The Ritual of AA and the Danger of Thinking Too Much – Ken D.

Hi everybody, I'm Ken. I'm an alcoholic. Well, it's too big to be night court, so... Yeah, this is good. Well, we got a lot of business out of the way. Steve's out, Joe's in. You know? I hope you didn't get whiplash. Nina, you're looking good, honey. I tell ya. I hope... I hope he had to come hurt me dance, you know? They are having a 13-step dance tonight, and yeah, yeah, so make sure you got that wacko magnet. You don't want to be out there defenseless, that's for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Remember those good old dances you used to go to when you were half in the bag? And they'd be playing that really, really good music like, I'm just two six-packs away from loving you. You know, like, I don't know, you know? Throw a saddle on the stove, Mama, we're riding a range tonight. You know, like, well, I want to give you the theme song for A.A. Dances in case you've never heard it. It goes like this. So listen carefully. Do you want to dance? Golly. By the time these guys get done with me, I don't know where the hell I'm from. I mean, I started out in San Diego, and when we first started doing this, and I want to thank Steve and all the folks on the committee for inviting me to come up, and that was whenever it was. And then I had a deal where I decided I was going to move to New Mexico, and I did that in January, and somehow I ended up in Ventura, so on the flyer. So, you know, I really have a lot more stability than that. But I was in the same place for like 27 years. And then when I moved, I got the greatest phone number in the world, though. It's like 333-2266, you know? My sister thinks I'm in the Federal Witness Program. You know, she said you moved in a hurry and you got a number they just don't give out. You know? Like this is the deal. And I want to thank Bobby. I don't know if he's here for picking me up. Is he here? thank him for picking me up there he is and thank him for picking me up at the airport he was right where he was supposed to be and he and his son we drove down from San Jose I love alcoholic people because you know they just keep their commitments that's what they do they just keep their commitments and they build character you come here as a character and then you get to build character you know and the deal is that all I know about this deal about character is character is keeping your commitment long after you've lost the desire, you know. It's just showing up and doing the deal. And I was with Bill T today back there, and he was getting Jerome's accolades. People were just coming over, thought he was Jerome. Jerome? Thank you. So I know you're not multicolored here that much, you know, it's like Jerome. And I liked Jerome's talk last night because he talked about the IRS coming after them in the mental ward. And, you know, they've been known to do that, you know? And I have a definition for an IRS agent. I hope there's none here. But my definition of an IRS agency is somebody who comes onto the battlefield after the battle and it's his job to shoot the wounded, you now like. Yeah, we're here to help you. Could you come up front? You know, like the deal is, though, is that I love being sober. I don't know about you guys, but I've never done this March 30th, 2002 before. And so far it's been a hell of a day. I mean, I woke up this morning and people were outside the window in the courtyard and they were laughing and having fun. And, you know, that's not the way I used to wake up. I don't know about you guys, but I was kind of like a Johnny Cash wake-up guy. On Sunday morning, I woke up this morning with no way to hold my head. It didn't hurt. I had a beer for breakfast and one more for dessert. That's the way I was. I was one of those guys who just drank. I never used drugs. Now, I have nothing against that. So don't. I think he's one of those guys, you know. I have nothing against it, but, you know, I grew up in Brooklyn in an area where if there was a mafia, they lived there. And since we were crime, we had no crime. You know, that was that kind of a deal. You don't have crime if you are crime. It just doesn't work that way. So we had absolutely no crime in our neighborhood. I mean, as a kid, I'd leave my bike and my radio out, and I'd go in the house and say, I dare you to take it. You know? And nobody ever took it. And the deal was that's just the way it was. So we had a deal in the neighborhood with drugs, and the deal is if you sold drugs or if you used drugs, the first time they found out about it, they would open a car door and close it on your hand. You know, we had like zero tolerance before there was zero tolerance. and then let's just say you were a really slow learner the next time you did it you just disappeared and someone said what happened to Vinnie I think he moved over to Jersey You know what I mean? And that would be the end of them. And it's amazing. If you kill the people who use drugs, it really cuts down on usage. It works. That's all I can tell you. There was that kind of a neighborhood. They used to say, well, if he fell asleep in the trunk of a car, he deserved to be shot. You know, like, you know, that kind of a place, you know. How far is it to the subway? We don't know. No one's ever made it. Know what I mean? I don't want to know. I don' t know. So you get an idea of that, you know, what went on, you know. And that was the neighborhood we lived in and there was no crime. We had five mafia families that lived within like four blocks of one another. And there was no crime. I mean when New York, the power went out they had a block party. And nothing was broken. Nothing was pilfered. Nothing was stolen. They have a sound in that neighborhood and it's a sound that everybody knows. Everybody knows. And it's a sound that doesn't require vocabulary and it is a sound that doesn't require a lot of education and not a lot of crowd control. It's a very simple sound and it goes like this. Shh! And it's like, we know. We know. And the deal is that I decided that when I went out to drink, I just drank. I do nothing about alcoholism. In my family we're divided into two groups. You see, the NAA, well, you need it. You know, like there's no middle ground, you know? I drank stuff that not only hit the spot, it removed it. You know what I get? It took it away. You know? Like it was gone, you Know? I was the youngest of seven kids, and my mom used to say, The only time any of you kids say no to a drink is if you misunderstood the question, you know? And that's just who we were, you know? You know, when I got sober back in New York, they used to say CIA, Catholic Irish Alcoholic. And now I'm in Four Corners. It's a good place to be from because there's a place there where you can put your two feet and your two hands and you're in four states at the same time. It's an alcoholic paradise. You know, you call people on the cell phone just hoping they say, where are you? Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah, you know. And that's just the way it is. And so that's the deal here. I just didn't know anything about alcoholism because everybody I knew drank, you know. And now in Arizona, I mean, in New Mexico where I come from, they don't have CIA. They have IRA. That's Irish Redneck Alcoholic. So that's what we have now. And I hang out with the Navajo now, which is a real trip. I mean, a real tip. Yes. And I got myself a name now. Piccola. That means White Pony Man. Because I got a Ford Explorer that's white. And I'm a real city boy and I'm getting along great over there. People are great, aren't they? I mean, our people are great. And when you get to know them, you find out, you know, we all got sent out from the same home office. You know? 98% of our DNA is the same. So whoever sent us out, we were all okay when we got sent out. And somewhere along the line, we just forgot, you know? I took my granddaughter to see The Lion King. And there's a great scene in there where Simba's looking in the water, and this roaring voice of James Earl Jones says, Simba, remember who you are. And that's the deal. I just forgot who the hell I was. And so I made up this person. And I watch other alcoholics do the same thing. You know, we drink because we like the effect. Is this clever or what? You know? The guys who wrote that book, I mean, the insights they must have had. You know like when the alcoholic drinks something happens. Wow! Wow! I mean, is that depth or what? You know? You drink, something's going to happen. Who can bet on that? And then the way they describe us, it gives you a really, really good overview when you read this stuff. It says, we're maladjusted. in full flight from reality. Outright mental defectives. Delusional. Children of chaos, and in our best moments, producers of confusion. That gives you a lot to work with. That really gives you a lot of work with, you know? So who are you? I'm a mental defective, you know. You know? And I don't know about you guys, but I've been coming to AA so long now, you know, that I have absolutely no defense against the next meeting. You know, I just show up, you Know. And I love going to meetings with the Indians now because I'm teaching them some of the New York stuff and they're teaching me some of The Navajo stuff. and the other day I said at one of the little meetings there when you get here you've got to have no reservation and one of the Indians said where do you come from if you don't have a reservation where are you from and then they told me that my people meaning Anglos taught them how to wink. They never knew how to wink. And then we taught them. Yeah? And so, and so it's like, and then I'm teaching them that they took a lot of stuff from New York, like there's a tribe there called the Utes. And anybody knows that's anybody under 16 in New York is a, you know, he's, you know. So what is he? He's a Ute, you know? You know? And I'm in California, I got sober in New York and I moved to California and there's a definite difference between sobriety and New York. In New York, they have a whole way of approaching this. In California, they ask newcomers, 30, 60 days sober, like, what's your career choice? Career choice. We got sober, they said, hey, yo, go get a job, you know. Go get off the corner and make your mother proud. You know, like try to do something that's not indictable. You know? You know. You know! You know... Because I don't know about you guys, but when I first got here, my best skill was finding things before people officially lost them. You know like... And I love to hear people laugh. That's one of the reasons I love to come to conventions because I know a couple of things about laughter that most people don't know. And that is, you cannot laugh and think at the same time. So every time you laugh, you're getting a respite from your favorite subject, which is you. You know? And the other thing is when you're laughing, this is science now. I mean, I got through school totally unscarred by education. it never landed a blow wherever it was I managed to be somewhere else and that's why the guys I hung out with at the meetings we celebrate we are not the brightest bulbs in the room but the nice part about it is you don't have to be particularly brilliant to get sober You know, we have a big book. A lot of meetings have one. But it's called the owner's manual, you know? And if you don't have an owner's manual, you should get possession of one because it tells you in there all the stuff you need. You know when it describes us, we don't give up too easy. We're not givers up as a rule in AA. You know it uses words like the delusion has to be it doesn't say set aside it doesn' t say replaced it doesn´t say mitigated it says smashed you can´t leave anything there otherwise they will be looking for delusion well here is enough to start over you know And then it has a word. It says, the alcoholic doesn't get serious about working on their problems unless they're mangled. Mangled! I looked it up in the dictionary. It says crushing, tearing, deep disorganized wound. Mangled. And so that's what we do here. So we don't, you know, we're in full flight from reality. If you're an alcoholic of my type, you're trying to escape from a reality you're not in, you know? You know? Most of our actions are the equivalent of housekeeping in a dream, you know, like a, you know, and we have a great capacity to think because that's what we do and we don' t want to take action, you know? Think, you You know, people just didn't understand what I was going through. And I'm sure what you were going through, it's like, you're thinking. You know? You have one of those days you just set aside for thinking. You didn't know that when you woke up. It just kind of evolved, you know? And you're sitting in your chair and you're thinking and thinking and thinking. And you go from being an entrepreneur and, you know, one half of your head is saying, thank you for that Nobel Peace Prize, you know? And the other half is saying, you want fries with this, you know, like, you're there and you're swimming in the Ganges and you've married and divorced and you having custody battles and then somebody says to you, it's time to go to bed. and you say thank God thank God this lazy boy is killing me I mean you just can't wait to get into a bed and expire it's been a day of exhaustion and of course you've accomplished nothing but the thought process You've been, I mean, monumental. Monumental. And you get into bed and you say, but I'm in shape to handle these days, you know. And then you doze off. And you know, the deal is here is that, I don't know about you guys, but things have been shown to me in the most unusual ways. I rented a car a while back and it had one of these global positioning systems, you know what they are like you punch them where you want to go and then if you're retarded they get you there you'll need a Thomas Brothers no I'm going to go see Louie so I punched the thing in and then it snowed so I had to take the car to the car wash because I like to see where I'm gone and see what you're going to hit and so I took the car through the car washing when I came out I had him make a turn that took me in the opposite direction to which I had programmed the GPS. And this voice came on and said, Please, follow directions. And I thought, well, I'll be damned. Had they had that thing when I was 16, you'd have a different speaker because, I mean, it was like instant, boom, correction. I don't know about you guys, but I needed a sponsor in kindergarten. I needed some direction early on. I would have loved to have a sponsor maybe like in kindergarten, call them up on the phone and say, Ken, just relax, eat the cookies, take the nap. So, you know, and I would say thanks and hung up. But that's what I needed. And I need that kind of stuff. When I got to Alcoholics Anonymous, the guy said to me, you are a little angry. Which was probably the greatest understatement since Noah said, looks like rain. You know, like it was like I just and so I had a sponsor and I met him at my first AA meeting. And I just called him last week. He was 38 years sober. and I'm one of those very, very fortunate, lucky people that I'm sober over 31 years and I've had the same sponsor from the time I got here. You know, like God's been very good to me, you know. And he's still active in Alcoholics Anonymous. You know he's not a retired sponsor. He's an active sponsor, you now. We're the kind of guys that go to meetings because we do it on a voluntary basis, you know. Not that kind of sponsor. And he was reminding me of a story that the boys back on the East Coast have kind of asked. I know, honey, I've had those nights myself. But he reminded me of this story when I first came in. I went to his house. My wife had left me for her own sanity. And she had taken my kids and moved out of state, which was a very good thing because that needed to be done, obviously. And it was a scenario where when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, I had these indictments and all kinds of stuff. There was a lot of people who were just confused. And unless they had Polaroid, it wasn't me, you know? And the deal was is that he had me over his house because he knew that I was going through that catharsis of very much missing my wife and my children. And I used to go see the kids every week. And he had me there, and we ate dinner. And then he'd say, let's go to a meeting. And he kept me anchored into his family, which was a very important thing because I had a lot of drift in me at that time. And he was just so nice. Now, as I said, I described a little bit the neighborhood I grew up in, and it's that kind of a neighborhood that when you say you're going to do something, you do it. There's a lot of things that you can get away with, but you can't get away with not doing what you say you're going to do. And so after about 35-40 days of being really, really nice to me and never asking me for anything, he says, in our neighborhood we didn't say well said, we've got to go put the hit on this guy. So he says we've gotta go put the hit on this guys. So we went to the house and it was a typical brownstone you know, and you couldn't park And so he said to me, could you go get him and I'll drive around the block and pick you up because there's no parking. And I said, sure. So I got out of the car and I went to the door. And as he tells the story, when he came back, there I was beating this guy with a garbage can lid. Bam! Bam! and he called me like a dog. And what had happened was the guy's wife answered the door and he came to the door like he had a choice. He thought it was a program of attraction. He said, I'm not going with you. Now, pal, there's a lot of things you might or might not do tonight, but not going with me is not one of them. You know, like, it's not oneofthem. So I knew the missus wanted me to help, so I removed her from being between us, and I got him outside where I knew that fresh air would help him think clearly. And he took a swing at me, which I hadn't had done in almost two, three weeks. So I introduced him to a garbage can lid that happened to be handy at the time. And I remember when I got in the car and we drove away, my sponsor said, I want you to remember two things. I said, what's that? He said, first, don't ever consider that a 12-step call. And secondly, don't tell anybody I'm your sponsor right away. You know, like let's, you know, let's see how it goes, you know. But that's about where I was when I got sober, you know. And now when I go back to visit the boys back on the East Coast, you-know-how alcoholics are. That story has been greatly enlarged. In fact, we went out for a nice dinner. The guys who say they love me and are so glad to see me and I'm so happy you're here. These guys. These guys, these are the ones. One guy says, you know, he says, I was in a bar deal. He said there was a guy that drunk out of his mind. He said, and he was really, really, really in need of it. He said so much so that I broke my own rule about approaching people in the bar when they're drunk. And I went over to him and I said, you know, as bad as you are, you should think about AA, Alcoholics and Non-Affiliates. He said and he turned around and he had a garbage can lid mark from here to here and part of his eye was closed and he said I called him once he didn't work for me you know and that's the kind of guys you deal with but they're always glad to see you in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous these guys who wrote the book Bill and the Boys, when they wrote this book, they had a lot of spiritual insight. I don't know where it came from, but they had a lot of spiritual insight. And they had a lot of street savvy. A lot of street savvy. Because they have a third step that causes people monumental problems. Where you turn your will in your life over to God. And the deal is, prior to that, they convince you that lack of power is your dilemma. so they're really negotiating with you to give up something you don't have I don't have the power in the first place and now I don' t want to give it up you know so what's my quandary you know and the deal is is the book is good if you take everything and you look at it in the spiritual context in which it was written, and that is lack of power is our dilemma. But after you hear a while, you find out that lack of dilemma is our power. You don't have to be scratching stuff that don't itch. You know? It's really, when you come down to it, the game is rigged. You know, it doesn't really matter what you do. It's already rigged." There's only two kinds of people who come to Alcoholics Anonymous. Those who are done drinking and those who aren't. You know?" Wow! now if you're done drinking you can't do the steps bad enough to go drink and if you are not done drinking you can do them good enough not to drink so you either are done or you're not done put a fork in him see where he's at You know? This. This thing is, in its entirety, really, really not that difficult. And I know I'm living proof of the fact that people who are unscarred by education can make it here. You know, I work with people who, it's not like they're too smart. They just have a vested interest in how smart they are. And the end result is they don't want to give that up. I mean, we have a staff. I worked with a psychiatrist. Not really sharp, you know? You know, I wouldn't send my cat to you. I mean tell you the truth. And I have nothing against psychiatrists except that when it comes to this deal, sometimes they're just getting sober I'm talking about. And he said to me, I don't know what to do. I just don't know what, you know, the emotion. I just don't know what to do. Let's go to the 11th step here. Let's follow this 11th step. It says, when we retire at night. Now, when do you think that would be? The lights are out, TV is off, maybe you're saying, hey, I think I'm retiring. When you get to that point, it says we constructively review the day. Not destructively. We constructively view the day, and we have a little check-off list. Do you think you know when you're going to retire? Do you thing that kind of comes on you? And then the next part, upon awakening. that's like when you open your eyes and you go this is a part of wickedness this is what we do when agitated not if agitated when aginated this is why which part of this is overwhelming you You're like, which part of this is overwhelming you? And then for the people who get up in the morning and say things like, well, when I get up In the morning, I get down on my knees and I say the third step and then I proceed with my day. Sometimes around noon it goes astray. Sometimes sooner. Well, that's why they have a line in there. It says, it's really not that difficult. I know this word. It's many. M-A-N-Y. many times, many, many many times many times many times during the day we say, thy will be done. It's not a one shot deal. And the deal is that after you hear a while what you'll come to realize hopefully is that what causes most people most of their problem is I used to be wrong on this but I think I'm right now it doesn't matter it doesn' t matter for you it only matters for me because you're going to have to figure this out on your own but the deal is is I used to say that I used my mind too much and now I realize that's not true my mind uses me too much it's not my mind I'm its body, you know. People say, well, I've got a committee. I fired that committee. When I get up in the morning, my mind is, I don't do that anymore. I figure if it's mine, it should be doing what I need to do. I wouldn't take that crap from my hand. You know? You know? I'm going out to get a soda, not without me. You know, you know? But that's the deal. The three words you never want to hear an alcoholic say is, I've been thinking. Because you know within that framework is where the problem is. you very seldom hear somebody say I just came back from a 12 step call where I took somebody and we're meeting and now I'm really feeling bad it's no I've been in the lazy boy doing it I've never been thinking and the deal is it never says in the book about thinking it says about into action into action and I found out too that what happened to me was and it took me a while to find this stuff As the book says, it's not an overnight deal. It took me a lot of meditation, a lot trying to form a conscious contact with God. I started going on silent retreats several years back. I started out with half a day and then a day and then weekends and then couple of weeks and then months. And the deal is you don't know who you are until you get disidentified from your mind. Because I thought for the longest time when I heard a voice, it was me. And it wasn't. It was just my mind. The me that was sent out here is just fine. Perfect. You know, I hear people in the third step say things like, you know, Ken, if I keep turning my will and my life over, like the book says, I'm going to become the hole in the donut. Watch my lips, as Bush used to say, the senior. We are the hole. We are a hole in a donut. And thank God we are, Of course, the donut comes and goes, but the hole is always there. You know? Thank God we are because we're connected with everything. And everything's connected with us. And the only time people feel bad is when they see themselves as not being connected. And that's why you hear somebody say that they forgot. And that'S why they did something that wasn't good for them. And that' s why we remember. And if you look at the word remember, it means to join up again, to become part of the group. We remember. We become partof it again. You know? If you want to create a habit, you've got to repeat an act. I mean, if you wantto create ahabit, youve got torepeatanact. And the fact is that going to Alcoholics Anonymous is repeating an act If you lookat the word spiritual, inside the wordspiritualisthewordritual, R-I-T-U-A-L. Youve gottolerntheritualofAA, which is going to meetings, working with others, being of service, becoming selfless, and enjoying life more. And the deal is that that takes practice, and that's why it says we do here. We practice. You know, you just don't get good at this overnight. And that's Why when I see people with 50 years or 40 years, they know the ritual. And then the newcomer is into thinking. and that's okay because someone has to play their role I personally am glad I don't do it but the word thinking when you look at it the last four letters are king K-I-N-G we've made thinking king and we put action on the back burner and it's not unless you do the action here that you're going to get the results you can think as much as you want about having a glass of water but it's no going to do anything to quench your thirst Sooner or later, you've got to get out of the Lazy Boy and go get it. You know? And that's just the deal. I mean, it's really not that complicated. And the funny part of it is, is that it's all about energy. I realize today that I only have so much spiritual energy. And I can't be wasting it. And that is why I have to be very, very good at not scratching stuff that don't itch. You know, otherwise I'm using up that energy. You know, in the 11th step it tells me very clearly I live in that 11th Step As you can tell It says, you know, it says We become more efficient Why am I more efficient? Because I'm not tiring so easy Why am i not tiring So easy because i'm not burning up my energy Foolishly and why am i Not burning up. My energy foolishly because i'M Not trying to rearrange the world You know And the end result of that is is that I have the energy I need to do the things I want when I need them. Some guy Einstein said, energy equals MC squared. Everything comes down to energy. Bill and time. I hear people say, well yesterday, tomorrow. Watch my lips. There is no yesterday. There is not tomorrow. There's now. N-O-W. This is all we got is this now. If you spell it backwards, it's one. W-O N. When you've learned to live in the now, you won. This is not about Sunday. This is not about Friday. This is Saturday. And you've got to go do this. When I go to bed tonight, I'm going to have kicked the daylights out of the 30th. It's going to have no light. I'll ring its neck. And whatever's left when I'm getting into bed, I'll finish off when I pray. And then if I wake up tomorrow upon awakening, I'll take a peek at that day and the deal is in the meantime you have a lot of laughs because you watch a lot of people going through all this nonsense you know I love watching newcomers when they come in it's like the hamster's dead but the wheel is still turning you know First time here? Yeah. You ever try it once? But it didn't work for me. And the deal is, it's so much fun to come to these things because you get to see all kinds of people at all levels in the deal. And, you know, I love being sober. I mean, I don't know about you, but I love getting up in the morning and knowing exactly where I'm at. Knowing exactly that I have absolutely nothing to do and I have forever to get it done. That's enough to keep me busy. You know, I had inklings of this. When I was growing up, they had that Kung Fu on. I don't know if you remember that, but, you know. And the master used to say stuff to little Kung and Fu. And he'd say things like, why are you rushing, grasshopper? You are already here, you now. And I knew that meant something. I just didn't know what it meant, you known. It would resonate down to my soul and I know they're saying real important stuff and I can't follow it, you know. But I know the truth when I hear it because it just goes resonates right in my body. It becomes a part of me. I just know it's the truth. I don't know how it fits in. I just Know It's the Truth. And I know there are some things I can change. I can' t change the past. You just can't do that. I can''t change the truth and I ca' n't change another human being. And once I accepted that, then life got to be really easy. And you get to see the impermanence of it. And once they understood the impermenence of it, I got to know that, hey, you know, you've got these beautiful flowers out in front. They have a beginning, a middle, and an end. And if you want to find out where the scent's coming from, you've gotta kill them. You've gotta dissect them. So don't dissect stuff just to find out what's going on. You know, just go and do it and enjoy it. I mean, this is a big deal here. Only man makes plastic flowers. Nature doesn't say, well, we want it to last forever. It's a little while. And I was here this morning with Mary and them doing their little workshop. And she was talking about tap roots. I don't know a diddle about anything that has to do with the ground. But I know that something happens to make other things happen. That's about as deep as I can go. One time my wife talked me into moving to New Jersey When we were going through that adjustment period I was afraid to go Because I knew what happened to Vinnie and the other guys We never saw them again And I bought a right on lawn mower And I took it out And I was cutting And the guy said if you like it Call me And if there's any problems Call me And I called him And I said you know It cuts the thin grass real good But the thick grass, it has trouble with. It goes ping, ping, pong off the lawnmower. So he said, I better come over. So when he came over, he said... He had his son. They look at each other. You know when people are having fun at your expense because they're trying not to laugh and they just want to let it all go? And he looks at his son, and then he looked at me and he said you cut about an acre of asparagus. You know? You know. You know, that's not thick grass. You know what I'm saying? People actually eat that, you know. And the deal was is, you know, I learned what asparagus looked like, you know. But I didn't know then, you know. And the thing is, I The deal was, is that in my lifetime, what I've come to find out is that I mentally am ready to do a lot of stuff before I'm emotionally ready to do it. And the book talks about that. I have a second edition and there's a poem in there that says, pity me the heart that It is slow to learn what the quick mind sees at every turn. And what that is, is that mentally we're ready to do stuff. But emotionally and spiritually sometimes it takes getting ready to do that. You know, I had a life in 1993 that was very different than the life I have today. And it was a life that worked for me. It was like a puzzle. And it wasn't just a puzzle, it was like an adventure. It was a beautiful puzzle. It just worked. I had retired. I was a single parent. I got to be with my kids, I got to do all the fun things my wife had gone off in another direction but that was okay and everything was just right and then what happened was the company paying me my retirement went bankrupt and so I was going to have to go back to work which seemed like it was an unfair deal and it was like I had gone out the door like I'd never worked before which seemed very unfair what was unfair the most was my son got very very sick and he was traveling around the world on a cruise boat singing and dancing and having a good time and they sent him home and he had AIDS. And he went from 190 pounds down to, when he died, he weighed about 65, 70 pounds. And it just didn't seem fair to me that he was such a quality kid that this would happen to him. And I know God had a great sense of humor in his own way because my ex-wife started coming to my house. I got to meet my husband-in-law, you know? It was like, you don't know. And he pitched in and we all pitched in and we did this thing and he came home. They sent him home and he arrived at LAX in July and he stayed with me for July and August and he died September the 8th of that year. And the thing I remember, two things I remember the most is that he wanted to maintain as much dignity as he could and he wanted a good life. He wanted to use the bathroom and he had gotten so slight that using a bedpan or whatever was very, very difficult. So I would put comforters and pillows on the floor and I would watch my son crawl to the bathroom and he would get tired and go to sleep and wake up and do the deal and it hit me one time when I was watching him crawl across the floor that I had crawled on the floor and I lost my business and here was my son crawling on the wall to maintain it so why you're on the floor isn't good and bad in its own it's just that's the way it is and the other thing I remember is that eventually I had volunteered in the hospice and never knowing that 10 years later my own son would die in that hospice. And we moved him over there and I remember that last day because we had stopped all the medication, it wasn't doing any good and he came out of what was considered a coma and he wanted to know where he was and what was going on and I told him. And I had grown up hearing a lot about being in the world, but not of the world. And he rolled his head to one side of the pillow. He was in the wall. And when he came back, he was ugly. And he looked at his mom and I, and he said, you know, thanks for being here. Thanks for being supportive. And then he took my hand and he says, I'm good to go, Dad. I'm fit to go. and at that time under those circumstances Chet was in his best interest to go I told him hey you've taken enough from this thing it's really ravaged you so let go whenever you're ready and he wanted to know if there was anything he could do and I said well I don't know how it works but since you're going first if it's possible when we come you could come to meet us And he said, I'll do that if I can. And he touched my hand and he said Dad, this means you've got to go on. And I knew right then what he was saying and that is that this life is very, very important and it goes by like a blink and you don't want to be wasting time trying to figure stuff out and you have no time at least I don't I have no time for anger or resentment or anything else. It's just too short. It's a result of being a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I was surrounded. They talk about footprints in the sand and there's only one set. That was not my experience. I had a lot of footprints around me. People came out of the woodwork. I had guys who didn't do their own cleaning offering to do mine. I sponsor a lot of 90 guys. You know, they do half the cleaning, half the wash and half the cooking And they live alone And the deal is They were trying to help And the bottom line of this was that I got to see with a great deal of clarity That the spiritual life is not a theory You do have to live it And there are times And it was mentioned here over the last few days By several people there are times when it's not always bright but you know there's something that's happened to me and that is I have a peace that goes beyond this world it doesn't mean I'm happy all the time it just means I'm peaceful and knowing that peace is a lot more than being happy sometimes because it's being able to say to life come and get me do whatever you gotta do But in the process, I am going to do the things I was set out to do. And I was sent out here to be of service. You know, in the Far East they say, and almost all the mystical talks go with, start out with, there is no way to peace. Peace is the way. There is noway to happiness. Happiness is theway. And there is noway to enlightenment. Enlightenment is theway. And if you look here at the triangle of Alcoholics Anonymous above me, that's what that represents. You know, I'm at peace with everyone because I'm in unity. You know if you need more room I get out of your way. I don't need to be in your way There's two sins that you can commit in Alcoholics Anonymous and one is to stunt the growth of another human being and the second is to stump your own growth And I get Out of the Way And being in unity is a good deal for me. I'm at peace. And the happiness that I've come to know has come from service. Whenever I'm doing service, I'm happy because I'm not thinking about what I need. And what I came to realize with such clarity in the last few months, and that's what prompted this move, is I don't need a whole lot. I'm Not a Big Consumer. I gave away everything I owned. I got down to six boxes, and I think I'm really a four-box guy. And I put it in a car and I left. And people said to me, people who really like me said, we think you've lost your mind. And I thanked them for the compliment. And I said, not yet, but it's getting close, you know? And the deal is that it seems as though I have everything I need. I went over to this area simply because I sponsor a guy over there and it was a chance to live in his house and share his house with him and at the same time see the area and see if I could go live there. And I had no idea that Click Clock would get so involved over there, you know? I just didn't realize it. And I went down to see the St. Francis deal. You know, St. Frances is our guy. He's a loser, but he's our loser. And St. Francis dedicated himself to being poor, hungry, and homeless. It's really tough to get leverage on a guy like that. There's really not a whole lot you can threaten Francis with. And I was reading there down in Santa Fe at the cathedral, they have these little placards about Francis. You know, it's one thing to talk about giving up what you don't have. It's another thing to give up what you do have. You know, they're two separate arenas all together. And it told the story of how Francis was interfacing with his dad, and his dad was a very, very wealthy man. And he was going to just give this wealth to Francis right on the spot. And he said to Francis, you must take this wealth. And Francis said, no, I don't want this wealth, and he said, you most take it. I am your father. at which point Francis took off all his clothes except for a hair shirt he was wearing and he took off his slippers and he stood in front of his father and he said from this point forward the only person I will call father is my father in heaven and he says I am going to be a fool for God and he left and he never went back and he walked away from what was there, not what might have been, could have been. It's the lotto. He had the lotTO. And he walked out on it. And what he wrote maybe meant more to me at this time than it would have meant just a few years ago. And what ele wrote was, as a result of this action and my dispossession, what I came to find out is that I have more serenity and sanity and peace in my dispossession than I ever had in my possession and I don't know about you guys you have to come to your own deal but I know for me I don' t need a whole lot of stuff I've never seen I've ever seen a hearse with a luggage rack you know You know, I've never seen a hearse with a U-Haul. But I've been to the cemetery a lot and I've seen headstones and they're all exactly alike. It has your name, the date you were born, and a six to eight inch dash and then the date you died. And that dash, folks, is life. That's the life we have. It's probably on a headstone, not more than that. And I don't know about you guys, but I'm along in the dash. And being along in the dash, it's very important for me to do the things that I know are right. I don'T do stuff today because I want to stay sober. I do good things today because I am sober. Big, big difference. Big difference. and life today is very simple. I have a life that I could not have planned for, that's for sure, and the fact is that no matter what's going on in the world, I have an idea of what's happening in the future. I have focus, and that focus is to do the stuff we teach people to do here at Alcoholics Anonymous, and to laugh a lot. People call me because on my machine it says, And remember, life's a joke and you're the punchline. And that's what life is. It is a joke. And if you're not laughing, you're missing out on the best joke going. Next time you're sitting in front of a mirror nude, I got up this morning and I went, it was, I can't describe what took place. They have mirror closets here at the hotel and I happened to make a terrible, terrible mistake. I'm alone, I'm in this room by myself so I didn't close the bathroom door and I sat down to read my thought for the day book and I looked and there's only three things that came to my mouth and that was oh my god when did this happen Did anyone get a license? Did you call a cop yet? And I thought, wow. So of course I'm in action. I close the door. But the funny thing is, inside I'm renewing every day. On the outside I'm falling apart in some ways. But on the inside, I'm renewing every day. And I hope you guys are renewing too. You know, I hope your renewing to. I know there's a dance and I know it's important. I've seen some of those come hurt me outfits. It's a. Oh, yeah. Oh, Yeah. What an order. I don't think I can go through with it. Don't be discouraged. I've helped a lot less qualified, you know. And the deal is that I am so happy you guys asked me to come. This has been a terrific weekend. I got searched twice coming here. I mean, I'm a senior citizen, I told the guy. What profile do I make? You know, I mean, you know, so I must have the Kevorky yet. And the deal is that I just love to come and I love to be part of Alcoholics Anonymous. This is the best thing that ever happened. This is a deal that I used to tell a lot and then I stopped telling it and then someone asked me to maybe do it tonight, so I will and I haven't done this in a long time but you know my mom got through school totally unscarred by education too and she raised seven kids and my dad died when we were young and she did a hell of a job it was no doubt my mom loved us she was always there if someone had to go without she was the one who went without and there was never any doubt that she cared for it but she just didn't have a lot of skills but she had a lot great stories and the one story she used to talk about it was the simplicity of the spiritual program we practice here and she used to talk about this boy Johnny and she said Johnny was a kid who went to parochial school and you know the parochia schools build a school right next to the church it's a captive audience and just Johnny used to go to the Church in the morning and he would say good morning God this is Johnny I just want to tell you I'm here and then he would go at noontime and he would do that and he'd go after school and he would go on the weekends and the holidays this was his commitment to do this And she said when he got to be 11 or 12, he contracted polio. And as he died, and had no cure for polio then, and as he laid in this room dying, surrounded by his school chums and his family and friends, she said a voice was heard to say, Hello Johnny, this is God. I just want to tell you, I'm here. And that's the message of Alcoholics Anonymous. Whenever anyone anywhere reaches out, We want the hand of Alcoholics Anonymous to be there. And it doesn't matter who we send because the message is always the same, and that is come with us, come to the light, because we have an answer. We have a solution. And you learn to live in the moment here. You know, people are worried about the promises. The promises are all based on you living in the now. Once you live inthe now, you have the promises." The promisesare not for people who don't want to liveinthenow. It tells you, you know, we will not regret the past. Regret and guilt are always in the past. You know, if you have regret and guilt, you have a lot of past in your present. And if you have a Lot of Fear and Apprehension, you have A Lot of Future in your Present. And what you really need is More Present in your Presence. And the deal here is that it doesn't matter who we send. The message of Alcoholics Anonymous is based on the Simplicity of the Steps and the Traditions and One Alcoholic Helping Another. And the biggest thing, the glue that holds us together is love. There is not a more powerful force in this world than love. You know, reason has the capacity to error. But there's absolutely no error in love. Love is the most powerful force in the world. This is Easter weekend. And there was a guy in the history of religion as they say, depending on how you look at it. And this is a weekend that was a big weekend for him. You know? Big weekend. Kind of like a goodbye and a hello weekend, you know? That kind of a weekend. But that guy said something. And if we could all remember it, it would be great. At the height of his suffering, at the height of his demise, at he height of his abuse, he said, forgive them Father, they know not what they do. Absolutely no one does anything to hurt you on purpose. They just forget. And that's why AA works because we remind them it's about remembering not to hurt people. And life gets real simple here. If you don't think it's simple, just look at this day. This is the 30th. We're never going to have this day again. You'll never have this assembly of these people here tonight again. Some will show up next year. Some won't get sick. Some will die. Some would go drink. Some will have other things they'll have to do. But this is a one-shot deal. This is a freeze frame in time. And we're here together. And the nice part about it is, you know, we're all on the same deal here. We're all in the same place. We're on the exact same deal. There are no good guys. There are not bad guys. There's just guys and gals. We're just here. And the idea is, if you don't know what to do, then stand still for a minute. It will come to you. you know you don't have to rush out and screw something up right away you can wait a while don't worry the skill is so ingrained you won't lose it it's not something that will go away and I want to thank you for letting me come here and it's been a really great thing for me and I had a friend who was the most peaceful man I ever met and he took his own life because he couldn't stay sober. And he was from India. And whenever he came in and out of my house, he would put his hands together and he would say namaste to me. And namaste means simply translated the God in me sees the God in you. And as long as the God in me see's the God in you, we won't hurt one another. We may disagree, but we won' t hurt one another. We have to take really really good care of one another because we're only on loan. God bless you. Namaste.