Why He Wouldn’t Trade His Worst Day in Here for His Best Day Out There – Scott S.

I'd like to invite our speaker up here, Scott R. from Los Angeles. My name is Scott Redman. I'm an alcoholic. Hi everybody. Thank you so much for asking me to come talk today and I want to thank the committee for taking such good care of me and showing me such wonderful hospitality. I'm disappointed that I didn't get to spend the whole weekend. I had a family deal come up that I needed to be present for. I want to welcome all the newcomers to Alcoholics Anonymous. I wantto congratulate the three women that won the contest this morning. I hope you never win again. I hopeyou never winagain. It's kind of like being voted most attractive person on your cell block, kindof. It's an honor, but you really don't want to pick the award up. You really don' t. Welcome. Really, really glad you're here. And I want to thank all the other speakers. I have a lot of friends here today, people who are very important to me, who have been a tremendous help to me since I came to Alcoholics Anonymous on April 22nd, 1985. I'd like to welcome all the newcomers. I'd love to welcome you. I'd also like to thank you for coming. I would like to say thank you to all the drug addicts. If you're a drug addict, I'd to welcome at AA. If you are a dope fiend, which is somehow worse than any of us, I would to welcome alcoholics. Michael, welcome all the tweakers Welcome tweakers That's right, if you've ever masturbated Until you're dehydrated Welcome to AA Thanks for standing up And identifying yourself She's like going right on It's just unbelievable We love you guys If you've never licked all the features Off your own face Welcome to AIA You're special, special, special and we love you. I'm not making fun of you. I'm coming close and I'll tell you why I'm really not making fun of me. I don't care if you're like a dope Goliath, if you are a crack monster, if you have the big foot of dope addicts. Just catch alcoholism. We'd love to give it to you. I did not have alcoholism when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. I caught alcoholism in AlcoholicsAnonymous meetings. And it took me a while to develop a mild case, and I'm bad now. I've got a bad case. One of my dear, dear friends is here today, my friend Ajit. And Ajit and I were talking at a conference in the Midwest one day, and he was struck by the people who had been asked to speak that weekend. And he commented that the audience in Nebraska was listening to a Jew from the Bronx, a Hindu from Bombay, and a Christian from the Midwest. Welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous. Welcome to the big spiritual democracy of AlcoholicsAnonymous that has unending spiritual oxygen in it. And since I've been new for 21 years, when people put their finger in my chest and tell me this is the way it is, I've stayed away from them. And I've stayed away from them successfully for 21 years. There were some old-timers in my area when I got sober who were the, you're a moron, you're an idiot, shut up if your lips are moving, you'll lie. I've stay away from him for 21 year. And I'm not deprecating hearing the truth. I need the truth and I need to be around people who are willing to give me the scalpel of truth with the anesthetic of love. but the people that I'm talking about never weighed me down with much information about the steps. They never did, and somehow their approach, I was supposed to excuse it because there was this sort of deference that they had all of this wisdom because they had been around a long time, and it took me a while to realize that they were just really pissed off and really mean, and the people with their amount of time and more amount of times who were getting to podiums and talking about the newcomers they were working with, and talking abut continuing to take inventory and taking service positions besides Canasta, although I judge no man because I'm too spiritually developed. Those are the people that I glommed on to and who I've stayed with for 21 years, seekers. Alcoholics Anonymous was founded by a bunch of niacin-eating, acid-dropping, Ouija board playing wackos. and real seekers, real experimenters, really people who are willing to really have faith, have real faith. You know, to me, I used to confuse my faith with belief. And I like my beliefs because I believe in them. And they make me feel good. But faith, to be the greatest expression of step two, to be willing to expose myself to the truth despite the consequences to take that step off into thin air to come to believe that somehow this is going to happen for me only because you know what you're talking about when it comes to drinking I know you didn't pick it up in your reading and you don't drink and you're making that demonstration to me and based on that alone is how I was able to make a beginning and somehow and my I hope for you if you're new I hope for you that at some point now, sooner, later, before you drink, you're able to appreciate the enormity of the opportunity that's been presented to you here. The enormityof it. Right before I got sober, my six-year-old son, I put my arm next to him at the dinner table and he went like this. And he wentlike that because I was coming too close. And my heart fell out of me. How could my son be that repulsed by me? How could this baby be so repelled by my presence? How did this happen? And I didn't know. I absolutely didn't know, you know. I have a friend who called me a while ago. He was working with this new guy and the guy's got a couple of weeks and he had, my friend said he's got this purple bruise on his chest and he said what happened? You know, I've got to tell you, when you play with that, I'm nuts and I'm not good with objects so I'm like going like this. So I look something shiny. I'm just, look, I'm 21 years sober. A month ago, in the morning, 5 a.m., I'm going to work. I get in the car. I get everything in the card, get in the car and I go, everything seems far away. I've got me in the back seat of the car. So, I mean, a paper will do it. I'm just, I'm trying to fix my kid's phone and I got my phone. And when I start going with objects, my sons just go. So I call my phone with their phone to see if their phone works. My phone rings and I go, who the hell is calling me while I'm trying to get it. And my sons just go, Dad, is it dinner and a show? So I'm disoriented. So my buddy sees this purple bruise on a guy's chest. He says, what happened? The guy said, well, when I hit my bottom a couple of weeks ago, I tried to kill myself and I drank a bottle of vodka and I stole a vial of nitroglycerin tablets from a heart patient. And by the way, that's the last time the heart patient comes up in the story. They're collateral damage. They are somewhere flopping around like a boated fish, right? He needed the nitro so he took the entire vial of nitro, swallowed the entire file of nitroglycerin tablets and then started slamming his body into the wall trying to blow himself up. You can't write that You can not write that Though if his nickname isn't like Boom Boom or Nitro Then his home group sucks If you are new in AA you're going to hear some wacky stuff about alcoholism now that you hear. Some of it works for me, some of it doesn't. The stuff that doesn't work for me I've never read in the big book of AA. I've heard that alcoholics don't like change, just don't like it. And I don't like change I don' t like. But I seem to have no problem with change I like at all. I've never heard anyone get to a podium and say oh, I hit the lottery, I'm having sex with identical twins, it's killing me This change is eating my ass up. I can't take it. But my personal favorite is that alcoholics are above average intelligence. I have only heard this at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. I have never heard it at an Al-Anon meeting ever, ever. Let's just ask Nitro how smart we are. geniuses oh my god my sons and I went skiing I was about 15 years sober and it snowed it was about 2 feet of snow on the roof and my son Jesse starts sweeping off the car I said son you don't need to do that we have a sunroof and in my loony moon mind I thought if I retracted the sunroaf it would pull the snow off so the boys are going And again, they're going, this is going to be great. This is going be great! And I retract it and the car fills with snow, you know? Above average intelligence. Way into sobriety. I have a mental problem. And you know what? If that was all that the problem was, I'd be fine. It would be fine if it was just mental. There's a lot of good therapy, good drugs, good things you can do with the mental. But my problem is way, way worse than a mental problem. By the time I got there, I was not an alcoholic when I got here. Number one, I'm Jewish. Jews don't drink, you know, because it might dull the pain. You certainly don't want to squander any agony opportunity. Jew from the Bronx talking to you on Easter Sunday. Welcome to AA. And in addition to the Judaism, I couldn't possibly have been alcoholic. I had been in psychotherapy for 18 years. I was going to be dead, but I was gonna understand it. And I've got no beef with therapy. I actually am in therapy now. I've used therapy a bunch of times in sobriety. I have no beef With it. It's an outside interest. I have no malpractice insurance, and it says in our book, if you need a doctor, go get one. Boy, that's not clear, is it? What do they mean? My colossal mistake with therapy is I was trying to treat my alcoholism with psychotherapy, which is like showing up at a gunfight with a knife once a week. It's just an unbelievable mistake, you know? The idea of most conventional therapy, or much of it, is to uncover, discover, to unravel. If you're neurotic, I don't know if anyone here has ever been called a neurotic at all, but a neurosis is if you have anxiety, and you come up with a bad resolution for it, like boom-boom. Your solution for your anxiety is worse than the anxiety, And it creates more. So I go in, and the idea of therapy is to uncover, discover, you delve into your past sometimes, you free associate, and you come up with a better resolution for your anxiety. It works for millions of people. It's used all over the world. But I have alcoholism. So I got to therapy. I said, look, I feel terrible. Why? Well, I was so drunk yesterday. I was too drunk to walk, so I drove. okay well what are we going to do about that let's talk about it let me ask you a question what were you thinking just before you did it nothing nothing and I'm telling the truth nothing the room spud my mouth filled with saliva my brain got too big for my skull I went out for a pack of cigarettes and wound up in Baltimore okay nothing nothing let's treat nothing try to treat nothing okay you need a board of shrinks 24 hours a day seven days a week to file my shit just to put it in like in an envelope and put it in a file my alcoholism is so efficient at manufacturing pathology anxiety difficult situations unenviable problems um it's not a fair fight it's Not A Fair Fight At All So if my problem was just mental, I'd be in pretty good shape. But it's much worse than that. I have a physical reaction to alcohol. I don't have a governor on it. I can't control or moderate once I begin. And if you're special, if you were a drug addict, I want to welcome you to AA. Try some controlled crack smoking. Just fill your mouth up with crack smoke and say, I'm not in the mood, and blow it out. We'll make you president. If my problem was just physical, I'd be in great shape. There's tons of different kinds of doctors, practitioners, specialists, medications, physical programs. But my problem is way, way worse than it. And I didn't know, I had no idea that it even existed. I'm resentful at you. I'm resentment me for resenting you and I'm present full of them for watching me resent you And I've had sex with all of them And I'm scared of all of us And let's multiply that by a thousand Let's multiply by 10,000. Let's go to the past. Let go to future How do you have a life? I'm frightened of success and frightened of failure. I'm afraid of being alone I'm frightened of people. I'm afraid of the light. I'm fried of the dark. Have a life. Have a Life. I have no oxygen. I have room to move. I've painted myself into a spiritual corner I can't get out of. I'm thinking myself into taking a drink I can stop taking, and I developed this cancer of the soul, this spiritual tapeworm that ate me up from the inside and left me hollow and insane and alone. And no matter what happened, my alcoholism would go below the horizon. It would stop presenting itself as a real piece of business, and I would act without reason, without explanation. And sometimes something horrible would happen that would keep it above the horizon as a real piece-of-business, not a complaint as a real piece of business. You see, when something's a real piece-off-busines, I respect it. I don't do it. When something goes below the horizon and becomes a complaint, then I do it and keep complaining about it. And I couldn't do it. I couldn't keep it above the horizon as a real piece of business. Sometimes something marvelous would happen, sometimes something terrible, but it's up there on my own juice, and I don't even have an idea about how severe my problem is. I now develop the soul sickness that had plucked me beyond the opportunity of being helped by well-meaning clergy, a family that adored me, a fantastic career, and therapists that really meant well for me and were really talented practitioners, and I didn't even know it, didn't know it. I grew up in this crazy family in the Bronx. They're still completely nuts, and my wife never believed me about them until she met them. My mom threw an engagement party for us, and my aunt came and wore her wig backwards. And it had a bun on it, so the bun was on her forehead. And I wish I was lying about this. This is my genetic pool. I come from like a long line of diminished capacity, you know. And there was chronic institutionalization and suicide attempts and mental and physical abuse. And if you're new here, all I've got is good news because my family didn't have anything to do with making me an alcoholic. I'm not telling you that I wasn't injured. I was terribly injured as a kid. And I'm nicht telling you I haven't had to do a lot of stuff about that. I have. I'm telling you they didn't make me a drunk. There's no way that a human power can come and make an alloy of those three elements of the mental, the physical, and the subsequent spiritual to pluck me beyond the opportunity of having any help that's tethered in the material world. Nothing can do that. It's a supernatural problem, which I didn't know, that requires a supernatural solution, which i would have been bereft while I was when And you gave me the terrible news when I got here. I was bereft of any hope, thank God. I was in the 60s. I tried to join a gang. I failed. I just wasn't cut out for that deal. And the hippies were recruiting. There was no paperwork at all. And I signed up. And I didn't want to be an alcoholic, so I overcame my alcohol problem with marijuana. I like to welcome all the pot smokers. You remember Wow, right? Wow. Right after Wow usually came, what? What? Wow. What? Wow. What? Wow. What? Wow. What? Watching a pot smoker is like watching a dog try to run on linoleum. There's like... I overcame my marijuana problem with pills. I conquered pills with cocaine. Cocaine's an excellent drug. It's particularly good for sex if you enjoy sex from the Neolithic period. And I overcame my cocaine problem with heroin. Heroin is a very dark, complicated, artistic drug. And you cross the line and become a vomiting pig. It's just a little hop, skip, and a jump. And I started psychotherapy when I was 14, and I just kept switching substances except for alcohol, which remained constant. And I kept going to therapy. And by the time I was in my early 20s, I was hitchhiking down from the Bronx to Massachusetts. Manhattan and my aunt and uncle picked me up on the highway. I just shot some dope and My father had had a massive stroke and I went to the hospital and I couldn't show up for my old man The night that he died I couldn'T even go into the room and give him a kiss and touch his cheek and watch him take his light into another room The ice around my heart had already become so thick My dad was gonna rot and go and that was it That was all she wrote. And if you thought more than that, you were a sap and a sucker and you were being taken by that stupid, stupid thing. And the horror of being loaded in that room at that time, the horror and it was just one of those moments where I just ran into the wall and I appreciated somehow the aberration I had become and I had to do some quick thinking. It was one of Those Moments Where I Simply Couldn't Fit the Pain in My Head and I figured it out real quick. It was needles and heroin and all I had to do was never put a needle in my arm again and I wouldn't be the pig that couldn't show up for his old man. So I didn't, I never picked up another needle, not for 13 years. Shortly after that, I was acting in a Broadway play in New York and this new usherette with long brown hair walked in and I never, didn't say hello to her, didn't talk to her. Went back into the dressing room of this theater and announced to the male members of this cast that if anybody talked to her, I'd break all the bones in her hands and feet. And we're coming up on 32 years of marriage in a couple of weeks. One of the most misquoted abused lines in the big book of AA for me is, I've heard people say that my worst day in here was better than my best day out there. No. No. Let's see, a pound of cocaine and an all-female jazz band or a panel at the prison. I don't know. What do you want to do? What the guy says at the end of chapter three is he says, I wouldn't trade my worst day in here for my best day out there because I won't trade this way of life. Not because it was better. Oh, I had such a good time out there. Oh, my God. If it wasn't for this darn allergy. And Nancy and I had a great time. We were young. We were in our early 20s living in New York. I was acting on Broadway. Nancy had this fantastic job. We had a Great Time. A Great Time and then things started. You know, I came home one day and we had these 32 ounce iced tea tumblers in the house. I popped a cork on a bottle of wine and I emptied the entire bottle of wine into one of these tumblers. And I turn around, and my wife was giving me her pre-Alanon rat face. It helps if you have hemorrhoids, I think. And I said, what? And she said, What are you doing? And I looked at her in the eye, and I said I'm having a glass of wine. Can't a man have a glass of wine in his own home? So my wife started becoming very troubled. Man, oh man. Our son Michael was born and he was really welcomed into our community. We were surrounded by friends and family and got a ton of phone calls. And two years and nine months later, when our son Jesse was born, no one came to the hospital, no phone calls, no flowers. We had become completely isolated by the disease of alcoholism. And it wasn't because people didn't love us. It just hurt too much to be around us. The ice around our heart had become so thick, you know. And for me, you knows, the best way to be at a hospital is on that maternity ward when stuff's good. Boy, what a great place to be. It's just so lovely, that sense of community, of welcome. You know, it's really powerful. And I got a call later that day. My son, my newborn son was in an incubator in neonatal intensive care, and my wife was suffering alone in the room. And this doctor called me and said, your family is in real big trouble. Where are you? And I said, you know, I can't find anybody to watch my 2-year-old kid. And this Doctor, who I had never met before, said something remarkable to me. She said, you know what? I'll give you my address, my phone number. My husband will take care of your son so you come down here. That's a big metropolitan hospital. That's pretty remarkable. And I said no. I had no way to accept this woman's kindness or generosity. It was another one of those days where somehow I got it. Somehow I got that we had been painted into this horrible corner. And now my poor son Micah had to be locked in a house with this crazy man. Wrathed with guilt and shame. I would have done better to take him to the hospital and leave him with a coloring book in the waiting room. At least he could have got the hell away from me for a while. And little were we to know that it was going to continue for three more years. Three more years from the terrible night that my son was born. Can you imagine a worse thing to say? The terrible nightthat my sonwas born. But that's what it was. and it got three years worse. And on April 22, 1985, our children were six and three. My wife and I were done. My career was over. She was out of her mind. And our sons were six and three, they were cut out from the society of other children. They were making noises they couldn't stop making. They were grinding their teeth, their small motor skills. They were having a problem with that. Their backs were broken. There was nothing organically wrong with them. There were brilliant children who couldn't function, and I didn't know why. I didn' t know they had alcoholism. I didn''t know about the warped lives of blameless wives and children. I didn ''t know that this becomes what becomes sick in our family along with us. I had no idea. If you get in between me and the drink and you're my baby, you will vanish or you will become something less than human because I'm going to get to the drink. and I'm either going to walk around you or I'm going to walk through you but I'll get there at some point I'll got there and on April 22nd, 1985 I put a needle in my arm again for the first time in 13 years and my world came crashing down around me I crossed the line, I swore I would never cross again and I called my therapist in my 18th year of psychotherapy and I told him what I had done and our lives were pretty much over by that time But I could have gotten out a shovel and started digging again. And the therapist said to me, I didn't know it at the time, but I found out soon after I started reading our literature, he said tome the same thing that Carl Jung said to the man who 12-stepped the man who 12 stepped Bill Wilson. This American millionaire, hopeless of being able to get sober, dying from alcoholism, was placed in therapy with one of the fathers of modern psychology, Carl Jung. His very wealthy family did that for him. And Jung analyzed him, and then the guy went out and drank right away. And this guy, Roland Hazard, went back to Jung despairing and said, what is wrong with me? What can I do? And Jung said, there's absolutely nothing that could be done for you. The only thing I suggest is that you hire a bodyguard or we have you locked up in an institution. And then Jung went on to say that there's been moments where there's been spiritual rearrangements with alcoholics of your description since time began, since they first crushed grapes. I've been trying to bring about such an experience in you, and I failed. And this guy has it said, well, that's great. I'm with my church. I'm a deacon. And Jung said, that'S not what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about religiosity. I'm NOT talking about that. I'm TALKING ABOUT YOUR ROOTS GRASPING A DIFFERENT SOIL. And what my therapist said to me that morning was, there's absolutely nothing that can be done for you. And I just couldn't believe it. He said, we should have you institutionalized. And then he said the thing Carl Jung couldn't say. He said, or you can attend a meeting of Narcotics Anonymous or Alcoholics Anonymous. And why I went to the AA meeting, I couldn't tell you. I don't know why. It's a mystery to me. Most other mornings, I would have chosen the institution. I still have that kind of thinking. I'm 21 years sober. I stillhave that kindofthinking. That's why if I donthang with you. Three years ago, I'm 19 years sober, I was told I needed a biopsy. So they said, we're going to put a six-inch needle into your side and take some tissue out. And I went, what? And the guy said, well, you know, I talked to him. He said, We'll give you something to relax you. I said, Good. My sponsor has always told me if I get hit by a truck, don't read me the 12 and 12. Get me some dope. We'll read spiritual literature a little later on after we put your bone back in your flesh. So I talked with my sponsor. I get clearance on it. I'm cool. it's an outpatient deal. I go down, I check in and I said to the woman, I'm 19 years over. I said, I was told I was going to get relaxed. You know, I came down. She said, OK, you know, go in there. So I go and I take my clothes off. The guy takes my clothes and I say, you know, they told me that I was gonna get relaxed when I came in. And he said, well, you know, the guy will be. And so a guy comes in, he puts a line in me and I figure, you know. I said, are you relaxing me? He said, no, they do that downstairs. So they take me downstairs and they put me on a table and say, move this way, move that way. I said, look, I'm not moving anyway, okay? I was told I was going to get relaxed. And I am, I am not relaxed. We're going to have a very short morning here. If I don't get relaxed. I've gotten relaxation clearance. So now the eye rolling starts, you know, and they go get the doctor. The doctor comes in. I said, what? He said, I can't give you anything. I said, What are you talking about? He says, when I have that needle in you, you have to respond and breathe, or I could nick a vital organ. I said, 11 people have told me I'm going to get relaxed. And he said, well, I'll tell you why they've said this to you. I said why? He said, because you look insane. And none of them has been willing to say no to you out of fear for their personal well-being. Why I went to the AA meeting instead of an institution, which is an uninterrupted source of narcotics for a period of time? I couldn't tell you. It's an absolute mystery to me. I woke up at 5 a.m. I got a bad check to write you. I got my best clothes on and I went to a place called Unit A in the San Fernando Valley for a 6 a.am meeting. And I walked into this room. I took one step in. I took a look around and I said, oh my God, Alcoholics Anonymous. How did I wind up in AlcoholicsAnonymous? How lame is this? This is beyond lame. This is Beyond Church, Beyond Synagogue. This is some plateau of lameness I never even imagined was available to me. Alcoholics Анonymous. And everything was a miracle. I'm a miracle, yeah, a miracle! Good miracle, miracle, miracles! The coffee is a miracle, big miracle. And the room looked like it was the product of hundreds of years of inbreeding to me. There were identical twins carving their initials on each other's feet in the back of the room, or so it seemed to me And I'm waiting for the Jew hunt to start I know that's going to start Come on, Jaime, strap these antlers on Always wanted to run a big buck Jew I hated everything about Alcoholics Anonymous. I hated everything about it. I went back to that meeting every morning for a year. And it's a mystery to me why I did. The only thing I can figure out is that I was out of plans. And if you're new here, I pray for you that you're out of plants. If you're a new here and you have a plan, it's probably a beaut. Don't use your plan. Grab one of us after the meeting and tell us your plan, we want to know the plan. If you've ever been forced to do your own tooth repair, you probably have alcoholism. I could just stand in that part of the drugstore where they have all these do-it-yourself caps and cement and stuff like that. We're there. Right after the plain wrap vodka, we go to that self-care dental area there. This hand went up. And I stuck around Alcoholics Anonymous. I guessed I was out of plans, and my wife reached out to the Al-Anon family groups. I love being part of a conference that welcomes Al-ANON and makes it part of the fabric of the conference. If you're new here or if you've been around for a period of time and you're involved in 12-step work, I urge you to get some functioning knowledge of the work done in the Al‑Anon Family Groups. Perhaps read some Al-Anon literature or listen to an Al-Alanon speaker, even whoa, whoa, whoa, attend an Al Anon meeting. Another nutty idea. But what it's done for me since the chapter to the wives was not written by a member of Al-Alanon, it was written by an alcoholic and it has suggestions in it that I wouldn't make to any sober alcoholic or any non-sober, member of an alcoholic family. And our book, one of the reasons I believe our book is not Al-Allanon approved literature is because of the chapter To The Family Of Wives, which I've never really found useful. I've certainly never guided. It's got great information about alcoholism in it for an alcoholic, you know. But anyway, I judge no man. What this information about Al-Anon has done for me is a couple of things. Number one, it's had a profound effect on me because I've gotten such a powerful message. It helped me in the 12 step work that I do. I just did a 12 step call through email to a woman in in Turkey just absolutely extraordinary experience the husband doesn't want any help for me I got to get her a package of Al-Anon literature through the help of one of my dear friends as a member of Al Anon and she's now emailing me reaching out and asking for contact with a member Al-anon you know I'm just just extraordinary just extraordinary extraordinary stuff also my wife reached out to Al-Ana when I was new and I would attend an AMU now and again and I were to hear people saying unkind things about Al-Anon, making jokes about Al Anon, which I think is incredibly unfortunate. I found it very confusing. I'm not talking about good natured stuff. We tell enough good nature stuff about alcoholics. I'm talking about mean, destructive, deprecating stuff until I stuck around long enough to find out that those people were just ignorant and mean and had no functioning knowledge of the work done in Al-Alan. Otherwise, how could they possibly do that? It would be like going someplace and hearing somebody make jokes about the work done in AA. I'm not talking about having a humorous point of view. That's fantastic. I'm talking about telling mean, ignorant things about the Work Done in AA, and I've heard this, and I know that I sit and I go, Oh, you couldn't be there. You couldn't know what we do. You couldn'T know what happens. You couldn't know that my son recoiled from my arm. And last week I got an email from him saying, I was just so overwhelmed with my feeling of love for you, I just needed to tell you that. You couldn'T know that and make fun of this. Well, if you're doing that in AA, then it's your vote that it's okay. I used to have all the votes. I've been whittled down to one by good sponsorship. What a relief. and my vote said it's not okay because there might be a family out there who's having a family experience and boy we should be blowing on the embers of that I don't know, I need to be blowing on the embers of that encouraging that doing anything I can do because as we know with people who get sober these opportunities sometimes disappear very quickly and unless we do something to throw something into the process to move from the cycle of spree and remorse to the cycle of surrender and commitment, these things can disappear. So if you're new, if we seem pushy and excitable, sometimes we get very excited and we're anxious to see you get as much stuff moving in there because at the end of the day, it's a mystery. Sometimes we palm it off and say it's because of this group or this person or this sponsor and at the other end of it, at the beginning of the end of the way, it's just a mystery on my best day, I'm the source of nothing. I'm a reflection. If I can keep it clean, I'm uh, I'm a bright reflection. What a great thing. But at the end of the day, it's a mystery, a mystery that used to frustrate and terrify me and anger me, and it's an mystery now that I crave because when people try to nail it down and ascribe a purpose and a reason to it, they make my life small, and I won't tolerate it anymore. So I stuck around Alcoholics Anonymous. My wife reached out to the Al-Anon family groups. We started a family recovery. I found a sponsor at six months. I'm lucky, I consider myself lucky to have stayed sober that long before I started doing the work. And he took me to his house and I had done some reading from the big book of AA. He read chapter five to me and took me through the first three steps. We reached step three and got on our knees and said a prayer, which I felt was unnecessary and embarrassing, but I did it anyway. And then he showed me how to do a fourth step from the Big Book of AA and at nine months of sobriety, I went back and I read it to him, and I stopped feeling like I was stealing somebody's seat here. I'm resentful at Nazis for slaughtering Jews during World War II. It affects my self-esteem, pocketbook ambition, personal relations, and sex. Now, resentment's no big deal. It's just the source of all spiritual illness, the great destroyer of all alcoholics. It'll cut you off in the sunlight of the spirit, drag your ass out, and kill you dead. But don't be alarmed. Not a big deal over there. Work a step a year. Relax. I'm going to die, because I don't just hate things. I re-experience the hate. When I wake up, I water my hatred like a little flower. I want to make sure it's developing. That it's okay, that it's made it through the night okay. The worst thing is when I forget to hate something. You know, and a guy goes, hi! And I go, hi, oh, I hate him. Why did I do that? No, no. No, I'm going to have to redouble my snubbing and glowering. I'm gonna have to glower at the speaker until he really knows how wrong he is. I hate so that when my head hits the pillow, it becomes a rotisserie. It eats my brain and my heart and throws me out of my own life. What are the defects in me that if God would remove the resentment against Nazis for slaughtering Jews would be God. What is it in me? God's got a magic wand. He touches me in the head, and it's God. Okay, it's Nazis, so let's try nothing. Let's start with nothing. What the hell are you talking about? I'm talking about Nazis. And my sponsor in that fifth step changed my life. I don't know if it's forever, but it's from then up until including today. He said, Scott, you do not understand the question. They are not asking you if the event was your fault. They're asking you if the resentment was your fall. Was the event your fault? I said, no. He said, No. And then he asked me the next question but did not wait for me to answer. He said is the resentment your fault every time with no exception and no loophole because you don't just dislike this. You're not just against this. You're just politically offended. You experience this as a soul sickness, as a spiritual sickness that actually is so disruptive you can't have a life. And it multiplies exponentially at a horrifying viral rate. So are you going to draw a line in the sand and take responsibility for this resentment so you can act like somebody who is against Nazis instead of talking a lot of long crap, getting loaded, and never getting out of the living room? I'm a hypocrite because I'm a racist. I hear someone have a German accent. I don't even want to know who they are. I'm not living in today. I'm living in the past. I're a grudge holder. I've filled with self-pity. I'm self-centered. I make it about me. I am an opportunist. I use this. You know, I've leveraged this a little bit. I'm not trusting in God. If I trust in God, I wouldn't be depending on whether or not these people hate me because I'm Jewish and I'm unwilling to accept the fact that Nazis are children of God who could be spiritually sick like me. Some things are inexcusable. Everything is forgivable. There are certain behaviors that there's no excuse for. If it's not forgivable, I'm dead. I am a dead man And how dare I say the Lord's Prayer? How dare I say the God's Prayer at the end of an AA meeting if I'm not forgiving someone in the meeting for their sharing, or Nazis, or anybody. I should choke on the words. How can I say to God, forgive me my trespasses as I forgive those who trespass against me when I'm NOT doing it? I want to urge you, stop saying the prayer! If you're not forgiving somebody, how can you say the prayer? It'll be interesting to see who says the prayer at the end of the meeting. Don't start it today, start it tomorrow. I don't want to signal anyone out today. And when I realized the difference between the event and the resentment, I started a powerful sense of relief and a powerful belief that Alcoholics Anonymous was actually going to be able to do everything. Just everything. If it could do that, it could doing everything, you know? There's a story I used to tell in my home group that I love. This woman was told that she could use anything as her higher power. She could use a doorknob. She could us a tree. So she started praying to the tree in her front yard. Prayed to it every morning. Didn't drink. Prayed through it every night. Didn't drank. And one morning she woke up and a city truck was feeding the last branch of the tree into a chipping machine. And she went running down the street after the chipping machine, screaming, Oh God, save my tree. So we make the movement eventually. We make the move. Once your tree has been put into the ch tipping machine, things widen out. And I started experiencing through that inventory process a dedication and a demonstration and an ability to walk a spiritual path and experience. You know, nowhere in the big book of AA does it say the road gets narrower. I understand what people are saying when they say it. I agree. I understand that. The thing that our book talks about is it talks about becoming part of the great reality, the big idea, joining us on the broad highway, join us on The Firing Line of Life. Help us to pack things into the mainstream of life. It talks about life getting bigger, more inclusive, not exclusive. And I like that. I want the big, sexy, robust thing. I want The Whole Thing. And later in sobriety, you know, from 10 to 15 to 15 to 20, I've reached points where I've gone over the same material over and over again and it started to fall apart in my hands. It started to become hollow mumblings. And I've had to hang out with seekers and find other spiritual teachings which the 11th step tells me to go out and find. Go find practitioners. I've never done anything instead of AA. Never done therapy instead of AA. I'm a member of other 12-step programs. I've never done anything instead of AAA. I've done all of it because of Alcoholics Anonymous, because I want the whole thing. And if this becomes about helping me, about self-help, I know I have signed my own death warrant. When I have a new guy who says he's working on himself, I always want to go, Step away from yourself, sir. Please, sir, step away from himself, please. Keep your hands in the air and step away from yourself. It's one drunk talking to himself. Okay? And the other thing is, and this is the weirdest thing, and for me as a new guy it was the hardest thing to believe, but I guess I was out of plans. My disease acts terribly to a direct assault. It just doesn't do well with it. So basically, you told me the thing you say over and over again. Stop hitting it on the nose. Take these seemingly unconnected, disconnected and unrelated actions and see what starts going out. Bleed the beast. It's a war of attrition, you know? and I didn't know I had this crazy idea that somehow I could have a successful life and be separated from you who knew that what a crazy idea that I could be separated from you and have a success in my successful life and everything I've done in Alcoholics Anonymous and there have been times where I thought you just didn't do it as well as me there were groups that just were way off I was I had become over sober and experiencing that as a member of AA is very painful it's very painful it's like being famous in an anonymous program that's fun and it's the same crazy idea when I was out there and needed to be separated from you I can't have a successful life separated from you in here or out of here. There are people here who I love, who we're so happy to see each other. And me and my friend Karen saw each other before, just thrilled to see each other, and we had this connection, this connection like that. It's fellowship. It's not friendship. It doesn't have craving. It doesn'T have attachment. It's scholarship. We step every time we see each Other. It's effortless. Here's the crazy idea, that if you take Karen and I out of that equation, that that connection disappears. That's a crazy idea. That's the connectivity, the connective tissue of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's the face and the breath of God. If I can blow on the embers of that just a little bit, I'm there. I'm here on Easter. I'm in my life with you in real time enjoying the pleasure of that because my alcoholism has not gone below the horizon in 21 years and 11 months and two weeks because it's buoyed on the heads and shoulders of the men and women of AA, three million strong, and it stays above there even when I'm not looking at it, even when i'm not trying. Acceptance is not compliance. Surrender is victory. If I just am able to accept the fact that if I can't... God doesn't die on the day that I turn my back on God. I die onthe day that my life ceases to be illumined daily by a radiance, the source of which is beyond my comprehension, and nothing else will do. And when I come in AA, and after a period of time of doing the same stuff over and over again, when it starts to become hollow, who am I to think that I'm going to be able to succeed that way? When I start using spiritual tools as spiritual weapons, how do I think that that's going to somehow be right? And as I become more proprietary and bossy and more of a know-it-all and more spiritually grandiose, I find ways to do end runs around the traditions. Somehow, the only requirement isn't desire. You've got to be doing A, B, C, and D if you're really serious. Somehow, the only authority is not a loving God as God may present itself. It's, you know, God needs some help in this area. So this rediscovery, rediscovery, this reexamination for me in my 20s now, it's given me so much joy. It's given me real confidence in not drinking because I'll tell you now, I've heard this and a lot of people have different takes on it. I'm just sharing my experience. This is 100% for me about not drinking 100% because it's the miracle that makes all other miracles possible and the minute that doesn't at the bottom of it become about that I'm lost I'm loss I'll stop being particularly interested in compelled by the problems of real real new newcomers working with a new guy yesterday he called his house he's a couple of weeks sober it was a birthday party and he heard his 18-year-old daughter say, hang up on the jerk. He's a jerk. And then he said to his ex-wife, how can you let her talk to me that way? And she said, boy, you sound like a guy who's just about to drink. So here we are. It's a mess. Many of us have difficult wives and families. We must remember we did much to make them so. Everyone's sick. Can he do it? Can he actually, is he actually going to be able to not drink? That's what I'm interested in. Now, I can't, he can't become sort of a lab rat. I've got to beable to say to him, you want to take a walk? You want to go beat up a cop? Let's knock over a 7-Eleven. I'll do anything. What do you need to do? Well, I'm going to go to her graduation, even if I'm not invited. Sure, fine, good. I'll go with you. No problem. Let's go get a seat now. She's like 17, you know, it's the year. who can whatever it takes let's live to fight another day let's live to surrender another day so our sons started making a beginning too and we I had to go and I just you know when I did my step list I didn't know what I was going to do about the boys I just was so filled with shame and guilt I'd been such a terrible father, because I was. My sons have received 21 appropriate birthday gifts on the day of their birthday that they wanted. Not once in 21 years have they received the day after radioactive guilt gift from the only place that would take a hot check from me. Here's some drywall, boys. Oh, the kids are loving the drywall right now. It's Pokemon drywall. Boys were doing terrible in school and I had to go in and advocate for them and I'd ask for help. It was very embarrassing. And I had to sit down with the teachers and say, my sons are very sick because they've been living with me, and I've been very ill, and we need help. Can you help us? And no one ever said no. The boys got tested. They needed help. They got special ed. Special ed teachers said, you know what? Let's get them into sports and get them in music. Maybe some of the big motor stuff will affect the little motor stuff. And I had to spend some booze bucks and, you know, get the boys in a little league, stuff that citizens do. I'm not talking about a lot of dough. I'm talking about $1 for the right lunchbox and the right pair of jeans just to feel part of so you don't feel radioactive. And Jesse wanted to play drums, and I didn't have any dough, but he wanted to pay me. So I went to the music store, andI bought him a drum pad, which is a piece of wood and a pieceof rubber with two sticks. And it's what I could do. And my son wanted to do something, and I backed him up. And I went to my home group, and I told the guys, and I told them for the same reason that you would tell yours. Not to brag, because they wanted to know. Because they were really rooting for our family. Because they Were really interested in us. And within three months, the AA drum set showed up at our house. There were like a lot of burnout drummers in our group at that time. And these guys are coming over with these mega death drums, you know dude and uh jesse had a drum set that was so big that when he sat behind it he disappeared you couldn't he was like he was like five you couldn t see him and a couple of years ago i saw my sons play the house of blues on the la strip and burnt the dump down it down. Playing hip hop music to eight, nine hundred kids elbow to elbow and just these two gorgeous, poised, talented men. And over to the side was a group of weeping middle aged alcoholics. The kids are kind of going, what is with the crying old people, man? That Because they look a little weather-worn, too. It's their A.A. and Al-Anon aunts and uncles that have been following them around at that time for about 17 years. And my wife and I, you know, it's interesting. You guys told us to not get involved in our first year, and we didn't. We just stayed the hell away from each other. I had nothing to bring to my marriage, just nothing. I didn't have a fight. I would either scream until she shut up or I'd cry until she'd shut up. I've always loved the tyranny of helplessness. It's always worked for me. I like to loom. I'm a loomer. I like get a light behind me and get her in the shadow if I can. It's like total eclipse of the Jew if I get her right out of the pocket there. And if I could work a scream, a cry, and a loom into one fight, that's a hat trick. That's the Scott Redmond couples workshop right there. There you go. I'm not bringing anything to the deal I'm looking at guys 10 years younger than me and I'm thinking how does it feel like to be grown up it's a crappy way to live and I didn't know that I didn' t know I didn''t know because I didn ''t act like a grown man grown men clean up after themselves I was a pig I didn?'t clean up I thought in the back of my twisted mind that a certain amount of house work should equal a certain amount of sex that there should be like conversion tables on the back of cleaning products of housework to sex just to make it easier, you know. And I'm bringing nothing. And it was from allowing myself to be sponsored and finding ways to sponsor other men that I found out how to show up. And I had to watch You know, I remember I did something for my wife She said What are you doing? I said Well, I'm trying to be of service here And she said You know honey This is a marriage Not a coffee commitment Actually So You know Talk to me Talk to Me So it had to be tempered And done differently At any rate We've had a great success Our family And I don't believe That it's because God Loves us more than people who have not had a success in their family. It's just what's happening at our house. And we've had a lot of adventures. My son, Micah, when he got out of high school, he went to Chiapas, Mexico and worked with the Zapatista revolutionaries for a while. Wow. I was wondering if that guy with the black ski mask was over there. And we're going to talk about that. We've had lots of adventures when my I was about I was a couple years sober. Micah was eight, Jesse was five or six. And I was making the boys lunch. And I said, what do you want on your hot dog? And Micah said, I want onions, lettuce, and mustard. And I says, lettuce? He said, oh yeah, okay, I don't want lettuce. He walked away, and he came back about 45 minutes later. He was eight. And he looked at me directly in the eye, and I'm not altering one syllable. He said to me, I will never again allow your opinion of what I want affect what I ask for. So I asked him to sponsor me at that point. I thought that was appropriate. When he came back from Chiapas, he started working on filling out forms to go to undergraduate school, which we were very excited about. And we started nudging him because maybe he wasn't filling them out fast enough. So in the middle of the nudging, he turns to my wife. He's 18, and again, I'm not altering one syllable. He said, do you actually believe that your anxiety benefits me in any way? Now, when I came in Alcoholics Anonymous, you guys basically said, what do you want? And I told you, I'd like to write well. I'd love to write a book. I'd want to write this. I'd would like a romance with my wife. I'd look exciting sex. I'd all this other stuff. And you basically said to me, fine, you can have that. You can work towards that. But let me ask you a question. Do you have to be miserable until you get it? And I thought, yeah. Yeah, if I'm not miserable, who is going to be miserable? If I'm Not Miserable and focused on this, how's it ever going to get achieved? And what Micah was saying was the whole bag of beans. He was saying, do you actually believe that your anxiety is going to purchase what you crave? And that's the crazy idea, that if I have to stay miserable about that, then I think that my suffering is going to purchase the thing that I crave. And what do I miss? Oh, just everything. Just everything. You, being with you, thinking about something else. One of the most difficult and degenerative defects of character for me since in sobriety and out has been mind reading. I think I know what people are thinking and they're never thinking anything good, ever. They're always thinking you're a hoesbag, you know. And they're not thinking anything good. My wife has said to me, you're not a mind reader. You're barely a mind user, which really hurt my feelings. But it was like after I had finished her last 15 sentences for her and she said, hey, honey, let me take a shot at a whole sentence. If I run into trouble in the middle, I'll signal to you and you can jump in. My first year of sobriety, I was kind of getting to be a spiritual giant and I was sponsoring some guys and I got an overture made to me by a situation comedy to be the staff director on this sitcom and it really would have been good for the guys I sponsor if I had gotten that job. because they'd see the program in action. You know, it just would have been great for them. So I directed one episode. My brain blew up. I didn't get the job, and I almost drank. I was about a year sober. And I went to my sponsor, humiliated. And he said to me, well, I guess you have the show business god. And I said, what? He said, well what keeps you sober? I said God. He said okay, God keeps you sober. You didn't give a show business job, and you almost drank, so I guess have the Show Business God. And he has abandoned you utterly. And when I came into AA, I heard people talking about God getting them into relationships. God getting him parking spaces. Whoa! Not the parking space, God. Whoa! We got nailed in the Northridge earthquake really bad. Our house got creamed. I got a bad physical injury and we got badly traumatized. Shortly after the earthquake, we were at an AA function actually in another country in Canada And a person who used to live in L.A. came up to me at that function and said, oh, I'm so glad God got us out of L.E. before the quake. And I said, also, he likes you. He likes you where crap. But he likes You. And the person said, I guess he just felt you had some lessons to learn. I'm out of here I can't stay sober in that world I have no desire to stay sober In that world In a world where I've got a God Saying get him Get the Redmond boy Get him Get him No evacuation plan For you Jew boy Get him Get him Turn his wife to salt Kill his goat Put a finger in his eye Get him Smote his ass Smote anyone he talks to Smote them all We'll figure it out later It's like God is some Deranged game show host You know let's key your car it boils for you you're due for a rash and there's a reason you'll figure it out give me a call when you figure it out I believe St. Thomas I believe Aquinas I believe the mystics I believe the big book of AA that to know God is to not know God that no one can fully comprehend or define that power which is God that anytime I try to anthropomorphize my higher power, that any time I try to ascribe an intent, a personality, I make this incredible everything this big, this tiny. I can't live in a world where God would annihilate one child and leave another child. I believe that God, for me, is that loving connective tissue and that absolute unqualified love. my sons are 28 and 25 Micah will be graduating the public policy graduate school at Cornell University in two months and Jesse just entered a five year fellowship to get his doctorate in mathematics at Stanford University and it can't be because God likes us more than the children who are being annihilated it can not be, it is just what is happening at my house my God expects me to do my job in Alcoholics Anonymous if it is to show a guy how to stay sober through a 32 year marriage or have a 32 years marriage fall apart He's not handing out divorces. My God expects me to stay sober if it's to show a guy how to stay sober through this bounty my children are experiencing or through their annihilation, which they've come close to. My God expect me to do that. My God will love me through that. My God is the one who will love you. My God does not isolate me from you, from you. And you've never, ever isolated me from you when it was good, when it was bad, when it was anything. God is either everything or he's nothing. And I believe that. I believe and I welcome the mystery, the mystery that used to be such an agony for me. And I made a lot of mistakes because it was too painful for me to accept that mystery and have faith. To expose myself to the truth despite the consequences and more and go and at 21 years and on. You know? It's a remarkable, remarkable gift. And so when I did 6 and 7 that day when I prayed because I was resentful of myself for almost drinking and I was resentful at that company for not giving me that TV job. When I prayed that day, I had to turn to the Father of Light who presides over all and say, Pop, I've had it. My back is broken. Take show business. I'm done. It's yours. I'll do anything, anything for a living. I just want to stay sober. And within three months I was working as a cook on a catering truck. And I looked up to God and I said, I did not mean this at all. This wasn't even like on the long list. I don't know where the hell this came from. Now in Los Angeles, when they make a TV show or a movie, they hire a caterer, you follow them around, you make great dough. It's Teamster dough. You're on a vehicle on a movie set. But I'm Scott Redman. And the first movie that I catered, the executive producer and star is a guy I've worked with in the business. And he sticks his head on the truck that morning and says, can I have a burrito? Scott? And I said, what's happening, babe? He said, is this your truck? I said no but it's my spatula. I go home and I call the response And I said Oh, we're getting the gift now Really getting the gifted I said, sounds like you've got a resentment I'm resentful of Scott for working on the kitchen truck I'm resentful of the guy for seeing me on the kitchen truck. He was a nice guy. He didn't rub it in. And I did that tenth step, and I didthat tenth step. And I found a way to show upand give them a dime for their nickel. My sons, I thought we'd get intimateon Oscar buffing night when we buffed my Oscars. My sons wanted me to teach themhow to cook. And we still cook together. And we sill play music together. It's the hub of our incrediblerelationship I have with these two men. And I learned how to be a good cook. and I wound up being of some help to people who had felt they had fallen from a height when they came into AA. They hadn't gotten to the top rung here, which is child of God. And I wound up serving people who had been my assistant directors on shows, actors who I directed on shows. I would come back to the home group with a new tale of humiliation every week, you know. The guys are going ha, ha, ho. At any rate, my friend Paul came in. He felt he had fallen from a height and we did some work together and he used to say this prayer. He'd say, Pop, I'm willing to do anything for a living. Just keep me sober, but please don't let it be as bad as what you did to Scott. Please don't. And I cooked for three years and at the end of three years had an overture made to me by a big time public relations company called Ketchum Public Relations. And I did this tape form, this audition tape kind of, and before I even, because I thought, you know, if I get this job, this is going to be good for my sponsees. Because they have seen me suffer, and now they'll see me prosper. And I went mad. I went nuts. My brain blew up before I even found out about the job. I crashed and burned. I wrote the inventory. I surrendered it, and I was cool. And shortly after that, I get a call from Ketchum that I didn't get the job. And I was good. And then I get a call to cater some commercials up near Arrowhead, and I hop in the truck and get up there, and I grab the call sheet, which is all the information about the shoot, and i see that the commercial is for Ketchum Public Relations. So I'm feeding them now. Now I'm feeding them. And I looked down at the end of the truck and a guy's videotaping me. I said, what are you doing? He said, oh, we're taping the making of the commercial. He's taping my humiliation. Get a hobby! He's going to go to New York, he's going to show it to me, they're going to go, is that Scott Redman with the meatloaf? Oh, my God. I get home and I call the sponsor and I said, oh, we're getting the gift now. This is just a miracle. There's a big miracle. Miracle, miracle. This is a miracle. And he said to me, you know, I guess God had enough writers and he needed a few cooks today. And he says, Scott, you asked God to work for Ketchum and you forgot to tell him what you wanted to do. If you're new here, I want to welcome you to Alcoholics Anonymous and I want urge you to take advantage of the enormity of the opportunity that's been offered to you here. Whatever you can do to move from the cycle of spree and remorse to the cycle of surrender and commitment, whatever you can do to break the ice off from your heart and let a little of this light in, I want to urge you to do. I don't know what it is. I don t know what you've come in with here. turned it back on a parent. I don't know what you've done. I know that there's somebody here who's done it. If you've strangled a puppy, we've got someone who's strangled two puppies. We don't want to play Kenya Bottom this, but we can. And if you're the worst, good, we need you. We need you if you are the worst. And I want to urge you as much as I possibly can to enjoy this day of renewal, of rebirth, this day where people are reaching out and wearing beautiful hats in beautiful colors and enjoying the day. If you're new here, I want to urge you as much as I can to take this thing as seriously as you possibly can and go out there and have the time of your life. Welcome to AA. Welcome home. Happy holiday. Thank you.