drinking and all my ability to rationalize, justify, minimize, all gets behind whatever is necessary to satisfy that craving. And I don't even know that that's happening to me. I can't see the phenomenon of craving in me. But it's there. And most people and alcoholics can't say if you drink like I drink you don't see the phenomenon of craving because you can only realize a craving when it's interrupted and it's not satisfied. Everybody in this room tonight is in the grip of a craving you're not aware of. That's a craving debris there. But let me tell you something, somebody slip up behind you with a plastic bag, put it over your head, you would instantly realize you've got this craving debris there because it's not satisfied and I had to look through the help of identification and listening to you long enough, I started to see the few rare instances in my life in the past where I'd only had one or two and then all of a sudden, unbeknownst to me, I found myself in a situation where I couldn't get anymore. And then what happened to me? How driven was I? And I could see the phenomenon of craving in me. I got sober the last time in 1978. I bounce around. If you're following me, good luck. And I got sober knowing that I'm the guy that Silkworth talks about, but also Silkworth says to us our alcoholic life seems the only normal one. So I know that I can't take a drink because I'm off and running. I knowthat. I know dat from bitter, painful experience. But I secretly suspect that everybody who drinks gets the same effect from alcohol that I get. And when you think about it, why would I think anything else? That would be like thinking that strawberries taste different to someone else than they taste to me. It never occurred to me, I just assumed strawberries taste like strawberries to everybody. And I thought everybody who drink gets that, oh yeah, more feeling. I just thought that some people could control it and stop, and then for some reason there was a guy like me that's weak-willed and I couldn't stop and I saw him and shouldn't drink. Silkworth says that's not true. He says this phenomenon of craving differentiates us and sets us apart as a distinct entity. It never, ever occurs in the average temperate drinker. Those people never experience that at all. I was four years sober before I really understood how different I was. I was dating a gal that wasn't an alcoholic, and we'd go out to dinner, and she'd order a drink, which was fine. But I tell you what made me crazy, it'd take her a half hour to drink one drink. I mean, she'd sit there and stir it and talk. I could watch the ice melt, which is alcohol abuse, you know what I mean? she'd at times forget the drink was there did you ever forget your drink was there I might I would forget she's there before I'd forget the drinking was there let me tell you I asked her one time were you ever drunk and she said yeah one time in college it was awful I'd never do that again I was in her apartment one night and she was so proud of this she had this little display case, a glass case, and she brings it out. It's got a marijuana cigarette in it from Thailand. She told me this story. She was at this party a little while ago and some guy gave her this marijuana cigarette from Thailand and she'd taken two hits of it off of it and she was saving the rest for New Year's Eve. I mean you could die before New Year's Eve. God help her it's not her fault. She seems to have been born that way. Two times, maybe three. The whole time I dated her, I saw her have two drinks. But I never saw her finish it, the second drink. One time at this Andres' French restaurant, we were there for like almost two hours eating dinner and she'd order a second drink and another time at a cocktail party for her work. But she'd get about two-thirds, halfway through the second thing and she would always lay it somewhere or push it aside. She'd say, I don't want any more. I'm starting to feel it. it would be easier for me as an alcoholic to have sex and after two or three strokes I don't want any more of that I'm starting to feel it I'm going to do that with two drinks I started to realize by contrast of experience that alcohol really affects her different than it affects me she takes two drinks and she gets a feeling like she's losing control. I take a couple drinks, man, I get a feeling that I'm getting control. I got a feeling like I'm almost on the threshold of completeness here. And I can never get enough. So I took a drink coming out of that halfway house because I couldn't stand it anymore and the party's over. I drank for relief because I couldn't stand it anymore. I was so depressed and so lonely, and I started drinking, and it was just like the last drunk before that. I was still just as depressed and just as lonely and full of self-pity, and I'd entered into a stage of alcoholism that is very bleak, and it's that stage of alcoholicism where you sit sometimes and you sob because you hate yourself and what you've become, and I used to break my hand a lot punching parking meters and walls and stuff because i hated me so much and i'd hated my life and i just to sit in those bars or sit in that park with a bunch of guys drinking wine and it's just that separation and it seemed like they all were having a good time and then there was me and i couldn't jump start that thing inside of me that that allowed me at one time to live that glorious life of conviviality that alcohol once had given me and the party was over and i knew it and i'm facing two years in a state penitentiary and i know that i can see my life so clearly in this stupor i'm in that i'm gonna drink and get sober and sobriety is painful and desolate and then i'm going to drink and drunkenness is disgusting and lonely until i forced back into abstinence and i'm going to go from one state to the other and i just thought i don't want to do this no more and i took my bottle of richard's wild irish rose and i walked staggered out onto this bridge in pittsburgh and i was standing there looking down on these railroad tracks about 100 feet below and i am there because i just i just want this to stop I just don't want no more. I'm like the rat, I don't want any more cheese, I just want out of the trap. And I am out there to kill myself and I start sobbing because I can't kill myself. I'm so close and I look back and I shudder sometimes to think that my life probably was saved by just a minuscule amount of unneeded desperation. Just a tiny little bit more desperation i think i would have overcome my fear of dying and i would have leaped and i couldn't do it and if you'd ask me uh what's killing you bob i wouldn't have said alcoholism i i might have told you i was dying of loneliness because i didn't fit nowhere drunk and i didn'T fit nowhere sober and there was nobody i could connect with i felt so sickeningly alone if you'd asked me uh bob why don't you ever tried aa i just told you oh yeah i was in a i tried that stuff and what would have been tragic is i if i would have taken my own life i would take in my own wife thinking i'd try today thinking i was a part of a went to hundreds of meetings but i was not a part of alcoholics anonymous i was part of the passing parade that goes through a on its way to the graveyard. I was part of a group that exists in Alcoholics Anonymous since the beginning of AA. Exists in this room tonight. There's people in this part, this group in AA and the sad part is you don't know you're in that part. And it talks about it in the beginning of chapter 5 where it says those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program. And I was part of that group. I didn't know it. I thought because I went to meetings, I was a part of AA. I never worked a step, never had a sponsor, never helped anybody, never made any amends. I just sat in the rooms dying of untreated alcoholism and sat in rooms with people who I look back who were able to do what I was doing and not drink and they were able to do it comfortably. I think that there's tragically enough In 1948, when Bill Wilson agreed to go with the short form of the traditions, I think we lost a lot in our membership requirement. Originally in the long form it says membership should include all who suffer from alcoholism. That's why I'm a member of AA today. I suffer from alcoholicism. You leave me alone with me and my life in a big house, no matter how good my life is, and I will die of alcoholism And I'll die of alcoholism before I ever pick up a drink. The drink will just make the, I'll just do it under the futile illusion that it'll make the journey into death a little more comfortable. And there are people in Alcoholics Anonymous that it talks about on page 20 and 21 of the big book. Problem hard drinkers. They stop drinking for a sufficiently strong reason and they can do that on their own. And they don't have to work a step. I had a sponsor in the mid-70s I look back, he wasn't an alcoholic. He had a three-step program recovery. Step one, don't drink. Step two, go to AA to fill up the social void that used to be filled up by going to the bars. Like AA to him was like the sober elks, you know what I mean? And step three, sell Amway. I'm trying to implement his program recovery and I'm dying and he's one of the happiest guys I've ever met. But he doesn't suffer from alcoholism when he stops drinking. When he stops drink, when he's drinking, his problem is over. I stop drinking and I start to suffer from alcoholism. I couldn't kill myself. I ended up in a hospital in Las Vegas, hitchhiking cross-country, running from the law because I don't want to get caught. I was trying to get to California. I thought if I can get to California, it's warm enough, I could make it through another winter because I almost froze to death on the streets of Pennsylvania. Man, I'll tell you, when you're homeless on the street back in the Northeast, night's a tough time. You've got to walk all night long. If you go into bathrooms and gas stations until they roust you out of there and bus stations till they rost you outofthere and doorways and apartments till they roost yououtofthere and you can't stop because like some of the people I knew you end up a popsicle and you just die. So you move all nightlong. No matter how sick you are, no matter how tired you are. And I thought if I get to California, they won't find me. I won't have to do the two years in prison. It'll be warm. Maybe some movie starlet will drive by and see me and realize that I'm the guy she's always been looking for and take me to her mansion in Beverly Hills and have her maids and butlers clean me up and be rightfully restored to the life I've always known should have been mine. But I didn't make it to California. I made it to Las Vegas. I ended up in a detox there. I'm dying of alcoholism. And the Buddhists say when the student's ready, the teachers appear. And something had broken inside of me. and i later when i heard a guy named chuck chamberlain speak i understood what had happened to me i didn't know that what had happen is i'd surrendered but surrender even though it's as chuck used to say was the solution to alcoholism like every other solution in god's universe it has a tendency to evaporate and i thank god that i fell into the hands of some people that used to bring meetings into that hospital that were the fanatic doers in AA. And there's two groups of people in AA there's those who do and those who judge. And the doers are too busy to judge and the judges are too busy to do. And one group never, and I fell under the hands of some doers. And they got me real involved in Alcoholics Anonymous and took me to book studies and meetings and had me going on 12-step calls when i was brand new i mean brand i thank god i didn't run into these people that say things like well you should have a couple years before you do that i had a diet of alcoholism i'm telling you i had to start taking actions immediately that unbeknownst to me would relieve me of the bondage of self i would not have been able to stay physically sober in alcoholic synonymous. Without a good meeting habit, without a prayer habit, without service and 12-step work, and without a sponsor, I wouldn't have survived my alcoholism long enough to implement those steps in my life. I got a short fuse. Now, I think alcoholics all have a fuse. And some guys' fuses are really long and some of them are really short. My friend Billy, he went seven years with the benefit of step none and didn't drink. Now, Billy is like the John Wayne of alcoholism. I mean, that takes a tough guy. Now I want to be like Billy. I'd like to be that tough guy, but the truth is I'm not. The truth is, I'm weak and pathetic. And I'll tell you the guy I am. I saw this movie when I was a kid where they were, uh, it caught this American spy, the Russians, and they were going to torture your secrets out of this guy right and they had him strapped naked to this chair and they were they had these electric wires that sparked and they Were putting them on his private parts and the guy was withering and screaming in pain. And they did this guy, they did that to him hour after hour, day after day and finally breaks down and tells them whatever they want. Well, I'll tell you the guy I am. I'm the guy you just show the wires to. Now, I don't want to be that guy. I want to the tough guy. But when my emotions start, when I get my life right on me and my emotions start putting the screws to me and my head starts building the cases about how they're all against me and they're taking advantage of me and they are using me and they out to get me, man, I just buckle under. I buckle under! I don' t mean to, but I do. And I fell into some hands of some people that I'll tell you, they didn't let me wait. They had me making amends right away. I did an inventory. I had to come back and do one out of the book. The first one I did, I did like everybody else. Your life story, you know, the shame and guilt, and nothing really changed. And I came back and did one exactly out of the book later that changed my life so dramatically. I mean, so, man. They had to make amends. They had started making ammends in early sobriety. This guy in AA says to me, he says, I told him about the two years in prison and he says well you're going to have to contact the courts back there and volunteer to come back there at your own expense and do the two year's and any tackle on time that they want to give you and I thought what hey man I'm sober here I'm not drinking isn't that good I mean isn't it isn't this that enough he says you got to do it I says, what do you mean I've got to do it? You're crazy. He says, think about it. He says how long are you going to be able to stay sober looking over your shoulder? How long are we going to have to wait? How long you're going to able to be sober with the anxiety of every time a cop car comes by, you don't know if they're coming for you. How long do you think you're gonna stay sober without being able to use a driver's license or a social security card? How long d'you think youre gonna last? And I thought, shit, God. I tell you, if you're new, stay away from these old timers. They're just one way, they just, it's a bad deal. They just want you to, they're just one way about it. And you go find another one, he'll tell you the same thing. It's like they get in groups to talk about you. So he said, he told me what to do. He says, you've got to write your PO a letter, tell him in the letter that you're in Alcoholics Anonymous, that you're In Las Vegas and that you want to do whatever it takes to clear this up, you'll come back there at your own expense, whatever, and you tell him that you're going to call him at a certain time of the day on a certain day about 10 days out so give him a chance to know you're gonna call and send that letter off i wrote the letter and i showed it to him he said that's good that's a good letter and I said I told I said i don't want to do this man I don't wanna do this he says I don'T WANNA I DON'T WANT TO DO THE TIME IN JAIL AND HE SAYS TO ME HE SAYS WELL BOB HE SAYES YOU KNOW FROM MY EXPERIENCE I DONT THINK GOD'S GONNA HAVE YOU DO THE TWO YEARS UNLESS THERE'S SOMEBODY IN THERE HE WANTS YOU TO HELP I THOUGHT WHAT KIND of crap is that? I don't want to help anybody in there. What are you, out of your goddamn mind? What are your nutcase? I didn't want to help nobody in there." Oh man, so I sent the letter off and I called a guy and his secretary said he's waiting for your call. Put him right on the phone. And I'll tell you, it blew my mind. He said, I talked to my supervisor and I've talked to the judge and we don't want you to come back but here's what we want you to do i want you go this place called crs you're going to get a po down there and you're gonna go to these classes and you'RE GOING TO SEND US MONEY EVERY MONTH AND IF YOU DO ALL OF THAT YOU MAKE THE RESTITUTION AND YOU DO IT ALL AND YOU STAY SOBER YOU'RE GONNA HAVE TO DO UAS ALL THAT STUFF HE SAYS IF YOU DO THAT HE SAID YOU'RE GOINNA BE ALL RIGHT BUT IF YOU DON'T AND I'LL TELL YOU I WALKED AWAY FROM THAT PHONE CALL with a tremendous sense of freedom. Oddly enough, I got real involved in 12-step work when I was new. I started going to these hospitals and institutions every week. I still have three commitments to this day a week. I do two detoxes and a skid row. Actually, I'm doing four now. When I'm in town, when I'm gone on the weekends, I do too. When I'M home on the weekend, I DO four a week uh i met this guy eddie about five five six years later in there and eddie's a three-time loser and he'd been in federal penitentiaries three times and he was on parole and he skipped out and hadn't seen his parole officer in a long time and he WAS violated and he Was going to do five years federal time and eddy starts telling me about this and i told him exactly what they told I said, you're going to have to call your federal parole officer. And he's looking at me like, what are you kidding me? And I told him the same thing they told me. You think you're gonna stay sober looking over your shoulder? And he is looking at that look of defeated resignation, you know, and all that stuff. And then he says to me, he says, I don't want to do the five-year. I said Eddie, I couldn't wait to tell him this. I'm telling you, it was like Christmas. i said i said eddie they're not gonna have you do the five years unless there's somebody in there god wants you to help and he looked at me with a look like what are you out of your goddamn mind and he did exactly what i told him and i get this phone call that the federal marshals had just carried him off in handcuffs out of their treatment you can hear this big oops and they uh they took him they took him they locked him up but i'll tell you what happened he was already in the system he was already violated they had to come and get him but his po was so impressed by his letter and his willingness and change of attitude and his willingness to do whatever it took his po his parole federal parole officer went to bat for him and it took several weeks to unviolating and he's a free man today he uh matter of fact he's sober he's sober a long time he helps he helps a lot of guys in the in the black community and alcoholics anonymous in las vegas he sponsors a bunch of guys and he is a vital member of aa he just he just traded his mercedes convertible in for a new lex one of those new lexuses and bought his second half million dollar home up on the hill and he's doing really well. And now if you're running from the law, I'm not going to promise all that crap. But I'll promise you one thing. If you make the choice between sobriety and trust us rather than trust your head and defend yourself against the fears that you live with, I can promise you your life will get different. and I can promise you there'll be a day when it'll be different that you'll like in the mid 1940's the Japanese Empire was faced with total annihilation two atomic weapons had been set off and they didn't have anything to defend themselves with and they realized that if they didn'd surrender unconditionally to the armed forces of our country and Europe that they were going to die they were gonna be annihilated and they surrendered unconditionally which meant that they gave up all their means to defend themselves and they laid themselves open to they could have been run over all their defense mechanisms were given up and I think that's what God asks of me and it's pretty hard to be defended and surrendered at the same time and in the process of the 12 steps, I've started to uncover and reluctantly, reluctantly discard the things that I use to defend myself against life itself. All my little things, the anger. And I thought to myself, God, if I ever really gave it up, who would protect me when I'm threatened? who would stand up for me? Maybe God would. If I really gave up my lust, God, what would happen then? Would that be something like Viagra could overcome? I mean, what if God really removed that? All the things that I try to defend myself with against a world that feels lonely and frightening and empty at times. the things I use to try to validate myself with, the money, the property, the prestige, all the toys, all the things that I use to protect me and make me whole. And the problem is they never work. If they worked, I would be the major advocate. I would say, hang on to all this stuff. It'll make your life great. But what really happens to guys like me is I shoot myself in the foot over and over and over again trying to defend myself over and over again I belong to a group that if you ever come to Las Vegas called the specific group not to be confused with the pacific group that Wayne's a member of and we meet our main meetings are Thursday big speaker meeting Wayne's spoken there and Mildred's spoken there we have a step workshop on Tuesday nights we take meetings into institutions Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays. And if you ever come to Las Vegas, I hope you look me up and you come to our group. If you're new here, I want to tell you something that will sound kind of peculiar. If you are sick enough of yourself and you're desperate enough and you've tried absolutely everything to beat this and you are still dying, if you will find a sponsor who's grounded in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and you will work that process and you'll devote your life to helping God's kids I will promise you something I will promise you that no matter what happens in your life no matter whether you're rich or poor single married whatever that there will come a time and a day when you'll be able to look around you in your neighborhood in your family in your job and in your AA group, and with all your incompleteness and defects of character, you still will not be able to find one person on the face of the earth that you would rather be than you. I want to thank you for my sobriety. Thank you very much. Thank you.