When Did You Take the Fifth Step? When the Statute of Limitations Ran Out 😅 – Hugh D.

He does a speaker meeting, San Diego, California. The date is 3-25-88. The speaker is Hugh Douglas from Chatsworth, California. Tonight our speaker is Hugh D. from Chatsworth. There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all argument, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. That principle is contempt prior to investigation. Good evening. My name is Hugh Douglas. I'm an alcoholic. I like to start off these little sermons with that quotation out of this book, out of a spiritual experience, for a couple of reasons. I'm convinced that it is that contempt prior to investigation that causes us to give out a damn side more 30-day chips than Alcoholics Anonymous and we do one-year birthday cakes. And there is one other reason. I've had a lot of people tell me over the years that they have trouble living by principles. I don't think living by principles is a problem. I think it's the principles we've lived by that's the problem. Now, in case some of you are not familiar with what contempt is, I'll tell you what it was for me. I felt that anybody that believed that I was going to pattern my life after a philosophy thought up by a shyster New York stockbroker and a butt doctor from Ohio had another thing coming. Contempt prior to investigation. Now, there are several things I like to say before I start talking. One of them is quite often I hear people say, Don't get emotionally involved. Don't get involved in your first year. My wife says this almost every time she talks. I say to hell with it. Get involved as soon as you can find somebody sick enough to have something to do with you. I am convinced that you will find that if your sobriety is going to depend on your emotional condition, you're going to be in for one hell of a lot of drinking. So, get that over with to start with. Now, I like to look over the groups before I speak for a good reason. I had a lot of help from people in Alcoholics Anonymous when I got here. And I have gotten even with all of them. But two, and I am still looking for them. One of these days, maybe. And I, like some of you, like Harriet said this evening, and it sure is good to see Harriet and Ted and so many of my other friends down here again, that it's men with a man and women with a woman. I want to tell you something about that. If you've got an attitude like I've got, and you come into the North Hollywood group like I did, and you're any place around Hollywood or North Hollywood, and somebody is saying men with a man and women with a woman, you might think you are in the wrong damn place. Especially when some guy comes up, puts his arm around you, and says, I love you. So, it took a little while for me to begin to understand what this fellowship was all about. And I certainly would like to welcome all you newcomers, those of you who have identified yourself, and those of you who didn't, and tell you that you are part of a fellowship that has astounded science for a great many years. This is the largest group of people anywhere in the world who have found a way to go from adolescence to senility without ever bothering to pass through maturity. So, welcome. If some of you are having a slight problem quitting drinking, don't worry about it. Quitting drinking is like making love to a gorilla, and you are not through until a gorilla is through. But I'm sure that if you keep coming back, get yourself one of these, get yourself an adversary or a sponsor, whichever way you want to name it, and ask them a lot of questions, that you too will grasp what this way of life is all about. If you have any difficulty at all, it will be because Alcoholics Anonymous is just too simple for you to really believe. It will work. It's just too damn simple. Perhaps if you had to figure out the square root of three, it would make more sense, but you don't. You will find in Alcoholics Anonymous that Alcoholics Anonymous, this book right here, which is basically what I'm going to talk about tonight, is written in such a manner as to be totally backwards from any other way of life you have ever heard of anywhere. I don't care what discipline you may have studied in school. This book is totally backwards from any philosophy anywhere. Now, I was in the Marine Corps for a while, and believe me, surrender to win is not a Marine Corps axiom. But it is an AA motto. I was in business for a while out here. And keep it by giving it away is not a business motto either. You put it in your pocket, put your hand in your pocket, and get the hell out of town, but you give nobody nothing. So you'll find that this book is written backwards from any other book you've ever read anywhere. And you'll find out that the alcoholic, too, is backwards, just backwards, from the rest of the human race. It's not a matter of being right or wrong. We're no more right, no more wrong than anyone else is. The damn trouble is that everything we do, we just do it backwards, the way the rest of the other people do it. And it's a very, very important thing. And it's a very, very important thing. And it's a very, very important thing. It's not too hard to understand. If you look around you in AA, you see somebody light a bunch of candles on a cake and watch what happens. They will always light the outside first and burn the hell out of their hands trying to light the inside first. Backwards. Just plain backwards. If you ever listen to anyone and talk, you know what they'll all say? Everybody in this room has said it. I'm going to go talk to my sponsor. Nobody ever goes to listen to their sponsor. So if you have a slight slowness in your progress, that'll be the reason that you're just doing it backwards. And the normal human being, when you watch them, what they do is they think, act, and feel in that order. And if they don't act the way they feel, they don't do it again. Not an alcoholic. He feels, reacts to the feeling, and then he thinks. Usually, how the hell can I get out of this? And I'll give you a classic example of that. I don't want none of you girls to listen, but you fellows listen. If there is a very small town, there's a one-girl cat house, and the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic both go up there, and she's got one of these other social diseases. Both of them will get the social disease. But the non-alcoholic won't go back until they change girls or he finds another cat. But the alcoholic will. He'll go back tomorrow night really believing this time it's going to be different. And besides that, he fell in love on his first visit. So you'll see that it is backwards and our way of life is backwards. And if you don't understand what we're talking about, it's because we're talking backwards to your way of thinking, at least to any way you've been initiated with. And tonight I'm going to talk to you about this book. The book is entitled Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'd like to clarify something for some of you. AA stands for Alcoholics Anonymous. It does not stand, for altered attitudes, associated assholes, or anything else. It just stands for Alcoholics Anonymous. If you keep that simple, it'll work. If you don't, maybe it won't. And the reason I talk about this book is very simple is because I don't talk about my drinking. And I've got three reasons for not talking about my drinking. I never did like the LAPD version of the way I drank. I never developed a fondness for my first wife's version of the way I drank. And I don't remember how I drank. And if you drank like me, you wouldn't remember how you drank either. One of the little bits I do remember was that a boy, so what I try to talk about is what I've learned from this book and this way of life in the last almost 28 years. Now, when you read this book, you'll find it's very difficult to read because it was written by a very intellectual New Englander. And what Bill did in this book is he told you what he was going to tell you on one page. A little further on, he told you what he wanted you to know. And on a page or two after that, he told you what he had already told you. Now, he knew that you was going to miss it somewhere, but if you put it in there three different times, you're bound to get it. Sometimes. And you'll find that when you read it, you think you've already read it and you find you haven't and you think you're suffering from delayed DTs, but you're not. It's just the way the damn book was written. And this book is probably one of the most poorly written archaic piece of literature that's ever been foistered on the American public. Believe me. I was told to buy this book in a lot of groups. They have a little saying. It goes something like this, at least in my home group. If you don't have the funds, if you'll see the secretary or someone else when a meeting's over, they'll see you leave with this book on your terms. I would advise you to take them up on that if you can find that kind of a deal and get this book on your terms because I'm convinced it will be the last damn thing you're ever going to get in Alcoholics Anonymous on your terms. So take them up on that and get it over with to start with. Now, when you read it, you will find something rather amazing about it. It is not a book on alcoholism to start with. It is a book about the way an alcoholic can live more comfortably sober than he was living drinking. And if you couldn't be more comfortable sober than you were drinking, you'd be drinking. So would I, wouldn't I? What you're trying to do is find a way to enjoy life without having to forget most of what you enjoy. And have you ever noticed in this backwards way how you invite us people to come down here and talk to you for an hour with no script entirely from memory? Nowhere else do they expect anyone to do this. Every place else they give you a script. You've got notes, everything. You expect us to do it all from memory. What you don't know is seemingly is that we're the same people who recently could not remember where the hell we parked our cars. And now you want us to do this whole thing from memory. So I bring my script right along with me to hell with you. And when you read a doctor's opinion in this book you'll probably be reading one of the most graphic examples and explanations of alcoholism that I have ever read anywhere. And I've read a lot of books, articles, and treaties written by some very well-educated people who obviously don't have the slightest idea of what they're talking about. And every one of them that I have read has either been an attempt to explain, elaborate on, or extend what soap we're put in this book almost 50 years ago. And you know what he said about us? He said men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. And while we can admit this effect is injurious, it is so elusive that we soon do not differentiate between the true and the false and we become convinced that our way of alcoholic life is the only way of life. Now if you're convinced that your way of life is the only way of life there's one remarkable thing that happens. No matter what goes wrong it's never your fault. It's his fault. Or her fault. Or their fault. But it is never your fault. After all, you're living the only way life should normally be lived and it's them who are out of step. They ain't shaping up. And then Silker said that we are restless, irritable, and discontented unless we can again experience that sense of ease and comfort that comes at once from taking a few drinks. Drinks which we see others taking with impunity that don't bother them in the slightest. But once we succumb to the desire again as so many do the phenomena of craving develops and we will pass through the well-known stages of esprit emerging remorseful vowing never to drink again and that this will happen over and over and over. And unless we can experience some kind of a complete psychic change there is very little hope for our recovery. Now the next paragraph in the doctor's opinion gives you hope tells you exactly what's going to happen when you grasp this and I'm not going to tell you what it is. I had to buy this book and read it and if you want to find out what it is you can get your own damn book and read it because I ain't going to tell you. But I would like to clarify something because two of my greatest pleasures in my declining years has been to comfort the disturbed and to disturb the comfortable. There is only one known cause of alcoholism regardless of what anyone else may say. Alcohol is the only known cause of alcoholism. You cannot get alcoholism from a woman. Did you ever drink a woman? You cannot get alcoholism from a man. Did you ever drink one of them? You get alcoholism from drinking alcohol. It's just that simple. Just that simple. And the only known treatment for it is total and complete abstinence. No alcohol in any form. If it was that simple though then why bother writing a book like this? Pretty big book just to make a simple statement like that, isn't it? It is because there is one statement in this book that you rarely hear mentioned in any participation meeting in a podium participation meeting any kind of a meeting you go to. One statement that's extremely important because it says laying the drink question aside we can see where our way of life would have been wholly unsatisfactory and therein lies the problem. Our way of life. Many people in Alcoholics Anonymous and perhaps some of you or some of them come into AA really believing you're going to change yourself. You really believe that there is a method by which you can change. There is none. Did you ever walk into a bar and say give me a double shot tonight I'm going to be me? No, of course not. And what this book tries to help you do is learn how to be you. How to be yourself. How to strip away all those calluses that have built up over the years and every once in a while in wearing away the calluses a nerve will be exposed and God it will hurt. But it's wearing away the calluses. Until one day you can finally be yourself and you are being what God meant for you to be and when you're that you're perfect in God's eyes. You ain't going to be perfect in mine and I'm not going to be perfect in yours because we do not know what perfection is. God doesn't know. Above all other things for God's sakes from the very beginning be yourself. Just be yourself. And if you don't know what it is get yourself a sponsor. Say who am I? By the time he gets through explaining to you who you are you'll be damn glad to be yourself. Especially if you get somebody like Ted over here I know him I wouldn't he's a wonderful friend but I sure as hell wouldn't want him for a sponsor he's cruel. When you read Bill's story in this book you may discover what I did. I was blinded by a lot of things as you probably was really believing how much how long you drink that all of these things are important and you no doubt have heard people say that they drank long enough to lose all the 11 western states and part of western Canada. That never happened to me. I didn't drink that long. Neither did Bill. When you read this you'll find out in 1929 Bill was still able to work sell stock ride a motorcycle all over the east make a living in 1929. Yet in 1935 he had co-founded Alcoholics Anonymous. He'd sober up in 1934. That's only five years no matter how you cut it. So it's not how much you drink. It's not even how long you drink. It's what happens to you when you drink that you should look at quite often. It's not so much what led you to drinking but where did the drinking lead you? Where did it lead you? How many people can drink and it doesn't bother them? Obviously you ain't one of those many people. Or you wouldn't be. You're an alcoholic for some reason or another when you take one drink you want another one. And given a little time this want will become a need. And after a while you will not believe that there is any possible way you could live through a day without taking a drink. And you'll go through the gates of insanity or death. It's just that simple. Or you will start to understand what's here. The balance of this book at least through chapter 7 2 through 7 is written exclusively and entirely about the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and I think I can prove that to you in a very short period of time. When you read chapters 2 and 3 you'll be reading only about step 1. Step 1. And there's a problem step. Step 1. Right there. Did you ever hear anybody say you've got to admit you're an alcoholic? Hell, I'd do that on the wet end of a bar. There's one thing in that step I did not want to do for a long time. I didn't do it either. When I came into AA I had made and spent $963,000. I'd been given one of the biggest medals I could hang around a soldier's neck in this country and there's no way you or anyone else was going to tell me I was powerless over anything or anyone. People were a commodity. I bought and sold them like anything else. The fact that I was sleeping in a cardboard box at the time was a mere incidental. It had absolutely nothing to do with it. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol. And because of this our lives had become unmanageable because of that one thing. We were powerless over alcohol. When you read chapter 4 in this book you'll be reading only about step 2. We agnostics. We agnostics. When you read the first paragraph in that chapter it's extremely important because it says in the preceding chapters you have learned something of alcoholism. We hope we have made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic. I used to confuse that because they're not talking about the non-drinker. And I used to say between the alcoholic and the al-anon until I found out some of them people drank more than I did. No, what they're talking about is the alcoholic and the heavy drinker and what's the difference between them. And in chapter 2 you find out that the heavy drinker given sufficient reason can quit. Problems of health, job, money, family, wife, these things cause them to quit. Would they have caused you to quit? Or me? No, by God, they wouldn't have. Somebody tells you you're going to go crazy, you say give me a double shot and it makes going crazy easier. Somebody says you take one more drink and you're going to die. You say give me a half a shot and I want to die slow. No, we could not quit. Seemingly. Could not quit. We're agnostics. And then oddly enough it lists the only two symptoms that are listed anywhere in this book for alcoholism and there are only two regardless of what anyone else may tell you. It's as if when you honestly want to you find you cannot quit entirely or if when you're drinking you have little control over the amount you take you are probably alcoholic. If this be the case you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer. If that's true would you tell me now why so many of us have wasted so damn much of our time trying to become emotionally stable and have so little to do with a spiritual way of life? Emotional stability. Let me ask you a question. Do any of you really believe that they gave out those cakes here tonight for emotional stability? No, we give them out for physical sobriety. You can be nutty as a fruitcake keep coming back every year without taking a drink they'll give you another cake with a candle on it. One more candle every year. If you don't believe that some of you are going to get up in my part of the country visit the Pacific group. You'll see a guy up there he's got almost 30 years nutty as a fruitcake. They still give him a candle every year because he comes back sober every year. I understand they're going to raise the old-timers age to 35 years just to keep them from ever being one but no. Physical sobriety not emotional maturity. Although I'm sure that we could save a hell of a lot of money if we did give them out but I know Bevan had never gotten one if we did. I want to tell you something right now. I want to make one thing clear with each and every one of you. I was born and raised in southern Missouri in a Baptist Bible Belt so I was neither an atheist nor an agnostic when I got into Alcoholics Anonymous. I believed in God and Jesus Christ then and I still do. That has not changed one little bit. And I've had a lot of my peers tell me over the years of mentioning God or Christ from podiums like this to people like you is going to drive some of you drunks out of here. It might but I'm convinced that booze will drive you back so in the end we're going to break even. Now if you don't like to hear about God a power greater than yourself or a higher power then don't bother to read this book because you'll find it's mentioned some 228 different times in the basic text. If you don't want to hear about Christ or the devil then don't read page 11 because both of them are mentioned on that one page. In fact it might be necessary for you to try to find another way to stay sober and after you've failed miserably then you come on back and we'll talk about this spiritual concept that Alcoholics Anonymous has become so world famous for in the last 52 years. Spiritual concept. Now on page 52 in this chapter for the agnostics you will find eight results of being either an atheist an agnostic or an egoist. Now I didn't say egoist even though a lot of people say in my case that too would have applied but I said it was egoist. You know what an egoist is? An egoist is a person that while he knows all about God he believes only in himself. And if you believe only in yourself you will think only of yourself and it won't be long before you'll live your life as if you was in a room full of mirrors and every human emotion that goes out bounces right back. And if you feel any kind of pity it will always be self-pity. Always self-pity. And you'll find that this is a very frustrating way to live because you spend a lot of your time trying to get these callous indifferent idiots to feel as sorry for you as you feel for yourself and they have nothing to do with it. Self-pity. Self-pity. My God. How many times have you heard people say in AA I want self-esteem or self-worth and really struggle to get it. And then watch what happens when they get it. And the self-esteem turns into arrogance and a self-worth to conceit and they're right back where they started. What this book says is abandon yourself to God as you understand God. It does not say to improve yourself in any way. And be careful with these self-hyphenated words that are so tricky that seem so desirable and yet so treacherous. Of myself of myself I'm nothing. Without you I could not be here anywhere. San Diego, or anywhere else. We are that important because of those eight results. Now I'm not going to tell you what they are either. Like I said, I had to buy this book. If you want to find out what they are, buy your own book. I'll tell you what two of them are. One of them says we could not control our emotional natures. One of them says we were having trouble in our personal relationships. Oh, there's a good word. Do you know what else relationships is graphically mentioned in this book? In chapter 11 where it says see to it that your relationship with him is right and greater events will come to pass for you and countless others. Now tell me, fellows, is it possible that most of the relationships we got ourselves involved in over these years went to hell so quickly because we went into them with what's in it for me? What can I get out of it? And we never existed. We never even had a chance. Perhaps it's something each of us should look at from time to time. We. Not I anymore. The next chapter in this book is entitled How It Works. Did you ever ask an old timeer how it works? And he said, trust God and clean house. You want to know where he got it? Out of chapter 7 working with others. It says, burn the idea into the consciousness of every man that he too can get well regardless of anyone. The only condition being that he trust in God and clean house. Now before I get into the significance of that in this one chapter there's something else I'd like to tell you about and that's a small portion of chapter 5 that we read in all of our meetings or most of them here in Southern California. You know they're reading that all over the country now? Everywhere I've been they're reading that small portion of chapter 5. Just got back from South Dakota. They read it there. Virginia. Tennessee. Missouri. Every place I've been they're reading it. They don't know why they're reading it but they're reading it. We've sent enough missionaries out among the heathens to convince them always to bet. But let me tell you what's wrong with it. When you hear it read in every meeting you don't pay one damn bit of attention to what's being read. You're too busy looking at the girl's legs next to you or what you're going to do when you eyes shut up and you can get out of here but you don't pay no attention to what's being read. I've heard a lot of people say you can work this program any way you want to. Maybe you can. You know what the book says? Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path and there is no S on path. Only one. Because there are two kinds of people that ain't going to make it. Those who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program. Now there they're talking about the smart ass and the wet brain. Next time one of you have a little drinky poo or some of you fire off some of them pocket rockets you carry around with you and you're sitting out here on one of these street corners trying to figure out which one you're on until you right now wet brain can't think. You'll know which one you are I just told you. You ever hear someone say to you if you want what we have you know that's the philosophy of a thief. You know it's not a part of the A way of life and it's not in this book either. You know what it does say? If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it then you're ready to take certain steps. Have you made that decision? Do you want it? Are you willing to go to any length to get it? If not you ain't going to get it. What you will get is a whole bunch of little technicolored buttons to wear on your key chain. You might even get a cake or two with a candle on it but you know what you will not get? Things of mine contentment serenity hope anything that makes life worth living will simply be elusive. It won't be there. It won't be there at all. Now Paul Xenonis has twelve steps. Christ had twelve disciples. One of his disciples was Judas. One of these steps is Judas. You know which one it is? It's don't make any difference what the number is. It's the one step you really believe you don't have to take. That's the Judas step. The one step I don't know pardon me I don't know I don't have to do that one. The Judas step. Oh it's tricky isn't it? You know how many people have been deluded by one statement in that part we read? Probably the most misleading of all statements. There are those two who are rarely emotionally and mentally ill but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest. Do you know how many people have been led to believe that honesty is a treatment for a severe emotional dysfunction or some kind of a psychic or psycho disorder and go absolutely nuts after a few years of sobriety because they didn't seek out the help they really needed? Really believing that they could do it with honesty? Not even knowing what honesty is? I didn't know what honesty was. I knew what dishonesty was. I was in business for ten years out here. Believe me I knew what dishonesty was but I didn't know what honesty was. And I made the mistake going to this adversary of mine one day and asking if he'd mind explaining to me what honesty is. I'll tell you something about this guy. He died here about four years ago and I'm sure he died on his terms not on God's. And never in his life did he ever answer a question directly for anyone. What he'd do is ask you a question. So when you knew the answer to his question you also knew the answer to yours. That got him out of a hell of a lot of work I found out later. And what he said to me he said well young man he said let's assume that there was a man and a woman who were both married to someone else and they get together one day and decide to go to a motel. They go up to the desk clerk to register and the clerk looks at them and he says are you married? And they say yes we are. He gives them the key they go inside. Now he said you tell me how honesty would have applied to that. Well I hadn't been in that position for a while at the time didn't sound like such a bad idea to me but it also seemed obvious what the trouble was I said well yeah if they were honest they would have said yeah we're married but not to each other. He said no that's not it. He said that would be the truth though wouldn't it? And it would have eliminated the sin of omission but it has absolutely nothing to do with honesty. And I puzzled that damn thing out for almost three months. And I went up to him one day in a rare mood I was going to kill him if he didn't tell me what the answer was. And I said what about this man and woman who went to the motel? How does honesty apply to that? He said young man do you mean to tell me you haven't figured that out yet? I said no I ain't. He said you astound me. He said if they had been honest they would not have been there. That had never occurred to me. But something did occur to me. Honesty is action. Truth deals with facts. Honesty then deals with integrity doesn't it? It's totally different. Now if somebody tells you they're a thief and you invite them home with you and they steal all you got don't go to an AA meeting complaining about them they didn't tell you they were honest they told you they was a thief. Thieves steal. Truth is important. But it is not honesty. And how many times have we all been misled and deceived because we didn't know the difference between truth and honesty. If they were honest they would not have been there. Honesty is action. And action is the magic word in Alcoholics Anonymous. The magic word. Now when you get past the ABCs where we stop reading you'll see a remarkable thing happens in this chapter. It says being convinced we were at step three and step three is italicized. A little further over in that same chapter it says this is the magic word. Step four step four is also italicized. There are two steps in how it works. Three and four. Trust God. Clean house. When you get into that fourth step you'll find there are two kinds of people in AA. Those you cannot make take a fourth step and those you cannot keep from taking a fourth step. I come from the first kind. I heard ask a guy once I said when did you take the fifth step? He said when a statue of limitations run out. I figured that was good advice. You don't take a fourth you don't take a fifth. Right? So for a long time I didn't take a fourth. And then one day this adversary of mine caught me. And he said you know you've been freeloading us for long enough it's time you took a fourth step. I took a fourth step. Loaded out in long hand seen the syntax was right punctuated it properly edited it somewhat for readability put a little addendum with this resentment list they talk about in here in it put a loose leaf notebook handed it to him. He took one like that he said what's this a movie script? I said no sir that's my inventory. He picked it up thumbed through it he said this is not your inventory it's a script I know a script when I see one I'm an actor it won't play any hint of I said that is not a script that is my inventory he said it is not your inventory. I said it is he said it is not what you have done my young friend has itemized your behavioral patterns and I have no doubt that you've edited it so damn well that neither you or I will ever know how you was ever wrong about anything. With that he took a small notebook out of his pocket threw out one sheet handed it to me he said take your inventory on this I said I can't he said you can't I said I can't it's too small he said it is not he said tell me my young friend did you ever knowingly take anything that did not belong to you I said of course I have you know that he said write down thief he said did you ever tell a story that you knew did not match the facts in the case I said of course I have you know that too he said then write down liar now I don't know about you but I don't like the way this damn inventory was starting to turn he said did you ever play around with the girls when you was married to somebody else I said of course I have you know that too he said then write down cheat he started to walk away he said oh incidentally at the top of the page would you write down atheist I said I told you I was a Baptist he said what's the difference now that sounds like a smart remark and yet it opened my eyes to something that I had overlooked for many many years deep seated religious conviction is quite often an obstacle to a spiritual concept it should not be that way but it is and have you ever heard someone say if you're not a good Baptist you ain't good for nothing you ever hear somebody say if you're not a good Catholic what good are you and we do not exist the greatest of all spiritual messages is simply two words long our father that's all you need to know we not I and yet a religious conviction can shut you off and shut you off from your fellow man and so often it does and by taking inventory in this manner I discovered something I may have found anyway I don't know but I discovered that the same character trait of a pathological liar is also the character trait of a novelist or a short story writer and some of the greatest literature ever written was written by the Bronte sisters Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights but do you know they wrote under the name of Belle and some of the greatest American literature was written by Mark Twain the jumping from Calaveras County and some of the greatest and Tom Sawyer and yet you know his real name the Bronte sisters wrote under the name of Belle with these people these were nom de plumes pen names with me they were aliases but remarkably similar wasn't it and how many of us have thought up stories to get ourselves out of trouble that we should have never gotten ourselves into that would rival even their great talent but will they live after we are gone or will they soon be forgotten hopefully I found something then that bothered me being a thief didn't bother me and that bothered me and I went up to this adversary of mine one day and I said you know being a thief doesn't bother me he said why should it he said we in Alcoholics Anonymous are not moralists it's not up to any of us to dictate the morals of anyone else especially in an ever changing society for Christ's sake he said but you told me once a lying did bother you I said it does he said you're going to steal without a liar and he had me but I thought about it and I found a way almost everything that I have told you so far here this evening I have stolen from something or someone and weaved it together in a form of a story that I hope will help someone else better understand what I have found at least in this book and now I found that I was trying to get rid of character traits instead of the defects of character and now these things no longer exist the defects are gone the trait remains you cannot get rid of a character trait it was God given if it is possible if it is economically feasible you will make money with that trait if not you'll work your butt off like I did but don't try to get rid of it just don't use it selfishly any longer it will work so much simpler that way I jumped over steps two and three so I could come back to them did you ever read that it says we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity now would you tell me why so many people in AA waste so much of their time trying to become a power greater than themselves and fail miserably or what they want to do is be restored to sanity they don't want to come to believe so now you're going to make some psychologist some doctor or some counselor wealthy because you want to be restored to sanity you don't want to come to believe but the step's simple it says we came to believe that not in now but that a power greater than ourselves liken it to another word in step four it's called resentment you know what a resentment fundamentally is it's one of two things it's either a natural aversion to truth or it is the courage of a coward and you get a resentment because someone done or you think someone done something that is extremely detrimental to you and you'll do absolutely nothing but think about it and the more you think the worse it gets as long as you think before you're filled with a burning rage and that SOB's out there enjoying life resentments real or imagined have the power to actually kill resentment many years ago when I was going to school I read Caesar's or Shakespeare's Caesar and there's one line in there that I hope I never forget Caesar is explaining what he plans on doing to someone and they say beware Caesar beware a coward dies many times before his death the vagrant never tastes of death but once how many times do you want to die is once enough or do you want to do it over and over and over the choice is yours did you ever read that serenity prayer it says God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change now I'm going to tell you something about me if I couldn't approve of it I couldn't accept it there's a hell of a lot I don't approve of especially you people that drive Japanese beer cans down the freeway when I'm in a hurry but that's not what that thing says it says the serenity to accept it so I got here tonight sober all because of serenity left home at 2 o'clock got here at 8 o'clock there are two things you never do you never fly through Denver and you never drive the 405 freeway on a Friday afternoon if there are paths to heaven go to the other place it'll be easier to change the things we can the last part I was saying a sponsor knows the difference it don't I guess it's alright the way it's written but it should say that shouldn't it what about step three when you come into AA and obtain and maintain your sobriety over a period of years you will become a leader whether you want to or not ask Ted Harriet or any of the other people that have been around here for a while and they'll tell you it is given to you forced on you that one step determines who leads you now whether you're a shepherd or a Judas goat will depend on how well you have worked step three into your life made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood it you know how many people are confused about that step I've had many people come to me and say I have turned my will and my life over to the care of God and he's going to go work for me I'll tell you something when I was a kid back in Missouri I went to seminary for a while and I can prove to you in the Bible that God got a job worked six days created the heavens and the earth took a day off and there is no record he ever went to work ever for anyone again when you turn your will and your life over to the care of God you will go to work for God he does not go to work for you and if you fellas don't believe that ask yourself a question did you ever turn your will and your life over to the care of some lady and she went to work or did you go to work and if you're still not convinced when Monday rolls around just walk into boss's office say from now on you're working for me and watch what happens to you no but there is one remarkable thing that does happen when you start doing God's work as you believe God would have you do it you find now the worst you can do is break even for before that was the very best you could have hoped for you still have flats except you have them in your driveway now the car still doesn't run but it stops close to a garage now you see there is a quotation in the Bible that's extremely important it says it rains on the just and the unjust equally and if the best member in this group and the worst walked out that door and it was raining both would get wet only the worst would resent it because if you the other could accept it and that's the fundamental difference when you're questioning yourself about spirituality don't get involved in anything religious it doesn't mean that when you are not spiritual and you are trying to feed the ego no matter what it is you ain't got you want it till you get it then you don't want it no more when you are spiritual you want what you've got and that's the difference and now things last a lifetime even marriages can last a lifetime I've had a lot of people tell me hey marriages don't work that's a bunch of crap no marriage will work if you base it on selfishness or I any will work if you base it on us on we Bev and I have been married 17 years come August both of us in AA both of us with a different concept fight like cats and dogs she's even going to school to learn how to be a man-hater yeah she don't need to go to school to learn how to be a man-hater sure she knows how to be a man-hater but I'm glad they're teaching her something it's only my position to help her to help her do what she chooses to do and I'm going to help her learn that's in case I die first the next poor SOB's in for one hell of a surprise there's one thing I like in AA it's getting even now don't kid yourself that's exactly what you'll spend the rest of your life trying to do is to just get even to pay a debt that isn't payable to people who have cared enough to send the very best they came their selves didn't they to encourage you to do what you didn't believe was possible when you read the next chapter in this book you'll find it is entitled into action unfortunately it is not entitled into thinking but every step 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 are all italicized and itemized in order in that one chapter and one of them only has a paragraph written about it you're now on your honor on how well you do it no guidelines now how well do you want to work those steps it's up to you now they close that chapter by saying we will not devote the next chapter to you we will not devote the next chapter entirely to the 12th step working with others and they do and fundamentally that is the basic text of AA and for a long time that was all I read at this time in my life I did not have a wife and I did not want a wife so I didn't read a chapter to the wives and I know some of you young fellows are sitting out there feeling the same way you don't have a wife and you don't want a wife either I've got news for you if you're sober in AA you're probably going to get a wife whether you want one or not I damn well advise you to read that chapter to the wives because there are four types of alcoholics that are graphically described in that one chapter there are five types in a doctor's opinion and there are five types in one more type in a basic text that's ten types of alcoholics that were known when this book was published in 1939 and if that's not enough to get you a real bigotry that says if you didn't drink like I drank you're not an alcoholic I don't know what it would be what about family afterwards you don't have a family you don't want one of them either I've got news for you you are not going to find a 40 year old virgin orphan in AA so you're going to get a family whether you want one of them or not now I've got three daughters Beverly's got one that's four daughters I would rather raise saber-toothed tigers than daughters I would rather raise but there's four of them and we get along remarkably well thank God we're separated by great distance and believe me that does help if there was something else I wouldn't have known if I had not read that chapter you know it's okay to live in a good home drive a good car wear decent clothes have money in a bank there's absolutely nothing wrong with the material as long as it always follows the spiritual but never precedes it first things first you have no excuse to be a bum now unless you just simply want to look like one the choice is yours of course what about the employers the employers I don't know about you yeah I know about you I'll tell you about me anyway money has never been an incentive for me to work poverty is an incentive for me to work but suppose I had never read that chapter I would not have known what the five greatest enemies of the alcoholic are you know what they are resentment jealousy envy frustration and the third most common used word in ever known language including Mandarin, Chinese Russian and English fear fear fear that word is the third most common used word in all languages you'll hear it more in AA than you do any other word except two there are two words used more God first then love then fear in that order in all languages now you might ask yourself a question how does Alcoholics Anonymous eliminate fear it doesn't what it does do it eliminates the causes of fear and the most common cause of fear in most people is embarrassment and you will not take part in your own recovery because you're so concerned that you're going to die you embarrass yourself you will I'll tell you right off I said once in a meeting I've done everything there is to do except make love to another man another guy in a meeting said if you've had as many blackouts as you say you had how do you know you didn't you're the institution of this country not one of them says we're sorry we wrote it no you go back to set this right as best you can and you find out then that you're no longer concerned about what anyone does to you what difference does it make because the best they can do is just get even you've already done it to someone else what about loneliness loneliness do you girls know that it is loneliness alone that have caused you to get into situations you would have never ever gotten into for any other reason all you ever really wanted was somebody to just put their arm around your shoulder and tell you it's going to be alright I'm sorry that men like me took advantage of people like you when you were at your lowest I'm even more sorry that many still are incidentally call us anonymous take care of this I'll tell you now about the title to this book there are almost 200 different anonymous programs trying in one way or another to use the 12 suggested steps of AA and some are successful and some aren't quite so successful but Alcoholics Anonymous is made up of two fundamental component parts the program as it is written and laid out in this book and the fellowship as you see it here in this meeting the fellowship is the other important part and when you become involved in the fellowship when you get into general service when you go to H&I intergroup simple office you find out that you now become involved in the fellowship and this loneliness begins to lighten and when you get involved in a group like this and you come here early and help to set it up and stay late and clean up the messes like people like me make you'll find one remarkable thing happens you'll develop a dislike for someone and one night they won't be here and you'll say where's Ted is Harry here and the loneliness will begin to disappear because you will now be interested in someone else other than yourself and that is based on these twelve of recovery and the twelve traditions of Alcoholics Non-Alcohols I've heard many people say that the traditions are to the group what the steps are to the individual and while I know this is true I believe it is misleading these traditions are to the individual what the individual is to the group and if the traditions mean nothing to you the group will mean nothing to you and year after year after year you will keep coming back with the same difficulties the same problems the same everything because you have never gotten involved in the fellowship and you will never understand what our common welfare means you won't know you'll never understand what it means to drop a buck in the basket and meetings will go broke because they just have to be self-supported and you didn't care enough to spend a buck to save your own life and the lives of others the traditions must be to you what you are to the group you'll find out then that fear has dissipated no longer a problem what about these last three steps in a year did you ever read step ten do you realize when you go to anyone or when you say it even to yourself that I was wrong I was making a mistake I was going down the same old road again that you're really saying that you're wiser today than you was yesterday that you can recognize your mistake now or before you couldn't now what in the name of heaven is so difficult about saying I'm wiser now than I once was what's so hard about that what about step eleven do you know one two and eleven are the three steps in a that mention power in one way or another read step eleven because in step eleven you'll get the job you applied for in step three and you'll find out that you always have the strength to do whatever it is God wants you to do it's always there even when you're tired and worn out and discouraged even when you're at your lowest you still have that spiritual strength to do what has to be done when the old man calls you go and you'll find the reward for that is extremely wonderful you'll make friends now all over the country instead of enemies your picture's no longer hanging in a post office and here people are glad when you come back instead of horribly glad when you've left the difference now is remarkable step twelve in closing I'd like to talk to you about that for a moment step twelve having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps we try to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all of our affairs now I don't want to hear of any of you ever again ever being 86th out of a restaurant because you give some waitress a hard time what you may not realize is we are the publicity agents for Alcoholics Anonymous and by practicing these principles in all of our affairs we make this available to some poor jerk who may need it someday someone yet unborn may need it and your action may be those that causes someone to say you don't want to go there those people are immature imbeciles your actions now are very important you can now be courteous kind and considerate what's so difficult about living by principles those are three you can live by and consideration alone if you think about it will save your life when you're not fighting for 18 feet of real estate on a freeway at 90 miles an hour that you could only own for a fraction of a second just be courteous and save your life what about duty responsibility and obligation what's so difficult about that what's so hard about it honesty open mindedness and willingness what's so hard about these things just our reluctance to face them that's possibly all it is many many centuries ago when God had a message he wanted to carry on the face of this earth he looked around to see who had cared for him better than anyone else and he found a group of people over in the middle east who were the most stiff necked self willed people he could find at that time they were the tribe of Israel and he gave them the commandment of carrying the message of one God throughout the world and in spite of all the shame humiliation and degradation that had been heaped upon their shoulders over these many centuries they have carried that message so well that there are only two fundamental religions in the world today who do not fully subscribe to the one God theory and everyone come around I won't live to see it and you might not either but it will happen mark my words now I know that some of you people are going to say oh remember it's God as we understand please don't say that to me because all you're going to tell me is you haven't read chapter 11 where it says united under one God many ways to worship many ways to pray many ways to get out of doing either but one God nonetheless I knew that Christ was born to carry a spiritual message I looked for it for a long time and couldn't find it but I knew it was there somewhere when you look at the ten commandments you find that there are moral laws and when you take a moral inventory you will see how you have violated those and how that ramification has woven all through your life up till now I told you about three I could tell you about the other seven a liar, a cheat, and a thief but money can become a tremendous God and so can girls can't they just remember what happened to Adam and Eve when Adam followed Eve both of them got their butts thrown out of the garden and don't forget it fellas make sure there is no other gods before me as the commandments say for the first 300 years at least after Christ's crucifixion the first century Christians done a remarkable job of carrying a spiritual message one to another for a long time until Constantine became emperor of Rome and got himself a little blue flag with a white cross on it and put a sign on it in hot signal vintages and this sign thou shalt conquer and went off on a holy walk and sanctioned the churches and cash flow became important and the message was dormant and it just laid there for 1500 years it just laid there old people tried to carry it but none were successful and once again God looked around and said you can carry this message for him better than anyone else and once again he found a group of people who could do it I didn't know what that message was for a long time so I lived by the golden rule it works remarkably well too I'll tell you that right now to do unto others that you would have them do unto you for as you do unto them so it will be done unto you you get what you deserve don't you I got into an argument with a woman now I know better than to argue with women even when you win you lose I do it but I know better and I was going to prove to her something was in the box and in trying to find what I was going to prove I found the spiritual message because when Christ was asked what is the greatest of all the commandments he said there are two to love your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul and love your neighbor as you love yourself and Christ had given us the spiritual commandment of love but it became dormant and nobody carried it now the Oxford groups based their brief on this old first century Christianity the founding of AA was in the Oxford groups and once again God wanted this message carried and once again he looked around as to who could carry it for him better than anyone else and once again he found a group of people who were the most bullheaded stiff-necked self-willed the most egocentric bunch he could find anywhere they were alcoholics in a blinding flashlight he made a deal with one of them he said Bill I'll make a deal with you if you'll carry the message of love throughout the world you will never drink again and for 52 years Alcoholics Anonymous has carried this message of love one drunk to another so well that we have now risen from two to almost two million sober alcoholics in this world today all based on that one simple principle of one drunk loving another and carrying that message anytime, anywhere, under any condition and you'll find that it will take all of the determination all of the self-will you have mastered over these years to do it but you will do it or you will drink it's just that simple and how many times have you heard someone say what I want to say to you you love me when I could not love myself you have shown me how to love you and for that I am extremely grateful thank you very much