Twelve Steps, One Book, and a Head Full of Old Ideas That Don’t Work – Earl H.

How you doing? My name's Roland, I'm an alcoholic.
That was much better than the time just seconds ago.
I want to thank the folks for asking me to come here. It's always an honor and privilege to do so.
I want to welcome the newcomers.
I want to thank Scott for a great talk earlier this evening.
Inspired talk.
What else?
Larry goes, leave me out of this.
He's been beat on enough tonight.
So what are they calling this talk we're doing tonight?
Steps as a way of life?
I didn't have anything to do with that.
Steps as a way of life.
Anyway.
They are that.
Good night, everybody.
It's late, man.
What is it?
It's 10.20 p.m.
I got up at 3.30 a.m.
I don't even believe this is the same day that I got up.
This feels like a completely different day.
I left L.A. at 3.30 this morning.
Here I am in Atlanta, somewhere outside Atlanta, in a campground with a bunch of 300 guys.
And I'm liking it.
I'm liking it.
I'm going to tell my story tomorrow night.
But just to qualify, I drank and used on a daily basis, no matter what, for 16 years.
I was given a good reason to stop on many, many occasions, and I never touched the brakes.
Till that moment of clarity did come, and it was not a pretty picture.
What I saw clearly was not pretty.
And I came here, and I've been here for over 21 years now.
My sobriety date is November 6, 1980.
And I have not left.
I have stayed here with you.
And I would suggest that the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, as Scott pointed out,
which is different than the fellowship, is the foundation upon which I stand a free man today.
I was a slave to drugs and alcohol.
I was a slave to drugs and alcohol for 16 years, from ages 12 to 28.
And I came to you.
I had no tools for living.
I had no idea how to be in the world.
My tools for living had been drugs, alcohol, violence, and run.
And those four had been beaten out of me.
I couldn't use them anymore.
I had no tools for living to work.
I had no idea how to be in the world.
I had no sense of community.
I had no sense of family.
No concept of right or wrong.
I had no moral psychology.
I was a blank screen.
I had been beaten to death by alcoholism.
And I came to you because I couldn't die and I didn't know how to live.
And what I find fascinating is that in the beginning, what they said to me was,
they said, well, we'd like you to come to these meetings.
Nobody told me why.
I've since found out why I go to meetings.
But they said, we want you to go to these meetings.
And judging by the shape you're in, we'd suggest meeting a day for maybe five years would be good.
And in retrospect, I probably went to a meeting a day for five years.
Like I had something better to do.
You know what I mean?
The cool part about it for me, I got here destroyed, which is a great way to get here.
I had no, if they had said, look, you have to go to a meeting a day,
and meetings are from noon to midnight every day.
They're all 12 hours long.
I mean, 12 hours long, you have to go to one a day.
I would have just said, okay.
I mean, I had no scheduling conflicts.
You know what I mean?
There was nothing going on in my life.
Which is a great way to get here.
You know?
They said, go left.
I mean, I was flat out of why.
You know what I mean?
I was out of why.
I was out of that.
I had no more questions why.
They said, go left.
I just said, okay.
That's this way, right?
And they said, go over here.
Because my sponsor broke it down very, very clearly for me in the beginning.
He said to me, oh, you do not have to like what I tell you.
You do not have to think it's a good idea.
You just have to do it.
It's a program of action.
And I thought, I can work around that.
All right.
You know?
Mind jerking and weaving and spinning and bobbing.
You know what I mean?
So you figure out my angle.
And I couldn't not think like that because that's the way my head worked.
I came in with a head chock full of alcoholism.
All my old ideas were in my head.
None of them worked and I knew it.
But that's just the way my brain fired.
I had no idea.
I've had this pointed out to me in the last month.
That it's very difficult.
When you know that the actions that you take.
Don't work.
Right?
They're ineffective.
There's nothing normal going on in your life at all.
And what you want is a normal life.
If all you've ever been is off base.
If it's all you know.
You may desperately want to do the normal thing.
The right and proper thing.
But if you don't know what normal is.
How you're gonna come up with an action that's normal.
And I had nothing normal to complete.
normal to compare my behavior to. I didn't have it. I didn't have the markers. I didn't have the
guidelines in my life. I didn't have any of it. I came here flatlined. I came here with my life
burned to the ground, which you'll hear about tomorrow night and you'll go, well, yes, he was
telling the truth, wasn't he? His life was indeed burned to the ground. And so I got here, I got
here, like Scott was talking about, I came here an empty vessel. You know, it's empty, which my
sponsor thought was terrific and informed me of this in a very startling way to me when I went to
him and I said, will you sponsor me? And he said, what? And I said, will you sponsor me? And he said,
yes. And I just started crying. I just started crying because I realized what I had just done
is I had asked somebody for help. And now, and I couldn't remember when you do something like that,
that's when you realize, my God, I haven't done that in years.
I've been so isolated, so tightly wrapped within this cocoon of my alcoholism that I had been
unable to reach out and ask for the help of another human being. And when I did it, I realized
what an unusual event that was in my life. And it just made me cry. And as I'm laying on this
table with my head down, just sobbing uncontrollably, my new sponsor, Donald M,
looks across over my shoulder to his assistant and says, oh, look at him. Isn't it wonderful?
He's destroyed.
And I came up off the table like, huh? What the hell have I done, man? This guy's
soiled and I'm destroyed. I just turned my life over to this guy. And that's basically what I did
because I knew if I didn't come to trust another human being right now, I was going to die alone
of the disease of alcoholism. And I didn't want to die. So I took the risk and I reached out to
this man and I said, I'm going to die. And he said, I'm going to die. And I said, I'm going to die.
And I talked to that man every single day for the next almost 14 years up until the day he died.
He was my sponsor. I have a guide in my life because Donald Madden shared his with me. I
understand the difference between the program and the fellowship because Donald Madden pointed
it out to me. I understand what it means to go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous because
Donald Madden pointed it out to me. Donald Madden was AA to me. He was the embodiment of AA. He's
the one that showed me it was a program of action. When I got real highfalutin with my book work and
my steps, Donald Madden was the one who very lovingly pointed out to me that before there was a
book, before there was anything, there was one alcoholic down the dirt sharing his experience,
strength, and hope with another alcoholic. And by so doing, they would rise up out of a seemingly
hopeless state of mind and body. Put me in my place. I remember the day that Donald Madden
looked at me because I spoke very, very vehemently about the fact that there was no God and I had no
interest in God. My gentle, gentle,
sponsor Donald, he enjoyed this one a lot. He loved telling me. He loved it whenever he'd see
me coming down the road and he'd just cock it back, you know what I mean? Just right between
the eyes. And he looked at me and he smiled and he said, Earl, you can't be mad at a God you don't
believe in. To which I replied, I have to go home now. Just pacing my way, trying to figure that one
out.
He was doing that to me all the time. I got some time under my belt around here and I was going to
seven to nine meetings a week, calling my sponsor on a daily basis. I had two commitments to two
meetings. I was taking out two panels monthly. I was taking out a panel to the juvenile system,
the beginning of the disease, and I was taking a panel out to the county hospital, the end of the
line, right? So I could see the beginning of the disease and the end of the disease every single
month. And I was never turning back. I was taking a panel out to the county hospital, the end of the
line, running down any requests, speaking when I was asked to, filling in over here and running over
there, doing this, doing that. I had the best program I'd ever seen in my life.
I started to get a little squirrely. And I went to this old timer and I said, old timer, I'm getting a
little squirrely. And I recited to him my litany of AA program. And he looked down at me and he said,
good. Saw you come in.
You don't get a program, you're gonna die. Go away. I said, what are you talking about, you
little son of a bitch? I got, look at this program. He goes, kid, kids, please. It's the fellowship.
Vital to your recovery. Glad you got it. The program you will find within the big book of
Alcoholics Anonymous. Suggest you get one and read it. As if your life depends upon it, go away.
I said, all right, you old bastard, I'll get one. I'll show you. It's a program here. And I got my buddy of mine,
Christopher. Christopher's got about 18 months more than I do. And we got this, we got big books. And we
started following around the big book thumpers, those guys we'd been avoiding at all costs, you know.
You know, those guys, you think, you know, the guy, where the guy says, let's talk about the work. You know, those guys
that talk, wave the big book around. I was like, oh.
Oh, Christ, let me out of here. You know what I mean? It's like, come on, we'll go have coffee together. That's fellowship. Come on, we'll go do that, right?
We started following those guys around. And we got this book and we got tapes. We got
step study tapes. And we, we went to Joe and Charlie, the big book comes alive seminars, you know. Those guys,
those guys are it, man. As far as I'm concerned, Joe and Charlie, the original Joe and Charlie, the big book comes alive.
I remember doing that. That completely blew the top of my head off.
And when we were sitting,
we'd sit with these tapes and we would talk about it. And I'm sponsoring a bunch of guys now, right? And these guys are saying, you know, you, you know, I've been hearing around, apparently, you're supposed to be taking us through the steps.
You know, and I just said, you know, well, I can't, I won't say what I said to them. But, but we started getting these tapes, you know what I mean? And it was starting to, things were starting to spark inside me.
And I kept saying to them, I think I found the bomb proof stuff here.
I think I found the
bomb proof stuff here.
I think I found the bomb proof stuff. And I'm going to turn you on to it any minute. And they said, well, would you hurry up? You know, we're dying over here.
I said, hey, all right, take it easy, take it easy. We're on our way, we're on our way.
And that's a great, one of the great things about sponsoring guys that really, really want this deal is you better get it together.
You know, because they're in step three, you better wrap up that four step.
Because they're on their knees, man, burning through that prayer, you know what I mean?
They're about to hit their feet and look your direction, you know.
You better be ready.
I was being driven through the steps, right, by these guys that I sponsored.
I mean, I would love to get up here and, you know, you know, don my robe, you know, and get up here and say, please bow your heads.
You know, I shall now guide you in ever so knowledgeable a fashion through the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And you will look upon me with reverence, respect, and yes, I agree.
A great deal of love.
We're all in here fighting for our lives, my friends.
I'm one of them, right?
I've heard 55 different ways to do the steps, right?
And 54 of those guys have all told me it's their way or you're drunk.
You know, it's the way I look at it is this.
What I was given, I pass on.
I listen to other guys.
I add to what was passed on to me to the best of my ability.
I find new ways to explain the same.
But certain things don't change.
Certain things don't change.
At no point has anybody ever said, I mean, because in my opinion, as an alcoholic, I'm so prone to digging the drama.
You know, I would love it if I got sober and they said to me, Earl, got to get sober.
There's a little AA reading we want you to do.
We have an AA library down on the corner of 3rd and Elm.
There's 100,000 AA approved books in there.
We suggest you get busy right away.
Read them.
I would love it.
I would love that because it's big.
It's grandiose.
It's huge.
It's clearly an undertaking that few men would challenge.
I'm up for it.
It's on.
Let's go.
Right?
And I'll tackle the horrendous, dramatic, huge event.
I come to AA and they go, here's a book.
Good luck.
One book.
Right?
One book.
How you doing, man?
All right.
One book.
You know, I can't believe it.
When we started this, there was like 11 guys in here.
Would they run out of cookies?
Is that back?
It's like everybody came back.
I suddenly realized it and it scared the hell out of me.
Jeez.
Jeez.
Apparently there is nothing else to do here.
Everybody came to the step deal.
I got this one book and I got these 12 steps.
What I love is sitting around after meetings, group of alcoholics, and two guys are about
to go blows at one another.
It's on.
These guys are taking it outside.
And what are they arguing about?
How to do steps six and seven.
You know?
An ex-drug dealer and a car thief.
You know what I mean?
You know?
You know?
You know?
You know?
And they're flipping out over six and seven.
I love that stuff.
I love that.
I love that.
That that's what happens to people like us in here.
Gee, do you think it matters to them a little bit?
I think so.
You know, it's funny to watch them do that and just think, whoa, don't do it.
You guys heard about nine?
Don't do that.
Don't behave like that.
Anyway.
I'm going to go.
Okay.
So, me, I like to keep it simple.
Some guys like to just really burn into the minutiae.
What I have to say about this, some guys like it way up in here to get very heady about
the steps.
Other guys, it's all about down in here, right?
I'm kind of one of these guys down here.
Now, if this is your thing up here, cool.
I know lots of guys, that's the way they can hear it, which I think is excellent.
So, I think 57 guys all talking a different language.
I don't know.
It's a different little spin on what's in that book.
It's great.
You'll hear it from this guy one way, you'll hear it from that guy, you'll connect to that,
you won't to that.
That's what's cool.
Here's what's up with me.
Steps are pretty simple, right?
I didn't know that in the beginning.
I mean, when I, when they first said you need to do the 12 steps, you know, I looked up
on the wall and I went, okay, five, okay, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, mm-hmm, mm-hmm,
12.
Okay, good.
Got it.
Now.
I did them.
There they are.
I got it.
I'm not stupid.
I understood.
And they went, that was lovely.
Now, here's what we want to do.
There's worlds within worlds within those steps.
There was a guy I knew in the program, great guy, great guy, great AA guy, said, take you
through the first nine steps in a day.
Right?
Ain't my style, but he took a little, did that with a lot of guys.
That guy, you talk about controversy, that guy would just go nuts.
I know another guy that decided, he lives in Arizona, said, you know, when we were talking
about that four column inventory on resentment, fear, and sex, we do that four column, he
goes, I've decided there's no fourth column, there's only three columns.
Cages rattling all over Southern California, right?
What the hell is he talking about, right?
He's still thumping that thing.
I knew another person, great amount of sobriety, this woman has taken more people through the
book, sponsored more women.
Founded women's sober living homes, I mean, this woman's just, you know, a one-man sobriety
machine, right?
Right?
Showed up at a meeting one night, and my sponsor Donald's sitting next to me, Dorothy.
Dorothy's our main speaker, Donald has brought her to the meeting, and I'm like, sitting
next to my sponsor, and thinking, ah, you know, Dorothy, whoever the hell Dorothy is,
you know, I'm just open, I don't know, phaser shields are down, opening up the gates, man,
I'm just gonna let Dorothy in, right?
Dorothy walks up to the podium.
Pulls out a big one.
Big book.
And she goes, I figured it out.
She pulls out this, all of a sudden she unfolds this massive, multicolored chart with these
lines and slaps it on the front of the podium and says, now, and I looked, uh-huh, and I
looked over at Donald and he just went like this, oh, phaser shields up, right?
I can't let that in, I think I'm gonna get hurt by this, right?
You know, and Dorothy's like, I can't let that in, I think I'm gonna get hurt by this,
right?
You know, and Dorothy ran in, you know, did her little thing for a little while, and eventually
she pulled out of that nosedive and was back into the book and everything was cool, you
know what I mean?
Just a little side trip.
No big deal, you know?
For me, I gotta keep it in the book and I gotta keep it simple.
That's what I gotta do.
In the, I mean, we got this, ain't this circle with a triangle, you know?
Right?
If you haven't seen it, Bob's got a ring with it on it.
In here.
It's an ancient spiritual symbol, stands for mind, body, and spirit, brought together
as a whole human being.
Therein lies the balance I sought drunk and sober and never had.
Of course I didn't have it drunk, I was drunk, right?
Didn't have it sober either.
I mean, you took a drunken maniac and sober him up, what do you got?
Sober maniac, right?
And that's what I was.
There was no balance in my life.
I was either a victim or an assassin, you know what I mean?
There was no...
I was never in the middle, just blasting from one end of the thing to the other, just,
you know?
I mean, in the blink of an eye, you know?
You know, I'd be talking to friends, everything's nice, I'd blink and somebody would be looking
at me and go, uh-oh, the world just snapped again, you know?
It could get weird quick, you know?
I had no balance, you know what I mean?
I would just, I would, I would watch you because I was looking for the normal thing.
But I was taking what you presented as normal things and applying them my way, you know?
You said exercise is good, it was a phase where everybody was jogging.
Well, I've broken 74 bones, okay?
Jogging?
A little tough.
You know, I just kind of like snap, crack, bop, crack, you know?
I got to run three miles just to get warmed up, you know what I mean?
It's like, okay, everything's snapped into line, now we can run, right?
So I went jogging, my way, right, till I was, I ran a half a marathon, right?
Was hallucinating, going to, going to meetings eating yogurt and bananas, you know what I
mean?
Just, you know, tripping on the endorphins pulsing through my body, right?
Till I had so many stress fractures in my feet I could hardly walk, right?
That was my idea of doing a little jogging.
Then I said, you know, we're going to lift a few weights.
I said, cool, we'll lift weights.
I lifted weights til I literally ripped a muscle off the bone, you know what I mean?
Doing the thighs, you know what I mean, just all of a sudden, just, uh oh!
I'm not working there.
You know, work at him, a maniacal worker, you know?
Became a serial monogamist, you know?
I love you, I was mistaken.
I love you, I was mistaken.
I love you, I was mistaken.
I was mistaken.
it was a mistake.
Just wreaking havoc
all in my life, right?
And it started getting
real spinning.
That's when I went
to this old timer and said,
what do you do?
What's the deal?
And he said, steps.
So we got together
and we're going through the book.
I found out that AA
had adopted that
ancient spiritual symbol
and it was the unity,
recovery, and service
is the same thing
as mind, body, and spirit.
It's the same thing.
Unity is the body
and must bring it here.
I couldn't get sober
but we seemed to be able to
together.
The recovery was of the mind,
the greater aspect
of my disease.
And this is what
tonight's about.
Recovery is of the mind,
the greater aspect
of my disease.
If I, as an alcoholic,
cannot find a way
to be comfortable sober,
I'm not going to stay sober.
I've got to find a way
to get comfortable sober.
The only way
a guy like me
will ever be comfortable sober
is if I can be relieved
of the obsession
of the mind.
The persistence
of this illusion,
this belief in a lie
that I can drink
like a normal man,
is astonishing.
Many of us pursue it
to the gates of insanity
and death.
That's me.
I'm a gate guy.
I go right to the gate.
You know?
I've been tagged dead.
I've been locked
in nut houses.
They've seriously discussed
the shock treatment
for a young girl
who became very compliant
immediately.
I mean,
I've been locked in
a nut house.
I've been locked in a nut house.
I've been locked in a nut house.
I've been locked in a nut house.
I've been locked in a nut house.
I've been locked in a nut house.
I've been locked in a nut house.
I've been locked in a nut house.
You're going to do what?
What was it you wanted
to know again?
God.
I've got to get
comfortable sober.
Got to be relieved
of the obsession
to drink or use.
Got to have that
taken off the table
so that when,
in any situation in life,
as life comes down the pike,
as it does on life's terms,
and I'm standing there
and I take one directly
on the chin
and I'm laying there
and I look at the table
and I go,
okay,
what options are available
to me here
to deal with this
extreme emotional pain
or this self-doubt
or the hindrances
that we all experience
in our daily life?
What options
do I have available to me?
When I look at the playing field
for me,
the option of drinking
and using
cannot be on that table.
It has to be removed.
It has to be removed.
Has to be.
So,
the book tells me
I wouldn't drink again
even if I could.
Right?
It's not an option.
I got to get rid of the option.
I hear people all the time
in my neck of the woods
saying this among many other things
I find to be idiotic.
I have no opinion.
I'm too tired
to kid you and tell you
I don't have any opinions
about this stuff.
I've been awake
way too long.
I've been in an airplane.
It's not my favorite thing.
Hate it.
You thrived on it.
I'm not surprised.
I'm not surprised
that you would thrive
on such an unnatural act.
Good God.
I'm going to get in
a big metal cylinder
and rock it across the sky.
Makes my knees weak.
And it's heaven to you, right?
To hit 5 G's
doing the roll
from 30 to 40
or whatever the hell
that thing was.
He's telling that
I was having heart palpitations.
I'm like,
oh my God.
I'd be the guy behind him
going,
you having a good time,
Earl?
And he'd be laughing
his ass off
and he'd be like,
welcome to the club, man.
Do I?
Oh, man.
Way up in the air.
Anyway,
what the hell
was I talking about?
Where was I?
Pop quiz.
Where was I?
You don't know either,
do you?
All right.
All right.
So I got to take
the option off the table.
I got to take the option
off the table, right?
How do I do that?
How do I get relieved
of the obsession to drink?
How do I deal with
the greater aspect
of this disease?
What do I do?
Figure it's a fair question, right?
Call up the sponsor and go,
apparently if I don't
get comfortable sober,
I'm going to drink again.
I'm getting a little wacky.
What do you think
we ought to do here?
Well, get the big book
and why don't you work
the 12 steps
as outlined in the book
because that's what they're for.
The purpose of the steps
is to relieve me
of the obsession
to drink and use,
to restore me to sanity,
soundness of mind,
relieve me of the obsession
to drink.
That's the whole idea.
So that I won't be
sitting there one day
and just casually think
one more time
the insane thing
that I always think.
A drink right now
wouldn't hurt.
When I got 16 years,
it says,
a drink right now
will hurt.
It'll unravel everything.
Probably before nightfall.
I've never been
one of those measured guys.
You know what I mean?
You know,
these guys talk about
the pain
of controlled drinking.
I believe you,
but I have to believe you
because I have no experience
with it whatsoever.
I drink,
the phenomenon of craving
is so strong,
it's on.
The wheels fall off.
You know,
it's like,
have a couple of drinks
and call the hospital
because I'm coming.
I'm going to,
you know,
it may not be
that particular hospital,
you know,
it might be one in San Francisco,
it might be one in Phoenix,
it might be,
you know,
but I'm coming to the hospital.
So I've got to work
the 12 steps.
So,
how do you work the steps?
I figure this,
it's real simple.
Steps involve three things,
me, God, and you.
Nobody else to play with.
That's what they,
they revolve around that.
There's nobody else to play with.
That covers the field.
Me, God, you.
Step one.
What's the problem here?
I don't know what the problem is.
If I'm not really well versed
in what the problem
I'm dealing with is,
how the hell am I going to come up
with a good solution
for the problem?
I mean,
as far as I'm concerned,
a screwdriver is an excellent tool.
Screwdriver solves a lot of problems,
doesn't it?
But if I've got a flat tire
and run for the screwdriver,
I don't see much good coming of this.
I don't think I'm going to get anywhere.
You know what I mean?
I've got to have the right solution
to the problem.
I've got to know what the problem is.
So I've got to read the book.
In the beginning of the book,
what do they talk about?
The problem.
I find out that I've got
an obsession of the mind
and an allergy of the body.
That I've got a soul sickness
that manifests itself
physically and mentally in my case.
That's what goes on with me.
And that given a good reason,
I can't stop.
When I start drinking,
I can't tell you when I'm going to stop
or how much I'm going to drink.
I can't tell you that.
I've never been able
to tell you that.
I may be normal in every other area,
but when it comes to the question of drinking,
I am uniquely insane.
I'm an alcoholic.
In a doctor's opinion,
there's five different types of alcoholics.
I raised my hand on all five of them.
One of the highest scores
I've ever gotten on a test
was the 20 questions.
19 out of 20.
Did not interfere with my job.
I did not have one.
If you ever can find a tape
of a guy named Wino Joe,
get it.
He has his own 20 questions.
The late, great Wino Joe, man.
His questions were,
have you ever been arrested
while in jail?
Yeah.
Yeah, I know.
These are his questions.
Have you ever run over yourself
with your own car?
So we've done that.
Have you ever sunburned
the roof of your mouth?
Yeah, man.
Uh-huh.
My kind of guy.
I love that guy.
Ah, Jesus.
Anyway.
So step one is,
what's the problem?
Lack of power is my dilemma.
I am powerless over alcohol.
My whole life's unmanageable
as a result of that.
I drink.
I don't care how together
I've got it.
I can put my whole life
back together.
God bless you,
periodics, man.
I don't, you know,
as a guy who drank
on a daily basis,
I look at you,
that looks worse to me.
Because at least,
I'm just a drunk.
I'll accept it.
Let's just go with it.
You know what I mean?
I'm drinking every day.
I'm awake.
I'm drinking.
Right?
Who are we trying to kid?
When I was 16 years old,
a guy said to me,
bro,
you are an alcoholic.
To which I replied,
bro,
what is your point?
I incorporated that information
very early in my life.
I'm drinking.
You guys just said,
you know what,
I've got to stop drinking.
I've got to get it together.
I've got to pull it together.
I've got to get everything right.
I said, go.
And you would stop
and you would build your life
to get up.
You would put your life
back together.
Regain the trust
of your loved ones.
Right?
Get your business
back on its feet.
Everything, you know,
the flowers are growing
in the front yard
once again.
You know?
Until you just
set the whole thing
on fire.
Again.
You know?
Burn it all down
just so you can
build it again.
Burn it all down.
It's like,
oh, God almighty, man.
Just drink.
You know?
Who are we kidding?
That just seems
so awful.
Unbelievably tiring.
God.
I know the periodics
look at us and go,
God, how could you
do that every day?
How couldn't you?
You know?
So I've got to know that.
Lack of power is my dilemma.
If that's my problem,
lack of power,
what's my solution?
Step two.
A power
greater than myself
that can restore me
to sanity.
Soundness of mind
relieved me
of the obsession
to drink.
Now, I'm sitting
on my couch
doing this.
I'm not running
all around.
I'm sitting on the couch
reading the book.
Yep, yep, yep.
That's the problem.
All right.
Right?
Yep, yep.
Apparently,
that will have to be
the solution
because I have tried
everything else.
I've done everything
I know how to do.
I end up in
insane asylums.
You know,
it doesn't go well.
All right?
So apparently,
it's going to take
this power greater than me,
whatever that may be.
Right?
Okay, so I read on.
Step three.
What's step three say?
Well,
if you know
what the problem is
and you know
what the solution
is going to have to be,
you know what that solution is,
but that solution
has not taken place
in your life yet,
you're going to have
to make a decision
to do something about this.
So what's your decision?
I don't know.
What do you guys suggest?
I'm going to have to
write the damn book.
What's in there?
It says,
you better make a decision
to turn your will
and your life over
to the care of God
as you understand Him.
God?
Oh, crap.
I knew this was going to happen.
Right?
They were going to go
religious on me.
Right?
We're going to be
wearing robes
and that swinging
smoking thing
is coming any second.
You know?
Some guy's going to come through
running through the room
beating me with a stick.
You know what I mean?
It's just,
this is not going to go well.
Besides,
I hate God.
Look at my life.
Right?
Loving God my ass.
Right?
So now,
so basically
what I had to be willing to do
was I had to be willing
to get down on my knees
and say the third step prayer
and turn my will
and my life over
to the care of a God
I wasn't really
particularly thrilled with
which became a God
not of my understanding.
I pray now to a God
I do not understand at all.
I have done
an incredible amount
of psychedelics.
And on those occasions
I have tried to wrap
my head around infinity.
I have never quite
been able to get
all the way around.
You know?
I get way, way out there,
freak myself out
and come screaming
back to the planet.
So basically
I'm going to have to say
I pray to a God
I do not understand.
Don't get me wrong.
I pray to a God
I see evidence of
every day in my life
that I can experience
as my own breath
that I can see in the eyes
of another human being.
You know?
I mean,
I saw evidence of God
here tonight
on several
different occasions.
Big Eddie,
medium Eddie,
little Eddie.
Huh?
Wow.
The judge?
Man cannot do such a thing.
You know?
A couple of guys
I spoke to on the way over
to the last feeding frenzy
that occurred here.
A couple of guys,
just a couple of things
that they wanted to share
with me on the way over there.
Not of our doing.
You know?
I mean,
you see it all the time.
See it all the time.
And saw it in the meeting
in our cabin.
Right?
Where we had...
Our cabin meeting
was so good.
All right?
That we had...
It was so good,
we had a guy there
wasn't even in our cabin.
That's how good
that meeting was.
Outsiders came in
and pretended to be
one of us
just so they could hear
what was going on.
It was great.
We had a great meeting.
And I heard in there,
two different guys
that I can think of
off the top of my head
said things
and I thought,
God,
that's God, man.
None of us
could come up with that.
Couldn't come up with that.
It's absolutely miraculous.
And it's there
every day for me,
all day long,
if I want to see it.
Me sitting on an airplane
flying to Atlanta, Georgia
to be picked up
by a guy named John
to speak in a campground
somewhere nearby.
You have no idea
how God that is.
When you hear my story,
you'll know.
You'll know.
That doesn't happen.
Doesn't happen.
For so many reasons.
So many reasons
that doesn't happen.
Right?
Me to be awake this long
and be all right with it.
God.
God.
Did I find a way
to get out of stuff like this?
Right?
Oh, got a pain.
Got to go.
I'm out.
It's gone.
Here I am.
Got to turn my will
and my life over to this God
that I don't understand
but I see evidence of
on a daily basis.
If I'm willing to look.
So, I get on my knees
and say this prayer
and get back up on the couch.
I haven't left the house.
One, two, three.
The old timers
used to go in the hospital
in the jitter joints.
You know?
Shaking like a dog.
Right?
And they walk in and go,
Alcoholic?
Yeah.
One.
You think you can handle this
on your own?
No.
Two.
Get out of that bed
and get out on your knees.
What the hell for?
Get out of the bed!
Repeat after me.
Third step prayer.
Get back in the bed.
We'll see you tomorrow.
Have a pencil
and it'll be the paper ready.
Boom, boom, boom.
Right?
One, two, three, go!
Right?
I know a lot of guys
one, two, three, drunk.
One, two, three, drunk.
Because it says
right after that third step in there
and I'm paraphrasing it says
you know, you best
embark upon
an immediate plan of action
or this has all been
a giant waste of time.
Gotta get moving.
Gotta get up off the ass
and get moving.
Right?
Problem, step one.
Lack of power is my dilemma.
Step two,
it's gonna take a power
greater than me.
Step three,
I must make a decision
to do something about that.
What it suggested to me
is that I turn my will
and my life over
to care of this God
I may or may not understand.
I do that.
I get up and I immediately
embark upon a plan
of rigorous action.
Four and five is me.
Six and seven is God.
Eight and nine is you.
Nobody else to play with.
Four and five.
Four.
Inventory.
Fearless and searching.
Moral inventory.
Inventory.
Resentment.
Fear.
Sex.
Four columns.
First column.
Well, who do I resent?
My father.
It's an example.
Gee.
Let me think.
Who could I say?
How about my dad?
He wasn't on there.
Sure.
Step, column two.
Column two.
Why specifically
do I resent him?
So I had one one,
one two,
one three,
one four,
one five.
I had, you know,
167,
168,
169,
you know,
individual.
He did this.
He did this.
And then this happened.
That happened.
And then that happened.
And then I resent all this stuff.
Okay.
All right.
Over here.
Column three.
What areas of your life
were affected by this?
Was it your pocketbook,
your pride,
your ambition,
your personal relations,
your sexual relations,
your security?
What did I miss?
Self-esteem.
That's it.
Seven of them.
Right.
That I found in there.
You look around,
see what you find.
Right.
I listed any or all of those
that were pertinent to that
individual
resentment.
Then it asked me,
which part in it?
What?
Is that him?
I mean, my part in it.
Well, we got four little things
here for you.
Look in the book.
They're beauties.
Did you do any of these
four things?
Right.
Where were you?
These things are.
We put it down in black and white.
All right.
I'll admit to being dishonest.
That went all right.
I'm fighting some.
I was self-centered.
There was self-seeking there.
Okay.
All right.
Yes.
And this is how I did that.
All right.
Very good.
It's going to the fears.
We do the fears.
Pretty much the same thing.
Going to sex.
A little different.
Why are we looking
these areas?
Because if you want to see
where I can leave
the generally accepted
playing field,
these are good areas to look in.
I'm a master of resentment.
I can borrow $10 from you on Monday
and by Thursday,
resent the hell out of you
for giving me that money.
It's remarkable.
How I can do that.
Absolutely remarkable.
Fears?
Yeah, I got a lot of them.
Self-centered fears,
the chief activator
of all my defects of character.
I'm either afraid
I'm not going to get
something I want
or I'm going to lose
something I already have.
That's in step seven
on the 12 and 12.
Second to last page,
about halfway down.
Oh.
Did you hear that?
That was pretty good.
Didn't that sound like
I knew exactly
what I was talking about?
I have no idea
if that's true.
Okay.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
You have to check me.
12 and 12,
step seven,
second to last page,
about halfway down.
Self-centered fear,
chief activator
of all my defects of character.
I got to look at my
resentment, fear, and sex.
Then you know what
I got to do?
After I put this all down
in black and white?
Yeah.
Step five.
Overcomes the sponsor
or the clergyman
or whomever you've picked,
someone you feel
you can trust,
which is an issue
for a lot of us,
certainly was for me.
My sponsor,
I got called up.
I called the sponsor
the minute I finished
my inventory.
I called Donald.
I said,
finished my inventory.
He said,
okay, let's get together
next Tuesday.
And I said,
no.
You don't understand.
This stuff is out here
on paper.
I'm on my way
over to your house now.
And he said,
well, I got to go speak
at a meeting in Eagle Rock.
You know,
come with me
and you can read it to me
in the car
on the way to the meeting.
Fine.
Race over there.
Get in the car.
Nice on the way there.
I had to pull over
because I was going
to be sick
because I,
I mean,
I couldn't believe
I could not believe
that I was reading
this stuff
to another human being.
These things that I knew
I would go to my grave with.
No one would ever know
these horrendously awful,
shameful things
that I had done.
Nobody would ever know this.
We pull over.
He wants to eat
on the way there.
We pull over
this little hamburger stand,
right?
Where we eat
and you go out
and everybody's sitting outside
is only like corrugated stuff.
You know,
and you know how
when you're nervous
you speak a little louder,
you know,
so I'm reading,
you know,
uh,
97.
Interpol.
I resent them
for their behavior
regarding the events of.
And I'm reading this stuff
and people are getting up
and moving away
from the area
where we're sitting
talking
because Donald's sitting there
who,
who is a very flamboyant
gay man,
right?
You know,
why would I have
a flamboyant gay man
as a sponsor?
Because he was such
a fine example
of understanding
the stuff
that him and Donald
were eating his hamburger
and going,
oh,
wonderful.
You know?
Oh,
I love that one.
Read it again.
People are thinking,
there's so much wrong
with what's going on
at that table.
It was perfect,
right?
And I'm reading this stuff
and I finish my inventory
and we finish,
he's finished eating
and I look up at him
and I mean,
I'm just pale white,
freaked out.
And I look up at him
like,
great,
the one human being
I trust on the face
of the earth
is about to throw me away.
That's the risk
I had to take
to do this.
That's what it felt like
to me,
right?
And he looked up at me
and he said,
I love you.
And I just went,
I mean,
I just,
I felt just that
you know what I mean,
like every muscle
in my entire body
just relaxed.
Just,
you love me.
That's good.
And he said,
and he gave me
my first direction.
He said,
we don't kill people here
one day at a time.
And I said,
I can do that.
I can do that.
And I felt like,
I'm in.
I'm in.
And we went to the
stand.
I'm a guy who did not
covet the podium.
I was not the slightest
bit interested in this
yakety yak yak thing.
You know what I mean?
I never took a chip
to the podium
to take a chip
and give them your name.
Unwilling to do that.
Don't need a chip.
Go buy one,
get it myself,
put it in my pocket.
I got a chip.
Thanks.
I never went and got one
at a meeting.
Never shared.
Didn't want to share.
Didn't have,
you know,
I had been told
I didn't have anything
anybody wanted anyway.
So why share?
I never spoke at a meeting.
I talked to Donald.
That's what I did
and did the things
he told me to do.
That's what I did
until I was two and a half.
Didn't take a cake
up here.
I didn't want to be up here
because I knew
if I came up here
you'd throw me away
because if you knew
the things that I'd done
you'd throw me away
because that's what
reasonable people would do
and you looked like
reasonable people.
So I couldn't tell you
these things.
I could tell him
but nobody else.
So we get to the meeting
in Eagle Rock
and we walk in
and the secretary walks up
to Donald and goes
I'm glad you made it.
Is this the first speaker?
Pointing at me
and he goes
Donald goes
oh yes it is.
Now I'm standing there
as vulnerable and exposed
to life
and suddenly
I'm up at the podium.
Right?
So I get up here
realizing there's
a sea of people
I say my name's Earl
I'm an alcoholic
I just did my four step
pretty amazing experience
got some very
specific direction
feel comfortable
taking it
thank you.
Sat down.
I sat down
next to Donald
and he went
wonderful.
Later that year
I gave him a cake
for
I gave him a cake
and he got up
it was at the Wednesday night
wrist slashers meeting.
This thing was hardcore man.
Wednesday night wrist slashers.
Patty and Paul Hicks man
that was an intense meeting.
You walked in there
and you could feel
just
you could feel it.
You know?
Somebody say something
real recovery like
fast man
this place is just
on the edge.
And he got up
and he said
he had asked me
to give him a cake
and it was such
an amazing honor
and he got up
and I gave him the cake
and he thanked me
and I said
thank you
and I said
thank you
thank you
thank you
thank you
I sat down
and he said
my name is Donel Madden
and I'm an alcoholic
and the miracle of my life
is that I'm sober
and who needs to know
that is me.
Thank you.
He sat down
and it was like
he had made a stamp
of that
heated it up
in a fire
and just stamped it
on my forehead.
When I turned three
that was on March 5th
of that
of 1983.
November 6th
of 1983
I took
my three year cake.
I got Donal
to give it to me
at the Wednesday night
wrist slashers meeting.
And I got up and I said, my name is Earl H. and I'm an alcoholic.
The miracle of my life is that I'm sober.
And who needs to know that is me.
Thank you.
And I sat down next to him and he looked at me and he went, oh, that was very good.
It sounds so familiar.
And I said, that's exactly what you said last March.
And he went, oh, I knew it was good.
And that's who Donald Mann was and he loved me to death.
He just loved me and rebuilt me from the ground up.
An amazing human being.
Amazing example of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Got me through the fourth and the fifth step.
Sixth and seventh step, because it's 11.07.
Sixth and seventh step, hook it back up with God.
Ask God to remove the defects of character.
Humbly ask God to remove the defects of character because I will remove the wrong stuff.
Very much enjoying this particular defect of character.
So, you may have this.
We'll talk again next week.
Maybe we'll do a swap.
Maybe you're going to have them both.
We'll see.
Uh-uh.
I got to become willing to have God remove these defects of character.
I got to get out of the way.
I got to get out of the way.
That's what the fourth and fifth step were a lot about for me.
I had to swallow some large chunks of truth about myself.
I piled up an amount of nonsense between me and my fellows and me and my God.
In my fourth step, I had to shovel a lot of that stuff up, put it in a wheelbarrow and carry it off and dump it someplace else.
It's no longer a part of my life.
I had to clear away because it's not God's job to break down the walls.
It's not your job to break down my walls.
It's my job to break down my walls.
And that's what I did in four and five as I stepped on out into the world and said,
these are some truths about me.
Then I hooked it back up with God and said, having done the work in four and five,
please, please, do what you would with me.
Thy will, not mine, be done.
Right before I speak, when I usually read the Twelve Traditions, that's my mantra.
That's all I ever say.
Thy will, not mine, be done.
Thy will, not mine, be done.
Thy will, not mine, be done.
I say it over and over and over and over again to try to get out of the way.
Get out of the way.
Don't have to take the reins.
Do I believe in God or not?
Do I trust in this or not?
Do it or don't do it.
God is or is not.
Do it.
Do it.
Do it.
Just get out of the way and let it happen.
See what happens.
What's the worst thing that can happen?
Bunch of people in the room get up and go,
that was real weird.
You know?
What the hell does it make to me?
I get on a plane, sonny, and fly the hell out of here.
You know what I mean?
Let God do it.
Trust.
Hard one for a guy like me to trust.
I had to go ask my friend Christopher one day,
how do you trust?
I don't know.
I got somebody, I was dating this woman,
I said, I feel like I should trust her.
I feel like that's what I'm supposed to do.
But I don't know how to do that.
I don't know how to trust.
What do I do?
And he said, you decide to.
Make a conscious decision.
Just go ahead.
Trust her.
I said, just like that?
I said, yeah.
Go ahead and see what happens.
Did it.
Went sideways.
Came back and said, okay, so much for the trusting.
He said, no, no, no.
You trusting her was great.
Now let's work on who we trust.
So that was great information.
I mean, he let me know.
You know what I mean?
Just moving me out into the world.
Moving me out into the world.
Developing my skills.
Making it possible for me to be among you.
Right?
Without causing a lot of trouble.
Eight and nine.
Hooking it back up with you.
Very, very sorry.
Here's your money.
Back in the house.
Back in the house.
Go back in the house.
Do not hang out there talking about what a bitchin' spiritual quest you're on.
And wait till you get a load of me.
You're gonna love me.
When you hear the things I'm doing with my life,
you're gonna be sorry you were ever...
Please.
Just go make the amends.
Go make the amends.
I'm very sorry.
What can I do to make this right?
Let's talk to me.
I'm sorry I stole your car.
I estimate the value of the car
at $3,000 at the time of the theft.
If that's an acceptable number to you,
I'm gonna start with this check
and every month you're gonna get a check from me
until I have paid you that $3,000.
If that is acceptable to you.
And because amends means to change,
I'm not gonna go steal your car and sell it
to pay you for the car I stole from you.
I'm out of the car stealing thing.
I'm out of the loop.
Right?
I'm gonna go get a job.
I'm gonna pay this money back.
I'm gonna show up.
I'm...
It's important.
And I love what Scott had to say
about the living amends thing, right?
Trusting in the process.
And just make your amends and move.
Trust in it.
Move on.
Trust in it.
Move on.
Trusting is a difficult thing for people like me.
10, 11, and 12.
Now, that's a beautiful experience I've just had, right?
Step one, what's the problem?
Lack of power.
Step two, this is a solution.
A power greater than myself?
Yeah.
Gonna restore me to sanity,
soundness of mind,
relieve me of the obsession to drink?
Yeah.
Step three, I'm gonna get on my knees,
I'm gonna turn my will and my life
over to the care of this God.
Understand?
And that's gonna make some kind of difference in my life?
You bet.
Let's see, right?
Four and five,
I'm gonna hook it back up with myself.
I'm gonna swallow large trunks of truth about myself.
I'm gonna do a four-column inventory
on resentment, fear, and sex
exactly as it's outlined
in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Then I'm gonna hook it back up with God
in six and seven.
Then I'm gonna hook it back up with you
in eight and nine.
It took me nine and a half years
to make my amends.
I lived in a one-room apartment
for six and a half years.
My first six and a half years of sobriety.
Now, I was making a lot...
At that point,
I was making way more money than...
I didn't have to live like that.
But I did if I was gonna pay off my amends.
And people often said to me,
why didn't you just...
You could have spread that over a lot more time
and had a much higher quality of life
and in that respect been a better example.
And I said, that's crap.
That is absolute crap to me
because the fact that I'm driving a nicer car
is not an example in my mind
of whether or not Alcoholics Anonymous works or not.
It's completely irrelevant.
The fact that I'm working on this at this rate
because I'm asking,
every time I balk at writing the check,
I look up on the wall
and what do I see written up there?
How free do you wanna be?
How free do you wanna be, Earl?
I wanna be free.
I was a complete pig out there.
Never in my life when I was drinking and using,
did you hear these words come out of my mouth?
No, thank you.
I've had enough.
If you can say it, it's not true.
If you can say, no, thank you.
I've had enough.
Then you haven't...
I haven't had enough.
More is required.
Never said that.
Never said, no, thank you, I'm driving.
Never said that.
I used till the wheels fell off,
till I just fell over on the floor.
So I'm gonna come in here and catch a little bit of a buzz?
No.
If I gotta come here
and I gotta find a way to get comfortable sober
and working these steps
is gonna relieve me of this obsession
so I can be comfortable clean,
comfortable clean,
that means I gotta catch me a big buzz.
If there's a big buzz to catch,
that's the one I want.
I don't want a little bitty baby buzz.
Got no interest.
I don't want to smoke a little weed.
I want to shoot a little heroin.
Right?
I don't want to have a beer.
I want to get a case of Jack Daniels
and see what happens.
That's what I want to do.
I don't get a little tipsy.
I get drunk.
I get drunk.
I don't get high.
I get loaded.
You know?
I don't feel it a little bit.
I get hammered.
That's what I like to...
There's no other way to do it.
I can't get done what I need to get done
unless I take it right to the floor.
That's what I gotta do.
I gotta do the same.
Same thing in here.
Same thing in here.
I gotta go for the big buzz.
And if I'm gonna go for the big buzz,
that means I gotta do all of it.
I gotta just do the next thing.
I can build on it.
Look at this mountain of amends and say,
you know what?
It's just this mountain of amends.
What are you gonna do?
I'm gonna do this amends right here.
I'm gonna do this one.
I know a guy that got himself a big stack
of those 3x5 cards
and he put every amends he had to make
on a stack of 3x5 cards.
Right?
And he had this stack of 3x5 cards.
Right?
Right?
Right?
Every time you'd see him.
A little smaller.
A little bit smaller.
A little bit smaller.
Light in his eyes.
A little bit brighter.
Energy about him.
Just a pulse a little bit further out from him.
Right?
That thing got real, real small.
We almost had to say to him,
don't do the rest of them.
You're freaking us out.
Because you're on fire, man.
I mean, it was...
Right?
You gotta go slower, right?
The buzz is you're freaking everybody out.
Right?
He just says, this is so great.
Right?
It's real.
It's real.
The big book comes alive.
Like Joe and Charlie say.
It comes alive.
You gotta get these words off of the page
and into my life.
10, 11, and 12 keep me in the game.
Because that first pass,
a lot of great stuff happened.
A lot of great stuff happened.
But I just scratched the surface.
I've just now been exposed to
the miraculous things that can occur along this path.
Right?
Now, I gotta do 10, 11, and 12.
10, me, 11, God, 12, you.
Same thing.
10, I continue to take personal inventory.
And when I am wrong, I promptly admit it.
Because for me not to promptly admit it
is for me to begin to fester.
And ultimately die.
I gotta do it.
I'm an extreme guy.
I must make my amends.
I gotta review each day.
And the book explains exactly how to review my day.
The prayers that I can use.
11, I seek God.
Action step.
For me, I seek God.
How do I seek God?
Through prayer and meditation.
What do I pray for?
Knowledge of His will for me
and the power to carry that out.
Period.
The end.
Thank you.
That's what I pray for.
Knowledge of His will for me
and the power to carry it out.
That's it.
No more deals.
No more,
if you'll get me out of this,
I'll do that.
If you'll give me her,
if even only for a week.
I will do these following
very pious things
in your good name.
Amen.
No!
Knowledge of His will for me
and the power to carry it out.
Period.
Bigger buzz there
than anything else
I've been able to come up with.
Alright?
Why do I meditate?
To quiet the mind
so that when the answers come,
I can hear them.
Very noisy in here.
Very, very noisy.
If you knew what was inside my head
on a good day,
you would be incredibly impressed
with the human skull.
You would.
I think it's true of alcoholism.
Alcoholics, man,
human skulls are a remarkable ally
of the alcoholic.
Because in my opinion,
the pressure that we come in here under,
I mean, we should be sitting around
in meetings every once in a while
with some newcomers.
That should just explode.
Explode.
You know?
And they got that special
cleanup committee
that runs over and cleans it up
real good.
All the other newcomers
are going,
what the hell was that?
And all their sponsors are going,
shut up!
The speaker's up there!
Look that way.
Don't worry about it.
Gotta meditate, man.
I gotta meditate
to quiet the mind
so that when the answers come,
I can hear them.
They come in the form
of an intuitionist.
A thought, an idea,
a whim.
You know?
A feeling just comes.
I know that this is
the right direction for me to go.
That this isn't as Earl sees it.
This is something else.
This is something else.
That I should go this way
and not that way.
And the answer will come
if my own house is in order.
Right?
Twelve,
unity is the body
that bring it here.
Recoveries of the mind
that work those twelve steps.
Having had a spiritual awakening
is the result
of working those steps.
That was the point.
To be restored to sanity,
soundness of mind,
relieved of the greater
aspect of my disease,
the mental obsession,
the lie that tells me
I can drink like a normal man
when I got years of experience
that says,
no, you can't.
I'm relieved of that.
It's no longer an option
on the table.
I don't have to deal with it.
It's gone.
Now I have to maintain that.
That freedom.
Because now I can walk
the earth a free man.
I must maintain my freedom.
I must pay the price
for my freedom.
Third side of the triangle.
Service.
Unity is the body
I bring it here.
Recoveries of the mind
that work the steps.
Having had that awakening,
having caught the buzz,
having been freed from the beast,
I can carry the message
and practice these principles.
How can I help?
How can I help?
And that's how I live my life now.
Unity, service, and recovery
occurs in my life
every single day of my life.
It has to.
And I've set my life up
so that it happens
whether I want it to or not.
You understand what I mean?
It happens.
It happens whether I want it to or not.
Because there are days
when I will say,
no.
No.
Then the phone rings.
And I got caller ID.
Shit, it's Adam.
Hello, Adam.
How are you?
I'm fine.
Then stop bothering me.
It's like...
Adam's at home
laughing his ass off now, right?
Because Adam's going,
ah, he did it again.
All right?
That's what Donald Man
used to do to me.
I remember I used to call him
when I was brand new
and I'd say,
God, I'm a mess.
And he'd say,
I know you are.
Tell me all about it.
I had these long,
drawn-out conversations
about his Earl season.
It was hideous for him, you know?
But somebody was actually
listening to me.
Somebody else cared about
what was going on with me.
He knew how, I mean,
that a healing was happening.
I mean, I got two or three years sober
and I'm getting a little better
and he'd say,
how are you doing?
I'd say, well, you know,
I'm all right.
He goes, oh, you know,
the day came where I called him up
and he always answered the phone,
Donald Madden.
That's the way he answered the phone.
I'd say,
he'd go, oh, I know.
We'd talk, hang up.
The day came,
I called up and he goes,
Donald Madden.
I said, hey, it's Earl.
And he goes, how are you?
I said, well, you know, I'm fine.
He said, well, of course you are.
You're sober.
Click.
And I get it.
He had hung up in my mind.
I could hear him howling.
How he had waited for years
for that to come down.
So he could just hang up on me
and know that I was okay.
Right?
Well, if that's what hung up on me
and on about my day, right?
That's what my guys,
now I sponsor a legion of guys.
I don't sponsor these guys
because I'm a good guy.
I guarantee you,
I do not sponsor all of them
because I like them.
I don't like some of them.
I don't like anything about them.
As a result, as a matter of fact,
one guy, I can't stand him.
He's the best guy I've got.
Because I know when I'm working with that guy,
I know I don't want anything he has.
I don't want anything from that guy at all
except the opportunity to be of service to him.
That's it.
That's all I want from that guy.
Because he whined.
Now, some people you can handle.
Some people are good with the whiners.
I'm not.
I want to beat them.
How are you?
Oh, I'm afraid.
Really?
Oh, man, it's hard.
Do you know it's 2 a.m.?
Yeah, I know it's 2 a.m.,
but I'm afraid.
Really?
Did you go to a meeting today?
No.
Have you read the book, my friend?
Well, no.
Have you done anything today
in defense of your own sobriety?
Have you done, taken any action at all
to pull yourself up and out of
this terrible state of mind and body
that you find yourself in?
Well, no.
Trick.
I don't want to lie to the guy.
I mean, I hear,
every time I say that,
I hear newcomers go,
oh, my God.
Cruel.
No.
You know what's cruel?
Cruel is to co-sign that
in any case.
any way. Cruel is to give that guy any impression at all that that's going to work. That's cruel
to give that guy the impression that we'll work this out from home in bed alone.
No, he always calls back the next day and says, I went to a meeting.
Well, good. I got a number of a newcomer. And I'm thinking to myself, oh, that poor newcomer.
Quick, give it to me.
We don't want you sponsoring. You're some sort of carrier. We don't.
And he's trying and he gets it. You know, that's how he gets it. You know, so I work with him.
I've worked with that guy for years.
I work with other guys that are a snap.
I work with other guys that I couldn't love more.
Couldn't love more.
I got a legion of guys and they sponsor a legion of guys.
And you know when I knew it was working out OK?
I knew it was working out OK when Donald Madden had died and it broke my heart.
Broke my heart.
And I was still in there.
And I said, I said, I'm going to I'm going to let people all over the world know about Donald Madden.
And I've spoken all over the world since he died.
And I told people that there are people like Donald Madden walking this earth.
It'll take a completely worthless human being like me and rebuild us from the ground up.
Absolutely no other reason than the joy and the opportunity of doing so.
Because he's a he's he's a remarkable member of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And I thought Donald Madden died.
And I was really, really broken hearted about it.
And I just couldn't connect with another sponsor.
I had another sponsor within three.
I was waiting.
We were waiting for them to come get Donald's body.
And I had another sponsor because Donald Madden lives inside me now and countless other guys that I know.
And on the day it worked for me was when I gave a guy I sponsor a cake for 11 years.
And we went and Jeff took the cake and Jeff said, I want to thank Earl for showing me the way.
And I want to thank the late, great Donald Madden for showing him the way, you know, and I knew Donald Madden is not dead.
Donald Madden will live forever because Donald Madden is a link in the human chain.
You know what I mean?
I caught the buzz from Donald Madden.
I shook the beast doing what Donald Madden told me to do.
Right?
Working those steps, working those steps.
Working those steps, breaking free.
What step am I on right now?
11.
Now I'm on 12.
Now I'm on 10.
Back to 11.
I'm having a 10, 11, 12 kind of night.
You know what I mean?
It's just right in there.
Right?
Starting another book study very soon.
Because what we're going to do, we're going to start at step one.
We're going to look at the cover of the book.
We're going to read what's there.
When everybody's got all their questions answered, we'll open it.
If there's anything written there, we will read it.
When everybody's questions are answered, we will go to the next page.
How long will this take?
It will take as long as it takes.
That's how long it will take.
Nobody's graduating here.
Nobody's graduating.
Oh, that's not true.
I did actually graduate one guy, a sponsor, who seemed to feel the need to graduate.
So I actually made up an AA diploma.
And I had him over to the house and we had a little ceremony and I gave him the diploma.
And he looked at me and I said, well, you've been begging for this for two years.
There it is.
Now what do you want to do?
And he was hysterical.
I handed him the diploma.
It was rolled up.
It had a little ribbon around it, you know, the whole thing.
You know what I mean?
We read it to him.
You know what I mean?
We rolled it back up.
We put the ribbon on.
We presented him with it.
And he said, okay, now what do you want to do?
And he went like this.
And we took it back.
All right.
Let's stay here.
May 26th, he will celebrate 18 years sober.
And I made him take a 60-day chip.
That's how long I've sponsored him.
I mean, I had no relationships like that here.
Steps.
Core.
Can't say it enough.
Vital.
Foundation.
Keep it simple.
Expand from there.
That's the way I learned.
You're going to hear lots of other ways to do it.
Those other ways, I have no intention of making those other ways wrong.
I'm not here to make those other ways wrong.
And no way do those ways make my way of doing it wrong.
My way is right out of the book.
That's where I do it.
My explanation of it is my way.
My explanation of it is my explanation of it as I perceive it in the book.
You know what I mean?
So as long as that's the parameters within which we talk about it,
I'm happy to mix it up with anybody.
I'm happy to hear a completely different way.
I say that it's 1, 2, 3, action plan 4 through 9, 10, 11, and 12.
I know guys that will say, no.
It's 1, 2, 3, action plan 4 through 11 and 12.
Other guys will say it a different way.
Other guys say 4 column.
Other guys say 3 column.
Other guys say 5.
Let's all spend all our time walking this path together,
trying to figure out precisely how we should do these things.
And what we will do is we will develop a program
and a fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous
that's so well versed in the program
that when my grandkids get here,
and you know they're coming,
they're not going to get some watered-down,
West Coast bullshit program
that's gotten very, very attuned
to being politically correct, right?
What they're going to get is the real deal.
The deal that works.
The original 164.
The one that the original 100 put together
and wrote down on paper and gave to us.
They'll get that.
And it will have the power that it has today.
So if you're new, congratulations.
Jump in.
There is a buzz to be caught here,
but you've got to have those 12 steps in your game bag
if you're going to catch that buzz.
You want the buzz?
Do the work.
Chop wood and carry water, man.
It's that simple around here for me.
You chop wood and carry water.
When they say, go to a meeting,
say, I feel like killing myself or several other people.
Cool.
Go to a meeting.
I want to leave my wife.
We'll talk about it later.
Go to a meeting.
I want to quit my job.
Well, everybody wants to quit their job at some point or another.
We'll talk about it later.
Now go to a meeting.
Go to a meeting.
You think that we're just blowing you off.
We're not.
We say, what step are you on?
You're thinking, isn't that just the pat AA thing to say?
No.
It's the pertinent thing to say.
You, an alcoholic, experiencing emotional discomfort and dis-ease,
asking you what step you're on is a very pertinent question.
You got an answer?
You don't like the question because you ain't got a goddamn answer.
Get into it, man.
Jump in.
All that can happen is, is that your life can explode in miraculous ways.
There's people that walk around here, they look like completely normal people.
They're not.
There's a meeting in my town.
There's a book study.
They won't let you come in until you have 25 years of sobriety.
Right?
I got like three years and eight months to go.
You know?
I'm like getting a new book ready.
Get my mojo working.
You know what I mean?
Because I want to know what those guys are talking about.
Minimum 25 years sober.
I'm convinced.
They all have sunglasses on.
They all show up very clandestine like to the meeting.
They go in.
They lock all the doors.
They close all the blinds.
They all sit down in the meeting.
They take off their sunglasses.
And there's light beams shooting out of their head.
You know what I mean?
They're just, they're catching a buzz.
You know what I mean?
The God thing?
Right here.
Right there.
Total access.
The guys that got meditation in a place where,
and I know this is possible because I've experienced it myself.
Close your eyes.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Open your eyes.
And you're coming in.
You're coming from a different place.
I know that's possible.
I know the buzz is there.
And it's called life now.
All I got to do is work those 12 steps.
Because the only way to get between these is to work 12 steps.
That's the key.
That's the way in.
It's right there.
Get in there.
Because that's life right there.
Between those two.
That's the only place there's life.
There's the only place I can live a life is right there.
Right now.
All there is is right now.
Just right now.
Right now.
In Atlanta.
Right now.
Don't got to be in an airplane right now.
You're on the ground.
Like it here.
I got enough to eat right now.
Got enough water.
Right now.
Got enough money.
Right now.
Right this second.
Yep.
Yeah, I do.
Don't seem to be needing.
Nope.
Nope.
I'm all right right now.
I'm okay.
Do I feel love?
Yeah, I do.
Right now.
Right now.
Can I feel love tomorrow?
Can I feel it right now?
Can I have a relationship with God right now?
Can I be here with you right now?
Can I be here with you tomorrow?
Not tomorrow.
Can I tell you everything is going to be all right?
Can I tell you everything is going to be all right?
Don't know.
I can tell you everything is all right right now.
Everything is all right right now.
Meditation gives me this.
God gives me this.
The steps give me this.
The whole point of drinking and using is to get out of right here right now.
Because I'm self-centered and I'm afraid.
I'm not enough.
I'm comparing my insides to your outsides every time and I'm losing every time.
I got to get to right now.
I got to get back to right now.
The steps bring me back to life.
They restore life.
Now.
That's it.
Right?
Now, if that ain't the buzz, I don't know what is.
Because that's everything now.
Everything.
Now.
God.
Now.
You.
Me.
Now.
Now.
What else am I going to do?
I got to be okay right here.
Comfortable.
Sober.
Catching the buzz.
Clean and sober.
Steps are the key in.
Got to work them.
So, I'm going to work them.
You do what you want.
I'm going to work them.
If you're new, I would suggest, come on.
Just come on.
You can bitch.
You can holler.
You can yell.
You can scream.
You don't have to like it.
You don't have to think it's a good idea.
You just have to do it.
If you do it, you'll catch the buzz.
It doesn't matter if you got a good attitude.
You'll still catch a buzz.
You can have a terrible attitude while putting the chairs away.
The action, the chopping the wood, the carrying the water, putting the chairs away will affect the change in your life.
It just does.
And if you do it every week, like your commitment suggests, it will incredibly expand upon the impact of that action.
That's what it will do.
No way around it.
How do you get big muscles?
You pick up really heavy stuff.
You put it back down again.
And what do you do?
You pick it up again.
And you put it down again.
I found the gym thing to be bizarre.
But what do you do?
You go there and you pick up really heavy stuff several times and then you leave.
Right?
What happens?
You get big muscles.
You go to the gym one time, do it real, real big and come back three weeks later and do it one time and do it real big and then come back another four weeks later and do it one more.
What happens?
You hurt yourself every three, four weeks.
That's what happens.
If you go every day, every other day, right, stuff gets good.
Same thing here.
Same thing here.
Chop wood and carry water.
And amazing things will come to pass for you as they have for countless others.
All right.
That's enough out of me.
Good night.