The Spiritual Malady – How It Works Workshop – Part 2 of 2 – Karl M.

If everybody will come in and have a seat, we're going to be starting the last segment of the autumn workshop here at the Fifth Tradition Group. Okay, everybody have a sit. My name is Robert Bell. I'm an alcoholic. And although we will be having a few closing comments, I do want to mention a couple things. A number of us will be going to Jason's Deli to have lunch after Carl gets through. We'll probably be leaving pretty quickly. Carl wants to get a little bit of rest, so he'll be ready to come back. He will be speaking tonight at our speaker meeting at 7 o'clock, so upstairs, where there's air conditioning. Remember the days of the July meetings down here with a bit of disfavor, but good memories nonetheless. And I do want to take a moment just to mention the self-support statement. We do want pass the baskets one more time for those who might have had to show up and only be here for the last segment. We think self-report is important. We think it's important for us to be responsible. It's a way that we can truly pass the message to the newcomer, the alcoholic who is still suffering. So as the basket goes around, please contribute. If you've already given, don't feel like you have to contribute again. And I believe that's everything. So when Carl gets through, I'll make a few closing comments, and I'm going to turn it back over to Carl to not take any further comments. Here you go, Carl. Good afternoon. My name is Carl. I'm an alcoholic. All right. So if you're like me, we've got a strange physical relationship with alcohol. We've got estranged mental relationship with alcohol and we've gotta strange spiritual relationship with alcohol, right? So what does Alcoholics Anonymous address out of those three? It only address, right, if we were to put it all into three columns up here, and we put the physical symptoms, the craving, the things we do while drunk, the mental component, the obsession, the way we lie to ourselves back into the next drink. Then the spiritual sickness that we have. Alcoholics Anonymous only addresses the spiritual sickness. And we can see right here that the book actually says it. Straightforward. It says right there on page 64 when the spiritual malady is overcome we straighten out mentally and physically. Meaning when we address the spiritual malady, we're no longer subject to the mental obsession. That strange mental blank spot. That getting drunk when we didn't even mean to get drunk. You've had that happen, right? 9am it was a bad idea to get drank. 3pm you're drunk. What? How does this happen? How many people have had that experience? I absolutely don't know how that happened. It was a bad idea at 9, 3 o'clock, good idea. We are no longer, when we straighten out spiritually, we are no long subject to the strange mental blank spot. It does not happen. It comes close, but when we are taking spiritual actions, we're not that far from the meeting. We know our sponsor's phone number by memory, even though, here's the trick these days, Your iPhone, most people don't even know their sponsor's phone number anymore. Their iPhone knows it, but they don't, right? Memorize it. Just a little practice. Just know, don't know that your sponsor's name is Fred and you know how to go to Fs in your scroll, right, know the number. When you're taking spiritual actions, if you do not take the first drink, What does that do to the first column? It renders it a moot point. It just does not matter that we're allergic physically to alcohol if we don't take the first drink, and if we straighten out spiritually, we're no longer subject to the strange mental blank spot. I have a five-year-old son and an eight-year old daughter. He is allergic to peanuts. It's a mooch point if he does not eat peanuts. Whenever any peanuts even come within 20 feet of the table, we go, peanut alert! But he doesn't need to go to Penis Anonymous. He doesn't think about penis all day long. It's kind of silly. All right, so step two, if I've got those three things and I understand I'm powerless physically, powerless mentally, powerless spiritually, I've Got No Power, right? Of and by myself, I do not have any power. So if my problem is that I'm powerless over alcohol, What must be my solution? Must be power. If I were homeless, my solution would be get a home. Right? But you can't walk up to the homeless guy on the street corner and say, hey, get a house and walk away. You can, though, walk upto the homeless person if you've been homeless before and say hey, come with me. Are you willing to come with m? I know how to get into a house and go to the right government agency, get them the immediate help that's available, stand in the long lines, talk to the people, get them on to some temporary housing, get them online for whatever it is. You guys call it Section 8 or whatever Georgia has. There is a process, and if you've been through it before, you could walk that guy through it. And at the end, he could turn and go, as long as he was willing and made the walk with you, like, whoa, got a house. Same thing here. We can walk up to our college and say, we know how to find this power. Come with us. Come with Us. And the first thing is step two. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore insanity. We can absolutely bring everything that that step has to say is all in, we agnostic. right we don't even in order to work step two the way that they did back in the old days and sufficiently enough to get a person moving through the steps you do not need to have them read all of we agnostics unless they answer a particular question one way anybody ever you guys have seen this page 47 right in the middle of the page we needed to ask ourselves but one short question do I now believe or am I even willing to believe that there's a power greater than myself that's what it says we need to ask our selves but one sure question do I know do I not believe or am i even willing to belief that there is a power greater than my self that's a pretty wide open spectrum I don't even need to believe. I just need to be willing to believe? Do I even need to know what this is? No. I just need to be able to say I guess I'm kind of willing that there's something and what does the book say to the person who says I kind of believe there must be something. As soon as a man can say that he does believe or is willing to believe we emphatically assure him he's on his way. It doesn't say we hesitantly we're not really sure we're still testing it out. It says, we emphatically assure you you are on your way. So when you're working with somebody that's new and you can, you know, in a short conversation you can say, do you have this strange physical allergy to alcohol? Do you have a strange mental obsession with alcohol? Does your spirit also... And do whatever you want in that and if they go, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's me. Done. Then you can ask them this very short question. You could do this on a slow car ride between here and where we went last night, Sandy Springs. You could get through steps one and two that quickly with someone. Really? Really? It has been repeatedly proven among us that upon this simple cornerstone, a wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built. Cornerstone. all of the weight of the future is going to be on a foundation there's a cornerstone anybody in the construction business that cornerstone has to be able to withstand the weight of the whole building for the life of that building upon this simple cornerstone I'm just willing to believe upon that simple corner stone my whole sobriety can be built it's the thing that is going when times get tough And I'm not sure how many people have been always convinced that God is right there with them. See? No. A lot of us, we're mostly part-time agnostic, aren't we? Right? We all question it. We all do. If you're not, you're thinking. Or, I want to see your medicine cabinet. If you are always so sure, right? That's part of the human condition is that we, yes, I'm so sure. I'm still not so sure but maybe. Oh my, yes. Yes. No. I've been forsaken. Oh, Father, don't forgive them. They know exactly what they're doing. Right? Just on that very bit, man, it frees us up. we don't need to know a certain dogma. We don't have to have religious background. We don'T have to even have an idea of what it is. Just that there is. It's so simple. It's SO simple. Move forward. Because what's the point of going through the steps? So that we can work with others. It's not to clean up our own lives. That's a selfish motive. It's NOT to be free ourselves. It'S so we can WORK WITH OTHERS. So you've got to be able to get a model by which I can start working with others. And if it's going to take weeks and weeks and months and months to work with somebody, right? No. Get your own little version of getting them through the first three steps in a few days. If not, a few hours. I actually can do it to my satisfaction, and I believe the book backs it up, between Covina and Long Beach and actually feel very comfortable with, we are now ready for step four. By the time we get to Covina, Long Beach, with no traffic, it's 35 minutes. Very rare. With traffic, hour and 15 minutes. Could be two and a half hours. On that drive, can get through the first three steps. They're quite disturbed when we get out, and I say let's get on our knees on the back bumper. and all the people from the meeting are over there we park over in that corner and there's people at the meeting outside drinking coffee and smoking look, look, but motion go cool how cool is that so step three made a decision to turn my will and life over to the care of God as I understood him remember what we got done with the reading with God couldn't and would have sought, the A, B, and C? What did it say? Being convinced we were at step three, which is we decided to turn our will and life over to God as we'd assumed. Just what do we mean by that and just what do we do? The step actually says the care of God. For some reason they leave the care of on that out. I don't have an answer for that. Great conversation in a coffee shop till the bar is closed. That's about all that is, right? Like a lot of things in alcoholics. Recovered versus recovering. Well, I think that's wonderful discussion to have with the newcomer until 2 a.m. when the bars are closed. Then go home and forget about it, right, recovered versus recovering, whatever, whatever. All right. If I could have been honest with myself and knew how to verbalize these things when I was new, when I heard that in meetings, I would have stood up and said, Stop! What do you mean by that? And just what do you want me to do? Turn my will and life over to the care of God as I understand Him. What do You want me zu do? And what do You mean by dat? You see, again, if I could have known... If you would have said, Carl, turn your car and your clothes over to The Care of God as you understood Him, I would've gone, Gotcha! I woulda left the meeting. I wouldа, you know, push-started my little Volkswagen. and popped in and put it on down the street. I would have gone to a church because as far as I was concerned at that point, that's where God is, I suppose. I would've knocked on the door. Pastor, priest, somebody would answer the driver. I'm trying to stay sober and alcoholics anonymous. They said turn my car and my clothes over to the care of God. I guess God is here as best I know. Here is the screwdriver. You got to jam that into the steering column. You got a little bit to get the wires and at the same time somebody's got to be push-starting it and you're jerking it, right? Be careful about the hole in the floorboard. Then I would have taken off my dirty leather pants and my leather jacket, my Metallica FU t-shirt and my boots. I would've laid it down there. I wouldve walked down the street naked, feeling silly but I woulda come back to the meeting and stood there and gone, I did what you asked me to do. I turned my car and my clothes over to the care of God what next? I could look you in the eye and say, I did it. But you're saying, turn my will and my life over to the care of God. How do I know if I've done that? Let's say there's somebody in here that's in a recovery house somewhere. It's real important for them to understand where they are in the program. Their life depends on it. What if I were to walk up late at night into a men's recovery, not a women's recovery house, to a men'S recovery house tap one of the new guys on the shoulder in his little bed and say hey Fred, your life depends on your answer to this question. Did you live in the essence of step three today? And he'd go, I don't know. I think I turned it over. If they were honest, they'd go I don' t know. But you know what? He needs to be able to turn to me and either say yes and this is why or no and I'll try to do better tomorrow. They really need to be able to say that and be ableto have an answer. Did I live in the essence of step three today or did I not and I'ltry better tomorrow? If they're serious about staying sober. So let's try to break down. You see, will and life, it's not tangible. It's not something that I can... You know, I've got water in my phone right here. But you're saying my will and my life. What is that? And how do I turn that over to the care of God? Right? I could take my water and phone and hand it over for Mark to take care of, I mean, for Robert to take care of. I've been making up names all over the place. Right? Until the end, and Robert could look out for water and my phone, but they're saying, my will and my life, how do I know if I've done that? So let's try to figure out what my will in my life is, and then, how to turn that over to the care of God in as simple a terms as possible. I think I will take a drink of water this is being taped right if you're on the tape I'm just sitting here looking dumb I think I will take a drink of water I'm still sitting here looking dumb I think I will take a drink of water. I just changed my life ever so slightly. Let's imagine, just for story's sake, let's imagine because you're thinking how did you change your life? You just took a sip of water, a couple of gulps. How did that change your life, Carl? Let's imagine right now all water is gone. There is no more water. Done. The fact that I took those two gulps of water, I would live more than a day longer than you. Huge, especially if water came back in that day. That would have been a life-changing event. Now you're thinking, that's a little extreme, Carl. Right? That's a Little Extreme. I mean, that little, you know, how many times, you know, that tiny little action? How many times? How many people have had this? If you would have turned left instead of right, you would not be sitting here today. You had an experience like that? If you were to turn left instead of right instead of sitting here at that party, you would be doing 10 years right now instead of being free and Alcoholics Anonymous right now because your friend took off in that car, you were supposed to get in that car. Tiny little, tiny little decisions when brought out to the big spectrum are life changing events, tiny little actions. So that little drink could have completely changed the course of my life. But until I actually took the drink, I was just thinking about it. I think I will, I think i will i think i will no change if the water would have disappeared i would have gone down with you guys bummer right but the fact that i took that tiny little action could have changed the course of my life so my will is just my thinking i think think i think i will I think I will I want to I want to me too I'm planning to I'm about to I want you I'm thinking about it think think think right my life is The sum total of the actions that I've taken so far. You following me? So let's, I know this can be blasphemy for some people, some big book purists, but I'm going to change the wording of step three. Made a decision to turn my thinking and my actions over to the care of God as I understood them. Are you following me, are you okay with this? You're not about ready to commit suicide or something? Okay. I made a decision to turn my thinking and my actions over to the care of God as it is to them. Now, how many people have been able to control their thinking in their life? Not me. As I'm sitting here talking to you, my mind is going, don't say that. Tell this other story. Why is she looking out the window? She's very cute. I wish she would look at me. Why is that guy frowning at me? But I'm standing here. That's what's going on back there. but i'm trying to stay on track it's really quite an art form right to be keeping this on track when i'm thinking all these other things right i've never been able to control my thinking ever since i've been a young kid i still remember sitting in my dad's church at like 10 years old and there was this woman she was much older i'm sure she must have been 30 years old uh mrs jorgensen she used to love to sing in the choir and she was a very very well endowed woman So well endowed that even with the choir robe on, you could see. And at 10 years old, I'm like... Right? And I'm in church. Oh! Right? Always my mind is da-da-da. No matter where I am, I've never been able to control my thinking. Have you guys heard this saying, it's all spiritual action. I cannot think my way into better acting. I can only act my way into better thinking. I cannot think my way into better living. I can't live my way into better life. I can not control my thinking. So let's throw thinking out. Can't control it. I can control my actions though. Yes? Made a decision to turn my actions over to the care of God as I understood Him. Made a decision to turn my actions over to the care of God as I understand Him. Are you following me? Are you okay with this? Just trying to break it down to be as simple as possible for the new person so we can work with new people. Okay? Instead of lots of profound out on the loom kind of stuff. If I'm a newly sober alcoholic and I'm looking for a place to turn by actions over to that represent the care of God, where would I turn my actions over to? If I'm a newly sober alcoholic and I'm looking for a place to turn my reactions over to that represent the care or the love of God where would I turn that over to. Well let's think about it. I like to paint the picture of the beginning of Alcoholics Anonymous sort of this way. It's kind of a little bit silly but you may think it's okay I kind of like to view the beginning of Alcoholics Anonymous like this. Up there, wherever it is that we go in the afterlife, back about 1932, 1933, all of the greatest spiritual leaders of all time all got together. Abraham was up there, Muhammad, Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, all of them. They're all up there and they all decided to have a big group conscience. You know, Jesus called them all together. Hey guys, come on, look at down there. Look at all of those idiots, those alcoholics, those drug addicts dying in the gutter. Over the centuries we have given them a hundred different viable pathways to God. And look at them. They're dying still. Do we really have to give them their own unique special way to God? Are they really that unique that we have to gives them their only way? And they had a discussion. And in the middle of the discussion, Gandhi chimed in, well, if we do give them their own special way, part of their solution would have to be that they get to incessantly talk about themselves because they will be doing that anyway. All right, we'll throw that in there too. And they took a group conscience and said, yeah, all right, we're going to give them our own specific personal way to God. All right. So they looked down and they found this stock speculator and a proctologist. My late sponsor, Eddie Cochran, called that odds and ends. And if you look at the history of Alcoholics Anonymous and you really study it, there's no way to explain it by coincidence. The fact that on this huge spectrum of the history of mankind, tens of thousands of years, that on the tiny little blip of a screen of the late 20s, early 30s, mid-30s that the three things that had to happen for Alcoholics Anonymous to form happened all at once. We needed a definition of our problem. We needed to know what our solution was and we needed to have a plan of action to bring about that solution. Those three things had to happened. And it just so happened that right there in the late 20s, early 30s, a doctor for the very first time in history, arguably the second time in industry, if you know Dr. Benjamin Rush, but we'll leave that out. Arguably the second, the first doctor in history who held his reputation defined alcoholism for to what it really was an allergy of the body obsession of mind. And he didn't even want to be there in that detox. He reluctantly took that job from his friend Charles Towns. He was a neurosurgeon, a brain doctor. He didn't want to work in a detox, but he lost all his fortune. Where at? Stock market crash. Just like everybody else and lots of hospitals had low budgets, couldn't afford to have neurosurgeons on staff. He reluctantly said, so Charlie all you've got is like head of the detox ward and it so happens he's there and he falls in love with us becomes fascinated with us and defines for the first time in history what's medically wrong with us it so happened that exact so Silkworth knows what the problem is but he doesn't know what our solution is in fact he's like when he sees a glimpse of the solution he goes I don't know but hang on to it has no idea what the solution even looks like nor any plan of action to bring it about. But he knows what's wrong. At the very same time, on that little clip of a screen of that tiny little bit of history, across the ocean in Switzerland, Carl Jung sees what our solution must be, a drastic vital spiritual awakening, a drastic rearrangement of ideas. He knows what our resolution is, but he doesn't know what the problem really is, and he doesn' t have any plan or action. He says it, don't know really what's wrong with you, nor do I know how to create this, but I know what you need. These two things operated on two sides of the ocean at exactly the same time. And just amazingly enough, right at that very same time in history, a group of the elite in the East Coast, the wealthy, the elite decide to start a thing called the Oxford Movement. Yes, they went over to England and came over. But in general, it became briefly popular amongst the elite. It would be sort of like the fashion people of New York. They only get fascinated with stuff for three years at most. This thing lasted about eight, where they were really fascinated. And it grew, Oxford Movement. But they didn't know what the problem was. They didn't knew what the solution was. But they had a plan of action they were exercising. And it so happens that all three of these things converge in on Bill. Right? Bill, through his contact with Silkworth, knows what our problem is. Through his contact with Roland Hazard, through Ebi Thatcher, finds out what our solution must be. Through his contract with the Oxford group, finds out our plan of action. Boom! The birth of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's just... There's no way to describe that anything but the loving hand of God. When you look at the wide spectrum of history and those three things, what if Jung had just lived 50 years before? What if Stokeworth would have said, no, I don't want to work at that detox. I actually, you know, I'll just live out in the countryside on a much lighter income. But those three things converge. So I, you don't have to, but I view this as a direct, specific gift from God. Alcoholics Anonymous. Specifically for me as an alcoholic. If I believe that, and I'm a newly sober alcoholic looking for a place to turn my actions over to that represent the care of God, where would I turn my action over to? Alcoholics Anonymous. Right? So, that's the essence of step three. So when I go to the guy in the recovery home and say, did you live in the essence or the recovery room? That's the sense of step two. Step three today, he can go, you know what? I went to three meetings today. I tried to talk to this new guy for a few seconds. He wouldn't talk to me, but I tried. I called my sponsor, and I even sat in on part of a book study. I was a little late, but, you know, I did everything I could. Yes, I didn't, Carl. I lived in the essence of Step 3. I was under the care of Alcoholics Anonymous. Or he could look at me and go, You know what? No. I was chasing a girl most of the day. I skipped the meeting. I didn' t call my sponsor because he would have said not to chase the girl. didn't even pick up the book, and two newcomers got in my path and I told them I just was irritated. I said, no, I'll try better tomorrow, right? At least they can look me in the eye and answer it in the same way I can say I turned the water and my phone over to Robert. They'll be able to answer me directly. Yes, I did. I lived in the essence of step three. Or no, right, vitally important for the new person to know instead of, well, I think I turned it over. That's another, what do you mean turned it over? But if we're taking the actions of Alcoholics Anonymous, we're living in the essence of step three. Even now at 25 years sober, and this is kind of the way that I look at it as to why I continue to participate in AlcoholicsAnonymous and what I see a lot of people do in getting away from Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm going to go back to my divorce. I was 17 years sober, got married, two beautiful kids. Their names are Madison and Ryan. They're five and eight. We couldn't live together. She kind of thinks Alcoholics Anonymous is silly. I lived for it. Kind of a hard thing to be in a partnership for life when she thinks that basically what she said was, I thought for sure that you were doing that because you had nothing better to do than Once you're married with children, you would see how silly AA was. Now, she forgot to mention that while we were dating. She's a good, good woman, and she's a great mother. We just can't be husband and wife. So we worked out a deal. Once all the hurt was done, we actually worked out a deal, and we actually had to get a divorce counselor. We went through marriage counseling. It didn't work. I would encourage you, if you go through this, get a divorced counselor. What they are is an interpreter. OK, you've decided you're going to get divorced. He would look at Stephanie, what do you need, Stephanie? And I would hear, rah-rah-rah, rahh-rah. That's what I heard. The counselor heard something different. He would turn to me and say, what she said is she just wants to be a really good mom and she's terrified you're going to pull the rug out from underneath her and she loves her kids more than anything she has felt in her whole life and she hopes she can be a partner with you even though you're gonna be divorced. Really, that's what she says? Well, yeah. Stephanie yes I'm very willing to be co-partners with you and we'll work out a deal and what she was hearing right right right and the counselor had to interpret for for me and we were able to work it out what we did was we worked we had bought a house up at my country club right behind the 10th green right have to drive by the house for 20 years she gets to live there with the kids and I'll pay all the bills. I've just been blessed in that area, been able to do that. And I want my kids to be in a good school district and the divorce happened right at the housing bubble crash. Don't want to sell a house worth that in the bubble crash? It all worked out beautifully. And she said, perfect. That way we don't argue about custody, anything. I have them, I don't have them. She has them. We trade off. We eat dinner together in restaurants around town about three times a week. Lots of waitresses don't even know we're divorced. We're trying to be as good a co-parent as you can possibly be while being divorced, right? And this did not come about easily. Anyway, so the house, the bills, the clothes, all of that represents my care of my children, right. I have to show my love for my children in about 15 other ways and my job is to invent new ways to show my love, but that represents my care of my children. The house, the utilities, the food, the clothes. And let's say I was driving up to the golf course one early one morning because sometimes you guys tee off at daybreak. We try to get around a golf in before we all go to work. Let's say i was driving u early on a winter morning. It's just ever so cold 50 degrees or something right? You guys don't get that cold here either but right and i'm driving up and Let's say, it's never happened, but let's say I'm driving by at 5.30 in the morning and my children are standing in the driveway naked, freezing. I would slam on the brakes and I'd jump out of the car. What are you doing out here? Oh, Daddy, we're hungry, freezing, naked. What are You doing out Here? I would look inside the window. I'd see my ex-wife in there making breakfast. The heat would be on. Their clothes would be under the bed, everything. And then my eight-year-old would go, Daddy, daddy, there's a boy at school. He's bothering me and I don't know what to do. I said, I don' t care. We're going to solve the problem. Get back in the house. What on earth are you doing outside the house? Get back in the House. We'll talk about the boy that's bothering you later. Get back in the house. And how many times in our sobriety have we dropped our commitments we're too busy? Well, you know, this new relationship or my marriage. And, you know, I'm not going to sponsor that many people and I'm going to start deciding what I do and what I don't do. And all of a sudden we're in like turmoil and we're going, God help. My business life is falling apart. My home life is falling. And God is up there going, get back in the house. What are you doing out here naked? it. We'll talk about your work life later. Get back in the house, right? And I have to keep remembering that. I must stay in the House with you. And from that, then we get to discuss how is my work life going? How is my personal life going but I got to be in the Houses because as an alcoholic, that is my care from my loving God. That is His care of me and what if I'm going to disregard this, what? What am I praying for? Something else I'm going to disregard? If I can't accept this answer, the basic, right? As basic as food and water. If I cannot accept this gift from God, what am I praying for over here? Just something else I am going to throw away? Something more complex? Right? I've got to stay right here within the basics. So, I have to answer each day am i living in the essence of step three am i really protecting and guarding and cultivating the gift given to me by god just as my father mother and father had taught me as a young child and i didn't even know this but this is true for them out there as us what are my gifts am i cultivating them to use to help other people if so i'm not going to have this feeling of, I don't know what I'm supposed to do with my life. What's my meaning and purpose? And you know what? I have to have meaning and purpose in my life, I need direction, and it's been given to me on a silver platter. Here, you've been given this amazing gift that no one else has other than sober alcoholics. There's nobody else on this planet that can help us but us. Did you know it? There's this magic that happens of one alcoholic sharing with another alcoholic that happens nowhere else, just between us. So when one of us who has found this disregards our gift, we're falling short. Look at this magic. There's something, and you know this, that something happens when one alcoholic is sharing with Another that you don't feel anywhere else, right? When I'm listening to somebody tell their story in an honest and obviously thoughtful way, I have an experience that I have nowhere else on this planet. No matter how energetic this motivational speaker is, no matter how beautiful my children are and how much my soul is just connected to my children, there's a unique experience that I have when I'm listen to another alcoholic tell his story in a thoughtful and honest way i just have this this filling of my soul and it's the magic of one alcoholic sharing with another how i learned that i love to tell this little story uh we may get to step four we may not i don't know i love this hell how the magicofonealcoholicsharingwithanotherhappened for me i was uh somewhere in my uh about a year sober i think and my first sponsor bob w the other guy on my ship that took me through the steps was my sponsor my first two years wonderful man had 14 months more than me died younger than me still with 14 more months than me right but he and i used to whenever the ship would pull into a port we would we would go find a hotel room and split the cost of a hotelroom to get off the ship right if you've ever been in a treatment center recovery home where there's like two or three guys in a room try being in the united states navy they got a room about this size with 60 people sleeping stacked three high you want to get off that ship whenever you can, right? I promise you. So we would split a hotel room. We were in Vancouver, I mean, sorry, Victoria, British Columbia. We got a hotel and we went out to the AA meeting. After the AA meetings, Bob says, my first sponsor said, Carl, I'm not feeling that well tonight. I think I'm going to head back to the room. And he went back to The Room. I stayed out with the AAs for a little while longer. And after I went to another meeting or went out to eat, I don't know, I went back to Hotel Room. And I opened up the hotel room and Bob had found this other guy from our ship named Blair on the street. And Blair was like wasted. And Bob had him on my bed and had him propped up against the headboard with like an end table and a chair and a few pillows. And Blair was laughing. There was puke down the side and it was about to drip onto my sheets And I'm like, same look as you got. And Bob was at the end of the bed reading the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous to him. This was ridiculous, I thought. Blair doesn't even know where he's at, for God's sake. And Bob is saying, what usually happens? The show doesn't come off very well. He begins to think life doesn't treat him very well, but it's ridiculous. Blair's going, Anyway, I throw my ten cents in. Then we do that old classic thing of two sailors carrying a third one back to the ship We got him back to the ship safely, and into his rack. Last I heard of Blair for weeks. Back in port in San Diego a few weeks later, 3 a.m. in the morning, right? And I'm in my rack on the ship. I was, what, and I was like, wake up, wakeup, Carl, wake Up! And I was Like, Whoa, whoa, whoa. And it's Bob, my first sponsor. He goes, Blair's on the Coronado Bridge. We're going to get him. I'm like, Whoa. Yeah, he's on The Bridge. We're Going to Get Him. Apparently what had happened over the last few weeks is Blair had tried to drink. He tried not to drink he tried to Drink. He tried Not to Drink He's at the jumping off place. He's up on the Coronado Bridge. And I don't know if you guys know about the Coronadobridge down in San Diego, but it's a really popular suicide spot. It's such a popular suicide spot that they actually have suicide hotline phones up at the top. Blair, you know, they have that up there just in case you change your mind. They're kind of hoping your feet are still on the bridge when you do change your minds. Kind of late when you jump and you go, oh, this isn't a good idea. blair had gotten onto the suicide hotline phone and blair had been apparently telling the well meaning highly qualified suicide hot line phone counselor blair been saying i will only talk to bob w suicide counselor going who's bob w blair was saying it's anonymous so she goes and gets her supervisor he gets on the phone they start doing the good cop bad cop firing questions back and forth boom boom boom they find out what he's in the navy what ship he's from so they take a stab in the dark and call down to the quarter deck of our ship at 3 a.m in the morning there's 300 people on our ship this suicide hotline phone says does there happen to be a bob w on that ship now bob my first sponsor he would guard your anonymity at the level of that ship but he did not guard his own so he could be of service at any time. So the guy who answered the phone said, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mr. 12 Steps. We know all about him. So they go down and get Bob. Bob comes in. Carl, wake up. We get into his car. We start driving down to the Coronado Bridge at 3 a.m. It's dark. He goes, Carl, grab the big book out of the glove box. Bone up on working with others. Says, See your man alone if possible, Bob. He's alone up there. Says forget it. We're going to wing it this time. so we put it back in. We get down to the base of the Coronado Bridge and everything that San Diego County, our society has available for a situation like this is there The paramedics are there, the police department is there the fire department is here, the on-duty psychologist is there and they have a speakerphone type contraption wired up to Blair up on the bridge, he's on the phone and we walk up on this scene and the fireman who seems to be in charge turns and says, is one of you Bob W? Bob goes, yeah, that's me. He goes, we've been talking for an hour and a half and he ain't budging. I don't know what you're going to do but go ahead, give it a try. Bob takes his thing and he goes, Blair? You can hear on the other end Bob? Is that you? And Bob says, yes Blair it's me and I'll get the hell down from the bridge. And you hear, okay. Blair came down. One alcoholic can affect another alcoholic like no one else can. Don't forget that. Don't forgive that. We need to take our seats in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. One last little thing on suicide. I'll never forget this. When I was newly sober and I was running around from meeting to meeting to meeting, I was just like, I didn't know what's wrong with me. I had this soul sickness. I didn' t understand that I had a soul sickness. Something was always wrong. I didn''t know what was wrong, not what was wrong. But I was running to meeting after meeting after meeting and I was running to get you to say something funny, clever, insightful. And this one time I was at the meeting and it was a late night meeting because I had been sitting in my hotel room because I often got hotel rooms when I was off the ship and I go to meetings and I've been sitting there going, if this is what sobriety is I'm not going to be able to last much longer and I literally started to think about it and I went to this meeting and this old timer got up and he said the most I mean he just he just said if anybody out there is thinking about committing suicide I have it on good authority and I thought oh God talks directly to him I guess I've had it on good authority that however you are feeling when you actually do it is how you will feel for all of eternity. I go, oh, that's bad news. Oh my goodness. But he's a responsible member of Alcoholics Anonymous and never presents a problem without also having the solution worked out ahead of time. He said, so the solution is wait until you're having a really good day, then do it. And the same thing happened to me right there. I had this belly laugh that came up. And I swear, those laughs that have come from Alcoholics Anonymous are the things that have healed me from the inside out. It really has. And I need to thank people like you for continuing to show up in meetings of AlcoholicsAnonymous no matter what's going on in your life. No matter good, bad, or indifferent, you understand that we have to showup in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, and carry a message of experience, strength, and hope so that the new guy that you don't even know is sitting in the room, which was me, could benefit from what you were saying, even though your friends, while you're sharing, are thinking, is he really telling that same story again? I'll never forget the first time I nudged my sponsor. There was this old-timer that always told the same story. Right? And I was saying, you know, the first times I heard it, it knocked me right out, right? He probably said something like, if you don't take the first drink, you can't get drunk. Literally just knocked my socks off the first time I heard it. And then I was like 10 times later, is he really saying that again? And my sponsor, Bob, boom, he's not talking to you. He's talking to the guy in the back that we don't even know is here. Oh, there's other people in AA other than me. And I also, those little things that we throw out there, like if you Don't take the first drink. You can't get drunk. If you've been relapsing, I want to bring this idea up to you, that if you've be coming and going in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous, you know how in treatment they talk to you about how you build up an immunity to alcohol? That's why some of you very pretty women can drink other guys under the table for a while in your life. How many have had that experience where they're like, Oh, I can drink the guys under table. That's just simply because you're alcoholic, right? Because the alcoholic body develops a tolerance, and then it gives way. Then it's gone, right? And all of a sudden you're like unrecognizable. You can build up a tolerance to Alcoholics Anonymous by coming and going, coming and going. And here's sort of an example. Let's say right here, these two empty chairs. I shouldn't talk to empty chairs, it's not a political statement, alright? Sorry. Oh, bad. Let's say we had two guys sitting right here, and we're just having a regular participation meeting. Two guys, each with three days of sobriety, are sitting right there together. One of them has been coming and going for ten years, had nine months, had two years, had three months, hat a year and a half, had six months, right? Been doing it for ten year, coming and goin'. Got three days today. The other guy has never been to AA. This is third day in AA, his fifth meeting that he's ever been to. Three days of sobriety, never been here before. Fifth meeting, third day. And the old-timer says, if you don't take the first drink, you can't get drunk. The guy who's never been hier before goes, whoa! He looks around as if, did you guys hear that? You see him later in the day pacing in front of the AAC club. If I don't drink the first thing, I can't be drunk. He stays sober for three days just thinking about that. Oh, my God. If I don't take the first drink, I can't get drunk. Now, little side note. Don't try to impress your people that love you that are not alcoholic with these deep spiritual insights. I remember the first time I heard that, I'm kind of describing myself. I was literally, whoa, if I don' t take the f rst drink. I called my mom. I said, Mom, you wouldn' t believe what they said in AA. They told me if I d' n't take th e f r st drink, I can' t get drunk, there was silence on the other end of the line. After about 10 seconds, she said, hmm, bunch of philosophers there in that AA program, huh? But to me it was life-changing news. Huge, big news. Right? That guy is just like, whoa. The other guy, sitting there, been coming and going, had the same three days. Old timer says if you don't take the first drink, you can't get drunk. Flatline. No response. His only response is, I think I'm going out for a smoke. No response. Dangerous. Dangerous, dangerous. Right? So if you've been coming and going, I urge you, I encourage you to dive into this wholeheartedly. Like we said at the beginning, completely give yourself this simple program. Really answer yourself honestly. Am I a cannot or am I a will not? 99% of the time it's I'm a will now. I was unwilling to completely give myself to this simple program engulfed myself in it if you've been relapsing it's my contention that you have to do twice the work for half the feeling because those little tiny gifts that brand new people in AA aren't going to be holding you here anymore they aren't gonna be holding you here any more so you gotta do twice the work for half the feeling I think I'm gonna end there because my voice is starting to crack, and it will be difficult later today if I don't stop. Thank you very much for your time.