The Spiritual Tapeworm That Ate Him Up Inside – Scott

My name is Scott Redman, I'm an alcoholic, and Mike just said he's one of those speakers that you never tire of, and Alexandra went, all right. I'd like to, I can't thank the committee enough and Bill And the people who put this thing together For putting it together and for inviting me This roundup changed my life 12 years ago The first time that I participated in it I got to meet my friend Cliff Who's become a big part of my life And there were friendships and relationships started that weekend That have become key parts of my live And my sobriety and uh participating in this roundup is a big deal for me it's uh it's a it's great to be here um can i see hands of people in their first year please wow welcome to alcoholics anonymous i can't tell you how glad uh i am that you're here i um I heard a couple of weeks ago I think it's the best way I've ever heard a newcomer qualify ever and I love collecting qualifications I love, I've heard guys refer to themselves as crack monsters and dope fiends and you know but I was at a meeting and people were raising their head with less than 30 days the guy said my name is Bob I'm an alcoholic, my name's Carmen I'm alcoholic and a guy got up and said my name istom big problem big problem and then he sat down and i could have gone home right there because i believed him this uh friend of mine has been sober a long time i met him at my first home group described his behavior as an alcoholic he said most people live they say you know most people say ready aim fire ready and fire and he said his entire life you went ready fire aim and I completely get ready fire aim so you know it doesn't really matter when I am you know after that if you know I like to welcome you to Alcoholics Anonymous if you're a drug addict I like the welcome to AA if you You're a dope fiend, which is somehow worse than any of us. I'd like to welcome you to AAF. If you're part of that new, very exotic group that I just... Cliff and I actually were introduced to him the same night at the Old Town Speakers meeting. It was the first time we ever heard anybody identify as a tweaker. We'd like... I'd to welcome ya. You guys... There you go. Man has no idea why he's raising his hands. They have no short-term memory at all. I like you guys. I like your faces. I like it. I like every part of your face. is moving in a different direction. Touched yourself until you're dehydrated. We're glad you're here. I'm not making fun of you. But I'm coming close. And I'll tell you because I don't care if you're like the big energizing bunny tweaking dope monster Bigfoot of Dope Addicts. I don' t care. I don't care what you got. Just catch alcoholism. I did not have alcoholism when I came to AA. I have a fatal case of it now, but I did not have it when I became Alcoholics Anonymous. I caught alcoholism in AA meetings. It enters through the ear and it infects you and then you start infecting other people. And there were a lot of things wrong with me when I came to AlcoholicsAnonymous, but alcoholism absolutely was not one of them i'm jewish and jews don't drink because it might dull the pain and uh you know okay you just don't want to squander any agony opportunity that presents itself one of the first guys that ever held me in aa and my first home group i was a couple weeks sober and this guy identified he said i'm an ex-catholic which means I don't believe in God, and I'm therefore positive that God is going to come kill my ass for feeling that way. And I said, I'll sit near him because I completely understood that. So if you're new, I just want to urge you as much as I possibly can to stick around long enough to get a diagnosis. Just find out what alcoholism is. And i want to tell you it took me a long time. If you had asked me that first day if i was an alcoholic i would have said no i'm glad nobody asked me you know uh i have i have this weird reaction to alcohol i can't stop i can'T moderate once i begin i'm part of a separate class of persons who are actually physically allergic to it and if you're special and a drug addict try some controlled crack smoking you know just fill your mouth up with crack smoke and say, I'm not in the mood, and blow it out. Hats will fill the air. I work alone, but thank you. Don't get over-sober on me, don't get over- sober. That would be okay. If it was just a physical allergy, I'd be fine. I really would be fine. But I have this bizarre thinking. It's referred to as alcoholic thinking. It's the source of a lot of mirth at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and I've got it. I've got it bad. And I still do stuff. I mean, my wife came home. I was making the bed, and I start thinking while I'm making the bet, so I lose track. So I unfurl the sheet. I hook myself behind the head and drive my head into the bed. And I, and my wife looks really concerned. You know, I, I'm trying to fix my kid's phone. So I'm going to call their phone to see if it works. So, I call their point and then I start thinking. And the phone rings. I go, who the hell is calling me while I'm trynna fix the phone? And my kids just go, oh, oh. And this is like a couple of months ago. I'm not going way far back. But I've got this nutty thinking, and I've got it. That's why I do more in AA than I ever have before. And that's why i've been hanging out with people who do more. I've been hangin' out with people since I got sober. When things get good, they do more, when things get bad, they just do more." Some years ago, I was about 14 years sober when I needed surgery on my hand and my doctor said, you know, you're going to need general anesthetic. And I said, general anesthetica? That's great. General anesthetic? Normal people don't get excited about general anesthesia. There's no normal person that really goes, ha, ha, ho, ha. And I'll tell you why. I leave the surgery out. they don't leave the surgery out i leave i like i'm going to be wounded and you know but they don't live that part out i do i do and i'll tell you why because i know about general anesthetic i know when they hit you with it they say count backwards from 100 and you go 199 i love 99 i love it i love it. The difference is I won't trade my life in for it. One of the most misquoted lines in the big book of AA for me has always been, I've heard people say, my worst day in here is better than my best day out there. No, no. Let's see a pound of cocaine and an all female jazz band or a paddle at chino i don't know what do you want to do what do you gotta be nuts i had a great time love drinking um what the guy says at the end of chapter three basically is i wouldn't trade my worst day in here for my best day out there because i won't trade this way of life. I won't live like a sap anymore. I won't take a nickel today when I could have a quarter tomorrow and I understand that. A couple years after this thing with my hand, I was seeing a different doctor and he said, you know that surgery that you needed on that hand, you need it on your other hand. And I said, guess we'll be having some of that general anesthetic guy, huh? And the guy looked at me like I was nuts. He said, You don't need general anesthetics with this. And my first thought was, no, I need another goddamn doctor is what I do. Now. I just want to tell this story because I see I'm already, I've got a couple of people nodding out on me, which is fine. It's fine. I'd prefer it if you had just shot diluted and there was some excuse. But if you're bored and you could get bored, it is going to be a little bit to go this evening. I want to turn you in my favorite story about being bored in AA because i just haven't told for a while i love this story i had a friend named jeff d who was at my old my old home group and he was brand new and he Was shifting around in his seat and his sponsor said what's the matter then Jeff said I'm bored and the sponsor said well you know why you're bored Jeff said no sponsor said you're board because you're boring that's why you're bored and it was like an acid moment for him he just went wow dude he just it flipped him out And he thought, what a great thing to say to a newcomer. He could hardly wait until a newcomor told him that they were bored. Thirteen years later, no newcomer has told him that they're bored. He's at a meeting at the North Hollywood Group and he's with this young lady who was new. She's shifting around in her seat. And he said, what's the matter? She said, I'm bored. And he says, boy, you know why you're bored? She said yeah, because I'm with you. So welcome if you're bored. If you're new, a lot of what I'm going to say tonight is going to sound like this. And that's okay. I have a great, great... This is the only newcomer I've ever... This is like the shortest newcomer joke I've never heard. I called a newcomer today, hello, he lied. and anyway yeah i um i've got this weird thinking that keeps talking me into taking a drink i can't stop take it and i developed this spiritual tapeworm this cancer of the soul that ate me up inside and left me hollow and insane and alone and that's alcoholism and i didn't have that the first day I walked in here. I didn't know it, and I didn' t know that I was beyond human help even though you sheaped evidence upon me as to the hopelessness of my situation. And I was deflated of ego at depth enough and my ego didn't repair itself fast enough so I let some grace in and I experienced the touch of the Master's hand and I started to get well. And it was a long ugly trip up until that point. I grew up in the Bronx in new york city to a completely insane family my wife never believed me about my family until she met him and uh my mom had thrown an engagement party for us and my my aunt rose came to the party and wore her wig and it was backwards and it had a bun on it so the bun was bouncing off her forehead all night she wore it beret style sort of jauntily askew it was a look she was going after. This was not, she wasn't disoriented. If you got anything for free in my family, I meant it was stolen. And I had an uncle who used to get, he was a welder and he used to get free bales of steel wool. Like here's your paycheck and your complimentary bale of steel wall. And his wife took a decorating course and made throw pillows for the whole house and filled them with the free steel wool. And that stuff works its way through on you after a while. So look at the whole room, everybody be moving a little bit, you know, the whole room was like a living, pulsing, breathing thing. And there was mental and physical abuse and chronic institutionalization and suicide attempts. And if you're new here, all I've got is good news as my family didn't have anything to do with making me an alcoholic. I'm not telling you that my family didn't injure me. I was terribly injured as a child. And I'm nicht telling you I haven't had to do a lot of stuff about that. I have, but I am telling you they didn't make me a drunk. They couldn't possibly have come up with this alchemy of three elements that joined together to create this landscape of resentment, fear, and sexual misconduct that plucked me beyond the possibility of being helped by conventional medicine, clergy, well-meaning people, people who loved me. And I didn't have a clue, and I was being literally eaten by it. Until a couple of months before I got sober, I found my wife locked in a bathroom pregnant with our second child, weeping, convinced that she was giving our baby cancer. and there was nothing wrong with her. We just had alcoholism. So I grew up in the Bronx with this crazy family, and I got put into therapy for... I was in psychotherapy for 18 years. By the time I got to AA, I was going to be dead, but I was gonna understand it. And I have no beef against therapy at all. I'm in therapy now. My colossal mistake is I was trying to treat my alcoholism with psychotherapy. The idea of most therapy is to uncover, discover, unravel, to free associate, to delve in your past. Most conventional, sometimes Freudian therapy, that's some of the treatment. And if you're neurotic, I don't know if anyone here has ever been referred to as a neurotic. You have anxiety. You have anxiety and then you come up with a resolution for the anxiety and it's bad. It's a bad resolution. It's an idea. so your solutions are worse than your problems then that's a neurosis you just you have anxiety you're bad resolution more anxiety so i go to therapy i say look i feel terrible why well i was so drunk yesterday i was too drunk to walk so i drove well what are we going to do about that let's talk about it i got an idea what were you thinking just before you did it nothing nothing how are you going to treat nothing i feel terrible why well yesterday i sharpened a hypodermic needle on the back of a matchbook striker and sucked some heroin up through a fluffed up cigarette filter and then i injected i i just feel terrible what were you thinking just Before You Did It Nothing Nothing and if you ask the alcoholic why they've done this thing. Why have they acted without reason? Why? How could this happen? My alcoholism goes below the horizon, it stops presenting itself as a real piece of business, and I act without explanation, without reason. I have every reason in the world not to drink, but it stops presented. Sometimes I'll fall in love, out of love, I'll get a job, I'll lose a job. Something will happen, and it'll stay above the horizon as a real piece of business for a period of time, but it's on my own juice. And if it's on my own juice, I'm going to get distracted or I'm going to experience the phenomenon of craving or the strange mental twist. Or a resentment is going to come up and tag me or a fear and it's going to go below the horizon and I am going to act in a way where this meaningless thing is precious to me and I again stomp all over my life um i uh didn't want to be an alcoholic when i was a kid i uh so i i conquered my alcohol problem with marijuana i like to welcome all the pot smokers here you remember wow right wow wow right after wow usually came what watching a pot smoker is like watching a dog try to run on linoleum there's a lot of activity but no movement they just can't get a claw in the rug I overcame my marijuana problem with pills and Concrete pills with cocaine Cocaine is an excellent drug It's particularly good for sex If you enjoy sex from the Neolithic period Welcome if you do I'm glad you're here We have a sexual inventory That'll be exciting And I drank until I didn't want to be a drunk. Alcohol was on the table every day, and I was about in my early 20s. I was going through a cycle where I was using intravenous drugs. I was hitchhiking from the Bronx down to Manhattan, and I Was picked up by my aunt and uncle. My father had had a massive stroke, and I I was taken to the hospital, and I couldn't show up for my pop. I couldn' do it. The curtain was down. I couldn''t even go and touch him in the cheek and tell him I love him and watch him take his light into another room and i felt like an a pig an animal i had holes in my arms i couldn't i collapsed as a son as a man as a brother and i had to do some fast work i i couldn't fit the pain in my head and i came up with something pretty quick that it was it was needles and heroin and all i had TO DO WAS NEVER PUT A NEEDLE IN MY ARM AGAIN AND I WOULDN'T BE the guy who couldn't show up for his old man. So I didn't put a knee limb on him, not for 13 years. Shortly after that, I was acting in a Broadway play, and this new usherette walked in with long brown hair, and I took one look at her, and I didn' t even say hello to her. I walked back into the dressing room of the show, I stood up on a chair, and I announced to the male members of this cast that if anyone talked to the new usherette with long Brown hair, I'd break all the bones in their hands and feet. And we've been married 28 and a half years. In part because we never wanted to get divorced at the same time. My wife will be the first to admit that. One of the most troublesome and annoying and debilitating defects of character for me in sobriety and out of sobriery has been the defect of mind reading. i think that i know what people are thinking and um they're never thinking anything good by the way uh i i never read a mind to go and the guy's going hey you're pimpy i like you you're cool they're always going you're a dip you don't know what you're doing you're wrong um my wife one day said to me honey you're not a mind reader you're barely a mind user which that hurt and hurt and we had a great time, we had an amazing we had great time I was acting on Broadway, we moved in with each other about a minute and a half later look if you're new you really are going to hear some wacky stuff about alcoholism now that you're here Some of it might sound true, and some of it might mean something to you, and some of them might not. The stuff that's been annoying to me over the years I have yet to find in the big book of AA. Never found it. I've heard... but it works for some people. It's not the stuff shouldn't be said, but it's kind of interesting. I've read alcoholics don't like change. Just do not like change of any kind. I don't want change I don' t like. But I love change that I like. I seem to have an endless amount of patience for it. I've never heard anyone get to a podium and say, oh, I hit the lottery. I'm having sex with identical twins. It's killing me. I can't take these changes. I mean, I've heard alcoholics are perfectionists. I am a pig. The only time that I seem to ever have an explosion of perfectionism is when my wife is caring for me then that's when the perfectionism really but my my favorite my absolute all-time favorite is uh that alcoholics are above average intelligence i have only heard this at alcoholics anonymous meetings i have never heard it at an al-anon meeting ever oh you are wits it's so hard for me to be above average intelligence after i've hooked myself behind the head and driven my head into a bed and nancy and i had a great time um and it went on for a while we had a great time i was acting in new york i started directing plays at my own theater in new York. We did some great stuff. She started a career and she's really, after a while, I wish I had noticed, she started becoming very troubled at a certain point. She became troubled and difficult and argumentative. I didn't know how bad she was getting. And I came home one day, we had these 32 ounce iced tea tumblers in the house and I popped a cork on a bottle of wine and emptied the entire bottle of line into this glass. Now I'm going to make a Cliff Roche face now. It's the pre-Alan on rat face. This one. He does it better than me. He looks like a trained attack Muppet sometimes because I said, what? She said, What are you doing? And I looked at her and I said I'm having a glass of wine. Can a man have a glass of wine in his own house. We became so sick that a guy lent us his car and we sold his car. I just never tire of saying that. I'm as stunned today as I was the first time I realized I had done it, which was... Guy lent us this car. We didn't have rent money. No, know, really. And I looked into Nancy's eyes. I said, I am so sick of being a punk irresponsible kid. I've had it. We're drawing a line in the sand. We are going to stand on our own two feet. We're going to sell the car. And she looked at me and said, let's do with tears in her eyes. I will never forget that guy's voice on the phone as long as I live. said you sold my car that's like house sitting for someone and they come back and you're in escrow what what what are you talking about what do you mean you sold My Car but I was able to sell this car for the same reason that I like General anesthetic I go from problem General I go from, let's pay the rent, pay the rent. I leave out Grand Theft Auto. I leave out surgery and Grand Theught Auto. No, no, no. That's gone. Gone. Someone had to forge the pink slip. But we did the right thing. Sacrificed. Oh my God. Our son Jesse was born, our son Micah was born. Our oldest son Micah and he was really welcomed into the world. We were surrendered by friends and family and got a ton of phone calls. He was really welcome into our community and two years and nine months later when our son jesse was born in in those two years and nine months we had become completely isolated from alcoholism no one showed up at the hospital no one called no one sent a flower and it wasn't because people didn't love us it really really hurt too much to be around us it was too scary we went to the hospital to have jesse that day i hadn't paid the doctor and we didn't know if he was going to show up. I told you that a couple of weeks before that, I had found Nancy locked in the bathroom convinced that she was killing our baby because there was a spiritual tapeworm in her, something that had entered our life that our lives kept just running out between our fingers like a handful of water over and over and again, and we didn't know what it was. And, you know, there's not a lot of terrific places to be in a hospital, but the maternity ward gets pretty close when things are okay. It's a pretty cool place. And there was my wife in extreme psychological duress. Jesse was sick when he was born. He was in neonatal intensive care and there was nobody with her. And a doctor who I had never met before called me that night at our home and said, Mr. Redmond, where are you? And I said, you know what? I can't find anybody to watch my kid. I have a two-year-old son at home. Three-year old. And she said, I'll tell you what, my husband is home. I'll give you my phone number. This is a huge metropolitan hospital. She said, you can bring your son to my house and my husband will take care of him so you can be with your family. And I said, no. I had no way to accept this woman's generosity. And how's this? That was the terrible night my son was born. the terrible night my son was born and now my poor son Micah had to be locked in the house with me wracked with fear and guilt and shame he would have been better off if I had taken him to the waiting room and left him alone with a coloring book at least he could have got the hell away from me and little were we to know it's it's what gorgeous you know what bill talks about gorgeously in his story a little where we said no this is going to continue for three years three years after this awful night three years of broken promises destroyed opportunities i suffered from chronic success my entire life by the time i got to aa i directed a tv show a movie i had my own theater i had a book on the bestseller list I did all of these things a time because after I'd leave, they'd move the business so I couldn't find it again. I was the kind of guy, I'd be working someplace 30 or 60 days and they start blaming each other for having hired me, you know, which is awful when you'd got... No, you brought them. No, no. It's a terrible feeling. um and uh we try to make a goal of it we try to move through the alcoholic landscape of our lives and our children um our children just suffered miserably as a result of this disease when micah was about four years old our family was at uh at mcdonald's and micah walked over to a family we didn't know and he had never met before he walked up to this family and he said to this my father's an alcoholic on my mother has cancer and Nancy walked up the horrified worked at a table kind of took Mike away and looked at this family instead I my husband is not an alcoholic it we we lose I've heard my wife say as a kid is incredibly A committed member of Al-Anon. I've heard her talk about this. I've hear her talk it with new women. We get stupid. We get STUPID. Alcoholics get STUPID. They're friends and family. It makes us act without reason. That thinking that's described in the 2nd and 3rd chapter, I'll stop after the 6th one, what's the use anyhow? How did it happen again? It's right in there. I saw it in my children. I saw in my kids. My kids were either pointlessly aggressive en route to a goal that never got attained, or they just threw the towel in. So what's the use? What the hell is the use anyhow? And by April 22nd, 1985, my sons were six and three. They were crushed by alcoholism. They were cut out from the society of other children. Their small motor skills were screwed up. They were a wreck. Nancy and I were tongue-chewing, babbling idiots. And I put a needle in my arm again. I crossed the line I swore I would never cross. Why? Why not? It was time. I called my therapist in my 18th year of psychotherapy, my first Jungian therapist, and I told him what I had done, and he said to me that morning the exact same thing that Carl Jung told the man who told the men who 12-stepped the man who 12 stepped the man who 12 step Bill Wilson. he said to me on the phone that day there's absolutely nothing that could be done for you and that's what carl jung told roland hazard after being analyzed by him and drinking afterwards i said what are you talking about he said i can't help you the only thing i can suggest is we have you institutionalized and then he said it was a mistake and i said well i'm not going to do it to me the thing that carl young couldn't say to roland hasard he said or you go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous. Now, why I went to the meeting is a mystery to me. It's an absolute mystery to me. Why? I'm a guy who loved dental surgery, who looked forward to general anesthetic. Why I didn't go to the mental institution? That's an uninterrupted source of narcotics. That's a chance to be with my people, colorful and adventurous people. You write a book in the nut hut, right? Why I went for that AA meeting is an absolute mystery to me. I got up at five o'clock in the morning, I put my best clothes on, I got a bad check to write you and I went to a clubhouse called Unit A in the San Fernando Valley right next to a lovely Polynesian themed bar named the Tonga Hut. I walked into this room, I looked around and I said to myself, oh my God, oh God, how did this happen? Alcoholics Anonymous. How did I wind up in AlcoholicsAnonymous? This is beyond lame. This is Beyond Church, Beyond Synagogue. This is some plateau of lameness I never even imagined was available to me. Alcoholics Anonymous and the room looked like it was the product of like 200 years of inbreeding to me you know there were like identical twins carving their initials on each other's feet in the back of the row as far as i was and everything was a miracle i'm a miracle you're a miracle oh the coffee oh what a miracle the coffee is such a miracle cliff i'll leave this up for you for later on Then the unsolicited AA information guy He saw me after the meeting, you know him He's got a belt buckle large enough to serve an entire fish on Do I want what you've got? No No, but thanks for spitting on me I appreciate it See you next week Do we hook a rug next week? What happens? The arts and crafts are going to start next week I'm waiting for the Jew hunt to start. I know that's going to break out any minute, right? Come on, Jaime, strap these antlers on. Come on. It'll be fun. We'll knock his beanie off. When he bends down to pick it up, we'll push him over. It'll been fun. Come on! Everybody's going. Always wanted to run a big buck Jew. I went back to that meeting every morning for a year. and one of my dear friends who I met that first day is in the crowd tonight who I just adore and we've known each other almost 20 years and I just love her to pieces and the only reason I think I went back to this room is I was out of plans if you're new here, I pray for you that you are out of plan if you are new here and you have a plan it's probably a beaut don't use your plan grab one of us after the meeting and tell us your plan we want to know the plan my favorite newcomer plan over the years the most utilized newcomer plant has been the one more dope deal to set myself up financially for sobriety plan if it becomes more popular the closer you get to lemon grove all right so if you're new if you be a mulan welcome to aa and uh some of the closest people to me and like synonymous were sitting in that room and people who i met in that row one of the guys there milton m A couple of months later, his wife Ruby became my wife's sponsor and has been my wife sponsor all these years. And I don't know what happened to me that day. All I can tell you is that I had a window of opportunity. If you're new here, some of us might get a little pushy and a little nutty if you've stopped drinking. See, the not drinking part's a moose. If it was not for the not drinkin' part, we would be a much bigger organization. I guarantee it. I guarantee it. It's that not drinking thing really screws a lot of people up. Here it is. If you're new, when you want to drink, don't. Yikes! It's really crazy. It's a crazy idea. And I was just crushed enough to let in enough. And you know when you're new we get pushy. We would like to see you take advantage of the opportunity that's been afforded you If you've stopped drinking, if you've gotten out of the cycle of spree and remorse for a period of time, because sometimes these opportunities disappear really quickly. And then times, sometimes you hear about people who stay untreated for a long period of time but they don't drink and maybe I could be one of those guys. Well, I didn't find out. And I stuck around Alcoholics Anonymous for six months and I went to meetings. My wife reached out to the Allen on family groups. I know exactly when because she raised her hand at her first I would get very confused sometimes when I was new. I would go to AA meetings occasionally and hear people telling, uh, jokes about Al-Anon. I'm not talking about good natured jokes. We tell enough good nature jokes about alcoholics. I'm talking about me being sober for 37 days in Al-Anaud. And I'm going to be sober for the rest of my life, but I'm also going to be sober at the end of the day because I don't want to do that anymore. So I'm just going to keep doing it. We tell enough good nature jokes about alcoholics. I'm talking about mean. You know, until I stuck around long enough to find out that the people who were doing that had no information, real information about the work being done in the Al-Anon family groups. If they did, they couldn't possibly tell those jokes. It would be like going to a meeting and hearing people tell awful stuff about AA. I mean, if that happened, I think we'd go, well, you don't know. You can't know? you don't know that a fire gets started here you don' t know what happens you don''t know that people's jaws get pried open and life gets spit into them you don ''t know you couldn''t and yet there are times where we tolerate it and you know what I used to have all the votes I've been whittled down to one by good sponsorship and if you think it's okay to do that that's fine, that's your vote my vote is that it's not okay it's nine Because there might be a newcomer like me out there who's sitting there going, what are you doing? What is that? I was incredibly proud of my wife and happy that she was interested in doing this thing. So God bless Ellen. I don't need my wife to go to Al-Anon, but I sure appreciate it. And when she's doing well, I'm doing better. I'm not doing, you know, my wellness is not contingent on her, but it's fun. And my wife's Al-Anon family, and I'm sure a lot of other people use this, but her sponsor always stressed it, that when things would start moving a little fast, I don't know, in our family, driving's not good. It's not Good. My wife has a set of imaginary driving controls on her side of the car. I'm going to get her a Fisher-Price thing eventually. and there's an imaginary break that she pushes down on and a lot of body English, a lot to do. A lot of movement, a lot if activity and I seem to get psychotic when she does this and you know when things start moving quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, ready fire, aim. You know, things are starting to cook, starting to cooked. It's like trying to grab soap, you know and she was encouraged to say, you know sweetheart, you could be right. could be right and one day things are moving really quick you're really fast and my mom and i've grown accustomed to hearing this wonderful thing honey you could be right it's not much but it's all i got you know and i and she goes you know sweetie you could be right but not today nothing it's like your death not gonna happen to me i'll let you know what's your day not today big guy it's Talk of that. And at six months of sobriety, I asked a guy to sponsor me because I knew I was going to drink. I knew it. I had seen it hundreds of times. I consider myself lucky to have stayed sober six months before I got involved in the work in the big book of AA. He was a great guy, still is a great man. And he invited me over to his house, and he had made sure that I had done some reading from the big book of AA, and he read chapter five to me. And on the way through, he took me through the first two steps. We reached step three, which my friend Clef refers to as the formal articles of surrender. I got to tell you something. I found this out the other day. It was one of the most beautiful expressions of the second step I've ever heard. The root, the origin of the phrase carte blanche, which we generally know as carte blanches to have, you know, a license to do things and what it comes from is the french phrase when an army has been beaten so badly they have to sign a blank treaty it's a carte blanche i signed a blank treaty what i got here and your ass has got to be whooped pretty good to do that because they'll fill it in later and if you're really willing and you're really willing you sign a blind treaty of alcoholics anonymous and god willing you won't have people who are going to have you, you know, wear a grass skirt and touch them while you're chanting the 12 steps. Cliff told me that magic would disappear if I ever told anyone, but it's so much fun to have the microphone when he has no microphone. I just, I can't but this is better than Christmas as far as I'm concerned. And then we reached step three, and we got on our knees and said a prayer together, which I felt was unnecessary and embarrassing, but I did it anyway. And he gave me instructions on how to do a fourth step in the big book of AA. I came back to Don, and I read it to him at nine months of sobriety, and I had an incredible day with him. My life changed that day that I read that fifth step to him. And I did Step 6 and 7 for the first time, which have become my fulcrum of my relationship with my higher power. And I wrote up my 8-step list. I try to share this any time I talk because it's simply the best reading of Step 8 I've ever heard. And I heard it. I was a couple of weeks sober at my old home group, and there was a guy there who had never read Chapter 5 before. His name was Nino. He had a heavy New York accent, and he was there with a hospital group. he had hospital plastic and he had never read the big book and he read it for the first time in front of this group and he got up to step 8 and he made a list of all those we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all Jesus Christ and he looked out into the room as if to say have you seen this? Do you know what the hell is in here? Oh, it was so gorgeous. It was so pure. It's all I saw. I didn't see anything else on the list. Not those people. Not that money. I would not have taken that much money if I knew I had to give it back. You think I'm an idiot? I'm above average intelligence. And if you're new, don't worry about it. It's eight steps from where you are anyway, for God's sake. And eight is not the annoying one. It's nine. So really annoying, that's the pay-it-back step. So I wrote up my eight-step list. I didn't know what I was going to do about it and I didn' t know what was going to do with my wife and my kids and my dad. I didn''t know what I was going to do. And I was blessed with a sponsor who refused to tell me how to make amends. He said, do your job in AA. I don't know how this is going to come out. Do your job in AA let's get to work. And i was hanging out with a bunch of guys who just they did it they just did it they were on the board of our home group and trustees and they had panels to Warm Springs and to Hatchipee and they uh and they answered phones at central office and they um this buddy of mine was answering phones at central office and this woman called and said uh how what's the waiting list like now and uh my friend said what are you talking about so well two weeks ago i told my husband i had to get the hell out if he joined unless he joined a and he called me said that you guys put him on on the waiting list and I want to just want to see where he was, you know, where he was. And my friend said to her, I said, I think it's going to be a bit of a wait for you. So I started doing my job in Alcoholics Anonymous. I addressed my inventory as my spiritual task and I had to start doing a lot of embarrassing, unpleasant things. I I had to start going to school and standing up for my kids, going in and advocating for my children and seeing what resources were available to help them because they had been so terribly injured. And a lot of teachers were very angry at my children because they were perceived as kids with a lot of potential who weren't using it as if they had a choice of whether or not to use it. What a crazy idea that is. And one teacher said to me, you know, sometimes I just want to grab him and shake him. And I said to her, you Know what? He's already been all shook. it's not it's not what we need now I said and this was really hard I said my children are ill because I've been very sick and we're making a beginning can you help us and not once did anyone say no part of that was my wife and I were getting spiritually we were growing and we stopped going to drowning people and asking for swimming lessons and when they'd say glub glub glub we'd get pissed off you know and and uh and the boys got tested and they got all sorts of special ed and and and uh one teacher said we'll get them into music there's small motor skills or or let's see if the big motor stuff will help him and jesse wanted to play drums and uhand i didn't have any dough but i'll tell you what i did i went i bought him a drum pad which is a piece of wood it's a 15 buck thing it'sa piece ofwood with a pieceof rubber and a couple of sticks and i went back to my home group and i told the guys i'll tell you why i told them because they wanted to know because they were interested because they were really excited about our family i wasn't bragging they wanted to know this stuff and within a couple of months the aa drum set showed up at our house uh there were a lot of burnout drummers in my group at that time guys are showing up with these mega death drums you know dude and uh jesse sat behind a drum said you could barely see him i mean he would disappear and a couple of years ago my kids played uh the house of blues on the sunset strip and they burnt the dump down. Burn it down. Playing in this packed room, eight, nine hundred kids playing hip-hop music elbow to elbow. These two gorgeous, poised boys, you know. And there's a group of weeping middle-aged alcoholics over to the side. Kids are going, what is with the crying old people, man? What's that all about? When my son Michael was eight years old, I had been in the program for two years, and I went to make him lunch. And I said, what do you want in your hot dog? He said, I want mustard, onions, and lettuce. I went, lettuce? He said okay, I don't want lettuce. And he walked away, came back about 45 minutes later, and I'm not altering one syllable. He said to me, I will never again allow your opinion of what I want affect what I ask for. so I asked him to sponsor me with that one what's that what is what is that a couple years after this I've been in the program about four years Jesse got into a schoolyard accident got broke his wrist in a growth plane which if you know about kids that's cartilage that's going to turn to bone can't be messed with when it's set but he's a younger brother and he's come home with a cast with a weapon and now he's got a level playing field and he wants to get as much mileage out of this thing as he possibly can and they can't do it because if he messes this thing up it's bad and mike is into it there you know and i said and i told him twice and it's not and i finally screamed at micah he can't doing this i got right up in his face and i yelled him i said zero tolerance we can't do this he walked away from me walked on his room and he slammed the door slam the door i got the dead tick going well slam it up so i go to his room and i open the door and before i can unload on him he looks at me and he says i didn't see you were wrong out there you were right but a big guy just got in my face and screamed and yelled i didn't tell you you were wrong don't tell me i can't be mad what what is it what the hell is that what is that that's something he had been watching his mother and i trying to do trying to do to stand up for yourself and tell someone what you need without telling them what to do, to overcome a fear of confrontation, to not scream and yell or hold it inside, but to tell the truth without telling him what to do. To take no crap and give no crap. What a design for living. What a perfect thing. And my son's taught it to me. And my, you know, I would, because I felt so guilty about my children's injuries, I wouldn't, when they'd start to fight I'd pull them apart and they'd fight again and I'd fight and Nancy said you don't know how to fight you don' t let them finish so I started sitting on my hands and they learned how to finish something I don't knoow how to do I don' know howto fight I scream until you shut up or I cry until you shot up I also like to loom I'm a loomer, I'm big I like to get a light behind me so you're in a shadow when I'm looming It's like total eclipse of the Jew if I get you right in there, right? And if I can get like a scream, a cry, and a loom into one fight, that's a hat trick. That's the Scott Redmond couple's retreat. You just had it right there. I don't know how to fight. Don't know what to do. Don't have to be in a marriage. Don't how to clean. Don't live like a grown man. Don't feel like a grow man. I don' t know grown men make a bet. I think somewhere in the back of my twisted mind that a certain amount of housework should equal a certain amount of sex. That there should be conversion tables on the back of cleaning products of housework to sex. And I know there's someone out here tonight going, marketing. I smell it. Let's see. One more dope deal to set myself up financially for sobriety. Conversion and we made a beginning as a family and we moved down the line together and we found a great comfort in one another's company my wife was blessed with a sponsor who didn't beat her up and I was blessed with a sponsor who applied the scalpel of truth with the anesthetic of love. And we had great examples, really incredible examples in Alcoholics Anonymous. And we stayed sober for a while. I've had a lot of problems in sobriety. I know that there are people who haven't had problems in sobrietry. I'm incredibly happy for them. And I'm not saying that you have to have problems in sobriety. And I've had a bunch of problems in sobriery. I've had problems in my marriage, I've had problems with sex, I went up to over 300 pounds of sobriete. What does that have to do with sobrieti? Absolutely nothing unless you're going through it. Absolutely nothing. And I would pray in six and seven I write, I'm resentful at Scott for being overweight. It affects my self esteem pocket book ambition, personal relations and sex and the defects are self serving gluttony, shame, guilt and stubbornness. I'd read it to my sponsor and go have a pie and a bowl of spaghetti. And I'd write it, read it, write it and read it and write it. And my sponsor was finally saying, you're not using the first five propositions in the book. What's going on, man? Where are you changing? Where is he using this as a fulcrum for change? And I go, pop, what do you got? And i'd hear him go, go to Overeaters Anonymous. And I'd go, well, what else you got. And finally, after my health being threatened, being over 300 pounds, I went to OA. I went to OA, I said, hi, I'm a circuit speaker. They said, yes, and a very fat circuit speaker really glad you're here. I said would you like me to talk? They said no, your mouth's full. Don't talk. What does this have to do with sobriety? Nothing unless you're going through it i've been to other 12-step programs i'm in therapy now i've gone to the feldenkrais technique and use that for my back pain i've not done one single one of these things instead of aa i've done every single oneof them because of aa because i'vebeen hanging out with seekers because of the inventory process the minute i do any of them instead of aaa then i've started that process haven't i i'vestarted that process of watching it go below the horizon and stop presenting itself as a real piece of business. My alcoholism has stayed buoyed above the horizon as a Real Piece of Business for 19 years and 11 months, even when I'm not concentrating on it. Because it's buoyed on the heads and shoulders of the men and women of AA. When I read my fifth step, I read about a lot of stuff. I read about a kid named Mark who used to kick my ass when I was a kid from the time we were five till we were 10. I had to write, go all the way back and write about that stuff he humiliated me in our first spin the bottle uh contest you know i had to write about nazis slaughtering jews and i had no defects of character on that resentment and my sponsor said scott you don't understand you don'T UNDERSTAND THEY'RE NOT ASKING YOU IF THE EVENT IS YOUR FAULT I'M RESENTFUL AT NAZIS FOR SLAUGHTERING JEWS THEY'RE not asking you if the event is your fault they're asking you IF THE RESENTMENT IS YOUR Fault was the event your fault no Is the resentment your fault every time with no exception and no loophole? Because a normal person would do a lot of things about nazis. They could give money to political groups work against you do all sorts of stuff But I don't do that. I feel sorry for myself I'm a hypocrite and a bigot Because if I think you are associated with that in any way, I don'T even want to know who you are I'M AN OPPORTUNIST I'M NOT LIVING IN TODAY. I'M A GRUDGE HOLDER I think that's enough right now, don't you? And he set me free. My sponsor set me free. He changed my life in that moment, that day. I was in my first year of sobriety and I was becoming sort of a spiritual Goliath. I started sponsoring guys and I was being I had a ghost writing job for 20th Century Fox and I Was Being Considered for a Job as a Staff Director on a Sitcom I thought this would be really good I thought it would be very good for the men that I sponsored because they would see me prospering they'd really see the program at work so I directed one episode I went to a picnic before they made the decision about who the staff director was going to be and I went there to get a job I was bringing nothing and I walked over to the executive producer and he had a beer. He said, well, I have one of these. And I said, sure. And I went over to a cooler. I picked up a beer, I guess the wind hit me. I don't know. It's a mystery to me. And I says, you're a dead man. And I put the beer down. I call my sponsor and I did the work. I was humiliated that I almost drank and I had to sit down and write the resentment against myself for almost drinking. And they didn't give me the job. and I was resentful at them. And what my sponsor said to me that day after I read the inventory, he said, Scott, when you do six and seven today, when you draw close to him and he reveals himself to you, when you humbly ask him to remove these defects and humbly isn't, take him if you can, big guy. Humbly isn't taking me a rotten. HumbLY is pop. I have made an identity of these things. I am so attached to them. they are precious to me and my problems go below the horizon I keep repeating please, please help me he said when you do 6 and 7 today you better ask your God what you're going to have to do to stay sober you have the show business God, apparently I said what? he said well what keeps you sober? I said God, he said God keeps you sobre you didn't get a show business job and you almost drank So I guess you have the show business, God, and he has abandoned you utterly. When I came into AA, I heard people, I hear God getting people jobs, God getting in relationships, God getting parking spaces. I'm not going to talk about it. Years ago my family got nailed in the Northridge earthquake. We got injured really badly. I got a bad physical injury our house got cracked up and the kids we were right in the epicenter a guy died right near us it was really bad shortly after this we were at an AA function out of town and this woman who used to live in LA came up to me at this function and said oh I am so glad God got us out of LA before the quake and I said oh so he likes you he likes you but we're crap but he likes you oh that's great and she said to me I guess he just felt you had some lessons to learn I'm out of here I have no interest in living that world living in that world where I've got a God saying get him, get the Redmond boy, get him get him no evacuation plan for you Jew boy, gets him turn his wife to salt, kill his goat put a finger in his eye, get them smote his ass, smote him smote anyone he talks to but we'll figure it out later. I can't live in a world where I've got a God saying, well, let's key your car. It boils for you. You're due for a rash. I believe St. Thomas. I believe the mystics. I believe The Big Book of AA. To know God is to not know God. That God is absolute and complete mystery. That no one can fully comprehend or define that power which is God. and every time i ascribe a personality or an intention to my higher power i make them this small this small i know that god's keeping her sober i'm just here to share my story wouldn't do me any good that is a mystery i used to be very uncomfortable with i'm very comfortable with it today as a matter of fact i crave that mystery i've misidentified people in aa and approaches to aa as god i've misidentified meetings with god it's a big mistake i don't know who i injure more them or me you know doesn't mean i can't respect them it doesn't mean i learn from him it doesn'T mean i CAN'T love him but but and um so when i did six and seven that day i said pop you got it take show business i'm done i'm done you cannot show business i am willing to do anything for a living because you see my god doesn't care what i do for a living as long as i do my job in aa my god is not a child annihilator my god expects me to do my child job in a if my children are annihilated or not and i know plenty of people who have lost children in alcoholics anonymous and who are astounding astounding examples of this program my god doesn't care if i live in the house in the hill or the refrigerator box i do and and that's fine as long as i wanted it it doesn't become an attachment or a craving and um and i said pop i'll do anything you want for a living just keep me sober and within three months i was working as a cook on a catering truck and i looked up to god and i did not mean this this wasn't even on the long list where where did this even come from now in la when they make a tv show or a movie they hire a caterer that's a you're on a vehicle on a movie set it's a teamster job it's great dough but i'm scott redmond so the first movie that i catered the the producer executive producer who starred the movie is a guy who I've worked with in the business. And he comes into work, he sticks his head on the truck that first morning and he says, can I have a burrito? Scott? I said, what's happening, babe? He said, is this your truck? I said, no, but it's my spatula. I went home and I called my sponsor. I said we're getting the gift now. And we're really, it's beautiful. We're really getting a gift. The gift of sobriety is such a beautiful thing. And he said, sounds like you've got to resent it. And I wrote 10 steps, man. I wrote them and wrote them. I'm resentful of Scott for working on a kitchen truck. I want up serving guys who I had directed in TV shows, actresses I directed in TV shows assistant directors who I Had been the director with stage managers who would work for me. I come back to the own group with a new tale of humiliation every week, and the guys would go, ah! And you know what? My son Jesse asked me to teach him how to cook. Now, I didn't think we were going to get intimate that day, that way. I thought we'd get intimate on Oscar buffing night when we buffed my Oscars. We'd get together and buff my OscARS and my Emmys. That's how I thought my son and I would develop a relationship. But he wanted to learn how to cook and uh i started showing up and and and giving them a dime for their nickel and uh I became a really good cook and I started helping some guys who felt they had fallen from a height when they came to AA. I had a friend named Paul who used to say this prayer because he felt that he had fallen from the height when he came in he said God I'm willing to do anything for a living just keep me sober but please don't let it be as bad as what you did to Scott. It's like being voted most attractive man in your cell block. And then one night, the star of the sitcom that I didn't get the job directing walked in as a newcomer to my meeting. And I had done the work on it and I was cool. And, uh, I welcomed him and hung around with him and he heard me talk a couple of times and he said will you show me the work in the big book and i said it would be a pleasure and i was just you know i talked about i was basking it was so great that i was i so free to be able to help this guy and really genuinely help him and not want anything from that show was still continuing to be produced at that time and he walked into my house late for this appointment which happens often you know and they said geez i'm sorry i'm late uh our new director my job that's my job the new director has my job Mark, the kid who used to kick my ass. Get a hobby. Get a job. Get a new hobby. Get some outside interest. Wow. Wow. i waited years before i told the guy the guy who came to help me i waited years until he got sober and and i pulled him aside one day and i said dude i gotta tell you what happened the day you came that was really interesting and uh i continued to show up and be a good cook and uh i cooked for about three years and um at the uh after about three years is over i got a overture made to me by a big time um uh company called catching public relations for this big comedy writing job. And I felt at this point, you know, I was really sponsoring a lot of guys by this time. I really felt, oh my God, this is going to be great for the guys I sponsor. I mean, great because they'll have seen me suffer and now they'll see me prosper thusly. This is just going to Be Fantastic for them. So I did a videotape for these guys and I went cuckoo before I even found out. My brain blew up. I mean I just, you can't, when you're living that way and you're used to, and you have relative experience living spiritually. Okay. A lot of the time it just feels like your appendix is first, you know, and I did the inventory, I read it to my sponsor and, um, and that was cool. And a couple of weeks later I found out I did not have the job with Ketchum and I was fine. And shortly after that, I got a call to cater some commercials up in the mountains above LA and Arrowhead. And I drove the truck up there and I grabbed the call sheet, which gives you all the information about the shoot. And I saw that the commercials were for Ketchum Public Relations. I'm feeding them now. Now I'm feeding them. And, um, I looked down at the end of the truck. There's a guy videotaping me. I said, what are you doing? He said, Oh, I'm taping the making of the commercial. He's taping my humiliation. He's going to tape it. He're going to send it back to york and the guys are gonna go man is that scott redmond with the meatloaf that's unbelievable so i i went back to my hotel i called my sponsor and i said oh we're getting a gift now oh yeah oh it's a miracle it's just a miracle miracle miracle a miracle it's America and he said I guess God had enough writers and needed a few cooks today and then he said you know you told God you wanted to work for Ketchum and you forgot to tell him what you wanted to do if you're new want to welcome you to AA. The good news is our problem mainly rests in our mind. Alcoholics Anonymous is the only text about recovery from a fatal illness that leaves the sufferer in better condition than they were in before they contracted the disease. At AA, as far as I know, has the only text by recovery from fatal illness, uh, that contains the sentence, we absolutely insist on enjoying life there's no book about cholera that says cholera is a hoot you're gonna love cholera and you'll meet other people who just caught cholera right and the problem is is our problem mainly rests in our mind you know um if you're new i want to welcome an aa if anybody sticks their finger in your chest and says that's the way AA is, I'm just telling you, I've steered clear of those guys. Alcoholics Anonymous was founded by a bunch of acid-dropping, niacin-eating, Ouija board playing wackos. Seekers who are always saying more. What's more? Henry James. William James. What's More? What's happening? What do we got? You know? Please read the history of Alcoholics Aanonymous. Please read AA Comes of Age. Please. Please read The Big Book of AA. It'll make... I swear to you, the meetings will stop being confusing. Because I read this material and I go to meetings and go, oh, he's talking about AA. He's not talking about AAA. I don't know what he's doing. What is he talking about? But I judge no man because I'm too spiritually developed. If you're new here, I want to welcome you to Alcoholics Anonymous. I want to suggest that you take this thing as seriously as you possibly can and go out there and have the time of your life. Welcome to AA. Welcome home. Thanks so much for having me. Thank you.