The Word Prejudice Appears Seven Times in We Agnostics and That Is the Whole Chapter — Marty J.

First of all, John, I want to thank you.
John phoned me to come and talk here.
I used to talk a lot in Alcoholics Anonymous.
I actually am sober longer than Keith, four months longer.
He has no idea what I've been through, suffering.
How does he get off telling me anything?
I had my last drink of alcohol, and any Mary Wonderful or anything like that,
February the 8th of 1976.
I sobered up in Canada.
I am a Canadian.
I live in Washington, D.C., watching what you people are doing.
And I live 22 minutes from the White House, and it is as crazy as you've heard.
It is an amazing place on the Beltway.
Anyway, John called.
And I've had years when I've talked 52 weeks in a row.
I've had years where I would get off a plane, I'd be getting on a plane, I'd be giving a talk.
I'd ask somebody, does anybody know where I am in this talk, because I have no earthly idea.
I stopped listening to me months ago, and it was not good.
And so I stopped.
It took me three years to get stopped.
I don't know if you understand.
They phone and they say, well, you talked in 2007, and that's 2007.
I'm an alcoholic.
I know I'm not going to live that long.
So, yeah, I'd be glad to.
And you get like 200 of those things on your calendar, and then realize you're going to Sweden on Friday,
and then you're going to be in Holland on Monday, and then you're going to be back.
And it's just not funny.
And I botched it.
And so I took the two years almost today that I finally had got stopped.
I've talked.
This will be my second time in two years.
So I don't, and maybe I have a huge ego, but I don't get nervous before I talk.
But I get a tremendous sense of burden, like weight.
Like I want to just do whatever you need so bad.
And maybe I should go to Al-Anon Dam.
I mean, you know.
Well, our literature says it all, right?
There's a book called As Bill Sees It, and then there's Lois Remembers.
That's just about how it really works.
Thank you.
When I was listening to Keith talk about his new baby,
I sobered up in a time where there was a lot of the big giants were still moving around.
Chuck Chamberlain and Tommy Breen and Mac Cheater, and I was at their knee.
I was very mouthy.
I was a broadcaster.
And so I was sober 25 seconds, and they had me up in front of a group saying, you know, say something.
And then these older guys were rolling on the floor laughing because I didn't know my ass from third base.
And so.
So after the talk, they would say, you are so sick.
Thank you for sharing.
And they just thought it was funny.
So I was out immediately and was with all of these wonderful, incredible people.
And the legacy that they left us is huge.
And I see so many of their CDs on that table.
And I just encourage you to get them and to listen to the rhythm of what they had.
They all died sober.
And they went.
I'm sure there's a meeting going on somewhere right now at which no one.
Madam, this is.
Nothing to sneeze at.
This is the sort of emotional part of the talk.
Eleanor, just there at you and at you.
You know what I'm saying?
Thank God you're here.
That's all I'm saying.
So.
Anyway, when Keith was talking, I was reminded there was an old boy on the circuit years ago by the name of Franklin Williams.
Yeah.
He was the dove of peace from Olive Branch, Mississippi.
And he used to end.
His talk sometimes with a poem that I thought of that really was about what Keith was talking about.
And it's called Auctioneer.
Do any of you know the poem?
It starts off.
It says that it was battered and scarred by the auctioneer.
Wondered if it was even worth as well to auction off that old violin.
But he held it up with a smile.
He said, good evening, good friends.
Who'll start the bidding for me?
And somebody said, a dollar.
One dollar.
He said, and who'd make it two?
Two dollars.
Who'll make it three?
Three dollars once.
Three dollars twice.
Going and going.
But no.
An elderly man from the back of the room came and picked up the bow.
And he dusted off that old violin.
And he lovingly tightened the strings.
And the sound that he made is the music that's played if a chorus of angels should sing.
So when he was done the auctioneer, but now in a voice soft and long, said,
Now what am I bid for this violin?
And he held it up with the bow.
A thousand dollars.
One thousand, says he.
And who'll make it two?
Two thousand.
Two thousand dollars.
Who'll make it three?
Three thousand once.
Three thousand twice.
Going and gone, said he.
Well, some in the crowd laughed out loud, but others could not quite understand.
What changed the value?
And quick came the reply.
It was the touch of the master's hand.
And, you know, many a man with his life out of tune, battered and scarred by sin,
is auctioned for cheap by a thoughtless crowd, just like the violin.
A glass of wine, a mess of pottage, a game, and on he goes.
Going once, going twice, three times, but no.
Because the master appears.
And we don't understand that good that's gone.
God or the soul, it is wrought with just the touch of a master's hand.
And I think sometimes I, in my own sobriety, think I have to do something so big.
So, you know, I have the truth for you.
Well, you don't.
You know, believe me.
In fact, the guy that brought me the message of Alcoholics Anonymous
was the most obnoxious 250-pound Norwegian God had ever placed on the face of the earth.
He had a brush cut and a Ford LTD that, it wasn't even a car.
It was like a, it was like a, I don't know, some sort of a vessel.
It used to dock at a curb, and it would bounce when you got in it, you know.
And he had a van that had only two seats in it, and he put newcomers in the back,
and he'd drive up and down ditches and then rang them around the back of the van
until they'd admit there was really a God.
And it was, he was...
He wasn't real concerned about the sensitive newcomers.
The guy named Jeff Charlebois, who was 30 years sober, I walked into the meeting,
and he came up to me and he said,
I have seen a lot of people come into Alcoholics Anonymous,
and he said, you're going to make it.
I said, how would you know that?
He said, I just know that.
And I remember walking away from him, and I wasn't grateful.
I remember thinking,
I was saying, you dusty old fart, you know.
I hope if I ever live to be 30 years sober, I don't look as horrible as you do.
Well, Jeff looked pretty good by comparison.
That's all I can tell you.
I want to tell you also that when the nuts in my head were rattling,
as they did many, many times in those first years of sobriety,
all I could hear was Jeff Charlebois telling me, you're going to make it.
It's so underwhelming sometimes, the things that really make the difference for a newcomer.
And sometimes just going over and getting somebody off a wall and being there.
It's amazing.
I thought in this little part that I was going to do today,
I'd talk about something that just, well, first of all,
I've got to tell you, when John calls and asks you, you know, would you speak,
I said, on what?
He said, you know, I don't know.
I'm going to talk to Stan pretty soon.
I'll phone you back.
That was like month one.
Month five, I said, so what do you want me to talk?
And he said, you know, that's a good point.
And I really don't know.
Would you mind a lot if I phoned Stan?
Because Stan knows a lot about these things.
And you know Stan.
I said, that's great.
Find out what you want me to talk about.
Anyway, in the airport yesterday, I said, do you have any idea what it is you'd like me to talk?
And he said, you know, I never, Stan's going to be there.
You know that tradition of not being organized?
We do that.
So there's a chapter in the big book, Alcoholics Anonymous, called We Agnostics.
And of all the chapters that changed my experience as a, and I'm going to say recovered,
and I'll explain that in a minute, alcoholic, this was the deal.
So what I thought I would do is just share with you some of the things that came out of that book for me,
if that would be all right with you.
And, of course, none of you have your books, so please feel free to follow along,
and I'll throw in anything I want.
Dawn was saying, do you get a lot of new people that say that they're going to have a book written about them?
I said, no, I just tell them all the same thing.
Just take the big book, cross out where it says we, and put in your name.
They've already written a book about you.
Here it starts.
In the preceding chapters, you have learned something of alcoholism.
We hope we've made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic.
Here it is.
If when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely.
Don't you love Bill's English?
He always said keep it simple and then used words like, no later vicissitude shook him.
Yeah.
If when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely,
or if when drinking, this was,
the one that just convicted me, you have little control over the amount you take.
The Chinese said in the fifth century, a man takes a drink and then the drink takes a drink and then the drink takes a man.
You know, if they were so damn smart five centuries ago, why didn't they figure this out?
That's what I bought.
By the way, when I was listening to them talking about almost murdering one another and carrying guns going, you know, in the prisons,
they call me a square John in the prison.
Because I don't know anything about prisons.
I've never been to prison.
I got a speeding ticket once.
Uh, I quit at 23 years old.
I didn't really like I'm a light and, uh,
it's, it's almost embarrassing.
I want to say I should have gone back out and really mess somebody's ass up so I can talk, you know, but
maybe I'll start a group called the pussy group and all the guys.
Oh,
I was drinking uncontrollably and then I got dizzy.
That was it for me.
I, I was, I was singing way louder than the other kids in the choir, so I stopped.
That's
you know, what they told me was you don't have to go all the way to the dump.
You can get out of the truck anytime you want.
And so, I mean, I had had, I had liver damage if that impresses you.
Uh,
but what convicted me was that it says if when drinking you have little control over the amounts you take and then bill puts in his, what I call New York English, which was that they would, they would write in the big book in Akron and they would do all these things.
Then they sent it to New York and the New Yorkers would take every reference to God or anything that looked absolute because they're all kind of like legal mind people and it says,
yeah,
yeah,
yeah,
,
you can't control the amount you take.
You're probably alcoholic.
This is like not having a period for seven months.
You're probably pregnant.
Okay.
If you're female and okay.
And no menopause.
Okay.
So wasn't that good?
A metaphor.
If that be the case,
bill says you may be suffering from an illness,
which only a spiritual experience.
Can conquer.
At which point every newcomer goes with the book,
right?
Who needed to hear that?
Because hadn't you been to all the churches and all those people,
you want to come forward and be forgiven?
I used my prayer was forgive me for I'm about to sin.
You know what?
Now I remember why I don't speak the hell am I talking about?
But here's the interesting thing about this chapter is that it was all encased inside of our word.
One concept for the whole chapter and bill alludes to this.
It alludes to this word seven different times in this chapter and it was something that if you have it,
you don't know you have it because it is the thing when you have it that precludes you from knowing you have it.
What is it?
And it gets deeper.
I'm just I'm surfing right now.
Wait till I really cut in.
It says lack of power is our dilemma.
We had to find a power by which we could live,
and it had to be a power greater than ourselves.
There's a concept.
But where and how were we to find this power?
And then it goes on to talk about a thing that is so so completely baffling and it's it's the word prejudice pre judgment precognizance thinking you know something about things that you don't know anything about or as you were talking about yesterday with your dad,
you can judge a man by the way the heels are worn on that.
Back of his shoes.
My dad had a hundred of those.
Like,
for example,
if you're a liberal,
you lie that I said when I got older,
don't you think that's a little general?
He said general sort of like a liberal concept is not,
you know,
you know,
and then he had other ones that were just,
you know,
generalities like,
um,
you know,
Canada has English and French were a bilingual country and my dad was very open minded.
He was Irish and he said,
if you're French,
you're a bastard across the life and I'm not saying that's right.
I love the French.
I go to Paris.
I mean,
I,
but the,
the reality of his world was that his whole world ran like that.
Somebody come up and say,
bon jury and my dad hated prejudice.
My dad,
you know,
in terms of blacks and whites,
he didn't understand how he would act like that.
I'd say,
well,
what about the French?
Bah,
bastards.
That's different.
I thought it was one word,
French bastard.
I didn't know there was,
my dad was six foot three.
He was,
he was wired just wire and he was the toughest guy in my hometown.
I saw him in a bar one night,
spank a man because the guy kept wanting to come up and fight.
My dad kept saying,
I know how this goes.
I hit you.
You hit me.
I go to jail.
So we're not going to fight Ray.
Just sit down,
have a beer.
I'm with my son,
you know,
went on and on.
I'll finally pull the guy's pants down and spanked him.
That was my dad.
I went home on 18 years old out drinking in the car.
And somebody said they beat their old man up.
And I thought,
yeah,
good idea.
If I beat my old man up,
I would be a hero in my own eyes.
I didn't realize the sort of a momentary insanity of such a concept,
you know,
having known that he had beaten up everybody I'd ever seen in my entire life.
And I was like 83 pounds.
They used me for getting footballs out of a sewer.
I was so skinny.
I walked in the house and I'm just about three quarters in the bag.
You know,
that place where you are bulletproof,
10 feet tall,
good looking,
well,
10 feet tall.
And I went to the hospital man sitting in his chair.
My brother Paul is on a Chesterfield laying down.
My brother Paul is a big guy too.
And I walked up to my old man.
I said,
get up.
And he looked at my brother.
He said,
what?
I said,
get up.
My dad stands up and I went like this.
He looks at my brother Paul.
And you know,
honest to God,
I could see in his eyes,
he was kind of proud of me on one level,
you know,
look at this dumb little French bastard.
Look at them.
I took another shot and he just gave me what they call in boxing,
a rabbit punch,
just like that.
And then for the first time I realized,
you know,
we see people's legs go up from under them.
That's real down.
I go and I figure lucky punch.
I got up and he drilled me and I went down and my brother Paul,
God bless him.
Lean forward and said,
stay down.
It's over Marty.
Stay down.
Stay down.
Stay down.
It says this is the first time it's mentioned is talking about when we speak about spiritual
matters,
especially when he mentioned God,
we've reopened a subject which our man thought he had neatly evaded or entirely ignored.
And so we know how we feel.
We've shared his honest doubt and prejudice.
Some of us have been violently anti religious,
right?
French bastard.
Anyway, have you tried Beano, sir?
Yes, we of agnostic temperament have done these thoughts and experiences.
Let us make haste to reassure you.
We have found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice
and express even a willingness to believe in a power greater than ourselves,
we commenced to get results.
Even though it was impossible for any of us to fully...
Listen to this. This is huge.
It was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that power, which is God.
Didn't you?
I mean, wasn't that the prejudice piece right there?
Show me.
I remember I was sitting at one of my first meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous.
It was called the Breakfast Group.
And they were talking about God.
And I was sitting there thinking...
And a wind came through a window.
And I saw one guy's hair go like this and another guy's...
I had nothing. No wind.
I'm thinking, that's it.
That's probably the spirit of God landing on everybody but me.
I may as well drink.
Here's what my sponsor said to me.
I didn't know it came from the book.
I thought my sponsor was a genius. Did you?
Because I never read the book.
I read that part where it said, Plattsburgh, New York.
I knew it was a book about another country, so I didn't read it.
It says,
When therefore we speak to you of God,
we mean your own conception of God,
your own understanding of God,
not that you conceive God,
not an anthropomorphic,
that's a $75 word,
anthropomorphic means that you've created God in your own image.
There's a seminar in Chicago, a priest seminar,
and there's a big sign up, you know, Wilhelm Nietzsche,
and it says, God is dead.
Frederick Wilhelm Nietzsche.
And below it, they've written, Nietzsche's dead. God.
So...
So, when therefore we speak to you of God,
we mean your own conception of God,
this applies to other spiritual expressions,
which you'll find in this book.
Do not let any prejudice you have against spiritual terms
deter you from, key point,
honestly asking yourself,
what does this mean to me?
Because everything, every form of prejudice I had,
either came out of our culture,
by parents, Irish, English,
fought to survive,
in the country to which they had some very set ideas,
including my grandmother saying to me,
as a child, mind your station,
which meant, don't go with rich people.
Mind your station, remember who you are,
and don't try and go above that,
you'll always get in trouble.
My father, when I finally,
I had a great success early in my life,
due to Alcoholics Anonymous,
I made a lot of money when I was a young man,
I had lots of things, still do,
still, I've had a fabulous life,
and my dad was,
standing in my first house,
this massive house on a hill,
looking down on the lights of the city,
and I walked up and I thought he was going to say,
good for you, Marley.
You know what he said?
He said,
I'm glad I don't have to do today,
what you must have to do every day,
to get a place like this.
Yeah.
My dad told me, just before he died,
you've never fit in this family,
because this family is made up of people that screw people.
We are hard-headed,
hard-edged people.
Watch your brothers and sisters,
they will try and take what you have.
They're French bastards.
My father never understood,
could not understand the principle
of helping people get what they want,
to get what you want.
He could not get from here to there.
He was a unionist mentality.
He was an angry, angry man.
Not an alcoholic,
nor was my mother,
which was very confusing.
But I had Uncle Sam,
who used to say,
I was a hundred pounds soaking wet,
ask your mom.
And he'd talk about being in the Navy,
which was always an interesting story,
because Sam was in the Army.
You know that alcoholics will lie about anything,
just anything.
He was a decorated soldier,
and he would always,
he was in the Navy,
and then the guns,
and the boat would go back.
You know?
I have a,
is this making any sense?
I'm just trying to share with you who I am, so.
I know.
When somebody starts talking to me
at one of these,
boom, point.
I can't get it.
When somebody's just talking to me,
I can,
like when you were talking this morning,
I got point after point after point.
So I hope that,
forgive me any of my awkward style here,
but I just,
you know,
if I could say anything at all,
I mean,
if God could say anything at all through me,
that would,
that would penetrate,
that would be,
through your prejudice,
that would be great.
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to tell you something and it's so hooked into some pain that you have from like somewhere
there's a there's a there's a fellow this is not a but the book says clearly that will that will
learn more and that there's outside literature and other things that will help us but there's
a guy running around right now who talks about a phenomenon in all of us called the pain body and
it's just like every single thing that you've done it's like a negative vibration that's caught
inside it's an energy that can't get out and it resonates with pain and it seems so true because
when my pain is high and i find somebody that can really aggravate the snot out of me
we're bonded you know i want to talk to you because you really upset me
and it's just this is how i got married but anyway so
i should have known when she told me there was a bus leaving
in front of me
15 minutes to be under it. But the point I was trying to make was that sometimes when
my pain is very, very high, the only way through to me, you can't say to me, you did this wrong
or you can't say to me, a thinking person would have done such and such because I'm
so sensitive about that, I will rip you to pieces. Verbally, I will figure out what your
weakest spot is and I will get in there and I will make you not have a nice day. Because
that's how alcoholism works. Do you remember the first laugh you ever had that wasn't nasty
after you sobered up? Do you know that one where you were somebody, ouch! Because you
haven't laughed from there forever. It was always like this. You know, that guy is going
to get shot.
Well, so, this big Norwegian used to say to me, I don't care how sensitive you are.
We don't care. Nobody cares about your latest thought. Shut up. Just listen. You don't have
to figure this out. Here's how it works. Good. That's all you need to know. And I could not
accept that. I want to know how it worked, why it worked, when it worked. I want to know
how it worked. How long has it been working? Will it keep working? What happens if this?
What happens if that? Compulsive, chattering mind. You know, my mind is like a DVD player
that has bad tracks. It just shuffles. You know, remember this one? Oh. And then I'm
right in behind it saying, you know, if you would have said this, and they would have
said that, and then you would have done this.
You know?
Right?
Right?
Right?
Oh, wait a minute. That's not bad enough. It's, you know. I can spend a lot of time
reworking the past. This is what they call in the book, this is a new concept for some
of you, insanity. I know. It's like I've come with a load of truth. But the, you can't
change the past. You can't rework it. You can't rethink it. You know what you can do
with it? Accept it. Accept it and learn from it, and that's the great value of it.
But other than that, you are absolutely what I call thinking off. You are just, you know
what I mean?
And you see, you see this, especially the newcomers I'm meeting, somebody will say,
I locked my car. And you see their eyes go to the left. And they're gone. They're back
in 1963 outside of the high school. And there was that girl. And I had her, but then Bob
came and the door locked. And I've always, and then that later on, that bastard.
He was probably French. He went over, and then, you know, and then they're saying the
Lord's Prayer. Oh, where'd the meeting go? Right? I've had people, this is the honest
to God truth, I've talked at big conventions and I've had people come up and say, that
story you told about the goat? I never told a story about a goat. They were gone. I said
something that made them think of something and they were gone and they thought I said
that.
I always do the same thing. Thanks. Here, you know, the biggest word in 1964 was the
word ear. Ear. Yeah.
We have often found ourselves handicapped by obstinacy.
Oh yeah.
Yeah? Sensitiveness and unreasoning prejudice. Unreasoning prejudice is one of my greatest
character defects. It's not only that I'm prejudiced. I have an argument, but I have
no defense. So what happens is when you push on me, I stop talking. No! Fine. Believe whatever
the hell you want. My favorite is, I forgive you. Take that home and suffer with it, you
many of us have been so touchy that even casual reference to spiritual things made us
bristle with antagonism i used to drink and watch the sunday morning preachers did you do that one
say baby you know
sometimes and a book goes on to talk about how do you how and this is again this is the piece
that keith absolutely articulated last night when you've got a newcomer and they're in that place
and they are you know like full speed ahead crazy driven by fear stepping on the toes of their
fellows seeming without provocation but invariably they are stepping on the toes of their people
around them and they're mad and they're going to do something and they're going to do something
and they're going to do something and they're going to do something and they're going to do something
and they're feeling different than apart from upset and alone that is not the time to start
feeling sensitive and empathetic like my sponsor didn't understand he told me one time that
if i drank he would bust every bone in my body because he said if you drink
you're going to get hurt and i don't want you hurt by people that don't love you so i
will bust every bone in your body and i was saying
to him you can't say these things to me he said find that in the book
he told our group right in front of everybody that if you put a hundred dollar bill in my book
that three years later you'd still find the hundred dollar bill in the book because i never
opened it he said if i had a book written to my liking it would not have the word honesty and it
would only be three pages long he told this in front of the group i remember one time a meeting
started they asked him to talk big meeting and he said i'm not going to do that i'm going to do it
in a meeting lots of newcomers and he says my name's dwayne i'm an alcoholic he said i'm really
happy to be here and i'm really happy to tell you that almost every single page of the big book
alcoholics anonymous is a load of crap i disagree with it totally and completely and that's all i
have to say well everybody's upset so when he got out of the car he said what the hell was that about
you're the biggest big book fan in the world he said yeah but all the newcomers will read it now so
um
if you
if you
if you
if you
if you
if you
start
if i start getting sensitive about what you're thinking about me
when i'm trying to help you we've got two sick people in the same car
i can't i can't go there i can't start taking my anxiety out on you when you're trying
when you know it's like watching somebody go down an alley a cop and they're pushing on doors and
they're pushing on doors why to make sure the door doesn't open because if the door opens there's
something wrong and so they push and newcomers will push on doors and they're pushing on doors
that door is going to open the greatest thing any man has ever said to me was in my early sobriety
duane said to me you have no choice about whether or not i will love you
it is unconditional you are so obnoxious you can't affect it and he i mean this guy
can you imagine 23 years old and they say look you got to learn how to have fun sober
Really?
He said, yeah, come on over to the house.
We have a ball Friday, and a bunch of guys come over, and we just have fun.
So I go over there, and I ring.
Now, this guy's got a dog that's about 106.
Its name was Tinker.
He's 6'5", 280 pounds, and he's got a dog named Tinker.
And Tinker can't even bark anymore.
It's so old, so I hear, roo.
I remember standing on the steps and thinking,
not one drinking episode was ever this humiliating.
I'm at this guy's house.
The dog is dead.
They just have not buried this thing yet.
But he said, the best part about Tinker is, watch this.
It does tricks.
And he's got all the sober drunks in the room, and they're killing themselves.
They've got a box of Frito-O-Lays and a Coke.
They're going crazy having so much fun.
And he says, smile, Tinker.
And the dog goes, these guys are on the floor.
And I'm thinking, oh, jeez.
Oh.
Oh, God.
If my friends could only see me now.
You know, if I was only at the bar having fun with those guys.
I had a prejudice against the cops.
I had a concept of a bunch of men getting together and not drinking.
Period.
It seemed sort of not normal to me.
Men in any one room for any other purpose other than drinking and fighting to me seemed iffy.
I'm serious.
Even women in the room.
Like, I don't know.
Like, I didn't have much of a drinking experience.
Probably 12 years.
I started at age 11, and I ended at age 23.
And, you know, some of you have literally spilt more.
More than I drank.
So sloppy people that you are.
And so what do I know?
Well, what I know is this.
That I never was with a woman drinking.
That I wasn't more worried about how much she was consuming.
Like, compared to getting lucky or anything.
That was nothing compared to how fast she was drinking.
That's when you know you might have a small problem with alcohol.
When you are absolutely socializing to drink.
And not just drinking to socialize.
Like, I mean, it was everything.
It was everything.
And anything that was not about.
Listen to what I'm saying in terms of a prejudiced thought.
Anything not to do with that, to me, was sissy.
Not fun.
Not acceptable.
Somehow not cool.
It was just nothing I wanted to be involved with.
How are you going to recover?
See, the idea of me going to a meeting to get help was impossible.
Because my prejudice was, I don't go to meetings and I don't get help.
Because you have to go there and sit in a room.
You have to sit in a room with a bunch of sober people who would want to do that.
You see, I would have borrowed that.
I mean, it's a simple thing.
But I couldn't get in the room.
So, Dwayne explained to me that there are probably somewhere in the city in which we lived,
he said, there's probably about 2,000 alcoholics anonymous.
And he said, do you know why they're called anonymous?
And I said, no.
And he said, because you don't know who we are.
And we're all watching you.
And so.
If you don't go to the meetings, we know.
And if you drink, we know.
Because we are everywhere.
They will report to me and I will bust every bone in your body.
Because I love you.
And that's how we treat people for whom we care.
Could you love me a little less?
He said, yes.
You know, I'm not recommending this for everybody.
But I am telling you, I would not be standing in front of you.
I also was a guy in my 10th, 15th, 20th year of sobriety fighting intervention.
And somebody said,
you know, judging from your story, you had an intervention.
And I said to him, you know, because I'm sensitive.
Don't bring up the facts.
You are confusing the hell out of me.
And anyway, that was different.
And I'm not like other people.
I'm a terminally unique alcoholic.
And crap, you're right.
You know, the fact of the matter is, my sister phoned Alcoholics Anonymous.
They sent me the Norwegian baboon.
The Norwegian baboon threatened my life.
90 days later, I hadn't had a drink.
I saw a man speak.
And for the first time in my life ever, ever,
I wanted what somebody else had in terms of not his suit or his money.
Because he had all that.
It was his dignity.
I wanted that thing that seemed like he seemed like he was all in one place all at the same time.
And he was happy about it.
I'd never had that in my entire life.
That's what I wanted.
You see?
And so I said to my then wife at the time,
I think I'm going to keep going to him.
I think I'm going to keep going to AA.
And she said, yeah.
I said, what do you mean, yeah?
She said, well, Duane said you have to go to AA for the rest of your life anyway.
I said, no, I don't.
She said, yeah, you do.
Duane said you do.
They're watching you, you know.
Sometimes, sometimes, you know,
what you're doing is screaming so loud people can't hear what you're saying.
Sometimes what you're doing is screaming so loud it can get right through the prejudice.
Like what happens is, is when a man or a woman or whatever you run into in Alcoholics Anonymous just loves you.
That was not a derogatory statement, by the way.
When they just love you unconditionally.
And after a while,
you realize there really isn't anything after this.
They don't want anything from you.
Something goes inside.
It's like one turn in a wheel that goes, maybe, maybe it's real.
And just that little bit of prejudice,
just that you can just start to see over the wall of that one thought.
And then you spend all your time looking for all the examples of why it's not happening like that.
Oh, look at him.
He's hustling that young one.
I know he is.
At least I hope he is.
Because then I could say to this,
and I watched and I watched and I watched for everything that was wrong in my early sobriety
because my prejudice took me there.
And I watched and I watched.
And I had fabulous miracles happening around me.
Couldn't see them because all I wanted to see was what was wrong because this is how I stayed sick.
It takes a tremendous act of God and will to say to yourself,
for this day, I will look for what's right.
Have you ever tried it?
It lasts for about as long as, well, even looking for what's right, right?
Look at this guy over here.
If I was like that, I'd kill myself, you know?
So many of us had been so touchy that even casual reference to spiritual things made us bristle with antagonism.
This sort of thinking had to be abandoned.
Though some of us resisted, we found no great difficulty in casting aside such feelings faced with alcoholic destruction.
You know what the greatest problem in the groups I go to today?
They don't understand that they're going to die from this thing.
They don't seem to get it.
They think they've got some sort of a semi-terminal disease
that at some point in the future may or may not impact on their general health and well-being.
It's a terminal disease.
I have buried in 30 years, almost 30 years of sobriety,
nine people under the age of 27.
Almost all of which died either with carcass,
almost all of which died either with carcass,
car accident, suicide, or the majority of them drowned in their own vomit.
The one that comes to mind most of all, a young fellow by the name of Vince,
phoned me and said, and he was from PEI, Prince Edward Island in Canada.
That's how they talk to it.
It's pretty, pretty funny.
But he said, I'm going back out.
I said, what for?
He says, you're old and you're washed up.
I'm young.
I've still got a lot of, you know, a lot of spunk.
I want to do it.
I said, it's a big mistake.
This is a, this is a terminal disease.
Do not play with this thing, Vince.
He hung the phone up.
He went out that night.
He died.
All I'm telling you is there is no guarantee anybody's coming back from a quotation marks slip.
There is absolutely no guarantee of that.
And what happened to me in my, I was so prejudiced, so locked up.
Like Dwayne said, I should write a book called I'm not much, but I'm all I think about.
I mean, I, I had not weighed out in any way, shape or form, whether what I thought was accurate or inaccurate.
It didn't measure anything.
I just thought that.
And if I thought that it must be, it's gotta be right.
Cause I've always thought that.
And then I would harken back to whip my dad or, you know, so, and I would just say, that's the way that it's always been.
But you know what, what I've learned in Alcoholics Anonymous, most of what I thought was not reality.
And it was causing me a great deal of restricted growth, a dis-ease in my general living.
But the one thing that they got me to understand, and I don't know why, was that for me to look at a bottle of Johnny Walker or anything like that, I was a scotch drinker.
If I look at that bottle, I had to see skull and crossbones on it because for me it was death.
And I only wish with all my heart.
And so you hear people at the podium say, you know, so-and-so went out, they got drunk and they died.
And, you know, you're lucky if that happens to you.
What happens is, is that you get drunk and you don't really get that drunk and then you do it a couple of more times.
And for whatever physical reason, you start to get more and more bizarre.
And then everything that you believe in seems to come to the fore and you have to violate that.
And so you hurt every single person and thing that you absolutely love and adore.
And you start to break down every piece of selfishness.
Every piece of self-esteem that you have.
And it's a slow and painful descent into hell.
And then you die if you're lucky.
That is the reality of this disease.
I would rather not drink.
I would just rather not drink.
My prejudice, my fixed thought about...
And I don't know about you, but every single time I drank, at the end of my drinking, was not a happy experience.
I never could tell if I was going to get drunk in two sips or if it was going to be 24 beer later and I'm sitting there saying,
please hit me, something, please let it happen.
I never knew, I never knew if I was going to be hanging off the wall.
I never knew, I took my 59 T-Bird into a bridge three times, came off the other end, said thank God there's no damage and almost totaled it.
I never knew what was going to happen in any of those tail end episodes.
But every time I started to drink, I started with the same thought.
And I don't know why this stuck in my mind, but it was high school.
It was cold in Canada.
I was standing out beside the car, drunk, writing my name in the snow, peeing.
Which is something that you girls will never understand.
Because you can do big sweeping letters.
Okay.
So, anyway.
As the old-timers used to say, a little skillful exaggeration from that point.
Okay.
Okay.
Anyway.
I would harken back because I had the buzz that night.
I had that elusive feeling of being all in one place and just being at harmony with the world.
And the snow was twinkling and she was in there just, I knew things were going to happen.
And when I would drink, every time I drink, that's the picture I would see.
I would not see the picture of me doing the nose dive into the Shriners party.
I remember in the breakthrough, for лет, it would begin the same day when this TV set
of coming in and out was on the air.
And we had to run.
That was an everyday.
That really made me very happy.
I got outside and there was a bunch of kids there.
Everyone enjoyed attention.
So, we lines were very cold.
They were doing free stuff.
And we were walking and they would jump.
Some people were Jahr exciting.
I saw a little crowd over there.
All these kids were, you know,нал had a lot of questions there about Italy and Germany.
I said, you know, kids, for a couple of years, they were just like who do we invite?
Who do we invite?
Who did want to join these things?
What would be interesting is a Japanese child or a German child has said that we know what
is beautiful about this country.
year. It's like maybe once a century. The humiliation of that. And two days later, I'm
drunk again. And I don't know why. Because it always started the same way. I didn't realize,
as this book said, it was the phenomenon of craving that started after I drank. It wasn't
that I was ripping the wallpaper off the walls and going insane because I couldn't drink in
between drinking bouts. It was that once I started to drink, I changed. And all the
reasons I had not to drink evaporated. And I was outside the car. And there was the girl
and the stuff. And then all of a sudden, I'm in trouble. Not the kind of trouble that some
people got into. But again, I can say this with full confidence. By the grace of God.
I mean, my first bad experience drunk was a guy named Clint Melville.
Pulled out a big pistol one night. Big shiny silver pistol. He bought it in Mexico. I said,
what are you going to do with that? And he said, I bought it to kill myself. And I said,
wow. Yeah. I said, when are you going to do that? He said, now. And that was my first
touch with the reality of what this thing is. I mean, it's sort of like you get a few
little parking tickets and a few scrapes and turn the car upside down. Nobody got hurt.
And then it really starts to, you start to have to pay. And at 23,
God said to me, somehow, someway, because can you imagine, I walked through the doors
of Alcoholics Anonymous on February 8th of 1976, and I have never drank or used in all of these
years. But more important than that, I no longer want to drink or use, no matter how bad it gets.
Because it's gotten bad. I've had stuff in my life. You know, you talk about your wonderful
40-plus year union. A year ago, about right now,
I had a 31-year marriage. Great. I thought a great marriage. And my wife came downstairs,
and I was sitting there watching golf. I golfed every day. I retired. I was just having,
I thought, a great life. We had a grandbaby, you know, money, everything. And she said,
I don't want to be married anymore. And I said, well, you know, you'll get past that. And she
said, I won't get past that. I don't want to be married anymore. And I said, if you got a guy,
no. If you got a woman, no.
Have I done something wrong? No. She said, actually, you're about the nicest you've ever
been. I said, okay, I'm missing something here. Like, what's happening? She said, I don't want
to be married anymore. It's not about you. I just want to spend the last part of my life doing what
I want, where I want. I want to go to Africa on safaris. You don't want to go. I want to go and
hang upside down in Ferris wheels. You're not interested. I want my own life, my own things,
and I don't want to be Marty's wife anymore. I want to be my own person. So I was cordially
invited to leave.
And you know, it was an amazing thing, how God will take care of lunatics and alcoholics.
I never once thought about drinking. Murder did cross my mind, but drinking never entered
my mind. I said, I'm going to give you a week to really reason this out to you, because
31 years, we've been together since we were 17 years old. This is like, yet? She said,
I've been thinking about this for two years. It's not about you. It's about stuff that
happened way back when you were drinking.
When we were kids, other stuff, I can't forgive you for it. I said, get some help. She said,
I don't want to get any. She said, by the way, quit going to Al-Anon nine years before
this. I'm a big Al-Anon fan. They help people with a neurotic obsession by helping themselves
with their neurotic compulsion. And so, you know, it's a good fit. She stopped that, and
then we started to go like this. I had my life. She had her life. It was very tidy.
People say to me, did you fight? No, we didn't fight.
You know what we were? Polite. We even had sex polite. Dine. You know, get polite. There
was no problem, except that we'd totally grown apart. Let me tell you how God works. It's
so funny. The week passes, maybe ten days passes. I've got a friend that I know is going
to be devastated by this thing. Some people I work with in AA. I wanted to get a hold
of them. They were on holidays.
And the only person I knew...
The only person I knew that knew them as well as I did, lived in the same town, was a girl
named Kiara. She's a movie actress. She's beautiful, very wealthy. And I phoned her
to get their telephone number. And she said, boy, you sound really awful. I said, well,
I just thought, you know, my marriage ended. And she said, you're kidding. Is it for real?
And I said, yeah, it's real. Wow. She said, would you do me a favor? I said, sure. I'm
thinking, you know, I haven't got enough trouble. I'd be happy to do you a favor. She said,
would you go out and, you know, get nine or ten girls? I said, no. She said, no. I said,
nine or ten girls, and get lucky, and get that out of your system, and then come and
get me? Because I've always cared for you. I said, are you serious? So we've been kind
of dating. Anyway, I'm just telling you, God will do for you what you cannot do for
yourself. It's been a mystery. My whole journey's been a mystery. If I would have orchestrated
that stuff, I'd probably have already had their approval. But I hope that gives you
some insight into it.
Dwayne said to me when I was about three months
sober, write down 12 of your greatest dreams. So I put down that I wanted to earn $2,000
a month. I wanted to have a new car just once. You know, and when I look at that list
today, it was so small. Thank God I wasn't held to it. Because when you come down to
it and make life big as fast as you can and the longevity of it and theаний, things,
I'm not a, you know, you can get whatever you want one of two ways.
You can either move towards something you want
or you can be running like hell away from something you don't want.
It gets you to the same place.
One is just not as comfortable as the other.
I'm not a goal setter.
I'm not a great thinker that way.
I am a creative, alcoholic, unmade bed, just kind of like spirit.
And this motivates people around me.
And so I've had all these wonderful business experiences.
Right now, by the way, I'm in Washington, D.C.,
and I and a group of people are writing children's cartoons.
And we've put together a company that is building a way to keep children safe on the Internet.
We've written original software that is so complex
that the actual, your Federal Reserve had me come there and explain it to them,
Pentagon, people like that, because they said this thing may be of interest to the United States of America,
not just your stupid little company.
And we've done all this.
We've done all this from this place of wanting to do something in the last quarter of our lives that really means something.
It's an incredible journey.
And last week I was in Hollywood, and I ran right smack into Jennifer Aniston.
And I'm thinking, damn, and I'm dating Kiara.
No, it was a joke.
It's just a little joke.
Don't kid yourself.
There's a big part of the old alcoholic that goes, what else is out there?
You know.
Back to prejudice.
You guys understand where I'm going with this?
Is that, first of all, one of the prejudices I had was from my grandmother saying, mind your station.
I never dreamed that a person like me would ever be able to have all I wanted.
I never dreamed in my wildest dreams that my marriage would end.
Never crossed my mind, because I thought I was doing her a favor staying in the marriage.
I mean, we had fallen out of love 25 times.
Five years ago.
We were just polite.
And I was just committed to the relationship because of Alcoholics Anonymous.
I said, forever?
It's forever.
It's not optimum?
Get used to it.
This is marriage, okay?
I didn't know how my life was going to go.
And the more I live with you, and the more I come among you, and the more I hear you, I realize what I need to do with God as my guide
is the thing that's in front of me to the very best.
It's the best of my ability, and this continuing journey will open, and it's always better than what I thought.
I've never had a turn in the road, even the divorce thing, that at the end of the day, I didn't say to myself,
I never would have thought of that.
Good move.
I've learned how to cook.
I know how to make a bed.
You know, I was like one of those husbands that I was always on the road, you know,
and so I didn't know how to do any of these things.
I've got every kitchen device known to man, because I'm an alcoholic.
I go to, like, bed, bath.
And I come out with two shopping bags and a woman following me, you know.
Where are you going with all of that?
I don't know, but I'm going to learn to cook, you know.
I mean, I'm an alcoholic.
Everything worth doing is worth doing to excess.
I just, I'm having fun, you know.
I live in this incredible apartment, and I've got a gym.
It's like a dream.
I drive, please put this in the right place, because I don't think they're that great a car.
But I drive Alexa.
I hated Lexus.
I had prejudice against Lexus, because I thought they were knocking off Mercedes-Benz.
And I'd driven Mercedes for years and years, and I thought,
oh, the nerve of those Japanese guys just stealing all their cars.
Well, I got mad at Benz, because of a problem we were having bringing my car down here.
I ended up getting this Lexus, and day by day, I had to admit, it's a damn nice car.
In fact, I think I like it better than the Benz.
And how much other stuff is like that in my life?
How much, how many foods don't I eat?
Just because I think I don't like them.
I mean, how many people at meetings don't I go near and engage,
because I think they look like somebody I wouldn't like,
or they look like somebody that I used to know that I didn't like,
or somebody starts talking, and I'm like, ah, that's the same talk they always give.
So I don't, I tune out.
How much?
See, to be in the present moment, to get rid of all of the prejudice,
to let the thing down, to just open to God and say,
what would you like to show me here is when this journey starts to really begin.
And that's what you were hearing.
That's what...
Keith was articulating, Sue was articulating,
going to the jail and watching these newcomers unfold
is because you don't know what's coming out of the box.
You just don't know where they're going to take you.
And that's really exciting.
We who have traveled this dubious path beg you to lay aside prejudice,
even against organized religion.
By the way, page 52 in the little book here,
there's the best description of unmanageability I've ever heard.
We were having trouble with personal relationships,
couldn't control our emotional natures,
were prey to misery and depression,
couldn't make a living,
had a feeling of uselessness,
were full of fear,
and we were unhappy.
People say, but what do you mean by unmanageable?
Oh, I don't know.
This is the eighth time now mentioned in this one chapter.
It says, we can only clear the ground a bit
if our testimony helps sweep away any prejudice,
enables you to think honestly,
encourages you to search diligently within yourself.
Then, if you wish, you can join us.
And then he uses this beautiful metaphor,
the broad highway.
The broad highway.
Inclusive, not exclusive.
I see some of you wearing bike leathers.
I don't know anything about that.
I see that hog heaven truck.
I don't know anything about that.
I'm from a different world.
My grandmother would have flipped.
The napkins weren't organized, you know.
I'm at this lake and I'm in this desert
and I'm with a bunch of people I don't know.
And I was just talking to Kiera this morning, the girl.
And she said, my God, Marty, what's happened to you?
You sound so happy.
I said, it's these people.
I just love them.
I don't know them, but I love them all.
My spirit just, you know,
it just enlightens when I get with these people.
She said, you need to be with those people more.
I said, I know that.
I've got to come back and start doing that thing all over again.
I get to talk to you one time again tomorrow morning.
I want to thank you so much for your patience with me today.
I know I was all over the shed.
But if I've said one thing that upsets you,
take it home and use it.
Good night.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you.