The Trick Title of the Chapter to the Agnostic – Doug R.

Thank you. Hi, everybody. My name is Doug Rowell, and I'm a grateful alcoholic. The grace of a loving God and the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous and beautifully dangerous people like you. None has been necessary for me to take a drink or a drug of any kind since June 7th. of 1987. I'm very grateful for that. It's not a record. It's actually kind of humbling when I'm the speaker at a meeting where they do a countdown beforehand and somebody like Don stands up with 54 years and I have only 40 years less than that. So, you know, I would have a lot more time sober if I hadn't drank so much. But I think I would've missed an important drink. So, I'm happy to be here. I am! I'm delighted to be Here. I want to thank Steve for calling me up and inviting me to come and do this. I talked to my daughter today and she had been gone to Florida to visit her grandmother for a while and she took my grandson with her and she just got back to California and so I talked and she said where are you calling from? And I told her and she says what are you doing there? It was kind of a spur of the moment thing that I had to come because Sandy who is supposed to be your speaker tonight is in Arlington. And so I explained to my daughter, well, there's a guy who was a real giant in Alcoholics Anonymous who died. He's being married at Arlington Cemetery. And the guy who Was supposed to be the speaker in Council Bluffs had to go to his internment in Arlington. And so, I was asked to come and be the Speaker. And I like to, when I said it like that, my daughter said, well, that must fulfill the lifetime dream for you to come to Council Bluffs to be a replacement speaker. She has actually, she has a lot of sarcasm. I don't know where, she probably gets that from her mother's side. But I'm delighted to be here. I am. I'm so glad Steve asked me to come and do this. And not only did he ask me to come and do this, but he took me to dinner. And I found out I'm just barely in Iowa. I had dinner and breakfast in Nebraska. So it's just like jump across the border a little bit. And Steve took me To dinner, and we had a nice talk. And, of course, I'm also grateful to Steve for inviting Michael to speak on Friday and Dick, I always love to hear Dick and then for inviting me and of course for inviting himself I told Steve after his talk this afternoon that was a remarkably humble talk for somebody who invited himself to be the speaker nobody's as hard on us as we are on ourselves and of course I enjoyed Fran's talk this morning I love the program of Alan on that you can't really look them in the eye though they want to do something for you kind of look down at their shoes can I help you? no, no, I'm fine I'm fine, you know. So this is a fun thing for me to do. I love doing this. If somebody calls me and says, hey, you want to come to our meeting and talk about yourself for an hour? Yeah! Yes, I do. Who is this? Where do I have to go? How much is it going to cost? Because I got credit cards. I could probably, you know, no, no, we'll pay for your expenses. Well, yeah! Yeah, I'd be happy to do that. It's like, I wanted to be the speaker at the first meeting I ever went to. But I was a little drunk that night. So they didn't really ask me. I like your theme participation is the key to harmony for a lot of reasons for one I go to a lot of conferences and it's pretty rare that you see somebody, a conference where the theme is taken from the concepts most AAs never heard of the concepts let alone to pull a phrase out of the fourth concept to use as their theme. I'm impressed, you know. Somebody knows something about Alcoholics Anonymous here, and that's one reason. Now, I could also, I like it because I'm a music person. I like to talk about the music of Alcoholics Anonymous. I've always been a music personal all my life, and when I was in kindergarten, you know, they said, they were doing a Santa Claus at Christmas play, and they said can anybody tap dance? And I said, yeah. Well, I didn't know anything about tap dancing but I figured I could fake it because I'm a music guy and I did. I tapped better than anybody else in kindergarten as it turned out. I learned this little shuffle step and it was a tap dancing Santa Claus. It was great. So your theme has two musical words in it. Key and harmony. You could switch them around. Harmony is the key to participation, too. It works that way. Or if you want to get real musical, you could say, participation in harmony only works if you're in the right key. But that's just getting too crazy. Unless you're in jazz. But you know what? I'll tell you why I like to talk about the music of Alcoholics Anonymous because when I came to AA first the words uh were just the words just confused me for one thing uh it wasn't exactly what i expected my okay let me let me clear this up my grandmother was a pentecostal minister she may have also been an alcoholic i don't know um but i i heard that she used to drink i never saw her drink when i was about six years old she found jesus and became a pendecostal minister, so I knew her as this Pentecostal minister who had a Skid Row mission in San Pedro, California down in Los Angeles Harbor. And she would help winos and wharf rats to get sober down there feeding them soup and Jesus. So I knew you could get sober on soup in Jesus. It just never seemed worth it to me, and so I had this impression that Alcoholics Anonymous was the secular way to get sober, the way that the smart people got sober without God, and I wasn't, you know, in a hurry to get sobre or anything, but I kind of had that impression of AA, so when I came to my first meeting to check it out, i was very disappointed to find all this god stuff going on here it's like you know this is my ace in the hole can you dig it you know and here was here was uh my secular way to get sober talking about higher powers and power greater than yourself that doesn't fool me you know uh humbly asked him with a capital h excuse me you know oh no i'm a little too quick you're not fooling me with that capital H hymn stuff, you know. You might as well spell it H-Y-M-M. I'm hip to that thing, and you know, people are talking, and the steps that I had heard of, everybody's heard of the 12 steps, 12 step programs. You know, you're at work, you drop a pencil, somebody, hey, we got a 12 step program for that. You now, everybody's heard of The Twelve Steps, of them, but most of us have, people outside of Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12 step problems, have never heard or read the actual steps. So when I came in here, I'd heard of the 12 steps. I certainly knew about Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, I had seen Days of Wine and Roses and some of the other movies. And so I had an impression of AA. But when I saw this God as we understood him stuff, God with a capital G, I was very, very disappointed. And so I thought, well, this is really not for me either. But I didn't really have any other place to go. Some things happened at that meeting that some were like the God thing was very disappointing to me. But there were some other things that felt really good, made me feel good about AA. Now, I didn' t walk in and join up. I walked into a meeting with maybe 60 people. and there was probably, I'm going to say there were 60 people and 75 chairs. So there was plenty of empty chairs but I didn't sit in a chair because it seemed to me if I sat down in the meeting it would be like I was joining up. I don't want to join up. So I kind of leaned against the wall in the back. I was back there leaning, judging. I'm auditing. Yeah, I just said, you like some coffee? How much is it? It's free. No thanks. But I wasn't the only one. There was another guy back there. He was leaning against the wall too. We were leaning against the wall. We were wall leaners. We were in the cool section, you know. We were the cool section of the meeting. So okay, there we are. And some things happened at that meeting that I don't know. One thing that happened was three separate people came up to me. They walked up, you know, they made eye contact and walked right up to me individually, not all together, two men and a woman, and put out their hand and said you're new. And it wasn't a question. They said you're new, and I said yeah, and they said keep coming back. Every one of them, all three of them said keepcomingback. Now, you know, we do that. I mean, I have been guilty of holding out my hand to a newcomer with a big smile and say, keep coming back. Meanwhile, my head is saying, I wonder if that asshole parked behind me. Am I going to have a hard time getting out tonight? I might have to stay and talk to another newcomer or something. So I wish that wasn't the case, but I have done that. I found myself in that position. But when I was at my first meeting and three separate people told me to keep coming back, I was impressed. I felt a little relief. I could come back. I didn't know you said that to everybody. I thought you saw my potential or something. I've been told I had potential all my life. I find out that's not a compliment. If you're new here tonight, you probably have some good ideas about how to improve Alcoholics Anonymous. And I don't want to squelch those ideas. I think what you should do with those ideas is catch Don right after the meeting and pull him aside and tell him your ideas about how to improve AA and I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Don will probably tell you keep coming back and it's not a compliment but you might as well do it because if you were like I was you don't have any place else to go anyway so keep coming back people in my life at that time, when I went to my first meeting, were not telling me keep coming back. People who genuinely cared about me, people who loved me, really loved me were saying, don't come over here. Stay away. Hey, it's Doug. Are you going to be home for a while? No, no, Doug, we're not. No, we are going to, we will be leaving. We are leaving just, you just caught us going out the door. We're going to be gone. I don't even know. We'll be gone a long time. Okay. Love you, Mom. You know, and so check this out. I got uninvited to a wedding. How often does that happen? I got invited. They sent me Bob and Carol. My friends Bob and Carl were getting married they sent me the engraved invitations with too many envelopes and all the crap that comes in it and I pulled out the RSVP and said yeah Doug yeah I'm coming I sent it back to him I bought him a wedding present I wrapped it I'm ready to go to the wedding in a couple of days now and uh and Bob calls and says um Doug uh Carol and I've been talking about it and and we'd like for you to not come to the wedding and I you know I think most people would say well why is that Bob you know uh It's not something I did, I hope. I hope you just overbooked the room, you know, or something. Because it would really be embarrassing if I did something. But I knew I did something. I understood. I wouldn't want me at my wedding. We had all been at a wedding the weekend before and I mooned the bride's mother. You know, I don't know. I know that I did not go to that wedding with the intention of mooning the bride's mother. But just somehow they had an open bar and everybody was having fun and it was just so fun I just thought wouldn't it be funny to show my ass. It seemed funnier at the time And, uh, but it wasn't, I know because nobody laughed. And, um, it seems like somebody would, huh? It seems like someone would snicker. But no, uh... No, they didn't. And, now, I am positive to this very day that somebody laughed on the way home over that. But nobody laughed when the Dugster was standing there with his pants around his knees and the bride's mother was saying, oh my goodness. So they... You know, people will come up to me as friends of mine and say, hey man, what's wrong with you? God, you mooned the bride. The bride's father. I mean, that's a social faux pas. Sorry, I thought it was the groom's mother. You know, come on, hey, lighten up. Jeez, I wasn't... It was at the reception. I didn't do it in a ceremony for Christ's sake. What am I, an animal? So, you know, so of course Bob and Carol didn't want me to come to their wedding. you know and I had already bought him a present but I just drank it myself I didn't care so waste not want not so what I'm saying is when I came to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous the fact that people went out of their way to invite me back was very important it was something that people who knew me didn't do and and uh and so that got my attention so there was a god thing on one hand and and keep coming back on the other hand and there was other things that happened there was in california i don't know if you do this here maybe there's some meetings around the country i know most most places around the united states they call celebrations of years of sobriety anniversaries in califonia we call them birthdays you know It's like, oh, somebody's having a birthday and we sing happy birthday to them. And I also know that a lot of places they have anniversary meetings where once a month they have like everybody who has a birthday in March will come and celebrate their birthday so they don't take up time in an AA meeting celebrating people's sobriety. Oh, duh. Anyway, but in California, Southern California anyway, and it's different than Northern California, they have birthdays almost every meeting. They bring out a cake. In fact, my home group is a 7 a.m. meeting. It's called the Winner's Attitude Adjustment Group. If you're ever in Southern California, it's in Studio City at the Little Brown Church, and we meet 7 a。m. every day of the year. And it's a one-hour meeting. And sometimes people will come and say, people we've never seen before, will walk into our meeting and say I'd like to take a cake. And they go okay. And, you know, the guy will say my name's Bob. I'm sober 11 years, and my friend Willie is going to give it to me. And we've never seen Bob or Willie. We don't know if they're sober or not. But we bring out the cake and put candles on it and sing happy birthday. And Bob might talk for 12 minutes in a one-hour step study meeting, you know? But we do that. And that's just what they do in California. But I didn't know anything about birthdays or any of that stuff. When I went to my first meeting, they said, Ruth is celebrating her 18th birthday today. So everybody clapped. And I thought, well, that's cool. They celebrate people's birthdays. and I'm looking for some 18-year-old tiny honey to get up and this woman, Ruth, gets up and she looks happy but she looks like she's 50 if she's a day She should quit drinking If she's 18 it's good that she don't drink anymore And then I realized what was going on and clearly this woman has not had a drink in 18 years, and they're just tickled to death about it. They're so happy, they're going to light candles on a cake, and you have these girls hold it up and smile, and Ruth's going to blow out these candles, and everybody's goingto sing happy birthday. I didn't know that they did that, and that, I was embarrassed for you. Because if I was nothing else, I was cool. I was in the cool section of the meeting, you know? I'm cool back there, and everybody's singing happy birthday to you off key no no key harmony none of that these people were singing loud and off key and Ruth was just smiling and grinning and they sang happy birthday keep coming back I just thought this is the lamest thing I have ever seen this is some new level of lameness I never imagined existed if I was going to make up stuff about Alcoholics Anonymous to make fun of it, the birthday thing wouldn't have occurred to me. But I wasn't mad, I was just cool. I don't belong anyway. If I wanted to join up, I'd sit down. I'm just visiting. And so Ruth got up and she said her name and they said, hi, Ruth. And she said, I want you to know that over this last 18 years of sobriety, I've attended a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous every single day. A lot of people in that meeting went, ooh. I didn't. Well, you're kind of dumb, ain't you? You live slow, ain' you, baby? Because I don't know how long it's going to take me to get this thing, but I do know it's not going to takes every day for 18 years. I'm real sure about that. And And I'm back there leaning, taking her inventory, just trying to stifle a grin. And I looked over at the cool guy next to me, and it turned out he wasn't even cool. He was a newcomer catcher. Yeah, they stuck him back there against the wall. Put him back here to catch people like me. and I looked over at him I kind of grinned and he said hey, I'll tell you what if you stay sober a year we'll give you one of them cakes. Will you? Just don't drink for a year. Can I get a cake? you know, I didn't want to laugh at his face but the guy asked for it and I said you know I'm not a big pastry eater if I wanted one I'd just stop at Ralph's on the way home pick one up, it wouldn't even be out of my way I'm going to stop and get a six pack anyway but another thing happened the only other thing I remember from that meeting and I remember it partly because I've read the format of that meeting since then so I know what was in the format I didn't commit it to memory when the secretary said it, but what she said was she held up this book. She said, This is our big book, Alcoholics Anonymous. It's the basic text of our program and the only authority on Alcoholics Anonymous We sell it at our cost, $3.75. If you're new, please don't leave without this book, so I made a middle note, steal that book, because I knew there was no question in my mind. I could walk up, pick up one of those books, act like I was reading it, walk right out the door, and nobody would stop me. And I'm sure today that that's true. So that's what I was going to do. But then, see, she screwed that all up. She said, the book is $3.75. If you can't afford it, we'll make very liberal credit arrangements, including nothing down and nothing a week until you get back on your feet. Now if I take the book, they're going to think I'm not – is that for me? now if I take the book they're going to think I'm not on my feet you know and I got way too much pride for that so I went up to her after the meeting I said I'd like to get one of those books please she said okay it's $3.75 I said here's a five okay I'll get you a change oh no no I use that money to help a drunk or something you know I'm on my seat you know oh yeah yeah so I took that book home and I sat down poured a drink, and I started to read that book. And I don't know. I have this ability. Everybody has the things that they're gifts, you know? And I can look at the title of a chapter in any book and know everything that's in that chapter. It's a gift that I have. And so I was thumbing through this book, and, you Know, doctor's opinion, yeah, like I never had one of those. You know, you ought to not drink so much. And in Bill's story, who cares? Then I got, you know, there's a solution and more about alcoholism. Fascinating chapter titles. And is that a cell phone or did somebody bring the phone from their room? It's like, because usually they just go, this is like a fire alarm. Maybe it is. Answer, to see if there's a fire. Okay, was I saying anything important? Oh yeah, my sobriety. So I'm looking through this book and finally I get to chapter four, we agnostics, and then it hit me. Okay here it is. This is how the smart people get sober without God. Here's the we agnostic. Well it's a trick title you know. They put in there to catch people like me and uh but i read the chapter i read it all the way through and i got done and i thought well i must have spaced out i gotta pay attention i i totally missed the whole smart people stay sober without god thing so i read that chapter again and and uh and i still didn't get what i wanted it to say so i ready to get i readthat chapter about six times that night having a pouring a drink between each reading and and and it didn't say what i want it to say. And I've heard people say, I've heard some people who are smart people say that chapter 4 of the big book Alcoholics Anonymous, We Agnostics, is the most important piece of spiritual literature of the English language of the 20th century. Now, I don't know if that's true. It may be true. It is for me, I believe, but I don' t know enough about spiritual literature of the 21st century to judge it. But it certainly got my attention even that night, even that first night I read it. There was a little phrase in there that after I read it several times, it kind of soaked out to me. And it said, we have found that God doesn't make too hard terms on those who seek him. Hmm. I never heard that anyplace else. We've found that God doesn'T make too HARD TERMS ON THOSE WHO SEEK HIM. And that got my attention. And it's a real subtly phrased thing. I don't think that it jumps out at most of us the first time we read it. But I'll tell you something. My grandmother's church, my grandmother's Pentecostal church, It seemed to me they not only didn't say God doesn't make too hard terms, it seemed to be, now anything that I say about organized religion and I'm talking about my drunken alcoholic perception of what organized religion said may not be dependable, but it seemed to me that my grandmother's Pentecostal church was saying God will not even hear your prayers until you are baptized. Unless and only when you are baptized will god hear your prayers and and this was not a methodist church where you just get sprinkled oh no oh no my grandmother's pentecostal church when you were baptized you were soaked you were dunked you were totally submerged soaked in the in the tank coming up washed in the blood of the lamb praise jesus i meant somebody hand me a towel And so they didn't say that God doesn't make too hard terms. And I had a girlfriend who was Catholic, and it seemed to me that she had to go to confession and communion and Hail Marys and Praise the Lords and Hail Mary's and Sweet Jesus or whatever they do and, you know, Ten Our Fathers and then after she went through all this stuff she still couldn't talk to God. She could only talk to his mom. You know, it's like, Hi, Mrs. God. Well, okay, well tell him I love him. You know? I mean... My friend Michael was Jewish. My best friend in high school was Jewish and he was a good Jew and we would go out for lunch and Michael would order like a BLT hold the bacon excuse me you just ordered a salad on toast once you have bacon on the BLT now you'll have an LT well I don't want to offend he whose name cannot be uttered who? can't utter his name what are you talking about how am I going to know who you don't want to offend if you can't say his name and he thought I was making fun of his religion but I just didn't understand and then there were Muslims and Buddhists and Hindus, oh my and everybody had a different way to reach God and they all were sure that the other person was wrong and so I just turned my back on all of it and I had way too much education in LSD to believe in any of that stuff So that's why I wasn't agnostic, you know. And excuse me, by the way, I did a lot of drugs. I was born in 1945, which made me 15 years old in 1960. 1960 was a good time to be 15. And I was 24 in 1969. So the 60s was like in my wonder years. And so, of course, I didn't do drugs. drugs. You know, and now, I mean, sometimes I participate in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and I know that some people sometimes are offended that I talk about the use of illegal drugs, but it's part of my story. The only thing I could do is go get another story and I've seen that done and it's very expensive. So, you know, please excuse me. If I had known, if I had know at the time, you now, the first time somebody said, hey man, try this, I would have said, you kno, I'm going to be speaking at an AA meeting in 30 years and I don't want piss anybody off, but I only used every drug I ever heard of. And then only until I quit liking them. Except for some I've heard of since I got sober. You know, you wonder, don't you know. My sponsor, Steve B., talks about Zima. You know, what's Zima? I mean, it sounds like something you'd want to drink, doesn't it? You know? It's not a beer. It's not a wine. That's why you have newcomers for us. You can talk to them about it. You ever try that Zima ? Yeah, it sucks. Okay, good. You ever try ecstasy? Ecstasy! Isn't that a good name for a drug? I don't know, but I've seen people that, I asked a newcomer, you know how, you ever try ecstasy? Oh yeah, yeah. How was that? Well, I'm here, you know. But anyway, back to my spiritual awakening. It got my attention in chapter four when Alcoholics Anonymous said we have found that God doesn't make too hard terms on those who seek him. I did not start to hear the music when I read that, but it opened the door. Opened the door a little bit. Alcoholics Anonymous said something about spirituality to me in that sentence that I had never heard anyplace else. And then it went on. There's a great sentence in chapter four that talks about me and I assume many of you before I was born was written. And it says, to be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live life on a spiritual basis are not easy alternatives to face. Think about that. To be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live life on a spiritual basis are no easy alternatives to face, you know? And that's of course because we are alcoholics. It's not true of everyone. In fact, most people really don't have a problem with that question, and you can test this. Go stand in front of a Walmart sometime and stop people when they're coming out. Excuse me, I'm taking a survey. Would you rather die an alcoholic death or live a spiritual life? You know what I'm saying? See, yeah, yeah. See what the earth people have to say about that question because they really don't think it's a big quandary. They'll just go get in the long line. You know, they don't... The most inquisitive normies will say something like, now when you say alcoholic death you're talking about the one where you puff up and turn yellow and choke to death on your own blood and vomit? Oh well, yeah, but not right away. It takes a long time. You've got to lose everything first. You know, only the alcoholics wonder about it. If you do this survey in the Walmart, and you'll know you found an alky if you get this. Excuse me, alcoholic death, spiritual life, and you get... Are you going to be here tomorrow? So I was going to AAA meetings. I started going to the AA meetings because I knew I wasn't going to fit there. I never fit any place in my life. I didn't fit in school. I didn' t fit in the workplace. I didn''t even fit in my own family. I don' t come from an alcoholic family. You know, I was looking for ways not to fit and I heard a lot of people say they came from alcoholic families. My dad was the kind of guy who would buy a six-pack of beer and drink one and put five in the refrigerator, those five might stay there for a week. Yeah, see, this is where I wasn't going to fit. People are going, oh! Oh, that's disgusting! We react differently to some things than other people do. My dad, that is the way he drank. He would be watching a football game or working on the car or working in the yard and stop and have a beer and then go back to what he was doing. And I don't drink like that. If I stop and have a beer, that's what I'm doing. And whatever I was doing before that couldn't have been so important, or why would I have stopped to have a beard? But he never understood the way I drank, and I never understood how he drank. My mother, on the other hand, my mother may be an alcoholic. It's hard to tell because she won't drink. You know, it makes me mad sometimes. And I asked her one time after I got sober, How come you don't drink? Why don't you have a drink? I've been places where they say, Betty, would you like to have a drink? Oh, no thanks, I don't drink. You know, it's like, I said, are you an alcoholic? Is that why you don't drink? And my mom said, I'm not I don' t know, maybe. I don''t know. She said, maybe because when I was young, I used to drink and every time I drank, I got sick, stupid, and obnoxious. And so I quit. And I said boy, you've got to drink through that. There's a promised land beyond sick, stupid, and obnoxious. So I don't know why I'm an alcoholic. I asked my sisters. I have a couple of sisters. One of them lives in Kansas, and I went to visit her, and she's a Wichita schoolteacher, and she sings in her church choir, and she teaches a Sunday school class, and I've never seen her take a drink, and she is two years younger than me. so I was visiting there after I was sober about five years actually I went there to make some amends to her and we had a nice, we became friends again but we got to talking, I was going to meetings in Wichita and we started talking about drinking and I said do you ever drink, do you go out with your friends and have a cocktail ever or anything and she said well yeah I'll have a glass of wine at midnight on New Years what every new year's you know they call that pattern drinking you know yeah i'm playing with her and uh and she said she gets defensive well not not every new years no why why would you miss a year i mean you miss a year sometimes i mean and she says no she gets real defensive it's funny how non-alcoholics get defensive about their drinking when they're talking to us. She said, no, I always mean to, but you know, it's New Year's. I mean, the kids are making noise. The dogs are barking. There's guns going off outside. It's just like, it'S New Year'S. Sometimes I just forget. Yeah, there it is, huh? That's the difference, isn't it? You know, see, I don't, if God and Bill Wilson came to me in the flesh and said, Doug, we like your program and we think that you can now drink a glass of wine at midnight on New Year's. And I was dumb enough to accept those terms. I wouldn't forget. I mean, I know I wouldn'T forget. I'd be shopping wine in October. Yeah, you know. They don't think of... My wife and I... My wife is also an alcoholic. By the way, my wife Randy and I met in Alcoholics Anonymous And she 13-stepped me when I was 21 days sober. I went to Alcoholics Anonymous for eight months without stopping drinking. I don't know, I didn't have a home group and I didn' t have a sponsor and I did' n't read the book very much and I din' t take the steps and I di' n' t ave a commitment and I was drinking every day. But other than that, I had a pretty good program going on. But I went for eight month before I actually got sober And after I got sober, Randy just picked me up at 21 days. Now, see, in the eight months, though, I had made a 13-step list. I heard about this 13-stepped deal. And I had a list of all these women that I wanted to date after I didn't have booze on my breath anymore, you know? And so, and Randy was like right at the top of the list. And so I started out with her. And then we became friends and lovers and best friends. And she moved in. And then мы lived together a while. Then we got married. and I've been with this actually since I was 21 days sober and it seems to me when I look back at it like God was saying you might be some use around here if you're not chasing skirts everywhere how about if we just give you the best one right out of the gate and Randy loves it when I say that she's not very romantic but she likes that and I do too but on the other hand sometimes I think I wonder what would happen if I started at the bottom of the list and worked my way up you know, but just curious, and Randy's taught me some stuff. She taught me how to ask questions. I'm not a question asker. Some alcoholics, I've known some alcoholics who are, but I think a lot of us, maybe most of us are not. The kind of guy I am, I like to hang out with the guy who knows the answer. I think he knows the answer, but I don't want to ask him because it sounds like I don�t know if I ask the question. So I just hang out next to the guy that knows the answer and when somebody else asks him and he gives the answer then I go, �That's right.� But Randy taught me that it's important to ask questions and it's okay to ask question because she won't tell you anything unless you ask a question. Here is the way I found out. We were in bed one night and I had my leg over on her side of the bed and she grabbed my leg through it like a log. You know, get over on your own side of the bed. Gee, she said, you sleep like Jim Parks. And I'm laying there thinking, who's Jim Parks? I don't know any Jim Parkss. Why did she say that to me? Finally, I realize I'm lying there working on this resentment and I realize I'm going to have to say something. And so I said, honey, am I supposed to know who Jim Parks is and how he sleeps? And she starts laughing at me. It's like Jim across the street. What? What? Yeah, you know how he puts his truck so you can't park in front of him or behind him? You sleep like Jim Parks. so you can learn some stuff asking questions I've learned to ask questions but Randy and I were visiting I have a sister that lives about 30-40 miles from me and we were at her house for dinner one night that may be my sister right now she likes to make sure I get the story right so we were visiting my sister for dinner and my sister Yolanda drinks but she just drinks like a normal person I don't even know why they do that oh no, I'm starting to feel it duh but no more for me, I have to drive can you imagine no more from me, I have the party tonight I just want to drink enough to get in trouble please but Yolanda was making a pitcher of margaritas because there was five of us for dinner and three of them drank and Randy and I are there we don't drink so my sister makes this pitcher of Margaritas and she sets three glasses out and she takes this pitcher and she pours them one, two, three and pours the rest right in the sink come on I wasn't going to fit here, you know. Yeah, but that's what we did. Randy and I both went, ha! What? What did you pour that in the sink for? She said, what do you care? You're not going to drink. I said, it's not even about drinking. It's about respect. You know, they don't understand that. I don't know. They just don't understanding it. But she got defensive like my other sister. She said, I don't know, maybe I want to use the blender again. Randy said, it's a $40 item. You couldn't have two blenders, you know? It's something about an attitude about alcohol that we have that they don't have. So I don' t come from an alcoholic family. So I didn' t think I would fit here. And I heard people say they started drinking real young. And I didn't start drinking young. I never had a drink until I was 18 and I only did that because somebody told me I'd get late if I got her drunk and it just seemed rude to say your drink does let me know when you're ready so my friend was right it was the first time I got drunk and the first time I got, I had sex in front of a witness and so I just started drinking, you know. And so I don't know why I'm an alcoholic. It doesn't matter. It's kind of useless information, you know, but I am an alcoholic and I was going to meetings and I wasn't, I was trying not to join and I was joining more every day. And one night I came home from a meeting and I had had a fifth of whiskey. I often went to meetings with a fifth of whiskey under the seat of the car, sealed, so that in case it was a really, really good meeting, then I wouldn't break the seal on that bottle. Can you imagine how good a meeting would have to be for me not to break a seal on a bottle I already paid for? Oh, that was a good meeting. I think I'll save this bottle until tomorrow. it wasn't that good but I used to do that all the time but this night I went home and I opened this bottle and I was laying on the floor watching TV and I passed out on the phone this happened all the same I woke up at 3 o'clock in the morning the bottle is half empty I turned off the TV got my bottle, crawled on my hands and knees across the living room through the hallway into the bedroom to go to bed some people call it pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization I just called it going to bed in fact it actually seemed kind of bright he's like hey you can't fall off the floor so I got into my bedroom to go to bed and I stood up with this bottle in my hand I stoodup to take my clothes off and I lost my balance and I fell on my knees next to the bed and spilled this whiskey all over the bed and I picked it up real quick and there was like this much left in it most of it was on the bed and it was soaking out into the bedspread so I set the bottle in a safe place and I grabbed this bedspread and I started just sucking whiskey out of it just sucking like a hoover and some little voice in my head said hey man, that ain't right you thirsty man? there's whiskey in the bottle I'm not thirsty I'm frugal and I saw myself sucking whiskey out of this bedspread and I knew I was not thirsty, I was going to bed I was done drinking for the night but of course if you leave it it will evaporate overnight I will waste my life but I'll be damned if I waste a drop of whiskey but I saw myself doing that I had a moment of clarity as we say and I did one of the dumbest things I've ever done in my life I said God if you're there please help me I meant it I must have heard people in AA say that their turning point was when they said God help me because I've heard it a hundred times since then God help us God help be, God please help be please God help me, mine was God if you're there please help me. Bill Wilson said be a God, reveal yourself to me now he was a little more demanding but he's the founder you know and I didn't ask for to have God reveal, I just asked for help. I went to bed and I went asleep and over the next couple of weeks interesting things happened to me interesting experiences. I went in my favorite liquor store and there was somebody from AA behind the counter of my favorite liquid store It couldn't happen, but it was happening. It was there. I'd be in the market and then the liquor department, should my cart buy, reach up for a bottle? Somebody from AA is pushing a cart towards me. Now what I haven't told you is I was taking bogus... In California, they give chips for 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, six months, nine months to kind of help you through your first year. I was taken bogus chips all over the place. I got tired of raising my hand as a newcomer. Anybody with less than 30 days? Doug alcoholic, Doug alcoholic. Doug alcoholic, anybody with sober lessons Doug alcoholic Doug alcoholic I finally just got tired of it, screw them this is humiliating I'm not raising my hand anymore and then somebody thought I had 30 days so to keep from embarrassing her because she was on my 13 step list she said to her friend Doug's got 30 days so I took a 30 day chip and it made those alcoholics so happy I started taking chips everywhere got me to a lot of meetings But anyway, so a lot of people in AA thought I was sober. So when I was in the market reaching up for a bottle and there's a gal pushing the cart towards me, I just said, hey, one day at a time, keep it simple. Isn't it a beautiful life? And so I had to go get my bottle somewhere else. I'm in a restaurant and I start to order a drink. Restaurant in a part of the town I've never been in. And look up and the waitress is somebody I know from AA. Hey, how are you doing? And, yeah, so live and let live, isn't it? And this was happening to me every day. Now, after it happened for a couple weeks, I was on the way to work one morning, 630 in the morning. I'm driving to work, and just finished a half pint of whiskey, and I rolled down the window. In California, it's illegal to keep open containers in the car, even if they smell like alcohol. So, of course, and plus they're useless. So I was going, I rolled down the window and there was a guy from AA who was driving towards me at 6.30 in the morning. And he sees me and he waves and I threw a bottle out the window. So what the hell's going on? Everywhere I go there's AAs. They're like, it's a much greater percentage than the population would indicate. You know, it'S like the sun comes up. Hey, let's have a meeting, really? have you seen a person fail? And I thought, where are they coming from? It's like those damn miracles they talk about in meetings. And the moment I thought the word miracle, the moment the word Miracle came into my mind, it was like I could hear God laughing. And I remembered that I had been on my knees and asked for help. And I said, God, if you're there, please help me. Now, I didn't think there was anybody listening. i really didn't i just said it because i was desperate it was a prayer of desperation and but i said it and i meant it and here was god helping me and it was clear to me i asked for help i got the help and i got it in a funny way literally in a funny way you know all my life the human quality that i have most admired is a sense of humor i don't think that's a good thing i think uh good work ethic might have served me better or honesty and integrity. I don't know, love and compassion somewhere along the line. But with me it's always been a sense of humor. God knows that about me. So I got these little pain in the ass God jokes that I've come to known as miracles. And I said okay, I get it. I get it. That was my second step. It's the moment that I came to believe. I pulled the car over the side of the road. I couldn't drive. I was like you and me, God. Hey, all those things I said. You know, it's just, you know. And I came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. I didn't realize at the moment that I was at the second step, but I heard the music and that's why I like to talk about the music. The words in Alcoholics Anonymous made me so confused when they would say things to me like, you got to surrender to win. Okay. Yeah, you got to give it away to keep it oh i get it put a buck in the basket yeah i get it all right yeah fine uh and and they would say things like i heard some i heard lots i heard a lot of people saying the road gets narrower and i don't know you know and i i kind of knew what it meant but i asked a friend of mine that was sober a couple years about it and he said oh you know what i the way i see that the road getting narrower is like when i used to smoke i would be driving along the street and i throw my cigarettes out the window when I first got sober, but as I stayed sober a while, I realized, you know, I could start a fire doing that, so I quit doing it. I started putting them out in the ashtray and then throwing them out the windows, and he said, you know, and then I realized I'm littering. Okay, it's just a cigarette butt, but it's contributing to the trash of the world. I don't need that. I've got an ashtay. I got a litter box, and I, you know, he said I put, and dann I dumped my ashtrae in the trash, and then eventually I quit smoking. He said, I think that's kind of what, the road just gets narrower. And I said, okay, because you know, I've done a lot of that one-eye driving and it seems like it would be inconvenient. And he said, no, you know so I knew what he meant. So now I got a phrase I can use. You know, people would say the road gets narrower, I heard a guy talking to, he wasn't talking to me, he was talking to his babies you know the guys he sponsored and he said you know women in Alcoholics Anonymous are beautiful there's tons of women in alcoholics anonymous just gorgeous. They're beautiful physically spiritually, emotionally they're bright, they're happy they're funny but I don't touch I don's play I'm a married man and I just don't play and I said the road gets narrower now I was right but I was eavesdropping you know so he had to teach me a lesson I guess he said what did you say I said The Road Gets Narrower you know and he said where'd you get that I said in the big book well I didn't but I'd seen a lot of people get away with some a whole lot of crap saying they got it out of the big book so I thought I'd give it shot. And he said, really? This big book? He produced a big book. He said, now that's funny, you must have a different version because mine doesn't say that. In fact, mine says on page 55, why don't you come and join us on the broad highway? In fact mine says 20 pages later on page 75, the asshole knew the pages. Page 75, you're going to feel like you're walking hand in hand with the spirit of the universe on the broad highway. See, mine says broad highway twice, road gets narrower, none. I said, well, you know, I was just trying to help. So I just kind of clammed up. But see, that's what I'm talking about, about the lyrics. The lyrics are confusing. The music makes the lyrics make sense. Once I started to hear the music, I went to take a 30-day chip. When I had 30 days, I went to the Burbank group and the Burband group is a big group that has chips and cakes on Thursday nights they don't have them every day but on Thursday nights they do and I happen to have 30 days on a Thursday so I went over to the burbank group to take a chip and I took a 30-day chip now I had enough chips to open a casino but I didn't have an honest one but now I'm half 30 days and it took a 40-day tip and I felt like Alcoholics Anonymous was like I was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, I felt like I had joined up and I can't explain that except I sat down and watched other people take chips and there was a guy there that I didn't much care for. It took a nine month chip and I was just as happy about his nine month chip as I was about my 30 day chip. And I felt that but I didn' t understand it completely. But that's part of the music, you know. And people took cakes and then they had a coffee break and at the coffee break a guy came up to me and said you know what the secret is and I said no and he said hang on that's the whole deal here he said do you think you can do that and I say yeah yeah I think I can hang on he said that's it that's a whole deal so he went away so then there's a guy over at Burbank Group named Jim B he's one of these glad-handed back-slapping alcoholics came up to me and said son congratulations on your 30 days I said thanks and he says you know what the Secret is I said yeah Hang on. And he said, no, let go. Now, before I heard the music, that would have thrown me for a loop. Okay, the experts don't seem to agree on what the secret is. But once I heard it, I was like, oh, my God. Once I heard some of the music and the lyrics started to make sense, I didn't care. You know, the guy who said hang on is talking about keep coming back. He's talking about stay close. And Jim, who told me to let go, was talking about let go and let God. But this is what I'm talking about, about the music in the lyrics. In chapter five that Chris read tonight, that's read at almost every meeting, it talks about honesty a lot. Rigorous honesty, not just regular old run-of-the-mill honesty, rigorous honesty. And people who can't stay sober seem to be constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. And even people with grave emotional and mental disorders can stay sober if they have the capacity to be honest. So it's pretty clear honesty is a big deal around here. And when I got sober and I started thinking about that, I thought, I don't know how honest you have to be to stay sober because I'm not a particularly honest person. You know, I just lie if I feel it's necessary and I, you know, but the most honest I ever was when my ex-wife asked me if I slept with her sister and I said, not a wink and never been more honest than that day and you know but I mean sometimes I'm sober 14 years and nine months and sometimes I lie and I don't suppose that'll change. I only do it when I'm divinely directed and you can tell, can't you, Peg? You know when you're supposed to lie like my wife says Honey, does this dress make me look fat? Rigorous honesty No, baby, I think it's the Haagen-Dazs Because the dress looks fine on the hanger but let's go try it on the skinny blonde next door If it makes her look fat, then that's that dress. That's rigorous stupidity. I don't need to do that. If a waiter asked me, sir, would you like a cocktail before dinner? It happened with Steve and I went out to eat last night. Would you like a cocktail before dinner, I'd lie to the waiter. I'd say, no thank you. He doesn't require rigorous honesty. You know what, son, I would. I'd like a cocktail instead of dinner. Yeah, I like a bushel of them. I'd love a double Bushmills neat and a margarita back and keep coming. No, I'm just kidding. Don't do that because I got a disease. It's a mental obsession coupled with a physical allergy and spiritual bankruptcy. I don't think you want that in your nice restaurant. So that's what I'm talking about, about the music and the lyrics. Once you start to hear the music, the lyrics fit into place. And you will hear people, if you're new here, let me let you know so it won't confuse you when it happens you'll hear people who are sober sometime in Alcoholics Anonymous misquote the big book happens every day and I don't think it's ever deliberate but sometimes it happens and when it happened to me uh the first time that I noticed it I I didn't I didn'T know it I thought everybody was quoting the big book knew it so this woman said our book says well I'm all ears because I don't I don'T want to you have that road gets narrower thing again so I'M like she says our book says and I'm listening she says our book says our drinking was but a symptom of deeper underlying causes and conditions it does it says exactly that but then she went on to add her own stuff she said and if you don't find your deeper underlying cause and condition you will drink again and I thought oh man oh it took me so long to get sober and now I got to find my deeper underlying cause in condition or I'm going to get drunk and I haven't got a clue I didn't I grew up in a family that was like, my parents were, I was the envy of all my friends because my parents were so good. They were great parents. They lived for their children. They were hardworking, loving people. I didn't have a bad childhood. It was long. It was 42 years, but it wasn't bad, you know? And so I, it certainly wasn't my childhood. I started looking. I don't know what it was. You know, I just drank to get laid, I got laid, I got drunk and the drunk was better and not better but it was more convenient. So then I realized oh man when I was 24 years old I just moved to Hollywood and I went to see a show called Hair. It's about hippies singing and dancing drug sex and rock and roll it was a Broadway show that opened at the Aquarius Theater in Hollywood, and I fell in love with it. There was a character named Berger that swung on a rope and sang rock and roll. He was a speed freak, leader of the tribe, stripped down to a loincloth, went out in the audience, spared chains to the audience, made fun of people. I said, I could do that. So the next day I called him up and I said hey, I want to audition for your show. And they should have said today they would say have your agent call us. But they didn't. They said fine, come in Friday at one o'clock. and we'll audition you. So I said, okay, cool. So Friday in the morning, I'm playing my guitar, practicing the song I'm going to sing because I figure if I sing good enough I won't have to dance and this is a Broadway show. I don't know anything about dancing. But if I sang good enough and I knew I could sing so practicing and I broke a string on my guitar and hippies were like, oh, bad karma, dude. You know, and so... So... But I went in and my roommate played guitar and I went into his room to see if he had the string I needed, and right in the middle of his dresser was a little envelope with a D on it. It was a D-string. There it is. Good karma dude. Picked it up, and underneath it there was a Little White Capsule. I said, you know, I wonder what that is. Oh, because we didn't have a PDR. You had to swallow test everything in those days in 1969. And you know if somebody died, don't eat the green shit. So it turned out it was THC, synthetic marijuana, which is a really nice little psychedelic. And so 45 minutes later, when I got down to Aquarius Theater to do my audition, I walked in there. I floated in there! My hair was long, was down over my shoulders, and it swooshed when I walked. And I had these pants on that were hip-hugger bell bottoms, bells this big, and they swoosh, you know? And I just, I had no shirt on, just a vest with six layers of foot-long red, white, and blue leather fringe, and I was a walking wind chime. And I walked in there with my sheet music and I stood around for a minute. They called my name and I went up and I handed the music to the piano player and he started to play. Bum, bum, bum. I said, wow, I feel good. And see, there's your rigorous honesty. I felt very good. And they liked it. I could tell by the looks on their face. And I could do no wrong. I thought I was the godfather of soul. And I finished the song, and they said, great, can you do something a little mellower, a little lower key kind of. I said, yeah, sure. I didn't expect that, but I did an a cappella version of Otis Redding's Dock of the Bay. I was bad. I made myself cry. And I could see them smiling at each other. This kid sings, you know. So they said great, man, cool. We just want to see you dance. I said okay, hit it. And the guy started to play, and I started to move. And I'm seeing my hair come around. And the fringe on this vest is going. And I heard somebody say, Jesus, can he dance? I didn't know I could dance. But they hired me. They hired me for the Las Vegas show to go play the lead role in Las Vegas. And so this, you know, speed freak leader of the tribe obnoxious hippie was a stretch, but I could handle it. And I did that for six months, and then they left Vegas. They went on the road, took the show on the roads, the first national tour of hair. And we traveled around the United States and Canada for three years playing, you Know, here for two weeks, Pittsburgh for two weeks, to Cincinnati. We'd open in some town and they'd say, hey it's good morning Pittsburgh, you know, we have the cast of hair with us, you knowing. Hey it's AM Cincinnati, the cast of hair with this today. And we'd go on a couple of us and we'd interview us, you know. How is it doing that nude scene? Well it's like, you know, beautiful. You know. What is it like traveling around the United States in the psychedelic circuits? Psychedelic circuits. And I was the articulate one And people would come up on stage afterwards and say, you were beautiful, man. Have some pot, brother. It's Sensamean. It's Maui Waui. It's Panama Red. Cool. And somebody else would come upp. Love you, man, Hank. It's great. Have some acid, brother? It's windowpane. It's sunshine. It's purple haze. It's Osley. Oh, cool. Thanks. And they'd give us all these drugs, and some girl would come opp and say I love you. Have me. And we'd go, oh, OK. and so it was, no actually it wasn't a bad job but I looked back at this when I got sober and I thought there it was I just wanted to sing and dance you know and make people happy and I had this reputation to maintain this image to keep up and we did all these drugs and people gave us drugs and I started drinking and I became a drug addict and an alcoholic and it ruined my life and I called my sponsor I said I found my deeper underlying cause and condition he goes oh well let's hear that hair your hair got you drunk no no you remember that show I told you about that show I was in you know where I was a big star and traveled around the country and stuff oh yeah hair he said well you remember you told me that you were loaded when you auditioned for that show see I told him too much And I said, yeah. He said, well, most people, most non-alcoholic people, when they go to interview for a job they really want, don't take a drug they can't identify. You know, and so one of those sponsor deals, you know, where I said okay, and he said maybe you were an alcoholic when you got in that show. I said maybe I was because I don't know what my deeper underlying causing condition is. Maybe I'll get drunk. And he said I wouldn't worry about it. I don't know what mine is. What you do is tomorrow you go to a meeting and give me a call tomorrow and read that book tomorrow. My first sponsor said to me, he said the only place I ever heard this in Alcoholics Anonymous except for the guys that I sponsored that I tell, he said read that books every day. If you can't read a chapter, read a page. If you cannot read a pages, read paragraph. You've got the rest of your life to recover but you need to stay on it. That was great advice. That was terrific advice. I tell that to the guys I sponsor and I never did find my deeper underlying cause and condition I think I settled on trauma from circumcision I don't remember it when I was two years sober I said to my father I want to make some amends to you he said what are you talking about I said I want pay you back the money I owe you he said don't worry about it I had borrowed money from him and I paid him some back but not enough and he said don't worried about it I don' t need it I don''t want it you got your life together and that's all that matters to me and I said no no that's fine for you, but we have this ninth step that says I have to make amends for harm that I did and I think borrowing money and not paying it back is a harm. He said, okay, it'll keep you sober, that's fine. I said, do you know how much it is? No, he said, but I got it in the computer. I don't need it and I don' t want to just, you know, like to look at it once in a while and I don''t want to hurt my finger pushing that delete button or anything and so he sent me a bill. He sent me an itemized list of what I had borrowed and what I paid back and I figured it must be two or three grand. I was a little off, it was $7,200 the balance and so I started sending my dad a check every Friday. Every Friday I'd send him a check with a note in it and it was whatever I could afford but I never missed a Friday and I'd sent him a note, sometimes a little post-it or a piece of paper or whatever, 3x5 card but always a check and a note and finally after about three years he called me and he said, you know how much money you owe me? And I said, no he said $32 Really? I had no idea I thought it would be a lot more than that. And so we met for dinner, and I gave him his $32, and he gave me little clothes out in notice. And I let him pay for dinner. And I'll tell you something. I used to fight my dad for the check when we had dinner. And he would say, that's the father's job, and reach for the cheque. And I'd say, come on, Dad, I'm a grown man. Let me buy dinner. After I got that debt paid off, I realized that when I was fighting him for the check, what I was doing was trying to keep him from doing what he thought a father should do by saying, I owe you all this money. At least let me buy dinner. And I didn't have to do that anymore. My father died a few years ago and I had paid him that money back years before and I was going through some of his stuff with my mom to find out some stuff I needed to find out for her and I found a file that said Doug and I pulled it out and what it was was all these notes every note that I'd sent it was like 150 notes this big fat file and I didn't know he had saved them and I was so touched I said to my mother did you know he saved these notes and she said oh yeah she said he loved those notes he cherished them she said one time I said to your dad you know Doug sure loves you and he said oh I know I got it in his own handwriting you know this is a gift that my dad gave me from the grave to show how much he cared, how much this meant to him when he said he didn't even want the money. I did it to stay sober. I think that every step, every one of our 12 steps comes with a personalized gift from God that your sponsor can't tell you what it'll be, the book doesn't tell me what it's going to be, and you can't guess. You have to work the step and find out what your gift is. If you're new here tonight, please don't leave before you hear the music. There's a rhythm and a melody and a harmony that runs through this thing that makes all the lyrics make sense. The words start to fall in place. If you share a laugh with us tonight, you're part of the music Thanks for letting me share.