Why Emotional Sobriety Is Not a Poster Child – Bob E.

Good evening. I am Bob Earl. I'm a drug addict and an alcoholic. I am delighted to be here at your Florida State Conference. Someone's deeper? I love the topic of miracles. That's interesting. I'm in a strange place, so this could well be a strange talk. i never am responsible for what i say up here and i feel even less responsible at this moment than i have um at other times in the past if i'm in a even though you know i think we um sometimes get an impression around alcoholics anonymous that somehow seniority means something that if you are sober a long period of time you are exempt from life and that if you're careful about how you work your a program you can build a bunker in which you can live i think oftentimes these bunkers are referred to as ruts but it's all right um but that you can you can building this bunker in what you can living you do and you do not have to deal with the onset of life and my my problem was actually not drugs and alcohol. They were a solution for me for an awful long time. As a small boy, I was raised by an alcoholic father, a child beater for a mother, and it was not a lot of fun. And now today I stand before you practically 33 years sober with probably more information about family systems and family dysfunction that I can use between now and when I die. And I understand now the impact that had on me in my life. I had a tough time in school as a kid. It was a nightmare for me. I had an attention deficit. I didn't like answering questions because I was getting punched for answering them at home. So when large old ladies in big black corrective shoes would stand at a blackboard with a piece of chalk and say how much is two plus two, I wasn't quick to jump up and say four, you know? Because I'd jump up at home and say three or four and I'd get knocked down. And so that became the dynamic of my life. A little bit behind, a little bit slow, not comfortable in my body. I have no recollection of ever being comfortable in my mind. In my body, just kind of sitting somewhere like, oh yeah, this is okay. I was uncomfortable from my earliest memory. It didn't change. The only thing that changed for me in school was somewhere between 12 and 13 I hit about 6 feet. No longer did I have to listen to the instructors. No longer did I Have to let them sit there and let them embarrass me and humiliate me in front of my peers. They couldn't do it to me anymore. I was big enough now to get up, walk out, throw my books in their wastebasket, make some socially unacceptable gesture and leave the room. The boys' vice principal at the school I went to had already made it clear he did not want to see me again ever so they couldn't send me to him any longer. It had to do with thank you very much throwing a chair through his window, expressing myself, I believe it's called. I'll give you an idea of what I was like. At 15 years of age, I had not yet discovered the wonderful world of alcohol and other substances. I can't think of being angrier at any time in my life than I was at 15 years old. I went to a high school in Los Angeles that was racially mixed called Manual Arts. I think we had more murders in 1950 than they had in 1980-something when they were writing articles about it in paper. They were so upset with me in that school, they asked me to leave. They sent me to a High School designed for boys like me. There used to be a high School in Los Angles called Reese High School. i don't think there was an educational credential among any of the instructors at reese they um a couple were hired because they were gorillas and the rest were hired because they Were either currently employed as juvenile police officers or had once been employed as Juvenile Police Officers i lasted in reese high school one day i just want you to get a sense of what i was like at 15 years of age one day in this environment for bad boys they called my mother up and told her they did not want me in the los angeles city school system they didn't care what they she did with me they just didn't want me back three days later i was in hermosa beach sitting on the beach some of the boys. They had funny-looking cigarettes and a gallon of wine. They said, smoke this. I did. He said, wash this down with a little of this red wine. And I did it. And magic happened. For the first time since I was born, I felt okay. I felt okay. It was all right being in my body. I didn't feel inadequate and insufficient and incomplete. I felt like, this is all right. I could do this. I could be a man. I could say, I could do this every day. This is a good feeling. Girls took on a whole new meaning with a little marijuana and wine. You know, it's like, oh, okay, I get it. I know what they're talking about now. You talk to them and when you talk to them you get romantically involved and things begin to happen and I like this. And that was the beginning of a love affair for me. Can you imagine this? A 15-year-old boy who'd been unhappy, being miserable, isolated, alone, incomplete, insufficient, uncomfortable in his body every damn day of his life for 15 years. And one day it was okay. Then they wonder why we drink this stuff and use this stuff, right? The next three years, I hate to report for those of you who are very seriously against alcohol and drugs and any positive information about it was great. I got to tell you, man, the next three years were like driving a fine car down the highway of life. It was good. What I took worked. I knew what to take to make me feel different ways. I could set my mood. I'm bringing narcotics in from Mexico. I got all the adrenaline one human being can stand in my life. I mean, we're down there making deals. People are shooting at each other. We're running for boats. Boats are sinking. Cars are being gunned down. It was just a day in my life. It was like, this is all right. I can do this. This is even more exciting than growing up in my house, you know, with this. So I'm alive. Finally, after 15 years of death, I'm still alive. I'm live. And I'm loving it. And I am a dangerous person. And people liked that. And my friends admired me because I was the one guy, when we crossed the border, we got south. They said, if you get in trouble, look for Bob, man. Look for Bob. He's got the guns and look for Bobby. He'll take care of you. I loved it. I loved that. It was really exciting. Three beautiful years. Now, I wonder if any of you out there have experienced this next little dynamic in the process of alcoholism and drug addiction. I got up one morning and it didn't work. I no longer felt okay. I didn't feel excited. I didn' t feel complete. I felt empty again, and I felt inadequate again. I felt insufficient again. I felt like there was something awfully wrong with me. I used to have this sense that there's this little spot down inside of me somewhere, kind of like a little tiny spot of bubbling sewage. And if you ever found that, one of three things would happen. You would leave me. You'd make me go away. You'd tell other people about it and embarrass me. So my whole goal in life has been to make sure you never see this spot inside of me. You may get to see it tonight. The mood I'm in. Well, the next eight years weren't as much fun as the first three years, you know? When the stuff starts working, that just goes south then. You know, it just goes down. And for those of you who are unaware, this is the period of time of our drinking and or addiction that drives non-addicted people insane. Absolutely insane. Because we're not having fun. It's not party time anymore. We don't feel good anymore. And we just keep going after it with the same zest as if it was still party time. And that's when they make these inane statements like, God, if it did that to me, I wouldn't use it. You know? People say that to be true. They say to me all the time, they ever say, you think about stopping this stuff, man? You don't look good, you know? You're losing weight, your eyes are a little... You know, did you ever think about quitting this? Of course not. It's in denial. I'm not going to quit it. I'd love to give a talk a friend of mine gave two nights ago, an Irish buddy of mine, because he talked about the denial in his family. Everybody in his families died from alcoholism, but no one will admit it. And he was saying some Uncle Frank of his or something had just died, and he called his aunt. And this is a guy who's very angry about the denials in his own family and the denial on his family because he's the only member of this enormous Irish family who's sober. And his Uncle Frank had just dead and he couldn't get back for the funeral and he called his aunt and said, oh my God, I'm sorry about Frank and she said, he said, she said it's such a surprise. And he said my God haven't you looked at the man you've been sleeping next to for Christ's sake? He's 180 pounds overweight he's bloated his feet are swollen his skin is yellow his eyes are bugging out he's got pus coming out of the corner of his mouth for Christ sakes. What do you think killed him? You know drinking killed him. I love denial. It's a wondrous thing, I think, denial. Twenty-six years of age, I weighed 135 pounds, and I was sleeping in the doorway. I weigh about 200 now, if you want to know what I look like at 135. I wasn't very well. Wasn't very good. Couldn't call AA. I liked this topic of miracles. I'd gone before a judge. My last arrest to show you how hip, slick, and cool I was at the very end. My last arrest was Common Drunk Place of Arrest, Main Floor City Jail. Now there's a high roller, you know. Somebody hip-slick cool and moving in the fast lane. I had been sentenced to weekends for driving under the influence, and I figured as long as you're going to jail anyway, You might as well be drunk. It made perfect sense to me. It didn't make sense to them, so they jailed me. I had to go back before this judge that had sentenced me. I was in serious trouble. With my record, failure to incomplete the sentence could be compounded into a felony. And I was history. So I go before this Judge who isn't being kind to anybody that's going before me. The guy that went before me, he said, The judge says, okay, I'm going to give you ten days for your drunk driving and I'll let you do it on five weekends. And the guy said, Your Honor, if you don't mind, I'd just as soon do the ten days and get it over with. And this judge said, well, son, I was trying to have a little consideration for your wife and your child and your employer. But seeing as how you don' t either, let's put another hundred and seventy on top of that ten. I'm next. I was always looking for the Christians, man while I was in that spot I thought there's got to be somebody here with a program about Jesus that will take me out of this courtroom I'll go too right now but there were none there that day so I said to this judge he says how do you plead I said guilty but can I talk to you first I said I have a little drinking problem He said, I'm aware of that. I said, I'm going to call AA and do something about my drinking. I'd heard of it somewhere. I don't even know where. Now I'm expecting the gavel to fall. Man, I know I'm history. He says, oh, good. I'm glad to hear that. He said you know what? You're going to find a new way of life. You're gonna meet great people. This will make it okay for you. I'm very happy. He said, I know this to be true because I have a brother in AA who's been sober eight years. These are the first words I heard about AA. The first words I heard. New life, make friends, better deal. Now you would think that somebody in that situation would walk straight from that courtroom and call them up. Nope. I had one other little problem going on at the time. I got the ad, I cut it out of the Pasadena paper, and I got a dime, and I was hanging onto my dime, and I WAS HANGING ONTO MY AD. And every time I'd take that damn ad and that dime to a phone, and I'd go to drop the dime in, every fiber of what I grew up with from the time I was old enough to walk would set in. And that message was loud and clear. I don't ask anybody, anywhere, for help of any kind ever. I don' t mind taking it away from you, but don' d offer it to me. I'm not going to take it. So here I am, 26 years of age, 135 pounds all the wiring is gone trust me it's shorted out I'm not doing well mentally I'm talking to balls and things and people who aren't there I'm angry but too skinny to do anything about it threaten people and they laugh at you nothing was fast anymore Nothing was cool anymore. Nothing was slick. There was no more adrenaline. I was just finished. I'm sitting in my doorway on Fair Oaks Boulevard in Pasadena, and I see this shadow loom over me. I call him Eskimos. And this guy says to me, if you don't have any place to stay, you can come stay with me and my wife. i look up here's a guy i'd known him and his wife had like six kids they'd been on welfare of some kind ever since i'd know him i'd helped him out a lot he probably was into me for five or six thousand dollars so i can go with him for those of you who understand this dynamic that i live with inside of me. He owes me, man. He owes me. It's His responsibility to take me the hell out of that doorway and take me somewhere and make it better. He owes it to me. We go about two blocks from where I doorway to this one-bedroom apartment where him and his wife and six kids were living. Trust me, it was better than the doorway on the roof of the barber college. Talk about God working for his children I'm sitting there on the couch in this run-down, beat-up apartment Cockroaches everywhere I don't know how many of them are mine And how many are actually there in the room And it puts you in an awkward position Because you don't want to kill any of them In case you try and kill one of the ones that's not there It's a dead giveaway that you're not doing okay upstairs So I'm sitting there shaking, telling this guy, I said, man, one of these days I've got to call AA and do something about my drinking. He says to me, there's a girl down the hall who goes to AA. This is 1962. I had a lot of curiosity about what a girl who went to AA looked like. The only people I'd ever seen go to an AA meeting were either incarcerated somewhere and it was necessary that they go, or they were at Lincoln Heights Jail and they were the old winos who used to drag off to the meeting to get a cup of coffee. So I went down the hall, man, just to see what a girl looked like that went to AA. I figured Gravel Gertie, at least that, right? I knocked on the door of this apartment, and the girl that opened this door, man, was the perfect Eskimo for me. Eskimos are just somebody God sends to give you a hand. Never who you want, just who God sends. This gal is big enough to break every bone in my body. She stood about six feet two, weighed about 235 pounds. She had short, dark hair. She was built like a professional football fullback, had tattoos. Remember, this is 62. Tattoos down both arms and both legs and had a half-full pint of booze in her hand. Now, for those of you who are running around mumbling, be careful what you say to the newcomer. I want you to know that was August 28, 1962, and I've been sober ever since, and that was my first image of AA. Sometimes I think we have a tendency to forget where the newcomer has been and what they have been thinking about while I'm alone in the dark. Well I looked at this girl, and I could talk to her, man, she was street people. She was street. I looked to her and said, Hey, I'm curious about this AA thing. looked me dead in the eyes and said, hey, it will work if you want it, and I am not ready to quit drinking. Made perfect sense to me. I looked at her and thought, you know what? If I was a big tough broad, I wouldn't give up either. If I had her size and her strength, I'd book it out of here in a second. But I'm 26 years old, 135 pounds, and I'm done. She's not done. Actually, she looked like she was just getting started from where I was at. I think she really got to a meeting too soon. She felt the responsibility for the sobriety she had. You know how they talk about God working in somebody's life? and she stuck me in her car and took me to an AA meeting to give back for the few days of sobriety she had. Called some guy, I had him meet him at the meeting and the speaker for me at the meaning was perfect. There was two, I've never remembered this guy, he's been offended by it for years. I remember the woman who spoke because she talked about being released from Camarillo, the state mental hospital in California and her family always thought she had a good time while she was there because she was smiling. And she said it was from eating with the goddamn tablespoons, you know, it just kept spreading in her mouth. Because that's all you get is a tablespoon and they don't give you forks and knives, I don't understand why. And I had eaten with the tablespoons. I thought she was great. I loved her immediately. Someone who knew about eating with the table spoons because that is a whole dynamic for those of us who have eaten with table spoons. Those of us who have spent days whacked out on Thorazine trying to have races backwards in our paper slippers down the hallway. Something to do on a Friday afternoon. So I'm taken to my first meeting of AA Looked around the room and said Oh man Nothing but marks A lot of people who take their money That's it But I kept coming back And I didn't have any place to live still Because this guy put me out I guess once I got sober They got evicted or something I don't even remember And I found a meeting I was in Pasadena I found an immediate serve finger sandwich I was there every week they had food well this is okay alright I just don't know where it's going but I'll take it as it turns out when I was three weeks sober you know everybody there's this whole big movement in in their different areas we got so many people making so many rules now none of which are written down anywhere I'm just amazed by all of them. And one that has been around forever is don't get emotionally involved your first year. I don't know who the hell wrote that, I mean, or came up with that, unless it's somebody who was just incapable of having a relationship. Because actually, if you can get emotionally involved your fist year, it will bring you closer to your sponsor than any other activity. Now, I know this sounds like a joke, but I swear to God at this conference on the gathering of miracles, this story is true. Three weeks sober, I'm asked to give a ten-minute talk. I give a 10-minute talked. And sitting in the audience is a girl who had been told by her sponsor She was three months sober, an old-timer by my standards. She had been told by her sponsor that if you hear anything you like at a meeting, take it home. She came up, explained that to me It made perfect sense to me And we went home this is another eskimo provided for me by god to help me get to who i am so i can be that person week after we got together she had a complete mental breakdown and landed in a private psychiatric hospital at this point i don't have a sponsor i have no idea what to do she's nuts she's locked up i feel responsible so i go visit her every day we sit by the swimming pool in this fancy private psychiatric hospital I give her get well cards I know how sick that is now but I didn't know at the time I honest to God I didn' t know at that time I thought it was you know here she's eating with tablespoons and I'm giving her get-well cards And we're planning the rest of our lives together with God, AA, and the big book. We probably separated about—we got married eventually. We probably celebrated about six times in the year and a half we were married and went back together six times. You could have looked at our relationship from the outside and said, Oh my God, that's two crazy people. Yet about 14 years later, one day I went to speak somewhere in Burbank, California in this huge Alano club and I looked across the room and there was Joyce. And she looked at me and we started across the room towards each other like a Clairol ad, you know? And we met in the middle of this Alano club and embraced each other and simultaneously said the same words. Thank you for being part of saving my life. And it had been stormy, and it had some terrible moments, but we both knew that we saved each other's lives. She trusted everybody. At her third meeting, some guy took her out to the car in the parking lot and told her that the problem that alcoholic women have of sexual frigidity and offered to help her with that. And this poor babe went for it, you know? I trusted nobody. I trusted somebody and didn't care enough about myself to take care of myself. But I saw that we read the book every night for her. I saw dat we read the 24-hour-a-day book every morning for her I saw da we studied to 12 and 12 every day for her. I saw that we got to nine meetings a week for her I did it for her and as an end result, we both stayed sober you look at it from the outside and judge it you could condemn it that would be very sad it saved two people's lives it saved the lives of two people who probably didn't have a chance without each other. Yeah? Because when I went to my first sponsor, I heard my first... Well, he was sort of a half-sponsor. I heard this guy get up and give this whole knockout talk about being an ex-cop and an ex convict and an ext mental patient and an extr this and an xt that. I'm sitting out there saying, okay, I found him. You know? I go up to him after the meeting and I said, I'd like you to be my sponsor. He says, tell me a little bit about yourself. I did. He says, I actually would like to take you to somebody else to be your sponsor. I think the line that scared the hell out of him was when I said to him, all these people in Alcoholics Anonymous are talking about being afraid. I do not recall ever being afraid ever in my life of anybody, anything, for any reason. I now understand the dynamic of that, of course. I was so goddamn scared I wouldn't even identify being afraid." He turned me over to a lunatic, complete, absolute boss ex-convict out of Folsom who was like being home, you know? He'd stand there under this big sign that said, We care and tell me how stupid I was, how I didn't know anything. Sit down, shut up, listen when I tell you to move a chair, move a Chair. When I tell You to be somewhere, be somewhere. And if You don't do these things, I'll break Your back. made sense to me it was comfortable for me so I did what they told me to do and I went to the meetings they told us to go to and I picked up people they told them to pick up my sponsored people they told him to sponsor when I was six months sober I got my panel in a county hospital nightmare worst thing in the world don't ever give anybody who has a phobia about germs a panel in a hospital I don't have time it doesn't matter I am eternally grateful to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous eternally they got me busy I said at the meeting the other night the topic was service and I said I was of service to others until I got well enough to be of service to myself where it really counts I took care of other people until I learned how to take care of me And I've got to tell you, that's a powerful thing. And it's a powerhouse. It's a wonderful place to be. I had a lot of fun in AA. If it could be done wrong, I did it wrong. By the time I was four years sober, I had blown my whole life to pieces because I just, you know, I got everything about God except what you surrender. I just thought that relationships, employment, and money were my responsibility. God would take care of everything else. I'm not sure what the hell else there is, But at five years sober, I broke my back. And as a result of breaking, it was actually a surrender. I was being surrendered. That's worth telling, I guess. I'm four and a half years sober. And life is not good. I am working in a car wash for $1.25 an hour. I don't have an automobile. I've just been bankrupt through the courts. I'm borrowing money from every person I'm sponsoring. I'm sleeping on the couch of a guy I don't even like, and I had started at $1.35 an hour in the car wash and was now down to $1 1⁄4. That was actually my fourth year. People said, are you going to take a cake? I said, I don' t think so. Why not, Bob? I do not feel I represent one whole hell of a lot of hope to the newcomer, you know? Come in here, and in four years, you can have my life. I had one small problem throughout my sobriety. Every day I didn't drink, I got crazier. Other than that, it was going okay. You know? I was getting jobs, earning money, making friends, going to meetings, seeing old crime partners of mine in prison when I'd take a meeting in. I mean, I've got life going. I had a life going. I had no life going before I got here. It was just that little dynamic of getting crazier every day that was bothering me. And I had this small problem with anger. It seemed to materialize about the time I turned the key in the ignition. It's like there was some connection there between the motor starting and homicidal rage enveloping me. I would then get out on the road and in some terribly thoughtless human being would fail to use their turn signal appropriately. This would begin a hundred mile an hour chase down the freeway system in California with me with my head hanging out the window like a rabid dog screaming obscenities with foam flying out of my mouth because I'm going to kill this person. but I was usually on my way to a meeting at this time. Usually they got away, some of them didn't, and those who didn't found me standing in the middle of their hood at the bottom of an off-ramp trying to discuss turn signals with them and the appropriate use of them. Just a little early sobriety, you know. Anger is the dubious luxury of normal men. I'd pull into the parking lot outside the meeting, you know, wipe off the foam, get that wild dog look out of my hair, stroll into the meeting. Somebody would say, how are you, Bob? I'd say, fine, thanks. you can see because here's a guy who's incomplete insufficient inadequate uncomfortable in his body and he has this little terrible bubbling pot of sewage he wants no one to see and i learned early on in aa everybody's fine the good guys are fine the other people are a problem the good aas are always fine no matter what our meetings would be more realistic if when the greeter would shake people's hands at the door and say how are you if a number of the people would just fall to their knees and grab the greeder around the ankles and begin to sob on their shoes yet it seems that feelings are sometimes the excessive expression of feelings is sometimes frowned upon in this organization does the concept of that bother anybody but me The fact that we almost died drinking and using substances to alter our feelings and suddenly we don't talk about them anymore? I'm going to talk a lot about feelings from this point on in my talk because feelings are about who I am. And feelings and talk about feelings may make you uncomfortable. I have a dear friend, Edie, and I like what she says. when she tried sharing in a general way she kept drinking when she finally started to talk about her feelings she got sober so if my talking about feelings is going to make you uncomfortable leave you know if you don't want to hear about feelings and it's going to be uncomfortable and it makes you uncomfortable there's a lot of integrity in just getting up and walking out and not keeping yourself here for it. But don't sit out there and judge me and condemn me when I start talking about feelings because I'll guarantee you there's no integrity in that. Not a bit. The feelings were killing me sober. Killing me. But I did everything they told me to do and I kept doing it and I broke my back. It was the only way God could slow me down long enough to surrender me and from that surrender I became a television writer and becoming a televisionwriter made lots of money. All you had now was an insane adolescent with a big checkbook. That was just about it, who was in a lot of pain, in a Lot of Pain. I sat down one time and listened to a talk I gave, Ten Years Sober, a brilliant talk. People loved this talk at the Southern California Convention. I cried through the whole talk because I could hear my pain. I could see how much pain I was in Ten Years sober, the agony that was going on inside of me. And I was still fine, man. If you asked me at a meeting, I was fine. How are you, Bob? Fine, thanks. Just not sleeping too well. I have a large list of people I'd like to see dead. But other than that, I'm doing pretty okay. Giving great AA talks. When I was 17 years sober, I could have been the A.A. poster child. I was 17 years clean and sober. I was living in a penthouse at the beach in Santa Monica. I was a staff writer on a hip television show. I had I was driving expensive cars. I have tons of money. I just divorced a gorgeous expensive wife and had just taken on a gorgeous expensive girlfriend. That was one other problem with the insanity. I Was going through wives with a very uncomfortable frequency. It's an expensive habit. Because I used to be very afraid of an angry woman, so I'd do anything to make you not angry, including give you credit cards to shop with. To the men out here tonight, I'd like to tell you that's not a good idea. No one can shop like an emotionally unhappy woman. particularly on the card of the person they are emotionally unhappy with it just adds a dimension to the entire process that they cannot resist so here i am kid from the streets can't spell fourth grade or 10th grade education i've failed english ever since the first time they gave it to me and here i am living in a penthouse driving big cars pretty women lots of money sober 17 years could have put me up on the wall said man look at this look what aa has done for this boy there was one small problem inside, inside where nobody could see but where I was living I was still incomplete and I was inadequate and I wasn't comfortable in my body and I had a little tiny pot down here of bubbling stuff that I was very ashamed of I couldn't think what to do at this point in my life I woke up every morning 17 years clean and sober wanting to take my life I didn't really want to kill myself I just wanted to die I had eliminated suicide as a possibility years ago when I recovered I had to scrap it as an alternative so I made a choice I'd watched a girl that I'd been dating for a while she'd gone to a therapist and she was one of the craziest women I ever met in my life, and trust me, when I was living in the streets dealing drugs, I encountered a few strange women. This one won the prize. Sober. I'd seen her go to this person and get help, and I said to her, What's the name of that lady you want to see, man? Because I've done everything I know how to do. I can't do it any different, andI cannot do itany better. I'm not here telling you what to do with your program. I'm only here to share my experience. This is it. I'm not about what you do. I said, I've worked these steps. I've written 32 goddamn inventories. I've driven probably 150,000 miles carrying this message into institutions. I've sponsored so many people, I can't count them. I've gone to so many meetings, I Can't Count Them. I've walked so many steps so many times, I Cant Count Them, and I'd like to lay down somewhere and die now because the pain inside of me is just too great, too great. She gave me the lady's name, and I went to see this woman. And for those of you that have any problem with sober people going out and see therapists, and if you happen to hold this book up a lot and tell everybody this is it, I'd suggest you read page 132 or 133. There might be some interesting information in there for you. Like how they urge us, urge us to seek this kind of help, our founders. Urge us, man. This Alcoholics Anonymous is not about the strong. You know? The AlcoholicsAnonymous is about the weak, man. It's about coming in here and getting the help you need to get a new life. It's not about coming here and pretending you're okay. It's no about coming into here and trying to impress me that you're fine when you're not fine. It's abut coming in and sitting down with me in a room and when you don't feel good you tell me, and you just sit there and you cry. And I might hurt so bad for you, I'll cry with you. See, that's the Alcoholics Anonymous I want to belong to. I want it to belong to an AlcoholicsAnonymous that's inclusive. Inclusive. Includes people, not excludes people. Bill Wilson said in 1965, AlcoholicsAnenomous has become so big it can never be destroyed from the outside. It will only be destroyed from the inside by intolerance. 30 years ago he got it will only be destroyed by intolerance so I go to see this woman therapist I sit down in her office and she says start with your childhood tell me a little bit about yourself I said well when I was 15 years of age they threw me out of manual arts high school I said I discovered the wonderful world of drugs and alcohol drank, used, smuggled drugs for 11 years rolled into the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous 17 years ago. Been clean and sober ever since. She said, wait a minute. I said, start with your childhood. You weren't born at 15. I said I'll remember it. She got this smile. Now I was very cynical by this time in my life. I thought the smile meant that when I left she was going to call the rolls dealer and tell him she'd take the one with the full leather interior. Because she had somebody who was going to be paying for it. I didn't get what this woman was saying to me with that smile. What she was saying was, if you have the courage to stick this out with me, I'm going to do it. I'm not going to stay here the day that you meet the man you are as opposed to the man you believe yourself to be. Well, God, you know what? I had the courage. I stuck it out. I did six torturous years with this woman. I had to go back and remember every goddamn time at two years old this beautiful blonde-haired, blue-eyed little boy took a right hook from his mother and had his nose broken and his eyes ripped open and was kicked across the room. I hadto go backand feel that stuff. Now suddenly I understood why I was not enjoying family functions at holidays sober. I worked the best program I could, go down to my mother's house for Christmas and all I could think of was flamethrowers. It seemed the only way to get through Christmas would be to just smoke the whole family. And then I'd leave and beat myself up for not working a good AA program. My God, Bob, you should work a step thinking about that like your family. I shouldn't have worked the step. I should have bought a hand grenade if I should. So I had to deal with those feelings in that room with that lady. I hadto cry and crawl and die and scream and yell. At one point in my sobriety, I met a gal we dated for two years, decided that we finally had a relationship that would work. We got married. Thirty days after we were married, they diagnosed cancer, and three months after they diagnosed the cancer, she died. I was ten years sober then. It's about the time I gave that great talk that everybody loved. People would come up to me and say, Bob, I'm so sorry. And I'd say, she's gone home to be with her father. I was a good egg. I didn't have any grief. I'm a strong person. After three years of sobriety, three years in therapy, one day I walked into my therapist's office on an unfortunate Monday morning. This girl's name was Taylor and my therapist said to me, Bob, I think today we need to talk about Taylor. I never knew what grief was. I never cried so hard in my life. I never missed anybody so much in my lifetime. After about three or four hours with her, I went home and spent three days locked up in my condo, sitting in the corner on the floor. All I could do was cry and crawl and scream and yell and cry and call. And I know that's healthy. I know there's not mentally ill because I just watched a three-year-old little girl lose her grandma four years ago and I watched her grief and was in shock. In shock at the level of the depth of the pain this child felt over the loss of a grandmother she'd only spent two years with. She'd wake up in the middle of the night screaming like a wild animal and when she'd get all done screaming she'd look at my wife and I and say, I miss my Dee Dee, her grandma. I had to learn that anger is appropriate and that I got lots of it And if I don't do something about getting it out of me appropriately, it comes out sideways. Poor innocent people get murdered. I go to the dry cleaners and they give me a shirt with a missing button. This is not really too big in the overall scope of day-to-day life. But when I'm walking around 14 years clean and sober, pal, and I haven't done any anger work and that button's gone, and you're going to get it for about 30 years of my life. For every rotten, no-good son of a bitch who ever crossed me, I'm going to guess you over this button. And you're not going to believe me. You're goingto admit I'm right, because that's critical. Because I feel so bad. One day, sitting in that room with that woman, I met Bob I found out that that little tiny bubbling pot of stuff inside of me is shame I'm ashamed of who I believe myself to be and that was taught to me wasn't my idea that was taught to me I was raised to believe that I wasn't enough that I was incomplete inadequate insufficient and that there was something terribly wrong with me we went to work on that. And we found out I'm a good guy. I have a big heart. I'm not some dummy who can't answer questions in school. I am a highly intelligent human being who was just getting his brains kicked out and was suffering from an attention deficit because I was under so much tension, I couldn't think. I couldn�t think. Thinking was too hard, too dangerous, took too much time. They didn't have the time for me. They had too many children. So if you were slow, you were pushed aside. And my nightmare was I was slow with a high IQ. And in the days I went to school, if you Were slow with A high IQ, it was perceived as intentional, your slowness. So I was not a troubled child that needed help. I was a bad child. I liked the guy I met in therapy. I came out of there standing pretty tall. I'd walk by windows and I'd see a reflection of myself and for the first time in my life, man, I smiled. Instead of thinking, who is that crumb? You remember, how many of you had the sponsor tell you in the beginning go home and look in the mirror and tell yourself I love you? Not a good exercise for me. I'd stand there and look. just keep getting lower on the sink because all you can see is the eyes and the mirror. And I'd mumble something about you're the sickest son of a bitch I ever met in my life and I'd walk away. I couldn't say I love you. So I got all this. I got this gift in this therapy. And then I went away and started to have a life. Became a husband. I became a father, a daddy, I have a little girl, she's seven, I adore her, let me tell you what a gift this is, and by the time she hit this planet, I had a wealth of information about how not to do it, and I had even more information about how to do A child that's never been hit. A child who's never been screamed at. A child with all of her power. An amazing little person she is. But in this process of being a dad and being a parent and being an adult and being sober and having life somewhere down the line I got busy. We just got busy and the relationship kind of got a little stale and we just got busier and busier about three weeks ago I was in Southern California and I'm back trying to put my TV writing career back together again I took a little 10 year break and it's going well by the way I might add you know just like when I started all over again doors are opening everything is going fine but I was at the end of the day I was back in Los Angeles and I had to go to a memorial service in Laguna Beach for a friend of mine a guy who had been a friend of mine for 32 years in sobriety he and his wife loved me when not one person in AA would love me I was their bad boy. They adored me. I used to go down to their home in Newport Beach every weekend and play volleyball. Well, they didn't let me play a lot of volleyball because I played jailhouse volleyball. But, you know, they taught me better how to play civilized volleyball. You cannot knee the guy under the net, Bob, when you go up. So you can do it where I come from. And he died. And I go down into this man's memorial service. Huge part of my life. they were dear friends of my wife and I, the one who died. And I'm sitting in this memorial service, four or five hundred people gathered in this hall on Laguna Beach. And by now I'm thirty-two years sober. And a lot of beautiful, sincere, really great AAs are getting up to this lectern and they're saying, God damn, John was a fine man. Boy, I love John. He was a good speaker. He was good sponsor. He was kind man. He was the good citizen. And I sat there and got very suddenly really uncomfortable. And it felt to me like it was my memorial service. And I thought, they're talking about me, man. They're talking about me. 32 years sober and I feel like this should be my memorial. And I had to go home and sit with a friend of mine in Santa Fe. And I had to get it that I was in a lot of pain. And I said, and I had to get it that I lost me one more time. I'd done all that work man and I was gone again. Gone. The most valuable thing I ever found the greatest gift Alcoholics Anonymous ever gave me was a place from which to find myself. And I was gone again. So I want to tell you the last three or four this is all very current here. I like to be current of my talk. My drinking was so goddamn long ago I don't even want to... Now, stop it, Bob. Shut up. Well, I tell you, it wasn't a lot of fun to sit with this guy and realize that I was gone and that I felt like a memorial service should be held for me so I had to evaluate my whole life and say what's wrong here? And I had find out that we'd had in the last three years a marriage that weren't working and we just were quiet. Not saying anything. There's a very good chance that marriage is over. That it's not repairable. It's not reparable. I had to suffer the pain of my support system was gone. I hadn't been in touch with my friends who really loved me and adored me. I'm out walking around 32 years clean and sober, completely disconnected from the universe. But you see, I've got tools now, man. I've Got a ton of them. I've got a ton of them. And I spent a very bad week, 32 years sober, recognized AA speaker, workshop leader. I don't think we'll be doing any more workshops on relationships, however. That may be a thing of the past. And I had to go get my ass on an airplane and fly to Tom Alabrani in Santa Cruz, one of my best friends at 30 years of recovery and sit in his living room and cry and let him hold me and say I'm lost and I don't know where the hell to go and I didn't know what to do and I'm scared and I want to be a god damn I don' t want to lose my baby you know I don''t want to lose my baby and this is going to cost me to lose my baby I'm going to have to be a god dam visiting father and I don' t want to be one I want her with me and she's not going to be with me because the pain of staying there is too great. And the message I want to carry to my child is not that you shut up, sit down and die. The message I wanna carry to my childhood is that God damn it you go for your dreams and you don't quit and you never live a life that's without passion. Not for a heartbeat. It's too short. We're not here long enough. And it broke my heart and I thought what am I gonna do? I'm gonna lose this baby. And I thought well screw it. I know where I found myself once. I'll go back. So ten years later, I show up in Los Angeles at the door of this woman. And I said, you know what? I'm in serious trouble. I'm thirty-some years sober and I am in very, very serious trouble because I have lost myself. And I found my self here originally and I'm back because I need to find my self again. She put her arms around me and said, Come on in. We have a little work to do. I thought that was a gross understatement at the moment. I said, I'm in trouble. I need help. She said, we all do. We all do from time to time. She and I have been busy. I'm delighted to report if you can't tell by my presence at this podium, I'm back. It's a slow process. I'm not all the way back. I have moments that aren't great, but basically I'm alive again. I'm here. I'm going to be back again. I needed help to get back again see because I like this guy a lot god damn it was painful seeing him gone it was really awful and I never used to like myself I used to spend every opportunity leaving me I mean you know I don't know what you do with your meditation but I just used to go away somewhere anywhere for hours on end so the message I'm trying to say here is gathering of miracles is such an incredible motto for the conference. I'm a hell of a miracle. I am a hell of a miracle. And my God has provided for me from the first guy that took me out of my doorway and took me to his run-down apartment and sent me down the hall to this monstrous chick with her tattoos and her half-full pint of booze to the little gal I was dating who was so nuts who went to the therapist and when I was sick, I was able to go see the same woman to the kind of friends that support me now when I'm in crisis and ask nothing of me except, what can I do for you? I call my best friend. He says, get on the plane. There'll be a door key out front. I'll see you when you get here. I have a thesis to write, but I can take a couple of days off for you. This is an AA, buddy. We've been there for each other for 30 years. All these people provided by God. Every one of them. Stuck in my life to give me a full life. So if you're going to sit around and worry about stuff, I've got to tell you, man, I'm the best living example I know that there is an all-loving God, an all powerful God. And I don't know if this sounds arrogant, but I have to say I think we could possibly be in His favorite classroom in Alcoholics Anonymous because the victories here in this room, the miracles here in his favorite classroom see, I know the pain in this world. I don't believe this bullshit share in a general way. Screw you. I know there's people in this room that are dying, you know. I'll end with this. I was told in Alcoholics Anonymous by all my sponsors at one point, I had six, it took about that many, that the single most important step I would ever work was the amends step. This step, they said to me, separates the men from the boys. This step will set you free. There is no step, my son, you will take in this program other than the ninth step and that one is the big one. And I did it and I took it. And I went out and faced people that told me they were sorry I had found recovery. You know? I mean, it was not what I'd been hearing about from the podiums, okay? This was not a fun experience. Of course, I had a few nevermind. So, what I believe is the dynamic of recovery for people like me is this. You come in here, alcoholic, addict, whatever the hell you are again, I believe looks being inclusive, not exclusive. And the first thing most of us have to deal with is the consequences of our addiction. there's serious consequences to our addiction. Even if we were a nice guy, there's still serious consequences to our addition. We've lied, we've cheated, we've done things. This stuff needs to be cleaned up. I cleaned up the consequences of my addiction. And in order for me to find me and become alive and have an emotionally healthy sobriety, the next thing I had to deal with was the consequences of what was done to me. And I want to tell you something. You can't have it both ways. You cannot say to me, Bob, I'm sorry that your mother beat the crap out of you, but that's a long time ago. Would you just get off that shit and get on with today and stop sniveling? You can't tell me that. You cannot tell me if the consequences of her actions are unimportant, if the consequences of my actions are important. It won't work, guys. It won' t fly. So, you know, I know I get a lot of controversy and often I'm considered the heretic of AA and the rest of that crap. Interesting reputation for telling the truth, isn't it? About me, not about you, just about me. So I'm here to tell you I believe in miracles. I believe God loves us. And I personally would like to honor anybody in the room to take any path you need to take in order to improve the quality of your life sober. because at some point, in some stage, it's the quality of that life will be the determining factor as to whether you live or die. God bless you. Thank you for having me.