The Relationship Between Judgment and Anger – Scott

Thank you. Thank you, David. Thank you, Karen. Thank your kids. Wow. I'm Scott Lee. I've got a terribly bad case of it and I'm so grateful to treat it with you fine people tonight. Aren't we amazing? Look at us. Look at us. Wow! I would have never believed that recovery was going to be fun and here we are. So thank you. And I should tell you also, I have a central nervous system disorder that causes my hands to shake and I have an involuntary negative head shake. And once in a while, my head just does this and I'm not aware of it. So it's going to look like I disagree with what I'm saying. I don't. I may later because I'm still learning, but don't trust the head shakes tonight. And until that Lois Wilson in the moment of silence invited God to the meeting. and that really struck me it's not i don't believe god's here i do believe that but it changes everything when i stop and honor that presence so in the moment i'm going to ask you to do that none of me this many people got to have some new folks here if you don't have a god as you got here like i did terrified that there might be one allow me to recommend that you borrow mine for this time together it's got a great sense again i've been keeping me sober since 28 june uh 1984 i've got a 41 year chip in my pocket and that's a long time for a guy that only agreed to 28 days so something is working so if you don't have a god of our mind address him as a god who's got some limited understanding get you up and right but i'll meet you back here let's acknowledge presence of deity amen thank you um i i i'm honored to be here uh to substitute for for For Don, who is just one of my heroes, he's one of our great speakers and teachers. It's an honor, an absolute honor, and thank you. I thought what I'd do tonight is really qualify very briefly. I used to be bad to drink, and I was out with the boys, and they went into a bar and followed me into the bar. They ordered a beer, ordered the same brand of beer they did, of course, and I didn't like anything about the beer except that I was doing it with them. As we approached the bottom of the first beer, I'm thinking, let's pee these people and get out of here, and they ordered another beer, and you know what I did. And because I'm such a communion. By the time we got to the bottom of the second beer, I got the magic that all the alcoholics understand. And I like to see a show of hands. I just got taller. Who got taller when they drank? Who got smaller? How about better looking? Did your pimples jump right off? Mine did. Yeah. Expert on many subjects. I'm expert on subjects I never heard of and can't spell. Fantastic dancer. And gentlemen, now I can talk to the girls, right? and ladies you can listen to that garbage right i mean this is the magic juice i've been looking for this all my life and i'd have paid a high price and did for any one of those but i hadn't got to the big one the big ones for the first time in my life something deep inside me released that i could breathe it was just okay to be scotty that never had been if i was awake i was on red alert trying to hold the right mask to keep you from seeing real me because clearly if you could see me like i see me and you feel about me like i feel about me and i think i'm garbage and if you can see the real me you will throw me away and i believed it for all it takes a lot of energy to hold up that mask all the time i don't know how much longer i could have done i think alcohol saved me alcohol and and i did some other things too i'm actually what they call try addicted i'm addicted to everything i tried and but my big my big tent was alcohol and uh i chased it hard i zipped through a four-year college in five years and two summer schools. I flew for the Air Force for five years. I drove these. You'll recognize this. It's the plane that Tom Cruise thought was a MiG in the first Top Gun. We went from break release to 40,000 feet in three and a half minutes in this airplane. It would roll, that's this way, twice per second. Your eyeballs won't track that if you're sober. Trust me, I tried it both ways. and i'm not proud of that people ask me how did you fly drunk well it's a big sky you know if you step away from the edges like you know moons and stars things like that lakes mountains if you stay kind of in between those there isn't much there take a look next time when you're outside you'll notice it uh but that you know that's what alcoholism does to nice people like us it has us disrespect the things we care the most about tear the hearts out of the people to love us the most. The disease is greedy. It wants all and it'll get it all if I don't do absolutely everything necessary to stop it. I'm a member of the Page 112 group in Old Hickory, Tennessee. And for those of you who don't know, the first three words on Page 112 are read this book. And that's what we do. I attend a number of men's retreats every year. And the ones that I lead, I always open what we call a Page 112 meeting. And they're all about the fact that The way it goes is we just skip around the room. We ask you to introduce yourself, give us a page number, give us some moment to get to the page and then read us a paragraph or less and tell us why you're ready. You got three minutes including the reading. We skip all over the book and two things happen. The old timers get to show off their knowledge of the book and the new people get excited about the book. It's a double win. So I'm going to do a page 112 meeting by myself and I'm going to start on page Roman numeral 22 XXII if you got your big book you may be able to get both I get too excited doing this and I apologize for that right now what I believe is the most for me the most important phrase in the entire book is on Roman numerel 22 it's halfway down the page and it says the 12 steps that summarize the program we use the word program all the time here's the definition The 12 steps I say in the law are a summary. That's the cliff notes, according to my sponsor from 40 years ago. And he said, guys like me are too sick to stay sober on the cliff notes. I need the whole thing. He said if that was the whole program, we'd have a pamphlet instead of a book. And then it refers to the fellowship of AA at the bottom of the page, which you're in. If you say you're into it, you see your alcohol, you're an AA. You are. Nobody can say you are not. Well, they can say it, but they'd be wrong. but page 164 references a different fellowship toward the bottom of 164 abandon yourself to god as you understand god admit your false image your fellows clear away the records of your past what you find to join us we shall be with you in the fellowship of the spirit fellowship ofthe spirit has different entrance requirements from the fellowship of aa they look to me like the steps in narrative form my experience has been i've seen a large I've seen a number of people who were members of the Fellowship of AA go back out. I have never seen a member of the fellowship of the Spirit go back out I've seeing two people I know for absolute certainty what's in this book drink again, I sponsored them both, I know they did the work and what happened was one of them married his new higher power and she didn't like how much time he spent with us so he cut it way back you know how well that worked he's back now carrying a 16 year chip The other one is a hotel manager. He started running a dude ranch in Arizona 40 miles from near his meeting and quit going. And two years later, he drank for two weeks today. He's carrying over 20 years. What I say is those guys allowed their membership in the Fellowship of the Spirit to lapse. When that membership lapsed, they relapsed. When they re-upped their membership in the fellowship of the spirit, they got healthy again and they're doing just fine. they're doing just fine I've got a large number of favorite pages we won't have time to get to all of them but I'll pick a couple of pieces off page 46 carries for me a couple of the most important concepts in the book the last paragraph on 46 again was the word much if you count up three lines above that it says it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that power which is God so i have to get out of the business trying to understand god the book says i can't my sponsor says the teacup of my mind cannot contain the ocean of god when you say god as you understand we're not saying i'm going to understand God they're saying i don't believe what anybody else ever tells me and and we don't care how qualified they claim to be i don' t have to buy it man God can work that out the two for two maybe the two most important piece of information I ever got. One is on this page. It's five lines from the bottom. It says, we found that God does not make too hard terms for those who seek him. Let me translate it into Tennessee English for you. God ain't mad at us. Woo! Boy, that's some good news. That's not what I've been told. That'S NOT WHAT I'VE BEEN TOLD. Page 13. For those of you who read the book often, you know that they sneak into your bedroom at night and add new stuff and change things. A few months ago, they made a couple of changes on page 13. If this had been here before, I wouldn't have seen it. I know it was not here. The 11th line on page 13, the last word is friend, capital F, friend. It's a reference to God as a friend. Many people come to us believing in a God I wouldn'T want to meet in a dark alley, And I don't think it's possible to do a third step with that God. Got to get a friendly God, a God that's on my side. And that's a very, very important piece. The other thing they changed on page 13, they added a word down toward the bottom in the last paragraph. It says, my friend promised when these things were done, I would enter upon a new relationship with my creator. That implies that I had a relationship with God before I got here. And I would have said I didn't, and I would Have been wrong. I did. It had A name. It's called 9-1-1 See if you recognize any of these Pre-AA prayers God help me pass this study This test I didn' t study for Please don' t let her be pregnant I'm told that one can be Can be prayed in the First person, ladies Please don't let those flashing red And blue lights be for me Another very popular pre-AA prayer And the main pre-AA prayer, I used to pray this one somewhere between two and three o'clock in the morning. I'd be in the bathroom kneeling on the prayer rug, you know, a little half moon of carpet to put around the commode for you to kneel on. I'll be in there kneeling On the Prayer Rug, be at the place of the proceeding where there's nothing coming out but noise and occasional tear. Remember that part? And I would pray the pre-aa prayer when I do this in person, I ask people to join me. So I'm asked those of you who've got your cameras on, We're going to do this prayer together. Now, you know the prayer. Trust yourself. I'm going to go ahead and do it. I'm not going to say the first line. I want you to do the second line. Okay, are you ready? God get me out of this. And did you say I'll never do it again? Yeah, that's right, Don. That's it. Which is alcoholic for amen. So I'm sure you know. And then I had teeth. I had to brush my teeth and go to bed. And I get up at six in the morning, three hours later. I'm Not Even Hungover Yet. That wonderland between drunk and hungover. and at 7 30 i strap into one of these bad babies and we take off in full afterburner and i'm going to be doing things you can't even have nightmares about let me say it this way i could sleep on a roller coaster and dying absolutely dying and the only thing that kept me going was absolute certain knowledge i'd never feel this way in a plane again because last night i quit forever and I met with all my heart. Didn't you? Didn't ya? If you're new, didn't ya quit forever and didn't you mean it? And here we are. Yeah. So I was powerless and I was ignorant. That's a rough combination by the way. Page 62 has this other best pieces of good news. The one was that God ain't mad at us. This other one is on page 62. Selfishness of such a type we think is the root of our troubles. Hmm. Rarely have we seen a person who thought about their path. I'm supposed to be on a path. Things with roots don't travel, so this root thing is probably going to have to go. Driven by 100 forms. Driven! Not mildly bothered on rare occasion. DriVEN! 100 forms of fear. Fear is the deep concern I may not get my way sometime in the future. Self-delusion. I believe my own BS. I've only got two brain cells left. One of them creates BS. The other one buys it. self-seeking i'm full throttle after my well i'm not thinking about you at all self-pity poor me i didn't get my well sometime in the past for me i'm not getting my well right now pour me a drink at this point my sponsor said to me how would you like some good news i said well i would like some goodness he said how would you do that and i said yeah i would you like the best news you're ever going to get in your entire life i said babe i'm open hit me with it and he said so our troubles you think are basically wrong making he said was that it he said that was it he said i don't get it he said if the problem really is the cops the courts the judges the russians the chinese your future ex-wife her mother and their lawyer if those people really are the problem you lose the good news is that you sir are the problem if you'll bring some willingness to this party we can work on that wellness bottom and surrender all have the exact same definition it's when somebody who's qualified by a sponsor today, asked me to do something I don't like that I don' t think will help them. I don''t think matters and I don ''t want to do it. I do it anyway. It is that ''do it anyway'' that defines willingness, bottom and surrender. There are people serving long prison sentences that are not at bottom, they still got a plan. I'm here to do anyway. I picked up my 41 year chip a little over a month ago and they asked me how did you do it? I told them the truth, somebody else's way. Mine didn't work! my way worked, I wouldn't be here. Page 28. I'm just going to kind of skip around here. These things are all favorites. I don't have any unfavorites here in this book. About halfway down, if what we've learned and felt and seen means anything at all, it means that all of us, whatever our race, creed, or color, are children of a living creator with whom we may form a relationship among civil and understandable terms as soon as we're willing and honest enough to try. So I can understand the relationship. I can't understand God, but I can understand the relationships. When I look at it, as I did those pre-AA prayers, in those days when I prayed, I was trying to make him my God. What I've been taught here is how to make me his man. You see, I had it upside down. It wasn't the only thing I had upside down, also on page 38. They just recently added this, and you're going to be so proud if you haven't seen it. About 12 lines from the bottom, 38. However intelligent we may have been in other respects where alcohol has been involved, we've been strangely insane. Strangely insane. We have raised the bar on insanity. This is not like normally insane or typically insane or average insane. We have been strangely insane. I'm so proud of us. I know you are too. I just think that's fun. Page 456. Actually, we're going to start with 455. I was in one of the gated communities a few years ago as a state prison and they had books and they'd had them a while. I'll tell you, you want to have some fun in a state present where our members in there have got books, walk in there and set up a page 112 meeting and brace yourself. They have dug nuggets out of those stories. It's one of the best hours I've had. Bottom of 455, there's a saying that alcoholics either get sobered up, locked up or covered up. I've been hearing meetings, it's in the book. But at the bottom of 456, about five lines from the bottom, A has accomplished so many things in my life today. Give me my sanity, an all-around sense of balance now, willing to listen, take suggestions I've found. The process of discerning who I really am begins with knowing who I don't want to be. That's what the first five steps are about, about me finding out who I don' t want to b e. I would encourage you, bring to mind the two worst things you ever did. Don' t blurt anything out. Just bring to mine the two worse things you every did. the fact that you're thinking of them as worst things means that's not who you are if that's who you are and you'd still be out there doing it wouldn't bother you the fact that those things are worse things in your sight means that that's what I was told here I would be taught how to stop doing who I'm not how to repair the damage for having already known who I am not and who I really was when he burned some ashes like the phoenix And that's not poetry. That's what we do here. That is everyday AA, that's what we do. I want to tell a couple of stories. I was sitting by a stream some time ago, just sitting and I looked across and I saw a cloud. It occurred to me every drop of rain in that clouds falling God's will perfectly. I'm certain of it. So is the tree, so is the bird in the tree. So is little fish in the stream. Why can't I? If they can, why can't i? And it was on me hard. It upset me greatly. They can do that. I know they are. Why can t I? I got my answer. The answer is I am. I m convinced of it and I believe you are too. I do not believe God. I believed for the longest time that God put me here to be perfect. and so my history is when I make a mistake not when I make the mistake, but when I realize I made a mistake there's energy there there's always energy and I use that energy to beat myself up because I'm supposed to be perfect that's not the best approach this is what I believe today I have no idea what God's plan is but it would be his will for me to make mistakes I think it's why I'm here because a mistake is just an invitation to a lesson. And the evidence is, if I'd already learned the lesson, would not have made the mistake. It's just a lesson dressed in its work clothes. That's all it is. And I don't have the power to make a mistake so ugly that he can't turn it into wonderful. That'S who I am. That' s who he is. I frequently watch him use the worst thing I've ever done as tools to help other people. Powerful guy. So this is the learning process as I understand it today. One, make a mistake. Two, be notified I made a mistake I don't always know. Three, own the mistake. Fellas, I did that. And if they only know 80%, I got to tell them the other 20. That's how I own it. Four, consult a spiritual advisor about how to five make the amend. Usually not always there's an amend to be made. Six, embrace the lesson. It's where the learning occurs. All my life they said, well, we learn from our mistakes. Really? Well, if that's true, I'm not looking at anybody who's been arrested more than once. good luck. No, guys like me do not learn from our mistakes. We learn from living with the results of our mistakes, we learn from making the amends for our mistakes that's why to me step nine is a freedom step. I'm told I'm not punished for my sins I'm punished by them and it is through step nine through my best effort to right those wrongs that I really leave myself from that punishment it. It's the freedom step. So six is embrace the lesson as five, I make the amen. Seven is share the lesson. When I share the lesson, it really sets it for me. Eight, when I share The Lesson, I have to tell you, I made the mistake. If I just share The Listen, I'm preaching and nobody wants to hear it. When i stand as a sinner beside a sinner, he can hear me. Nine, make the next mistake. We use the term progress all the time. I give you Scott's definition. Progress is making the same old mistake a little less often, or making a new and finer quality of mistake. Anything down that's perfection, that's not my assignment. If you have not embraced that idea, I cannot begin to tell you how much freedom there is in it. But there's only half the freedom. The other half of the freedom is you, plural, you have my permission to make mistakes, includes all the men I sponsor and includes all of my family members, includes major politicians I like and don't like. It includes my husband-in-law that for those of you who are not from the South, that's the man that's married to my first wife. It includes those of vous who got your driver's licenses out of Cheerios boxes. Everybody has my permission to make mistakes because if I'm going to be upset by what you do, I'm a prisoner of your behavior. I don't want to be a prisoner anymore. So half the freedom is I have my own permission to make mistakes because you just heard what I'll do with them. I've been doing it for a while. The other half of you have my permission to do mistakes and those two things that brought me a level of freedom I did not know was available. I simply didn't know. I got here afraid of God's will. God's Will! Oh, man! And what I've discovered is this friendly God His will is not a good deal. It's the best deal there is. And I invited him in this morning to have it um we talk a lot about the next right thing i've discovered a last right thing when i was new first year or two i didn't have time for morning prayer and meditation i can't want it to i just didn't time for it took me a while to realize the problem wasn't in the morning probably was the night before so i've recovered a last ride thing the last right things for me to go to bed at a reasonable hour and set two alarms so that i can get a full night's rest and awaken tomorrow morning with plenty of time to start my day on a spiritual basis. If I don't do that last right thing tonight, I can't do the first right thing tomorrow. I set my alarms 31 minutes apart. When the first one sounds, I take a quick trip to the bathroom. It's a start button on the coffee pot. It's already set up. I just start. And I commence my prayer and meditation. 30 minutes later, sometimes that second alarm wakes me up. But that's still an A+. it says sought through prayer and meditation, not achieved. And on those mornings when I went back to sleep in meditation, I sought and that is good enough. I had to learn to stop judging my meditations. I'm not qualified. The attempt is all I'm responsible for. Take the action how it turns out is okay. My morning prayer, I begin by asking, not by asking by thanking him for a bunch of things. I've got great color vision. I thank him for you guys. I thank you for a lot of things. And then I invite him in as God, as CEO, as manager, as boss. I use all those terms and ask him to empty me of self and fill me with his love, shaking the other press down, heaped up overflowing. They may gush out of me all over everybody I meet today because you see, I believe serving God loves full-time job. and that's what I'm signing on for. I ask him to bless me. I want to be a great listener today. It's one of the most loving acts I can take. It's just simply to listen, not sit there writing this brilliant thing I'm going to say when you finally shut up, but actually listen with my whole being that I might be a good listener. I might not be a big giver today of my finances, sure, but more importantly of the, of the Most Valuable Things I have and that is my time and my attention. I ask them to bless us because I don't judge today. I don' t judge any events and I don't judge any people. Most especially, I do not judge myself and I do not judge my motive. Now this is going to sound a little bit strange but I believe good motive may be the most evil thing that's ever come to planet Earth. There's a guy in Moscow, Russia today who believes he's got a good motive for starting a war and tens of thousands of people dying. I'm told Al Capone was asked when talking about Newspaper Man why he was involved with all the illegal stuff. He said, I was just trying to get people the things they wanted. So principle always trumps motive. It's good to have good motive, but I can't trust it. I can trust it." Cliff Roach, if you don't know that name, do yourself a favor and did some of the cleverest talks. He said, the 12 traditions are set up principles designed to protect me from my very best motives. It is exactly what they did. My principles protect me from my motives. Motive works sometimes, principle works all the time. That's why step 12 does not say and had good motives in all our affairs. So I pray that I do not judge. And by the way, if I judge that I have a good motive and you oppose me, you clearly have a bad motive. You're a bad person. You deserve me to hate you. And I do. So I have to get completely out of the motive business. It's brought me an awful lot of peace. I asked God to make me a great student today. I think Planet Earth is a school. I'm pretty sure I flunked out of somewhere else. I was expelled as a behavior problem. That's how I got here. And the first lesson was, well, Scott, how does it work when you run full throttle after your own will? How's it working? I was 41 years old. I began to get the answer to that question. I asked him, blessed man, don't miss any chance to be of service to me or spread love and joy. Somebody referenced earlier, we've got traffic jams in my hometown now. Ten years ago, we didn't. People have been moving here like crazy. And my history to sitting in a traffic jam is just sit there and just steam. And now what I do is I reach in my vest pocket and I pull out a clown nose and I drop my window and I've got this yards of bubbles about the size of my traffic finger. And I pull them out and start blowing bubbles out the window to get the other driver's attention. And when they see the bubbles, they look at me and they see The Clown Nose and they start laughing. And when I laugh, your laughter is contagious. If we stay stuck, if there's a wreck, we're going to be here a while, I put it in park and shut it down, start passing them out. I got clown noses and bubbles in the back of my car. I ordered 200 of these today to replace them because I'm going through these or I'm walking through a grocery store or an airport. There's a mom there with a couple of kids and they're good kids. I'm telling you right now, those are good kids are just having a hard day. I get eight or 10 feet away from them. I put on my nose and I blow a stream of bubbles. One stream is all it takes. and kids, the crying stops right this second and kids will walk onto bubbles like a good bird dog coming on point. And I'll up to the mom and say, look, I'm a stranger. I don't want to give your children anything but the kids can have the bubbles and clown nose if they'd like to give them to you. What happens? Excuse me. What happened is those kids had their day lifted. Who else? Mom. Who else ? Everyone that saw it. Who else me? If I'm sloshing love and joy all over you, it matters unto me every time. Every time. So I ask God to bless me. I don't miss any chance to be of service, spread love and joy. If I find a penny on the ground that heads up, it's a lucky penny. Pick those up, right? I don' t pick them up. I leave them. I see a tails one, I bend down and turn it over and leave a lucky penny for somebody I'll never meet. I'm 82 years old. I bend down. I'm going to think while I'm down, there's anything else I need to do while I're down here because I don't want to come back if I don' t have to. It's a big deal. When I check out at the grocery store, if I pay in cash, I take my change, I take the paper change, but I leave the coins. 50, 60 cents. The next person that comes through finds 50 or 60 cents and lifts their day. Cost me 60 cents and one of God's kids had his day lifted. You'd say the price is about right on that, wouldn't you? put your blinker on near me in traffic i will let you in every time and what they call it type a personality again that car i'm going somewhere i slow down to let you into spiritual experience every time so i i try to stay on focus on how i can lift other people's spirits one of the ways i do that is is the way i answer the phone i tryto put a smile on my voice before i answer the phone and when i greet someone it's it's common around here to say how are you it's a very common greeting. I have a series of answers that I give. The one I do to somebody in recovery is I say, I'm guilty as charged, Your Honor. People are laughing at that one. Let's say, how are you? Say, I am blessed almost to tears. How are you ? My life is so good, I think I must be God's favorite kid. How Are You ? If it gets any better, I'm going to have to become twins just to receive it all. How ARE YOU ? If the genie pops out of the bottle this afternoon and says three wishes, I have to tell him to take the day off and call me tomorrow. I got nothing to ask for. I got this one from Ed Budum. If you don't know that name, do yourself a big favor. I said to Ed Budom one time, how are you? And he said, so much better for seeing you today. And he meant it. And I try to use that as much as I can. A constant search for ways to lift other people's spirits, especially on those days when I don't feel like it. The day before I got to recovery, how I feel is the most important thing in my life I've made all of my choices, and I chased it all the way into detox. Today, this day, how I feel is the single least important thing in my life because I cannot allow how I feels to affect what I do. How I feel put me in detox. What I do keeps me in recovery. Or as my sponsor said so gently to me 40 years ago, I didn't ask you to feel like going to a meeting every day. Did you get that? So I don't need to feel like doing these things. I just need to do them and they work. So I ask him, I don't miss any chance to be of service to spread love and joy as you know, bless me that it might stay in today. Hardest assignment any of us will ever get is one day at a time to just be here. My mind wants to race into the past reliving victories, some of which may have actually happened or go off into the future and figure it all out. Plan B and plan C and what this is, what the other, I'm rarely between the clamps right here, right now. And yet right here right now, it's where all the action is. There's one who has a power that one has gotten me to find him now. Now when I find God is where? My God is the God of right here, right now. And the problem with going into the past, to me, all I'm going into in the past and going into future is that God isn't there. He's right here right now that makes those bad neighborhoods and I got no business there. So to just stay here. So I believe all the good questions contain the word today and all the great answers contain the words today and the question is not what am I doing about my finances? It's a bad question. what do you do about my finances today feel the difference what do i do about my relationship no no no what are you about it today it's such a massive difference and to help me remember i can't believe i'm going to do this to helpme remember i have uh written the word today on some little cards and there's uh there's one right here behind me at my desk and then there's This is the front of my desk. There is the word today in four languages. And here it is on the door to my office. And here it's in the throne room, directly across from the throne. There's also one on the back door. And I use the word today frequently in all three of my vocabularies. I have three vocabulars, speaking, praying, and thinking. And I think it's important to use the word today in all three of those because staying here today is such an important thing, especially when I have a big deal in progress. That's when it's the hardest and that's when It's the most important. I was diagnosed with cancer in my throat in June of 20. And it's kind of a big deal. And the people have asked me, how did you get through that? Because I did it. I was really blessed to get through it well. A couple of pieces. One is I know to the depths of my soul that the God of love loves me and I'm sitting in his lap. And my fear of death has been gone for quite a while. uh boy i'm going down a rabbit hole i may not get back from this one um i was sober about five years sitting at my desk one night typing all of a sudden i got a twinge on my lower back and within 10 minutes i was in pain i did not know what's available i did Not Know You Could Have That Kind Of Pain And Remain Conscious I Was Being Driven To The Airport To The Hospital And It Occurred To Me That I'd Offered God My Will In My Life At Step Three In A Minute I Never Had offered him my death. I could be dying. And so I did. And I said, God, I'm not asking you to go. But if it's my time and your will, take me. My fear of death has been gone since then. Somebody who loved my friend Barkley, and he and I are both currently between wives, or we're out of the wife business. We don't know which one it is. Anyway, we double dated a couple of years ago. I went to a Mexican restaurant. Since the cancer, my throat is all scar tissue. My epiglottis is buried in scar tissue, and I'm on a liquid diet. I can't even swallow a pill. It's not a big deal. I came to you on liquid diet, it's just a different liquid. But we do a lot of socializing around food and so we dated these two unfortunate young ladies and we were in a Mexican restaurant and I've discovered I can eat ground beef if it's really ground fine and I mix a lot OF ice tea or water with it. So I've ordered a beef enchilada, we're double dating, having a good time, just being us and it's going so well, I thought, boy, I bet I can eat a piece of cheese. Well, I lost that bet. It stuck halfway down. It wouldn't go either way. It upset my friends very much. What flashed through my mind was, well, I guess I'm going to die in a Mexican restaurant. So anyway, so I'm pretty sure my fear of death is still gone. I'll tell you this, when the fear of death has gone, it pretty well cleans out the fear locker. That don't leave much. You know, death has got kind of a bad reputation if you think about it. And yet, it was invented by the same God who invented small mouth ass, vanilla ice cream and sex. Good job. Thank you. That same guy. I've seen his work. And it is therefore good. If I think of myself as this body, death looks like the ultimate bad deal. If I thank myself as a spirit that inhabits the body, it changes everything. It changes death into moving day. I'm going to move out of this beat-up efficiency apartment into a universe and more. They tell me that there's a storm on Jupiter twice the size of planet Earth, and I want to see it up close, and I don't know why it's there. I want travel the stars through the nebula. I wanna walk through the pearly gates and hug my mother and tell her what a great mom she was one more time, and hugged my dad and thanked him for all he did, and see all of my mentors that are gone. There's nothing to be feared here. I think it's the great adventure. so anyway back to going through the cancer with that attitude that makes a life-threatening disease a little bit easier to deal with i also focused on today i did not allow radiation and chemo is a tough combination and uh i did Not Allow Myself To Say Oh This Has Been Going On So Long That's Boring Pain From The Past I Don't Know How Much Longer I Can Do This It's Bowing Pain From the Future Did Not Do That I Wore Out The Today Word I Also Told The Men I Sponsor Your first thought's wrong as usual. You're thinking Scott's got this life-threatening disease. He does not need my small problems. You got that exactly wrong. I need to get out of me, and there's no way to get out of Me. But if I can get into you as a side effect, I'm out of My. I need your hangnails. And they were great about that. I need the support of your family. I need you to sponsor you while I'm going through this. I may not make it if you don't let me sponsor you. Important stuff. And I focused hard on standing the day. And it worked awfully well for me. I've been telling this, it's totally unrelated, but it's a step nine thing. A lady that I know sponsors a woman who was a prostitute. And she said when she got to step nine, she felt like she owed amends to herself. Generally, I don't think that's true about step nine. This is an exception to that. And this is what they came up with. She sat down and figured out how much money she'd made that way, and then she earned that amount of money legitimately and donated it to Magdalene House and some other similar charities. What she said was, I sold my self-esteem, I'm buying it back, and she bought it back. Don't doubt the power here. I could tell nine-step stories till dawn, and I bet you could too. There's so many of the fabulous stories. And I want to talk about timing. A number of, I was over two or three years driving down a main drive in Nashville and I got stopped at my fifth red light in a row. So I'm sitting there thinking evil thoughts about this red light's mother when it occurs to me that it's at least remotely possible that God has used that red light to keep me from being in a wreck with a gasoline truck, that kind of changed it for me. I've been around here a pretty good while. Offering God my will and my life each morning, that's easy. Offer him my day, that's easily. Offing him each moment is what I'm working on now. Most especially those moments where my will isn't being done. You hear us talking about good day, bad day? Give you a definition. Good day, God's will is being done. Bad day, God'swill is not being done and that can be brought down to the moment and when we're having a moment where God's Will is not being done, I pray each morning. I'm back to my morning prayer. I pray every morning that each of those as they come today will remind me to check in and look up and say, as you wish, let's do it your way. I got that as you wish, from Don Pritz. I hope you know that name. Do yourself a favor if you don't. And I've been having some success on that just over the last few weeks. But I'm trying to stay as connected as I can. Burke Harlan, that's a name you may not know. And if you can't find him, send me an email. I'll post my email here when I finally shut up. Burke's the most spiritual man I've ever known. And I asked him, he had three near-death experiences i had conversations with god and came back you believe what you like i wish you could look to his face when he talked about it i've never seen anyone he was just serenity on two feet and when he walked into a room it felt like somebody stuck that gold knob and turned the room down about three quarters of a turn i said to him i said how do you do this how do you be this way he said i don't know i said if you admit it he said yeah i said okay well i mean it's just but what's the first thing you did this morning he said well i thank god from alarm clock so i get up on time what was the second thing i thanked him for a flush toilet well then what well i thanked you for hot water and shaving cream and a sharp freezer and then i shopped him thank you for a warm shower and soap and shampoo and that thank you para fluffy towel burke went through the day giving thanks and it becomes habitual for him that he he didn't even know he was doing it i lost after that i can't do it i i can'T DO IT ALL THE WAY TO THE DRIVEWAY in the morning. But wow, what a way to be. Somebody told me some time ago, the password into God's presence is thank you. I don't know. I know it works for me. So my morning prayer, part of what I pray toward that end of it is I have this wonderful lady in my life right now. I'm 82 years old and she won't like that I do this, but she's a younger woman. She's 78. And so I pray, I don't know why you laugh at that. I pray that I might be the man she deserves today, that I may treasure her and cherish her, that i would be an open channel for God into her life and her an open channel for god into my life. A few Wednesdays ago, my home group meets on Wednesday nights at six. I live three blocks from there. I like to leave home at 529. That's what time I want to leave. I want it to be 30 minutes early. That's when I was taught. She wants to go look at a house in our neighborhood, say, okay, we'll leave early. And we agreed to leave early, but she doesn't leave early is not one of her settings. So we're sure that house is somewhere on this end of the universe and we drive all over and we do finally find it to discover very quickly it's not what she's looking for. And then she says, I'd like to stop at the dollar store and get one item before we go to the meeting. And what flashes through my mind is, what would a guy who treasured a woman say to that? And the answer is, of course. So we pull into the dollarstore and she goes in to get this many, one item. And I'm sitting in the car praying because I know I'm going to need these prayers. I got to get prayed up and stay that way or I'm gonna miss a 24 karat gold opportunity to keep my mouth shut if I don't get prayed up. She's gone an inordinately long period of time, according to St. Scott. And I don'T know what the one item was that she went to get. I know it came out in two bags. I do know that about it. And as she got in the car, she said, I'm really sorry it took so long. There was a homeless guy in line in front of me and he couldn't afford all the items he'd selected. And I bought some things for him. And I said, that's one of the reasons you're sitting next to me. We pull up to my meeting. It's still not meeting time. I'm still before the meeting is going to start. 30s of big crowd in this meeting. I know them all. I pull up and there's a guy I don't recognize walking up the stairs. I go around and open my lady's door. I get my big book out of the back seat. We start up the steps. And as we get to the door, he's coming out. That guy I didn't know. And I stopped and introduced myself to him. He's a newcomer. And he couldn't get all the way in. And I was able to stop him and take him in and introduce him around. I'm not certain. I think there's a pretty good chance I gave him a temporary sponsor. I have a tendency to do that. I'm não estou tomando crédito para nada disso. Você vê a mão de Deus nisso? Você vê? Deus usou aqueles tempos em que Scott Will wasn't done para atingir um tempo de 20 segundos. Ele atingiu ele no meio, dead solid, perfecto, right on the head. And I pray every morning that as things don't go Scott's way, that I might use this as reminders to just say, as you wish, thy will be done. To literally get all the moments turned over. What I'm hoping to get to one of these days, and I believe I've had mentors who were there, is to do something and then check back in and do something else and check back out. Sometimes I can do that a couple of times and then i get off into scott's will but but that's what i'm hoping for that's where i'm trying to go um i uh i've discovered the source of all of my anger by the way it comes from being sure i'm right never have been angry or absolutely certain i was right and being right comes from having passed judgment i have to judge to be right to be angry so judgment is anger's grandmother and is the actual process why i can't work on my anger anger is a symptom the problem is judgment It's been proposed to me that God did not put me here to judge. And so I added that to my morning prayer, that I don't judge. And that has reduced my anger dramatically. I'm not batting a thousand, but I'm on the all-star team and I never was before. That's been a tremendous change for me. It says on page 87, pause when agitated. Well, it says agitated and doubtful. We don't even read the doubtful thing. We're alcoholics. We're never right. We're seldom right, but we're never in doubt. Pause when agitate it. I believe God's waiting patiently for me in the pause. Father, I've judged again and I'm angry. Please take away this anger and judgment and give me sadness and love because anger and love never travel together. They're mutually exclusive. Sadness and love travel well together. When I can go back into a situation with sadness and loved, it opens my heart and theirs. And I rarely wind up making amends. It's been an important piece for me. page 8. I don't know if I'm going to have time to do everything I want to do here. Page 8, two-thirds of the way down. Bill says I have to know happiness, peace and usefulness and we have a life that's incredibly more wonderful as time passes. Happiness. Aristotle said it's what everybody wants is to be happy and I'll buy that and I want that for myself. Absolutely right. Peace. Yes, I want that for myself also. I want to be calm in here and comfortable and quiet and peaceful. I wantthat for myself. What is usefulness doing on the list? That's for them. No, it isn't. It's for me. I cannot find a direct route into happiness and peace. It is a side effect, a side effect of attempting to be useful to you. I don't even have to be used, but I got to try. It is that attempt that brings me happiness and piece. I read this book a bunch of times. I can give you six of seven pages that talk about recovery is going to be fun. I Can Give You Five That Say Someone What I Know For Sure Ain't So. I CanGiveYouFiveThatSayICreateMyOwnTrouble. The single theme that runs wider and deeper than any other is help others be of service. ICanGiveYouOver50PagesNumbersBeforeYouGetToDrBob's Story. It is the single themethat runs wider, deeper than the other. It's the magic. It''s the magic. While I was going through the radiation and chemo thing, I noticed something on page 84 and what we affectionately know as the nine-step promises. It says that feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. What in the world are uselessness and self pity doing? How did they get together? I found the answer. The path out of self-pitty is through being useful. I got into depression a couple of times. For me, depression is nothing more or less than thinking about myself in the bad future. It's borrowing pain from the future is what it is. I'm not saying about anybody else that's what it was for me. And I got Into the Poor Me's and I followed their directions. I pick up the phone and called you and said, what's going on in your life? How can I be of service? What can I do to help you? The incoming tide lifts all boats and I want that tide to be made out of love and service and joy. and so I tried to spread joy and when I did it lifted my spirit it's an astonishing thing my third sponsor I see a couple of you that knew him his name was John but he picked up the nickname Rusty actually I'm proud to tell you I gave it to him at the end of his drinking he was drinking mouthwash mixed with Kool-Aid and he weighed his pants so many times his zipper rusted shut and we nicknamed him Rusty in honor of the zipper and he loved his nickname by the way I'd like to share with you two pieces of wisdom for Rusty. He said, I'm not responsible for what I think. I'm responsible for how long I think it can't keep garbage or showing up up here. When it gets dirty up here, I can sweep. That is my responsibility. The other one he said was in the history of this planet, no human has ever been put in an insane assignment for being insane. Never not once they put us in there for acting insane. It's always been let out for being sane. That's not for acting sane. And so on those days when you're crazy, if you don't act on it, they won't know. Don't tell them they're not ready. Pick up the phone. Tell one of us we're ready and we are not all crazy on the same day. That might be the best piece of advice I ever got. This picture is me at four years old. The last time I was between wives, I took that out of my wallet, blew it up. You see it two feet by three. little four-year-old boy, happy as he could be. Not too long after that picture was taken, some things happened to him that should never happen to any child. Through the forgiveness process, which my sponsor added the parent 552 to force step four. Through that process, I became emotionally disconnected from everything they did to me. And through the ninth step, I became emotional disconnected from all the things that I did. They're all just facts in my past. I also was born in Georgia. They're just facts in my past, the emotion is no longer connected to it. But I blew that thing up and put it on the wall at the foot of my bed. I did not know why. I was looking at it one time, I thought, who would he have become? If all that had not happened, and he'd received all the nurturing and guidance and love, he clearly deserved, who would him become? And I got my answer. The answer is, that's my assignment. It's my assignment to become the man he would have become. The only question is, am I willing to do the work and I serve the God of it ain't too late. The only question is, am I willing to do the work? The God of love is stronger than all of that stuff and I think I have become the man he would have become and let me tell you about him. He woke up every morning just excited to be alive. He was fascinated by simple things, butterflies, sunrises. He loved everyone. He was completely unconcerned with his future because he had total faith in those who provided for him. He was in touch with his emotions He never used bad language. He laughed easily and frequently. He was open to learn. He judged no one. Happy, joyous, and free living each moment as it came. That's what you've done with me. I'm still learning. I'm a man of God. I'm working process. What a phenomenal experience this has been. We invited God. I asked him in a quiet time to make me perfect for this time. Page 13 says I can do that if it's for you. And it was. and if you borrowed my God and you get touched in this hour you might want to do that again if you invited your God you might start doing that for those quiet times before the meetings I think you'll discover meetings have gotten better everywhere that's about enough for me I love you with all my heart thank you