Two Neurons Waving Goodbye to Each Other – Russell S.

This is the third day of this particular group. It started in 1949, so that brings us up to around 60 years old. Pretty good. Jimmy's that old. He was around 50. That brings me to another thing. It's not too early to mention this, but we're going to have our annual dinner first Tuesday in December. And you guys will be probably, Russell will probably be pretty much finished up then. But you'll be more than welcome to come to the thing. We have a great dinner. It's really a great time. And our secretary will be back next week. Celebrating anniversary. Anybody going to be celebrating anniversaries? Want to celebrate with us next Tuesday that we don't have yet? Great for a government alcoholic who only had two years. Two months and three years. Anybody else? You got all these papers that are going to be signed now? Over here, we've got two more. Go ahead. Kenny's elevated five years today. Five years for Kenny. This gentleman way back there. Got somebody else? Oh, I didn't see way over there. All right. Great. Greg's got two years. Anyone else? Oh. 10 years. Wow. Wow, that was pretty good. Did you? I think when he's 20 you've got all of them. You miss any of them? Okay. That's it. Wait. Huh? Oh, Alex. Now, Alex is here. Is that it? Russell on the first step. My name is Russell Spatz. I'm an alcoholic. I'm a member of the Carl Gables Group of Outlaws Anonymous. It is great to be here. I don't know how many years I've been doing this up here at the 12-step house, 12-stepped group. But I'm back again and I look forward to this group every year. Because like a lot of groups I go to, but especially this group, I usually find a lot if enthusiasm in this group. I like going to groups where there's a lot of enthusiasm for recovery. And, you know, I'm just going to do a little talking about my experience and my deal in here. I haven't found necessary to have a drink since January 17th, 1981. So if I make it to January, you're not so big if, you don't have 30 years, I guess, which isn't even an old timer, by the way, by apparently convention standards. I went to the international convention and I walked with the old time just for the heck of it. I said, well, it's an old time. He says, you've got to have 40 years or more. So, you know, I asked my sponsor a long time ago. I've had three sponsors. You know, by the way, for you guys that are worried about, you know, sponsors, you guys ask me, can I, I say I'll be their temporary sponsor, you don't have to worry because we're all temporary because I've been there for a long, long time. I've got three. My first two sponsors were fantastic men and I'm going to speak a lot about the men. I mean, obviously, I've run into some magnificent, fantastic women that have helped me out but mostly the people I've hung with have been the men and the old timers and so I believe because this is based upon my experience. It's not, you know, most of the stuff I'm going to tell you tonight or for the next 12 weeks is going to be based upon MyExperience. You know, we have a tendency as apologists, when I say we, you understand I'm talking about mostly myself, you're free to say well that's a bunch of crap, I don't believe that at all. I'm just basically talking about my own opinions and I don't like to get preachy or give opinions but that's going to happen. It's going to happen, it's just a natural thing and you know my first sponsor said when a man with experience meets a man with money the man with experience will walk away with the money and the man with the many will have walked away with an experience and you know I can tell you this I've seen, I'm a lawyer and I've see young lawyers in court that know everything, that know everything and old lawyers that don't know much but they know the judge. I'm not even going to finish that deal you know what I mean and that's not necessarily in a bad way. You know, that means they just know what the judge likes, what the Judge doesn't like, you know, the kind of crap the Judge doesn't like to put up with and what he likes to hear and what he doesn't want to hear, and how he wants his... And just because he knows, he's got the book on the Judge, the book-on-the-deal, or he knows the deal, okay, somehow, even though the kid's been up all night studying, he didn't realize that about ten minutes into his argument, he pissed the Judge off. And all the old guys said was, well, I don't think he's right, Judge. They'd say fine you win You know what I mean And I'm not exaggerating This is true life stuff So you know the fact of the matter Is you know As alcoholics we love To think I mean We love to think I jokingly say a lot of things To the guys I sponsor Which they nervously laugh at And I think they nervosely laugh at it Because somehow deep down inside they know I'm really not joking, but they know it's so preposterous because alcoholics are not, listen, we are so sick, we are so crazy and we think we're so well and we think we'RE so smart that the only thing that ever works in here for long-term sobriety is a drastic 180 degree turn from our old way of living to a new way of living. And that doesn't happen like overnight, it happens over periods of 10, 20 years. So if you're using your own initiative and your own intuition and your brain power, running a thousand miles per hour thinking you're absolutely right and all of a sudden you wind up in jail in the streets broke, a slobbering mess using your best thinking, knowing that you are your best fan knowing that the one that you've cared about the most is you and you were always out to win, you were never out to lose, you made every move that was the perfect move so that you would win and you wind up in the toilet, okay, if that's your deal, okay? And you come in here and you somehow, somehow, whether you believe this or not, this is what I've seen over the last 30 years, you're not going to make it until there's a full one. We're talking about getting rid of all the old ideas. You know, all of them. Not just one, not just I can't drink. You know, you sort of get that feeling after coming in. You say, yeah, I can drink. Then they start working on your friends. Then you start working, you can't go to the bar. Then They start working on locations you can't go to, things you can do, girlfriends and boyfriends you can have, gossip you can. All of a sudden they start working, they start chipping away on your life. And every time they try to chip away on you, no matter how they do it with an evil sponsor, every time you chip away, what do you say? You say things like, you don't understand, I'm different. You fight them tooth and nail to hang on to the old you because you just have such a great personality. And it's gotten you this far, right? So you have to understand this is about completely turning around that boat To make you into the most incredible you You could ever be And understand as an alcoholic where your chief characteristic is defiance You're fighting that son of a bitch all the way You don't want to do that deal You want to try to change as little as possible To get as much as possible without having to really do this thing While you're in like this prison camp called Alcoholics Anonymous And secretly, as you get the car and the money And the girl and the guy back You're tunneling your way out So nobody will see that you're actually missing So you're going to have to understand And this is just based upon my experience That if you're gonna hang out in here And you're not a sponsor You are gonna hear crap from the podium From me, from people That you are gonna think are absolutely preposterous You're gonna think I'm crazy You're going be mad You're saying, you're walking out of here And I know 20% of the meetings Whenever I'm talking If you're saying anything That's decent and AA That means anything 20% of people are saying, well that guy's full of crap I didn't come here to listen to that crap and they're going to walk out so did you understand the crap that you hate the worst is if you hang around here 10 years the stuff you're going be telling your sponsees and they'll be saying you're full of crap it's just a whole turnaround so understand that what I'm talking about is not based upon my brain power, we have an addiction to thinking has anybody here ever felt depressed you ever felt nervous, anxious, irritable worried about stuff and everything now listen to me I'm going to suggest something to you because I've been there I don't know anybody who's ever had a bad time or felt bad where it wasn't preceded by a whole lot of thinking the thinking has never fixed it up it says so in the book, it says a lot of things in the books, it talks about Roland Hazard you know what he says, talking about the alcohol now knowing, he puts himself on the tutelage of the greatest professor Dr. Young, now knowing the inner workings of my own mind and its hidden traps and all that sort of stuff drinking was impossible and then it says nevertheless in two weeks I was drunk that's like your first hint that the thinking ain't going to get you anywhere you know when I talk up here I want to think, well this comes from being smart or being this comes from allowing Alcoholics Anonymous and evil mean abusive sponsors to beat the intelligence out of me now of course if you're first coming in here and you've lived life on your wits and you realize that the only thing you got going for you is that you're brilliant and that you know more than anybody else you're not going to like this deal I mean the first thing you do is you're going to put up a wall and say, I'm not going to listen to a word he says because the one thing I do know is the only person that's out for me is me and if I don't listen to me, I'm going to be in big trouble. We're going to talk a little bit about that and I'm gonna tell you some strange... Listen to me. I promise you this. You're goingto hear some strange stuff. You know? Now just remember one thing. You don't have to believe me. You just put this up on a board somewhere. When you hear something coming at you from me and you absolutely know and you actually know that it's total horseshit and that it can't possibly be true and I'm full of crap and this is bullshit and you will never buy into it, understand if you stick around for 10 years this will be a basic precept of your life. That the thing that you think is the most ridiculous because I didn't come here from Dade County 50 miles after almost 30 years of sobriety and I am not going to pay for this to tell you stuff that hasn't worked for me and I'm around Alcoholics Anonymous long enough and I've sponsored enough guys to know that I'm not unique I'm special I may be able to master a few words and say a few things we all have our talents but the bottom line is my thinking is just as alcoholic and crazy as yours is and I can promise you if you had some crazy thoughts and crazy feelings and crazy stuff going on in your life I'd have the exact same thing there's nothing new under the sun I have the same alcoholism as you have, the same disease as you have and I know it's worked for me not just in the longevity area because you've got a lot of guys in 20-30 years who are whacked out. But in the area, and let me tell you something there is something to be said for time. I'm not one of these guys that believe that time doesn't mean nothing and time is everything. It's a lot of stuff because it means going through the experiences but the fact of the matter is you know, I'm talking about not just time, I am talking about what Bill Wilson referred to as the next frontier, emotional sobriety. And I'm going to talk about a lot of things. I'm gonna talk about a lot steps. I'll be all over board. It's gonna be like, I liken this to Pulp Fiction. You know the movie? It starts in the middle, goes to the end, goes to the beginning. You gotta work hard to try to keep up. I take some hard right turns. I'd be going this way and all of a sudden if you fall asleep, if you look at the clock, you're gonna lift your head up and say what's he talking about? Because I was going this way and I made it right that way. That's okay. That's sort of like good for alcoholics. It keeps you on your toes. You're going to have to do a little work on this deal. Like one of the guys, I think he's Rick, he's here, he says, oh, you're starting the first step? So that means you're going to talk about the first tip. Wrong. That means this is number one. I'm going to talk, but you can't listen. I don't really, you know, I have all these stories, you know, and the whole program is shown within our, it says our stories disclose. It doesn't say our brains, our smartness, our story. If you look at this whole book, even if you look at the Bible. It's all about stories. And that was the book they used the first four years in AA. It says our stories disclose, in a general way, what we used to be like, what happened, and what we're like now. As a matter of fact, you know why you're here? You know why he came to AA? You know while you guys with the white chip just picked up a white chip? You know whine? Not because you're smart. Not because, you know, somebody told you, you picked it up because of your story. Your story. Listen, nobody got you here except for your story As a matter of fact The only reason anybody's in here Is because of their story It's not because somebody told them You may think it's because somebody called you Somebody may have come into your story But the truth of the matter is Before your story got you here You didn't want to come here The only reasons you're here Is because your story And so that's all I'm going to try to talk about The stuff I'm gonna talk to you about Is not theory It's stuff that I've seen That works That I've see it over and over again You don't hang around for 30 years Without seeing something or hearing something or learning something and yet I know but a little. These guys wrote this book that has been used as the basic text for A for 67 years and at the end of the book if they put it all together they said we know but little God will disclose to you your real reliance is on them on him not me not this book. Bill Wilson and I'm going to tell you this little story and it's probably not going to be now I never know what I'm going to tell you, probably somewhere during this thing Bill Wilson at 18 years sobriety at 18 days sober wrote a letter which we're going to talk about later on having to do with the next frontier where he realized for the first time what his real problem was at 18 year he stayed sober, he helped a lot of people, he grasped a lot and he was dogged by depression and after 18 years he wrote a letter and he says I finally recently realized what the problem was and you know what he realized his problem was something he wrote in the book The First Year of Recovery something he wrote in this book The First year of Recovery he wrote something in this book, now we all believe it's divinely inspired that some first year guy didn't write this thing, this came from somewhere who knows where it came from, anybody who speaks, you know, who gets up here and talks, by the time they're done talking I have it all the time, I say where did that come from I didn't have anything planned. How did I say, you know, there's something else going on. He wrote this book. It got passed around. It's been going on for, you don't know. He wrote his book. Something that came down from his head, from his mind, that intellectually he knew and he understood and he had to put it in there. 18 years down the road, he realized that his problem was something he was talking about to other people in this book that he didn't realize that was his problem. T.S. Eliot, when I was, I don't know, 20 years old, I saw a movie, I later read the book called The Magus. And at the starting of the movie and at the beginning of the book, there's a quote from, a poem from T.C. Eliot. And I'm going to probably butcher it, but I'll tell you the best I can with the quote is the quote says something like this, very short. It says, we will not cease our exploration. And if I know anything about alcoholics, we are looking. Hey man, I'll tells you something. every Saturday night and Friday night for 12 years I was on the hunt you know what yeah sure you're laughing you don't know what it's like I was looking for her you know her the one that was going to fix everything and trust me I wanted what she had and I was willing to go to any length to get it believe me prostitute myself spend money I didn't have you know, none of that stuff worked. I was on the hunt. We're all on the hunt. We're desperately on the hunt for that thing. You know what we need? We need that thing that we don't have that's going to make us okay because we're not. You know if you're an outlaw, do you know when you're okay? Never. Never. When you're feeling great and everything's perfect, that's right before everything's going to go down the tubes in your lousy. that's like a setup, you know what I mean? If you're even thinking, how am I doing? How am I doing? That's the worst thing because sometimes it's going to be great and sometimes it'S going to BE horrible. When you start realizing the real problem is that you're thinking, HOW AM I DOING? And you realize that the one thing you can't stop thinking about is how you're doing, no matter how you want to stop thinking about how you are doing and then all of a sudden you see in there that the real problem is selfishness and self-centeredness that we are always thinking about ourselves that everything is about us, that we can't get rid of us and that because of that somehow because of the way our mind works and we have no control over our mind in this world, in this life we will always be naturally restless irritable and discontented unless we can again experience a sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks and so they call me an alcoholic because of the stuff I use to cure the real disease because no woman, no car, no amount of money no job description, no nothing no haircut, no new nail color no nothing ever worked quite as well for me as just a few drinks so I drank it I don't think anybody in here I refuse to believe anybody here is going to drink alcohol and have it do for them what it did for me and then stop. You ain't going to do it. It was unbelievable. I walk into the bar fear of people. I didn't know I was scared of people, petrified of people but of course I didn' t know what fear is. I had no idea. Most of the words we read in the book Alcoholics Anonymous at least early on and maybe for 18 years later, we don' t even know what the words mean. We have no clues to what the word, see when I'm talking to somebody about things like powerlessness and love and all that sort of stuff. You have no happiness. Happiness, what a term we sling around. You know, what my idea of happiness is and what you have. I'm sitting with a new guy. We're drinking coffee in a Denny's. I got like 16, 17 years. He's got like three hours. We just came from a meeting. It was a great meeting. He liked it. He enjoyed it. I'm drinking coffee in the Denny'S and I'm talking to this guy about my life. We're chatting and he says, well, this stuff is great. And this is what he says to me. He says, but what do you do for fun? And I don't have the heart to tell him I'm having a great time. That this is As a matter of fact This is the best It's been for me All year Like this is The tip of the iceberg This is like Mount Everest You know what I mean Cause he wants to know Where the dancing girls are Cause his idea Is fun Is blowing up The world And killing himself At the same thing Cause there's nothing Going on Except two guys Talking And having coffee In a Denny's And you're not going to believe this. I have coffee and I talk all the time to guys. I'm having fun all the time. I asked one guy one time, I said, what's your favorite thing to do? He says, I love hiking. He said, why do you go to all these meetings and do all this stuff? You belong to church and doing all this other stuff. I said well what's the favorite thing you love? He said I love biking. He said you love hiking? He asked what do you mean you love it? He said he just loves going to the mountains and hiking. It's the greatest experience I ever had. I said how do you feel when you're hiking? And I said, I feel alive. I feel better than I've ever felt in my life. And he says, what about you? And I looked at him and I said that's the way I feel all the time. How would you like to be hiking all the same? All the time? I guess you wouldn't have to drink. You drink because you're not hiking. In the big book, Envision for You it says now and then every once in a while a new guy comes in feel better, look better having a better time we laugh at such salad. We know he'll try his old tricks again because he's not because he'd give anything to drink a few dozen drinks to get away with him because he is not happy with his sobriety. Soon he'll know terror as most of us know. He'll know the three horsemen and all that stuff. He will know loneliness as few men do because he isn't happy with his sobrietty. I sponsor a lot of guys. I've sponsored a lot of guys over 30 years. I have a heart for guys who are 18, 19, 20 22, 25 years sober who go to AA meetings who talk who you think have it all together and they're not happy with their sobriety. They're not happy about themselves they're just they're not happy about their lives. This is about a whole different this is about not just drinking you come in here and we think it's the same so I drink and I drink and I drank because that's the only thing that ever worked for me and what happened to me is the sad story of my life is alcohol stopped working for me and the real sad part about my life is that alcohol stopped working for me about 10 years before I realized It stopped working for me And when that happens You hurt a lot of people But they named the disease After the cure After the best medicine we have Which is alcohol When alcohol isn't even the disease The symptom takes over And it looks like crazy Because they arrest you For driving while drunk They don't arrest you For driving While miserable Driving while depressed Driving while being an idiot Or being angry They arrest you For driving While drunk And you get all these tickets And you spend your license So you think you're an alcoholic and you have an alcohol problem, so here's the mistake. You think if you stop drinking alcohol, everything's going to be okay. And you know something? As soon as you stop drinkin' alcohol, everythin' does get okay. Every problem you've ever had in your entire life that is a consequence of drinking alcohol goes away. You don't go get arrested for drivin' while out drunk anymore. You dont have to hire lawyers for that anymore. You wake up in the morning, you have money on your dresser. Whatever it is that alcohol caused you that problem. It goes away. And somewhere around 18 months sober, for the first time in your life, you experience alcoholism. See, I didn't experience alcoholism until after I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. The only thing I experienced before coming to Alcoholic Anonymous was something called drunk. Anybody ever experience drunk? You know, if I took a normal person here and an alcoholic here and I got them both drunk, drunk as you could possibly be, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Because non-alcoholics who are drunk and alcoholics who are drunk look the same. They act the same You want to see what the difference is? You've got to wait until they're sober You've Got to talk to them when they're Sober. Not when they're drunk. You see what happened to me is every time I felt alcohol coming on. I'd seen it in the horizon. It was coming at me. I could see it coming towards me.I would say something like this Now you won't understand this. This is what I would say I need a drink Have you ever said I need a drink You know have you ever Said it like sincerely I mean I'm not just talking about Like joking Like pull the flipping car over I need A drink You ever feel that well when you said I need and sometimes Did you ever say that you ready for this When you're sober You know non-alcoholics don't say I need a drink Alcoholics when they're sober They say I need to drink Now listen to me If you go to AA for 20 years For 20 years And after 20 years You throw the whole thing away Because you need a Drink And you grab a drink Because you'll be drinking Because of alcoholism Not because you were drinking It will be the disease Of alcoholism Which is operating and strong in you especially when you're sober and so what happens is that's the deal I need a drink and what I don't realize is that if the only problem you have is a drinking problem you don't even need alcohol just stop drinking, you'll be wonderful save you a lot of money but if you're like me, you're 18 months sober and all you're doing is worrying all the time and it's 3 o'clock in the morning you can't get back to sleep because you're worrying about something you go to sleep worrying about it You wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning, worry about it. You wakeup in the mornig, worry bout it. It's all about money, it's all abut her, it's about him, it is all about this. You got 15,000 voices going on in your mind and they're all bad shit talking about you. You can't stand silence. You have to have a TV on, a radio on, a telephone on, something has got to be going because the last thing you feel is silence because if it's silence, it means you're thinking and you can feel you're thinkin'. I never wanted to take the thoughts I thought because they were bad thoughts about me and other people and they made me feel uncomfortable And I had to do something to fix that deal. Or I'd be gossiping or talking about people behind their back and cutting them down because somehow, someway, I don't know when I can tell somebody that you're a piece of crap and they'll agree with me, it makes me feel good. And somehow I think that's okay and I don'T even think that'S wrong and I DON'T even understand that THERE'S SOME SORT OF PROBLEM THERE spiritually and emotionally and THAT'S AS BAD AS ALMOST DRINKING AND I DONT EVEN UNDERSTAND THAT BECAUSE THAT'S THE WAY I AM THAT'S MY NATURAL WAY OF THINKING AND ALL MY FRIENDS TALK AND ACT THE SAME EXACT WAY So how would I know it's wrong? My alcoholic life, and I'm talking about my life even when I'm not drinking alcohol, and the way I talk about people, and the ways I think, and they way I act, all designed to self-destruct me and make me feel like crap inside is the only normal I've ever been. And if you try to change me, I say don't try to, this is just me, this just the way that I am. Which is another way of saying get the hell out of my face. Who the hell do you think you are? This is only about alcohol, don't tell me how to think. And it's my thinking that's killing me That's going to cause me to drink You know We're talking alcoholism here You know When do you think you learned this It says in 12 and 12 Unless and until an alcoholic Accepts his devastating weakness And all its consequences There's more than one His sobriety will be precarious Of true happiness he'll find none at all Talks about in the sixth step That this goes on for a lifetime Figuring out our defects or characters are our sins. When do you think an alcoholic realizes these things? He picks up a white chip and all of a sudden it's all clear. I can see all my problems now. No, they pick up a right chip that's about five seconds before they say get out of my face. You know we're going to have a long time. So one of the things I want to explain to you is that when I talk about alcoholism you know one of things I've learned and I'm going to go into the chicken on the roof story one other day I'll do it is when you're talking to a group with 100, 150 people 1,000 people whatever it is you know it's funny you'll be talking to the group at a convention or something let's say 500, 1, 000 people whatever it is and after the thing is over you talk for an hour. The thing is over somebody comes up to you and says you know I really appreciate when you said this and they'll talk about one sentence one sentence that you said out of an hour talk you know and it may be a good sentence it was really meaningful them. They really heard something. They got something out of it. It may not have been even the thing you were trying to say, but it worked for them. Next guy comes up and he says, boy, I'll tell you. That thing about the... And he starts talking about another sentence. And then a third guy comes up, and he starts telling about another... And all of a sudden, you've got 50 people coming up to you, and they're all talking about 50 different things they heard. And 20 of them you didn't even say. And you start realizing that where you are in the steps and what you get out of any talk, whether it's the first step, the tenth step, the 12th step whatever step it is has very little to do with what I'm saying and more to do with what's going on inside of you and so it's absolutely possible I can talk for 45 minutes about my experience I don't carry the message but it doesn't say I carry I don' t have any power to carry the messages there's one who has all power that one's God may you find him now it doesn' t say I have it's not like God is like 99% and I have 1% there's only one that has power that's God it doesn''t say I carry the massage I'm incapable of carrying any message I think what it says is I try to carry the message there's a big difference between carrying the message and trying to carry the message because if my job is to carry the message, if you don't get it if you get drunk, it's my fault but if I get up here and do the best job I can do tonight and this could be the lousiest first step whatever step you want me to do I do the most job I can I try as hard as I can as bad as that is I just do what I'm supposed to do what God tells me to get up there that's what it says in the book what does it say we're supposed to talk about on page 29 All I have to do is talk about this I can't talk outside my experience It says right here It says Further on clear cut directions are given Showing how we recovered These are followed by 42 personal experiences Now listen up It says each individual That's me, I'm an individual In the personal stories I'm going to tell you a little bit about my story This is all about my history and what I've learned Describes in his own language This is my language It may not be your language You may not even like my language and from his own point of view this is from my point of view right it's not from your point of you it's not your story the way he establishes relationship with God all my steps are going to be about that somehow some way it's gonna be about that you know why it's gonna be a bit about that you know why not only has it worked for me through experience and I know that's the answer and that's why he's written all through the steps that's what you finally come to the 11th step where you finally have that relationship you improve that relationship but the other reason I'm to do it is because that's when I'm instructed to do and I can read English now. It's plain for me. So I do what I'm instructed to do and I don't argue with it, and it doesn't matter to me whether you like it or not. Because if I'm talking to a group of alcoholics, most of whom are going to die because one half of 1% stays sober over 20 years and if you believe Carl Menninger who wrote a book Man Against Himself, published a year before our program came to life In the chapter on alcoholism It says men and women, alcoholics are men and Women who are out to destroy themselves You can see that in some of the movie stars To get into trouble and kill themselves and lose their kids And everything. We're out to destroyed Ourselves. It never surprised me I always love how the talking heads see these guys Like these governors, these presidents get in trouble They can't stay away from the craziest things They say why do they do these things Any alcoholic works assault knows exactly Why these people get into travel They know exactly that we're out To destroy myself so why should I Water down my message I'm advised to tell you To save your life Because the newest guy in Alcoholics Anonymous The lowest common denominator may get upset Why should I water down The only thing that will save you That has saved me because I'm worried about I might piss somebody off That way we can all drink You know, I hear these guys that say Well if I heard that when I first came in I would have walked Bullshit And if you walk out Where are you walking to You're walking back to the booth What are you going to do Eventually you're going to die or come back With a different attitude Some people need to drink We're not here to stop people from drinking I never want to stop an alcoholic From drinking I'll buy you your first drink I don't want to Stop an alcoholic from having Never stop an alcoholic From having desperation Never stop An alcoholic from drinking his last drink What are you doing? Just prolonging the inevitable So he'll drink it 7 years You think it's better that he drinks it 7 or 10 years Because he's got a crummy attitude I hear people committing Suicide because they're not ready for this thing Because they came in for the wrong reason I never worry Look, you've got a book You know what it says about the newcomers It says burn the idea Which to me is like Tattooing with You know That's like the It's like what they do With the steers Burn the idea Into the mind Of every alcoholic You know Job or no job Wife or no You simply don't stop Unless you have A relationship with God It talks about A relationship With God And what's the one thing They don't want you To talk about In the fellowship Of alcohol synonymous God You know If you listen To the sickness Of the fellowship You have to understand The fellowship This is Listen to me Listen to Me I'm not putting down The fellowship I love the fellowship I love you guys. This is not now listen to me. You have not wandered into Well People's Anonymous If you believe everything you hear in the fellowship we're spiritual and not religious and religion is bad You would think that if you talk about religion if you join a church, if you do anything, that's bad You understand? Because that's what the fellowship will tell you That's what guys who are angry and mad at religion will tellyou. That's all you'll hear and so you'll start thinking as a newcomer if I mention religion, if I mentioned this, that's bad. We're better than that. If you read the big book about call of synonymous which is about sobriety and you read the history, you'll read things like Bill Wilson's real sponsors which was a priest Ed Dowling and Sam Schulmaker. You'll read parts where it says we encourage church membership. You will read parts in the family afterwards that says a family should join a church, a synagogue or something like that in order to search for God. who should do anything to hang around people that are doing this. Not obligatory, but they suggest it. You'll read where it says we lose all prejudice even against organized religion. We begin to see where religious people are right. Most of the stuff they got was borrowed from religion. You'll start thinking, you'll talk about two different things. The book and the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and what was put in there where it said rarely have I seen a person fail has thoroughly followed our path and what you hear around the rooms of Alcoholic Anonymous. That's why it's so important to read this book Because you have to understand The disease is alive Listen The disease Is not out there It's in here If you're an alcoholic And you're not drinking You've got the disease You know it I know it We all know it You've gotta You've just got the Disease As much as you've got It stronger than Probably the guy Maybe stronger than The guy out there What could explain Why somebody after Five years Six years Ten years Twenty years Knowing Everything he knows Everything that would Pick up a drink Unless he's crazy and he has the disease. We all have the seeds of the disease in here. It's alive and well in here! You better learn what's in that book, you better study what's In That Book, you better pray to God that it really seeps in and you get a sponsor that talks about what's IN THAT BOOK because you're liable, if you don't know what'sIN THAT BOOK, to listen to stuff you hear IN HERE and go out drinking. Not knowing that you're hearing the opposite because this fellowship and a mob and a fellowship like that with a lot of people together you got all sorts of people telling you all sorts of things. And you know I'm telling you stuff and you don't have to believe a word I say you know what? You read the book and you say well this is what he said. This is what, you know, I like reading the book. I'll sometimes read thebook at a meeting. I haven't done it this meeting I've recited some things and people say you know I'll read like the chapter selfishness, self-centeredness or I'll read some parts of the book or the 12 and 12s will say that was great when you said that and I'll say when you read that when you set that thing and they'll tell me what I said he says you mean the thing that's written in the book you mean when I read the part of the book he says yeah yeah but it's the way you read it and I know what they mean what they means is they never heard that and they never even knew that was true because after going to AA meetings, they thought it was just the opposite. That's how deadly this disease is. The fellowship, the sick fellowship and the sickness in here of people who don't want to change, you watch them you can tell when people are mad and angry you can talk when they're angry when they are mad, when they tick off When I was I want to tell you a little story I'm going to end this with a story of about 10 minutes because it has to do with a little bit of meaning, have to do With Powerlessness and some other things. I'm 61 years old now. I came to A when I was 31 years old, almost 30 years ago. And before I came today, about six years before I became the Alcoholics Anonymous, I've got to tell you something. I'm not sure of dates and times or things like that. I've had things mixed up. Everything I say to you is give or take five years. You understand? you know so you know if you hear this thing say like the time doesn't match it probably doesn't okay but I think when I was around 26 27 something like that I was married to my first wife a very nice gal wonderful gal non-alcoholic you know and you know like the kind of gal we'd order wine and she I drink my wine and she'd leave her one and I drink it because there are kids starving in China something like that. You don't want to let it go to waste. I don't know. It makes sense to me. You don't wanna waste that stuff. It's a sin. So, in any event, I was working as a prosecutor, a division chief over the state's attorney's office and I was about 100 pounds lighter and I walked out one morning. I had a beautiful wife and wonderful young little baby boy. Had a beautiful house on the Gorse Country Club in Miami Beach. I was like 26 years old. I had made it. Everything that was important and should have been important to me, the American dream. I had the trophy wife. I have a beautiful child. I was division chief in the state's attorney's office. You know, I had the blue suit, the white shirt, the red tie. You know, i was going outside getting into my Cadillac or whatever car that was driving across the Metro Justice Building across the bay, the beautiful bay. And I walked out the door My wife came up to me, young kid, and I was as sober, physically sober then as I am now and probably in a lot better shape because I've lost a lot of brain cells. Man, when I came into Alpha Oxynonymous, I had two neurons working and they were waving goodbye to each other, you know? So let me tell you, it was adios muchacho, you knows? So it was a bad deal. So it-it was bad. I drank a lot. So in any event, she comes up to me and this is what she says to me. Now I want you to listen to this. She says, it's a true story. She says I just want you know and she didn't want to start an argument and she was an alcoholic. She sort of tossed this at me like it would be served with papers. And I know some of you have heard this before but I'm going to come at it from a different angle. She said I just wanted you to know. I said if you come home drunk one more time I'm leaving you. if you come home drunk one more time I'm leaving you and then she walked away it wasn't like she was going to start an argument or anything like that now, to me I've analyzed that statement that's like the simplest way you can put it there's not even a spare word you can't even take out a word what do you take out? like you, you, and him you know, how many how many of us as we're going through the years as we'RE going up here's stuff like that if you do that one more times yeah, yeah, I'm gonna you know if you try to do that one more time. I mean, it's so clear. It's so clear you would have to be insane not to hear it. Doesn't matter how smart you are. You could know differential calculus. You know, I graduated with top of the line calculus. I was going to my PhD in algebraic topology. You could be brilliant, okay? I'm telling you. You can be brilliant. Okay? If you don't understand, if you come home drunk one time, I'm leaving you. Somewhere down the road you're going to have problems with your life. some sort of insanity going on I'm telling you, I got in my car I drove three blocks I got to a light I stopped at a light and this is what I said to myself I said What the hell did she mean by that? Now I promise you in your life if you had to take a quote of your life you would say that up until any time you've gotten into trouble you've had 15,000 people 20,000 ways including God and angels come into your life telling you you do that you're going to get in trouble and you either ignored it didn't see it or said well, what the hell does that mean? Or got pissed off at it and made it go away. And that's the real disease of alcoholism. Well, you know something? The saying that I never got to say because I skipped right over it that I saw out of that Magus novel was by T.S. Eliot. It says, we will not cease our exploration. We will not seize our searching and exploration and when we finally come to the end of all our searching, we will come back to the place we began having known the place for the first time. There are people in here that have 10, 15, 20, 30 years of sobriety that are absolutely not perfect, not the best they'll ever be, it's not that they can't get better, but they are at a place in their lives where they can clearly see who and what there are, their place, and they no longer bump into the furniture of life, fall into potholes, they live their lives in a decent way because everything is clear to them. And when they look at their life and it's clear to them, they see things clearly that they know were right in front of them 30 years ago. Just like Bill Wilson, at 18 years recovery, saw, even though intellectually he wrote down in a book certain things, which we'll go over later, about what the disease of alcoholism is, 18 years later, after 18 years of experiencing, trying to figure out what the problem is and trying to search and everything like that and staying sober. He finally said, I know what the problema is. This thing I wrote down in chapter 5. All of a sudden it went from here to here and I realized it. And how many people in here, if I talk to them and I point things out to them will even say it in a nice way and maybe in a sincere way. And I've done it. You're right. You're write. You are right. And even mean it. Your right. Your write. Your wright. You know, you are right! You know, Russ, you're right. I can't even argue with you. Forget about arguing. Forget about denial. You're right! And then go out and start doing the same thing over and over again. Even though they know I'm right. And then when you say, why'd you do it? They say, I don't know. And you're like, right, right. And then ten years down the road, all of a sudden they're not doing it. And they say, well, why didn't you do this? He says, you know, I finally realized that they were right. Because it doesn't matter whether I know you're wrong. It doesn't even matter whether you think I'm wrong. It doesn' t even matter if you're not arguing. You have to own it. And sometimes, although we like to think we get this educationally, sometimes the education comes after you're locked up in the jail cell. Sometimes the education comes with the divorce papers. Sometimes the eduction comes with the arrest. Sometimes the educatioN comes with losing everything. Sometimes we get the new perspective like it says in the 12 and 12 by a thousand forms of humiliation and the final question of our self-sufficiency and we learn the value of suffering. even though we hate it, we finally say well this is the best thing that could have happened to me and so we come in here and we think we know what powerlessness is we actually really don't know but we think it has something to do with booze but you know something we have no clue as to what powerlessness is because we think it has something to deal with booze maybe it does, maybe it doesn't we got to learn that but it doesn�t have anything to do with money it doesn't have anything to do with finance it doesn' t have to do with the rest of our lives and then as we go down the road we realize it has to do with everything and even though somewhere at 10 years or 15 years you say I'm powerless over everything we don't really believe it until we have 30 years and they tell us we have stage 4 cancer and we finally get to the part where our lives where you know if only I had this if only i had that if only i had this if only i had these things and all of a sudden we have them all. He says, you've got stage 4 cancer. And you say, you know, I really am powerless. You know, people die like, you know, they go like that. And we think we know what unmanageability is. We think we know unmanangeability is, and we see a statement. It says it's right in the book. It's a statement! It says the A's, B's, and C's. This is what it says. It says, we were pal-A. It says, the chapter of agnostics and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas. Now listen, the chapter of agnostic, the stories and our personal adventures before and after. You know what our personal inventions before and after are? That's our life. That's your story. That's what makes these things clear. One, that we're outlawed and cannot manage our own lives. And we think we know what that means, we cannot manage your own lives and we better know that because at the end it says being convinced, we're now at step three. What turning your life over in step three is about is turn your life over because you're convinced of that. The more you're convince of that, the more you turn it over. The less you're convinced of that, the more you act on self-reliance or self-will as opposed to God's will which requires having something called free will which no alcoholic has. See, no alcoholic hasn't free will. When I was kicked out of the house because I came home drunk that night I left the house and I said, she kicked me out and that was the end of the fire marriage and you know what I said? I walked out and I'm free. My wife said, you come home drunk one time, I'm leaving you She kicked me off because I drank and I got drunk and I said I'm free, never understanding that I was never free to get home and not drink because I was so addicted to self-will because an alcoholic is self-willed run riot though he usually doesn't think so. He's addicted to do things because he feels like doing them because they have to do with him without consequence to anybody else. So even though he thinks we have self- will, you will always chose the path that is best for you and will hurt other people because you're not free not to do that. And so, you're hurting people, they're running away from you, you're getting divorced, it has nothing to do with free will, it's because you can't not be selfish. You can stop drinking all you want, you can not care only about yourself and give a whit about anybody else. And you come in here and somewhere along the way the selfishness subsides and you have the ability to have free will for the first time in your life you can look at something and say should I do this selfishly or should I do it what I believe is God's way unselfishly and you may even have a response you may go up to Jesus what do you think and he says do it the unselfished way and you do it and you say wow it's like a big deal to you and that's the true freedom and that' s the new freedom and that is the new happiness they talk about that you've never known because it's brand new and we don't even know the meanings of these words that we're alcoholics and we couldn't manage our own lives and we think we understand what it means not to manage your own lives until an alcoholic says until your sponsor says don't do this and don't doing that usually has to do with girls if you're a guy guys if you are a girl and we look at them and say what are you crazy this has nothing to do avec alcohol this is what I want to do and this has to with your life but you can't turn that over because you believe what managing your own life means, anything that has to do with alcohol but everything else is fair game. Even though the book is really saying you can't manage your own life. That no human power could relieve your alcoholism. And even though you see that just like Bill Wilson saw that no humanpower, you don't know what that means. It can't possibly mean that no human power, it can't possibly mean that. I mean a doctor's got to be able to help me, a psychiatrist's got be able to help me. There's got to be some man that can help me, some woman that can help me. It can't possibly mean no human power. That would be crazy. That would be crazy. And all of a sudden, and we're fighting that deal just like I looked at my wife. And we're doing to that deal the powerlessness and the manageability. You know what we're saying to that? Just like when I was in that car with my wife and after I left my wife, and I said, what the hell do you mean by that? What the hell they mean by that. And then at the end it says, but God could and would if you were sought. And in 18 years, and all of a sudden in 18 years, in 19 years, 20 years, 25 years, all of the sudden like Bill Wilson said, I finally figured out the problem. It's the crap I read 20 years ago. Now I understand what they're talking about. So next week we'll talk about step two. Thank you. Thank you, sir.