Two Miracles at His First Meeting: He Understood and He Believed – Bill C.

I still haven't gotten a coffee cup, and I think Pauly got like a case of water or something, you know? I was talking to Tom, and I told him, I said, man, this altitude has really got me. Yesterday, I was really struggling with it. And he says, well, how does it make you feel? And I said... I feel really brain dead. And he said, I don't notice any difference in you. This is a guy that's willing to go to any lengths, man. We've been together for days. You know, it's really an honor to be here and I'd really like to seriously thank Derek and all the people that invited me up here and Kevin and especially Kelly, you know, she needs to cheer down a little bit, don't you think? She's just a little too perky, if you know what I mean. Every time you see her coming you just can't help but smile, you know. It's like, oh God, here she comes again. Whoa. I've got a lot of friends here, too. There's people that meet Tom and Juanita and a bunch of people here. They're all escaping from California. Have you noticed? They're not coming out here. But it's really great. It's like old home week. Suzanne and Gil and Steve and Joanne and Joe and Kelly. It's really like being home. But AA is like that, isn't it? It's like coming home. I'm very blessed that I get to travel in AA a lot. And you show up at a place and within a very few hours you just relax. It's not like when we used to drink, you'd take that drink and it felt like it expanded your lung capacity. AA is life then. You walk in, you sit down, it's like you can breathe again. Like you're safe, like you're home almost anywhere you go. Although some places do it wrong. And I feel really good about having been invited to come here to this particular retreat because it makes me feel better about myself. Evidently, I'm okay. You know? And I called my sponsor and I said, gee, I think I'm all right. He asked me to come to thoughts, you know? He told me, he gave me explicit instructions. Don't screw up. But, you know, a really amazing thing happened to me in March of 1985. An incredible thing, really. I got sober. You know, I think most of us, you rarely hear the story. We talk about it sometimes, but you rarely actually hear the history. There's a story where the guy is in the drunk tank and he's on his knees and you ask God for help and it just comes and then you get sober. Most of us just fall over from the sheer exhaustion of the lifestyle, you know? We just kind of cave in, you know, and just surrender, you now. But I'm a great believer in the arrogance of alcoholism. If you see an alcoholic laying in the gutter, if his eyes are open, you can bet he's got a plan. He's thinking. I mean, every one of us, every one of this, we've had many, many moments of clarity. Moments of clarity are very common. Most alcoholics know they're alcoholic before they get sober. Most. Every one of those after an exceptionally interesting evening gets up in the morning and if you can, you look at yourself in the mirror and you say to yourself, I gotta cut this shit out. and then the very next thought is I need a drink so we know we need to get sober you just can't imagine actually doing it I mean actually not drinking it's hard to imagine so when it happens when it happens it's a remarkable experience when that obsession gets lifted and we don't drink and I think after you're sober while you have a tendency to forget it you take it for granted the sober life becomes the normal life you get used to it and somehow or another we need to look back and realize that our lives have been saved something really incredible happened that doesn't happen to most people we get sober it changes our lives but my journey in AA really didn't begin in March of 85. It really began in March of 1954. My father got fired from the job and rather than go to the bar he came home. And I'm pretty sure it was my mother that called AA and he went to a meeting in Englewood on Western Avenue and he met with my mother and he came to that meeting in a little clubhouse and he told my mother those people have got something down there and I'm going to go back and find out what it is. Well, the next night And she went with him in order to monitor the experience. She showed up down there and they walked into the clubhouse together and this woman came up to my mother and asked her what she was doing there. She looked out of place. And she says, well, I'm here to make sure he fills out the form and pays the dues and buys the book. And this woman took my mother into the other room. Don't make Al-Anon jokes if you don't know what it is. A lot of people make a lot of stupid Al-Annon jokes, but if you know what they are, and you know who it is, you can make some great Al-annon jokes. Stop and think of the consciousness of an individual that would live with us on purpose. What are they thinking? Oh, this will be fun. Something to do on the weekends. Kind of like restoring an old car or something. When my father died in 1999, he was 45 years sober. My mother died in 2002. She was 48 years in Al-Anon. So on top of all my other problems, I was raised in one of those god-awful AA homes. And back in the 50s, AA wasn't like it is today especially well I don't know about here but in California what those people were doing is they were building the Alcoholics Anonymous that we now enjoy on the west coast they were starting meetings and planning and plotting and connecting the dots and opening the central offices and starting clubs my mother helped found the Al-Anon Central Office or the intergroup in LA way. And we hung out with Chuck and Clancy was the newcomer and they all said he'd never make it. And those of them that are still alive still say that about him. I've cleared that with him, it's the truth. But I've been to all the potlucks and the barbecues and now I know why we were going to Bakersfield all the time. I mean there's no good reason and to go to Bakersfield. And it was the Southern California Convention, you know. So I grew up in the rooms of AA a lot. I was six years old when he got sober and I remember, you Know, there was these meetings that they started that I would sit in the kitchen on a Friday night and bring out the coffee and the donuts during the break and hold hands with all of you and go, keep coming back, it works, you Now. And I had one of those houses where we had a lot of weird uncles hanging around, you know. I'd come home from school and there'd be a weird uncle laying on the back porch, you know, waiting for his sponsor to come home, you know. Here's a good description of hell. You're laying on some guy's back porch. You're hungover, half drunk. It's a hot day. and you're sweating and you feel like hell. And there's a nine-year-old kid in your ear going, You know, you're not supposed to drink. That's called hell. One day I came home and there was a woman hiding in the garage. That was the Al-Anon. We had one particular weird uncle named Harold, and Harold was really a nice man. I really liked Harold. He was very kind to me. He was on the back porch a lot. And he just couldn't get it. He'd keep drinking. He had no car, and my dad would get him clothes and give him odd jobs around the house to fix and repair things, get money in his pocket and take him to meetings. finally Harold got sober and he started showing up he had a car and he showed up and he was dressed nice he got a job and he wasn't he was looking good he met a woman in AA and I went to the wedding when they got married then he got drunk and he got divorced and I Went to the funeral when he burned himself up alive drunk, smoking in bed in an old hotel I was 13 years old when that happened And I knew that the reason that Harold died is because he drank. I knew it wasn't a bad accident. At 13 years old, I knew if you're an alcoholic, you shouldn't drink. Bad things happen. Those people were around my house a lot. I watched it. I watched them happen. Now, when you're a kid, you're not really connected to what your parents are doing because they're stupid. And, you know, I mean, I'd be around it, but I wasn't like into it. You know, it was like, and I couldn't wait to drink. Remember waiting around? You know what I mean? You have a few sips here and there somewhere, and finally you get the job done. I was probably about 14 or 15 years old. A buddy of mine's older brother had a party, and he let us drink whatever we wanted. And we went outside and had a big 16-ounce plastic cup and just poured stuff in it, choked it down. Got drunk. Got hammered. I caused some trouble at the party and they loaded me up in the car and they drove me back to my parents' house and dumped me out on the front lawn. I crawled in the house and crawled down the hallway into my bedroom. I'm laying on the bed and I got one foot on the floor to stop the spinning. In fact, in those days we had these big black plastic things called records. I'm serious and they had a little hole in the middle and we played them on pieces of furniture called record players and some of these pieces of furniture had lids on them so I puked in the record player there. I crawled back down the hall, got into the bathroom, and I'm sitting on the toilet with a trash can between my legs because it's coming out both ends now. Bathroom door opens up. I see my mother standing there with this aghast expression on her face, and my father standing behind her laughing hysterically and both of them in their own way were saying oh my god it begins much like Polly they were raising their little alcoholic you know and off I went boy boy. I never knew there was a line, didn't know there was a line. I drank for effect immediately. I was one more step up the evolutionary scale. By the time I was 17 years old, I was a bad drunk in high school. I had a bit of a problem with authority. I have the big jacket and the slouch and the smear and a foul mouth and a bad attitude and I wasn't shy. And I had already been to jail by the time I was 17 and I was in trouble. I was enraged at 17 years old. You know, the children are coming into AA now. Have you noticed? The kids are coming. And I hope we accept them with open arms. When the hospitals built up around the United States, Alcoholics Anonymous developed an adversarial relationship with recovery programs. And I don't think it ever fully recovered. There's still an attitude about it a lot. The skin dries and stuff. This is exactly what Bill Wilson wanted. He wanted access to recovery. My father and Chuck Chamberlain and a bunch of guys were involved in what Wilson called the Big 12 Step, going to the government to try to get them to recognize this truly as a disease so that they'd quit incarcerating us and put us in hospitals and help us to recover and open the door to Alcoholics Anonymous. It's here now. Access to recovery is available to everyone. David Hawkins, in his book Power Versus Force, writes that Alcoholics Anonymous is probably the single most significant social movement of the 20th century. But in the United States and the Americas, he says, it has touched the lives of 50% of the population. That's 150 million people. There are over 300 12-step programs. You have to look at the entire thing. Look what we have spawned. look what has happened in the world it has changed the face of psychotherapy it will never be the same they now acknowledge and recognize the spiritual component of human nature we did that we did so now the children are coming and the little bastard refused to leave My home group is the Hermosa Beach Men's Tag It is where the men are men and the sheep are nervous On any given Monday night There's 110 guys Shoehorned into this room And 50% of that room is probably under the age of 22 years old. We had a kid about a year ago who was 15 years old taking a one-year take, and he gave the most right-wing, deaf squad AA pitch I have ever heard. And I've been around, and I think I'm pretty tough. This kid stood up there, and at the end of his pitch, he looked out at everybody and pointed his finger. And he said, and if you're sitting out there tonight, and you don't have a sponsor, and you aren't working the steps, may God have mercy on your soul. I went right up to him and asked him to be my sponsor. For weeks after that, we were walking around going, May God have mercy on your soul. He's still there. He's two years sober now. He's the cleanup chairman. His attitude hasn't changed much either yet. When I was 17, I was in trouble. I was a full-blown alcoholic at 17 years old that's all I could think about that's what I wanted to do and I was doing it and I went after it and I lived the lifestyle of the middle of the 60s it was a great time to be a loser because we had a uniform and everything you look at people and go yeah I'm a drug addict and alcoholic what's wrong with you you know we tattoo it on ourselves you know and when I sit with those kids today and because they want what we have they're not hanging out here because it's cool you know this place is not cool matter of fact Scott Redman told me I dearly love that man and he said Alcoholics Anonymous has offered me a level of lameness that I did not know was available available. But when I sit with them and I read the book with them, and I work the steps with them or they just come over to hang out, it's like looking at myself. It's me. It is me. it's redemption. It is redemption. I know how they feel. It isn't that big of a stretch, you know? The music is a little different. Not much really, you And they got more metal in their face, a lot more tattoos. I'm convinced I need more tattoos, but it's redemption. It's part of what saves our souls. It's like talking to myself. But at 17, I wasn't hearing anything. Nobody was talking to me and I was in trouble. By the time I was 22, I was in the Oregon State Mental Institution. I needed a rest. I mean, it was the 60s, you know. I mean the road from Los Angeles to San Francisco was a road to nirvana. Golden Gate Park was the center of the universe. They weren't eating hitchhikers yet so it was safe to travel. You know, the young ladies were discovering their sexuality and we were helping them as best we could. You'll hear guys in AA say, you know, I wouldn't trade my worst day sober for my best day drunk. I wouldn' trade 66 and 67 for anything, man. From what I understand, it was a real hoot. I can't really tell you any stories about it because I lied about it for so long that I'm really not sure what the truth is and I'm pretty certain I did not live with Joan Baez. But I said I did for years. She still looks good to me. In 1965, the Hells Angels rode into the valley at Bass Lake. I'm both friends up Fresno in California, and I found my career path. I wanted to be a gangster, tough guy, you know, We're a long duster and have six shooters and something like that. It was always attractive to me, you know? I always wanted to be behind the backstop of the guys who were over there smoking. The dark side has always been attractive to мне. And I went after that. And I met her. And she was young and had long brown hair. She lived up in Oregon and was down there for the summer. And we went up to Oregon together. I went back there with her. We got married and had two small children. By the time I was 22, I was sticking needles in my arm every day and drinking like a fish and running with an outlaw motorcycle gang. I wasn't coming home to that family and they were on welfare. And I ended up in a mental institution at 22. 22. Not much of a party, you know? A lot of us never partied. And, you know, to be truthful, I never really partied, man. It was a lifestyle. I lived like that. I lived it. I didn't party and then go home. And I think the whole idea behind the drinking thing was to have a couple of shots and get out of the house and go to the party and meet her and him, get lucky, have some fun, have som adventures. I ended up naked in my living room watching religious television taking notes. I'm having sex menage a uno next time you see some guy come in today and he says I'm just a party kind of guy ask him how many other people were at the party we have a strange ability to end up completely alone Alone. Physically alone. And that was me at 22. See, my story is I was a surfer and a biker and a tough guy. And I never went to the beach. My motorcycle rarely ran. And I was afraid to fight. But I looked really good. I had a chrome Nazi helmet for a hat and a primary chain for a belt and black greasy Levi's with big black boots with chains around them. I've got tattoos all over me. But I had a clip-on earring because I didn't want to hurt myself. So I see there's some other phonies in the room. room. Anybody else here been in a mental institution? Oh, that's not enough hands. There's a whole bunch of you out there going, well, it really wasn't an institution. They were just observing me. Only those of us who have been in a mental institution know that it's not that bad. You have some sparkling conversations in the mental institution. It's a great place to to look for a bride. So the state of Oregon thought I should leave, I agreed, and I came back down to California. Now, as Tom mentioned before in his earlier talk, one of the requirements us from being an alcoholic is that you must hate your parents. It's just mandatory. Because for the alcoholic life to seem like the only normal one, you can never ever take responsibility for your own behavior because it's indefensible. If you take responsibility voor it, you're required to change. So it's got to be someone else's fault. Usually in one fashion or another it has to be somewhere else's fault. And mom and dad are first. They're the first They're the first ones to try to curb the fun, you know. And I hated my parents, and I especially profoundly disliked my father. When he would enter a room, it would just turn my stomach. I just absolutely hated him. And I'm not quite sure exactly where that comes from, but I had rage. You know, all of us talk about feeling disconnected, you Know, Before we ever drank, we didn't feel part of that the alien ship dropped us off and left us with these strangers and were waiting for the mothership to return. We have different ways of describing that. We talk about that as if it's unusual. I think every kid feels that way. Every kid, as they grow up, they disconnect. Any of you, any of us that have raised teenagers can watch it happen. At one point, you know, they're like 8, 9, 10 and you're their favorite toy and you go into the soccer games and they hit 12 or 13 and you see the look in their eyes. You have become the stupidest person they've ever met in their lives. And they feel disconnected. Like nobody understands. They got too many zits and they're gawky and they feel weird, you Know? All of us. The difference between us and them is we medicated that. We never grew up out of it. There's another term that you hear in AA. You hear this term, alcoholic thinking. As if there is such a thing. Silk worth on down, the professional community never uses that term. You only hear it in AA, usually combined with the sentence that we are of above average intelligence. But we have alcoholic thinking, you know. It's kind of like that. Well, the professional community calls it exactly what it is. Emotional immaturity. And we hear that and we go, no. I have special thinking. And you need to consider that when you're dealing with me. That's just my opinion, but it's a really good one. So I hated my father profoundly. I came back down to Los Angeles, and when you need something, you can overlook certain things. You know? So, Dad let me sleep in his garage, and he gave me a job at his machine shop in El Segundo, and I tried to get normal. What normal is, is you've got to stop shooting heroin because you can't get anybody to go along with the concept of social heroin use. It's pretty much a lifestyle. You've gotto quit taking LSD because regular people have communication with each other. And LSD is not conducive to two-way communication. So I quit all that hard drug scene. I stopped. up. And you can only drink on the weekends when you're getting normal, because normal people have jobs and they go to them days in a row. I've watched them do it. It's incredible. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, you know, next week, same thing over again, Monday, need to. And when I drink, I don't show up no matter what. Everything stops and here they come. For the tape, there's automatic fire going off. There's some fundamental sex in the hills coming down. We are, after all, in Colorado. So what you do during the week is you smoke pot because it's green and it's from God and it doesn't really really drugs. And because I don't know about you, but the impact of your personality on me is devastating. I cannot do you. And I need something in me to cushion the blow of you on me. I just can't do it. I never learned how. I I never grew up, and I can't handle it. So I tried this experiment. The other thing for an alcoholic to get normal of my variety is you've got to find a woman because I can never, ever be alone. It is a group effort getting me through life. It takes a village. And there are volunteers out there. And I met her. She had long brown hair. And we set up housekeeping, and I tried to get normal. I tried the cleaning up my act. And we had two more small children. And at the age of 37 years old, 15 years after the mental institution, I was as miserable as I ever hoped to be in my life. I lived in a house with that woman and those two kids and I had no emotional connection to another living human being. And I didn't know it was that bad. I didn'T know that. I can't have a separate experience and engage the one that I'm having and make the determination that there's something wrong. They're getting closer. I think they're just outside the pavilion. Hopefully our militia is prepared. Does anybody in here have lightning bolts tattooed on their shoulder? So like any good gangster, I called my mother. Next time you see some big badass guy come in, ask him, do you live with your mom? Chances are, chances are. And he's probably a bad mouser. And she doesn't understand me. Well, you're 45 years old, man. So my mother came and got me. And she checked me into a place called Starting Point in Costa Mesa, California. And I spent 35 days in there. my parents took me to my first therapist when I was 13 years old because of the rage because I had rage I would have rage seizures I would double over fall on the floor the bile from my stomach would come up into my mouth my veins in my neck would throb my eyes bulging fist into the wall head into the walls at the injustice of it all you know I don't know where that came from you know I've struggled with it most of my life and they took me to a shrink. I spent a year and a half with him and he really helped me. And what he really did is he introduced me to my favorite subject, me. That lifelong pursuit of stuff. And I've spent two different tours of duty in the mental institution. I was two and a halftime years in a group therapy situation at one time. I'd been to several other therapists for one thing or another. I'd have been gestalted and rolled and primal screamed, I know more about myself than it's safe to know. So when I really was reaching out for help, I couldn't imagine just coming here and going to meetings and not drinking. I need more therapy. I need to be put in somewhere. I need To Be Locked Up Somewhere. You know, I need medical attention and I need therapy. I'm just kind of a sensitive guy in a cold, cruel world, you know, I need somebody to really listen to me, to understand, to help me flesh out the root cause of my problems. And once that I can expose them to the light of day and really see them for what they are, I can adjust my behavior accordingly and then everything will be fine. I don't think that works. So while I was in this place for 35 days, they made me wear a sign around my neck. I had to make the sign. We made it in crafts. It was a little rectangular piece of cardboard with a string that went through it that said, I am not a counselor. slur. Because evidently there was some confusion about that. I used to help guys do their inventory. I swear to God. I tell them, put some homosexual stuff in there. Make them think you're telling them the truth. You know, they like to read about that. And you probably did, you just don't remember it. Well, you know, I woke up with a couple of guys, but it wasn't anything being serious, you know. It's just like, well, hello. We share in a general way, you dear me so after 35 days they let me out they just let us out you know go forth multiply like we're okay now we're alright and where do we end up AA Hey, there's nowhere else to go. You know, it's linoleum floors and metal folding chairs for the rest of our natural lives. It's like party. There are no referrals from alcoholics in Ottawa. There's no place you walk into and you say to them, I'm from AA, they sent me here. This is it. The inmates are running the asylum. We are the therapists. You know, we're the counselors. People ask me for relationship advice. I've been married three times. And I give them advice. Don't you love it? We're experts. Have you ever had anybody say to you, so what happens now? We're sober. We walk into AA. What now? What are we going to do? We sat around all this weekend talking about the steps and kind of the mechanics of it and how it works and kindof what doesn't and what does and what we think is correct or the right approach or an intense approach or is there a weak approach a medium approach a strong approach? Yeah, there is. There's weak AA there's medium AA AA and there's strong AA. If you've been around AA long enough, you've done all three. You know? And the strong one works better. But I'm a new guy in AA. What happens now? What happens to me? I just wander in. They don't tell me go here. These people are better. They just say go to meetings. So I go to meeting. So what happens? What's the journey? They talk about 1985. I got awakened. What a remarkable experience. Some years later, I was sitting with but a friend of mine got involved with this Indian guru, and he says, why don't you come with me? He's giving a talk, and we can hang out and spend the afternoon together. And this is a neat guy, and I was really intrigued by all this. And I'm sitting in the room with this guru, and at one point he starts laughing at me. That's what they do, they laugh at us. And I said, what are you laughing at? He goes, I just love you alcoholics and drug addicts. And I say, why? He says, well, the rest of them out there are trying to get awakened. You're just trying to figure out what the hell happened. Because you're already there, you just don't know it. You're easy. And I believe that. I believe we've been awakened. I think a remarkable, we call it God's grace, something touched us. Something very special. Something that shouldn't be squandered. And the rest of the journey is to take that awakening and turn it into some kind of an awareness where we're actually conscious of the fact that we're awake and that we can do something with that really focus on it, look at it and watch ourselves move through life earlier this week we were talking about the 6th and 7th step about character defects how do they get addressed? what happens? functionally, how does it work? is it just prayer and meditation? we talk about finding a higher power that will solve our problems how functionally does that work? I think I know I think I know. At least I have my own experience. You'll hear people in AA say, the longer I'm sober, the less I know Don't you wonder about those people? Aren't they paying attention? To me it's just spiritual pride couched in false humility I've been sober 23 years I damn well better know some stuff I've just been paying attention most of the time People come and ask me for help Do I have any? Do I have a message that has depth and weight? And how did I get, if I do, how did it get there? What happened to me? You ever had anybody say to you, he's not emotionally available for me. You ever heard that? Usually in family group. You know? When she finally looks at you and looks at the therapist and says, he's just not emotionally able or available for you. You know what they mean by that? What they mean about that is I've got something that they want and I'm withholding it. The truth is worse. I don't have it. And what's worse than that, it gets worse. What's worse then that is I don' t know that I don''t have it You've convinced me that I got it and I'm helping you look for it And this dance is going to go on forever Forever forever. Now that I'm a newcomer, now that I am sober and I'm in Alcoholics Anonymous and I am going to 875 meetings a week and I've got the sponsor thing and I was as obsessed as I have ever been, you know, it just looks a little different. I'm not drooling on myself anymore, you know, but I'm probably out of the house more than I was before. Now that I'm sober, if you would like me to be emotionally available for you, it's going to take about at least 10 years. I'm serious. When you and I started drinking and or using, we stopped growing emotionally. We stopped. We missed all the lessons. You know, we never learned how to have healthy relationships. We've never really had a broken heart. We've just gotten really pissed when somebody didn't do what we wanted them to do, you know, and we mistake that for some sort of an emotional life, you know. It's either rage or euphoria, you know what I mean? It's that very little middle ground, you know? And we skipped it all. Now that we're sober, we're going to have to live through the experiences again. You cannot speed that process up, but you can definitely slow it down. by picking and choosing what you will and won't do. The most spiritual thing said in Alcoholics Anonymous is get in the car. Just get inthe car. Well, where are we going? What do you care? Get in the Car. And for some god awful reason I got in the CAR. I got intrigued with you right away. I'm one of the lucky ones. I've always liked it. Always. even when I struggled against it. And the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous is something to be survived. This is the character defect center of the known universe. You won't keep me sober. You'll hit on my wife, you'll borrow money from me and you won't pay me back. I'll give you a job, You'll do a shitty job, and somehow it will be my fault. That's my personal favorite. And then you won't show up to my birthday party after all I've done for you. So I need something more than that. I need some more. I need to get something more from that. I was very lucky that I got a sponsor that took me into his home Thursday at 5 o'clock. with my time slot. He said, read the doctor's opinion and make notes on the margin and we'll discuss it. So I read the doc's opinion when I got to his house he did not trust me that I'd read it so he had me sit there and read it to him out loud. And we discussed my notes. And he gave me air time. He gave me his time. And he told me things like as your sponsor my job is to guide you through the process of the 12 steps so that you will find a power greater than yourself that will solve your problems. To bring about this psychic change that we read about in the doctor's opinion and he helped define that for me. We talked about that. He said, now I'd be happy to sit here and talk to you about what you think your problems are so that You will not share about them in the meetings. He said the meetings are for recovery from alcoholism not about how your day went. And I immediately... People don't always clap when you say that. I immediately went back to his house and I said, You know, they're breaking that rule down at the Alano Club right and left. He told me, Alcoholics Anonymous is a safe place. You can talk about whatever you want. What I understand about that today is is that when you see people doing that, it's that they don't have a sponsor. Or at least one that they're talking to. And they're using the meeting as their sponsor. And when people are using meetings, when they mistake the meetings for Alcoholics Anonymous, it becomes very critical how the meetings are run. Because they're getting the message that they need from that meeting. So it's very important that the meeting be structured correctly so that they can get what they need from it. Because they're not bringing anything to it. And they don't know that. That's just what I observe. I've had the same sponsor for 23 years. We communicate regularly. We always have, for the most part. There's been periods where that wasn't true. But this man took me through these steps week by week. We read a chapter a week for a period of time and he got me into an inventory. And I did a fifth step. Then we made a list of amends and I went about the process of making the amends. And one of the amens I had to make was to my father. And I knew I had to do it. I still really disliked the man but by this time I had learned that I cannot live with that kind of rage. That it will kill me. And it was leaking out all over everything around me. And on his 70th birthday I went to him and I took him into another room and I sat him down and he looked at me and he says, you don't have to do this. And I said, you more than anybody know that I do. And I told him, I said you're my father and I love you and I don't want to hate you anymore. And we talked a little bit and I drove home that night and it was like something reached down inside of me and just pulled that rage right out of me. I will never, I hope I never forget that experience. It was my personal experience. It was My spiritual experience. I felt that rage go away. My father and I discovered each other in AA. We couldn't share anything together most of our lives. He didn't like me much either, for a very good reason. I was a bad boy. I broke into their house and stole their TV set. He came, tracked me down, found me, and took it back. Oh, God. One of the high points. His birthday was March the 28th. Mine is March the 27th. For 14 years we gave each other birthday cakes. Each other at the Hermosa Beach Men's Tag. It was a very special... It was the Gordon and Bill night in the meeting. It was an amazing day. It was very special night. And I found my daddy. Was he Ward Cleaver? No He was my daddy He was his father And I fell in love with him If I can grasp the idea that I'm powerless That my life is unmanageable Early on they took it easy on us And they told us Well we're powerless over alcohol They didn't tell us up front That we're powerless over everything Thank goodness this. I've come to understand the depth of that step and the good news that it really brings. I am absolutely, utterly powerless over everything. I have no control over the people that live around me or with me. That's obvious. I don't know what to do. I'm not I have zero control over a geopolitical situation in the world. Look at it. You know, I have no control over anything. Absolutely none. And if I have no control, how could I possibly manage anything? Managers have power. They have control. They have power, but I have none. I have no power so I can't manage anything. This is good news because even if I think I do have power and I can manage in nature, I don't. Therein lies my suffering. It doesn't change just because I think I have it. The truth is, the immutable lie is I am absolutely powerless. I am dependent upon others around me. I am part of a larger whole whether I like it or not. And if I step outside of that circle away from that larger hole therein lies my suffering. If I could grasp that first step then the second step becomes operational. I need a manager. I need somebody to step in or something, some entity, something to step in and take over. The truth really about that is it already has. It already has I'm just acknowledging it. I'm not just stepping out of the way if you will. So if I can do that second step and say I need a manager the third step becomes operational. What do you do? You turn your life and will over to it. Well what life and well? The fourth step. The resentment, the fears and the broken relationships that comes from a life with seeming power and manageability. You know, I have resentments because I can't control anything and people are continually doing things their own way and it makes me mad. It makes me angry. You know whenever you see somebody puts down the government the DMV which I did all those things you know I think I'm anti-establishment. No, I'm just disconnected. I don't get it. I don' t like this reality. You know, therefore I have lots of fear because deep down underneath I believe that I am out of control. And therein lies all my fears. And if you're filled with resentment and fear how could you possibly have anything remotely resembling a healthy relationship of any kind? And in the ceremony that we do to complete the third step is the fifth step. It's the ceremony that we go through with myself another human being and the manager. Here, you take it. I'm done. I'm pooped. And we physically, literally, turn it over. Write it down. Acknowledge it. Recognize it. And give it away. Here, You take it." The sixth and seventh step are two paragraphs in the book for good reason. There's really nothing to do. I can see what the character defects are in the fourth column of the resentment list. Mine, faults and mistakes. days. And I can acknowledge them and I can become willing. But I think the actual fact of that comes later. The manager then gives us a job. He says, make amends, make a list, take all the resentment people, put it on there and anything else you can come up with and go about the process of making amends. So I do that. I make the amends around that time that I was doing this. Clancy and a bunch of people were taking meetings to Russia And I got on the mailing for that. And I went to my sponsor and I said, I'm going to go to Russia and carry the message. He says, why don't you go to Oregon and make amends? And I did. I did I went with those two kids up there that are still in a lot of trouble. They're 40 years old and they're a mess. and I made amends to those children and to that ex-wife so I get to the bottom of the ninth step you'll hear people say put yourself at the top of the amends list you've been your own worst enemy that will pretty much kill you you know you want to make amends to yourself put yourself at the bottom by the time you get there you'll have some self esteem I think that's how it works you'll heard people say things like take what you can use and leave the rest please that's the way I lived my whole damn life taking what I wanted and anything that made me remotely uncomfortable I avoided like the plague. You're going to let me do that with AA to make it more comfortable for me? Recovery by its very nature is uncomfortable. If you're not uncomfortable you're probably not doing much. I've just simply gotten used to it. And so we get to the bottom of that list. Now, when I finish my amends, am I emotionally available? Am I there for you? No. Now there's hope. Just a ray of hope that maybe someday, if we're lucky, I'll have some compassion. passion. I've done about 15% of the program at this point. Alcoholics Anonymous to me is not about inventory after inventory after inventory. That's just another form of self-obsession. But now there's hope. I have done Sober 101. I've done the basics, I've gone to the beginning class and I've passed the class. Ive done best I can. Ten years from now, when I'm ten years sober, I'll probably do a lot more of that work. Even within that ten years, more will be revealed. More will come up. And the way it gets revealed and the way it comes up is you bring it to me. I try to interact with you. I've tried to have relationships. I tried to make friends. And I get hurt and I get pissed off and I get angry and I have bad behavior because I'm 40 years old and and I've got the emotional development of a 16-year-old, and that kid was not an honor student. He's the one with a bit of a problem with authority, you know? 10, 11, and 12 people talk about the maintenance steps. Maintain what? What have I got? Is this thing, is it truly, is it just about not drinking? I don't think so. I think it's the number one priority because without that, nothing else can come. But at this point, it's about growing up. It's about having this rich, full life that we talk about. It's not just about growing old. It's also about connecting with other human beings. It's a celebration of intimacy. It's all about receiving love and giving love. And we don't know much about any of that. We mistake intimacy with sex. Sex is a celebration of the intimacy in a relationship. It's an celebratory thing. If I don't have much sex in my relationship, maybe there's nothing to celebrate. I'm serious. Intimacy to me is when I'm capable of feeling what you feel, not just react to how you feel impacts me. It's when I actually see it, when I can put myself in your shoes. And you and I as alcoholics, we immediately connect with each other because we come from the same place. Later on, we We both really connect with each other because we have a way out upon which we can all agree. And when we both know the way out and we start sharing that, things get really interesting. When we can truly be emotionally honest, when does that happen? Only when we can see it. And that only comes in time, through experience. This thing is experiential, not intellectual. I have to live my way through it and not run away not runaway a hard thing to do we're runners maybe we don't physically run away but we definitely shut down and slink away you know we believe that we are our thinking mind we believe that what we think is who we are it couldn't be any farther from the truth and we're not in touch with that aspect of our nature yet not for quite a while the tenth step is about the continuing inventory process the awareness being aware living the examined life paying attention looking at it and paying attention it is joined at the hip with the eleventh step that when I sit in prayer and meditation and I ask for help I am living that examined life Because I'm looking at it and I'm saying, please help me. So when this manager sends me help, I shouldn't turn it away. And it's going to look a lot like you. He's goingto send me you. And I'm not going to want to deal with you. I'm going to run away from you. Yes, I want patience and tolerance. But not with you." I just want it to magically appear to where suddenly I just love you without the pain of having to deal with you. You know? You never say no. I live by two rules. The twelfth step is why we were saved. It's where everything happens. Everything happens in the twelfths step. It all happens. In the ninth step, we get some self-esteem. We start to feel better about ourselves. In this twelfth step is when it all changes, when it All Happens, when it ALL comes home. This is where we're going to spend the rest of our lives is in this twelveth step. I don't think he was kidding when he wrote our very lives depend upon our constant thought of others and how we may help meet their needs. Isn't that intimacy? Isn't That What He's Doing? How do I know what your needs are unless I can feel you in my life? I live by two rules. I always answer the phone. I don't have caller ID. I'm not afraid for anybody to call me. I'm no hiding from anybody. I have no secrets anymore. And you are always more important than whatever rerun of Law & Order I'm watching. Although many times, I don' t believe that. But I have to paint myself in a corner, so I always answer the telephone. Always. Rule number two, never, ever say no. There's never a good reason to say no, ever. If I have faith that this manager is going to run my life, I need to let it do it. I need the help of God. I need you to go along with it somehow. These are my two little stupid God tricks. When I'm asked, I just go. Oh, when anybody comes up and asks me for help, I just say yes. How could I not? I used to stand up at these podiums and I'd say that if you were on medication, you weren't sober. You know why I said that? Because I heard some of you say that, and I thought it was a real good right-wing badass opinion to have, you know? It's the old biker in me. Let's piss him off. I had no experience, but I had an opinion. Then this guy walked up to me and he asked me, he says, will you be my sponsor? but I think I should tell you I'm bipolar and I'm on medication. And he went, oh jeez, I'm one of these losers. But I can't say no. Ever. Ever. To anybody. So I said, okay, we'll give it a shot. And I start reading the book with this guy and I had the experience of peeling him off the ceiling and lifting him up off the floor. One time he came across my living room and he curled himself up at my lap and put his head in my neck and cried like a baby. Forty-year-old man, that will get your attention. Now when I see that guy come and I say, have you taken your medication? Because you have issues, dude. There's some stuff going on with you. so I had an opinion then I had an experience and it changed my opinion that's how it works that's why you never say no I don't have I never have had a good idea of what was good for me where I should be now I believe that all newcomers are bipolar and I think the entire medical profession wants to medicate us for whatever reason and there's a lot of stuff I don' agree with but I do know that people have demons that I don't have. People have problems that I don't count. A woman, I did this rant one time and this woman said to me, well this girl came up and asked me to sponsor her and she's a cocaine addict and I've never had any experience with cocaine and I told her no, what do you think? And I said well you're never going to learn about cocaine addiction now because you sent her away. And probably she doesn't have any problem being a cocaine addict. She's probably looking for some recovery. Don't you know about that? And how do you know if this girl wasn't supposed to come to you and hang on to you for a while until she found the right person to be with? That's happened to me a lot. People come to me, I've had guys come up and ask me to sponsor them who have never been drunk. And this guy asked me this, and I said, why are you here? And he said, well my therapist sent me here to work on my social skills. Now I sat there and I thought This is a good time to say no Nobody can argue with this But I told him, I said Okay, I'll do it, but don't tell anybody And I worked the steps with him He did an inventory and everything At the time I was riding bicycles I was getting in shape. I was trying to regain my health. I have a bad liver and stuff. I wanted to ride a century, and this guy was a cyclist. And I couldn't find anybody to go with me. And he said, I'll go with you. He'd been riding for years. And at about 70 miles, I wanted it quick. And he stayed with me because he says, oh man, don't quit. I'll help you. I'll be with you." And I made it. Now why do you suppose he was sent to me? I think I know. But see, I can't figure this stuff out. I can determine that something I do over here is going to affect me way over here or why somebody is being sent to me. When anyone anywhere reaches out for help, I want the hand of Alcoholics Anonymous to be there. For that, I am responsible. Is that true? So I can tell them where I think they belong. I've got connections in other fellowships. You know, my own little central office. office. My sponsor calls me up and he says, is this command central? Some of you get my emails. I'm screwed up. I believe it all. I live it as best I can. I have a wonderful life. I met a woman in AA. We live in a home. She's sober. She sponsors lots of people. and there's guys on my back porch. You try to separate the girls and boys. In closing, I'd like to tell you one little quick story. We've got a little time. This whole intimacy thing, the reason I talk about it is because it's what's happening to me right now. It's what going on in my life right now Another door has opened. Another level, another dimension that I didn't know was there because I can't see beyond my own experience. When I was about two or three years sober, I was sponsoring this guy whose mother was dying. He was standing in my kitchen and she was in the hospital and he gave him my phone number because he knew that that's where he'd be. And they called and he got up to leave and he wasn't leaving. And I knew what he wanted and I did not want to go. I'd never seen anybody dying. I didn't think we needed to do that. I mean, we're just lay people, right? There's limitations on what we can do and how we participate because, you know, I don't want to get too uncomfortable. And he wouldn't leave and I knew what he wanted and I asked him, do you want me to go with you? And he said, would you please? And he had a brother and a sister but they trust us for some reason. They trust us more than their own family. What is that? They hardly know us and they trust me. They trust me and they put their lives in our hands. They literally do that. They put their lies in our heads. So I went with him, and I walked in the room, and it was awful. She's all hooked up to tubes. She was at the end. And I found a chair in the corner of the room and I sat there. And I closed my eyes and I breathed. And a feeling came over me, and the feeling was, there's nothing wrong here, Bill. Everything's okay. This is not a mistake. It's all right. Bless. And I got Al to come sit with me. He's as big as I am, but he's a larger man. He's got big hands. He's a carpenter. He sat down next to me, and I held his hand, and I looked in his eyes and I said, Al, it's okay, man. There's nothing wrong. It's all right. And we prayed together and we were holding hands like this and as we prayed I felt his hand relax in mine. That's amnesty. It's very quiet. It's subtle as most emotions are and I miss it all the time And unless I allow myself to be taken to places that I'm unfamiliar with, the spiritual experience isn't going to happen. It always happens when I'm uncomfortable or I'm in a strange place and I don't know the rules and I Don't Know What's Going On. Fast forward 20 years. My parents, my dad got cancer. My mother and I nursed him. We changed his diapers. We took care of him. you came to meetings at the house and I watched my father watch his light go into another room and he was okay he was alright he had the cell phone in his hand all the time and you would call him all the same half the time he didn't know who you were it didn't matter he loved Alcoholics Anonymous right up to the end and his son was there his big strong son was there to care for him the greatest gift we give our family is they don't have to worry about us anymore. We're okay now. We are not broken, we are okay. My mother moved in with Karen and I and she got cancer, she's 85. And I nursed her by myself for about three months. She decided not to do the chemo just like my dad. She said, I'm going to go out like Dad. And one day I was standing by the side of the bed and it was time to change the diaper or no one else was there. And I was standing there and she looked at me and she started crying because she thought she'd lost her dignity. And she looked up at me and she said, I never raised you to do this. And I thought about that and I said, oh yes you did. I remember that house I grew up in. You were saving those people's lives. I know what you were doing now. I know it. I know you know what we were doing. So roll over. and I changed her diapers the next time it was easier the next after that she goes, Bill, it's time and we entered a level of intimacy we didn't know was there and it wasn't the physical part it's just caring for another human being you can't love until your heart's been broken love fearlessly love recklessly don't put any limitations on this The manager will take really good care of you. He'll send you to places like Copper Canyon, you know? You get to go places, do things you never thought you would do, be with people you never though you could be with. I love my wife with an intensity that scares me sometimes. Because like most of you, if I get too close, my God, what will happen if I lose it? I've watched several of my friends in AA pass away and I've been there for them I've showed up whenever I've been asked to and what the gift that I've received for that is not monetary it's I've fallen in love with you and I can feel the love that you have for me all the time all the times and that manifests between Karen and I and we have that house that I was raised in all of you are there all the the time. We have no idea what we would do without you. I love you very much. Thank you.