Why Nutrition and Mental Health Are Linked in Recovery – Bob E.

Like I said earlier, I know that my sponsor would really want to be here tonight. Again, his name is Wes, and knowing Wes, he's probably going to be hearing the tape of this meeting within two days. And I'd like to do something. I'm going to introduce myself as my sponsor, or I'm willing to introduce my sponsor as he might introduce himself. and I would like you to give him the welcome that you gave me so that he can hear you. My name is Wes Farrar, and I'm an alcoholic. Thank you. it's my privilege now to introduce our speaker from the Southland a man that I understand is about as pure as you can get now and he'll probably be sharing some of that with you too he's a wonderful speaker for me because he's able to express in words my feelings and that's so important in this outfit so without further ado Bob I am Bob Earl I'm a drug addict and alcoholic I'll have to get his destination of purity after the meeting I've got to tell you it's a delight to be in a meeting hall with this many people and clean air I noticed they didn't have the balls to make the meeting an hour and a half with no break figured I had about four people but nobody's hooked of course none of the smokers are addicted to the cigarettes they've got it under control I sat there watching the line go out the door man some serious expressions I'll talk to you in a minute see me outside I don't care if you want to kill yourself if I don'T get outside I'm going to kill myself but Christ it's just a little old habit Jesus it's something that you know anytime you want he can give it up I lately it's been interesting I went to a lot of conventions last year and And I'd sit and I'd listen to the speakers. And a lot of them are speakers I've known for, you know, people I've know for 20 years. And they give this great AA quote convention talk, unquote. And about 55 minutes of rousing story, you know degradation, humiliation, pain, suffering, drugs, booze, dirty clothes humiliating situations pain, suffering just all of the misery I had about five minutes left in their talk they would sort of as if by the clock suddenly they would get into where they had just risen from the ashes of all this twenty-five years ago and came to AA and they stand before you today in their $500 suit and their $200 shoes and they have their $40,000 automobile out front and it's been great. And the stories would be real and the pain and suffering would be real and everybody would cry for the hankies and the shirt sleeves because that's a very dramatic moment that when we told somebody all that we went through to get here I mean and then you say God here I am I'm sober I don't have to drink today and the emotion would just pour out you know and the people would leap to their feet and give a standing ovation to the speaker and I'd go back to my room and I'd be uncomfortable in my stomach and that's my best yardstick I have whether I'm on the path or not certainly not this and this went on for most of the year late last year I was in New York and this time again the speakers are the same thing and a couple of them are old, old acquaintances of mine and God knows the story was real pain and the same theme you know I rose from the ashes and God the audience went nut-filled you know and cheers and yeah and God I went back to my room and I'm oh really uncomfortable finally I looked over at my lady and I said I got it I got it I know I've been uncomfortable all goddamn year listening to these talks and it's like we are celebrating the first miracle which is sobriety I mean somehow we've taken seems to me if you're new tonight everything I say is my own opinion and you know come back tomorrow night and hear somebody else's opinion we've we've taken a turn to and we've gotten so lost for the need to have the drama in the convention and the need not to say anything that will offend anybody because God forbid you know we should say that you're really killing yourself by smoking and you should quit now I pissed you off and you won't like me so you know I can't risk saying that, right? Which, by the way, I will say that you are killing yourself by smoking it. But don't concern yourself with that. I mean, get on to something more monumental like buying a new car, which you won't need a long warranty on if you smoke it. so suddenly I realized we've gotten to the point here where at least my experience has been the most highly rated and I'm guessing if we rate speakers and we seem to around here the most high-level the convention speakers are the ones who have risen from the ashes who give this dramatic, painful, God-forsaken story. It doesn't matter if they've been sober 30 years, they still devote 55 minutes to what it used to be like and 5 minutes to the end of the year. Now, we've even gotten to the point where we evoke a lot of the focus of the attention of the meetings on newcomers. I don't fully understand that. Newcomers come in here by the Honda full. Right? They are in the minority at any meeting. we're losing them out the other end by the truckload you know and yet our focus is back here behind us somewhere and at times I mean it's like we get this first sobriety as far as I can tell is the first miracle sobrietry I guess I mean anyway the way I interpret it is the beginning but if guys 30 years sober are still devoting 95% of their talk to what it used to be like and the gratitude and emotion in their life today comes from no longer being like that then it would lead anybody with you know a fourth of their wiring left right to assume that sobriety is the end so you work these steps go to these meetings put up with this bullshit until you die basically about it don't hope for a lot you won't be too disappointed Christ my parents gave me the same message when I was that high you know come in this house be quiet don't have any opinions don't cause any trouble don't hold a grudge if you don't help for a while you'll be okay and if it comes easy it's bad you gotta work hard bust your ass or it's uh you know sin right you come into AA they turn it over to God and that there's a big conflict there you know spiritual path is easy huh watch people in AA sometimes watch friends around you when good things are put in their path watch them walk around it comes too easy just take a detour look at it out of the corner of their eye so I figure I don't have a need to be popular anyway so let's assume that sobriety is the first miracle well if sobrietry is the last miracle and not the last miracle we're not doing a hell of a lot about it around here you know we certainly I never was at least in my first 12 years of sobriety was never evidence that sobrietry was the beginning of anything you know first couple years you just hang on people say why are you here I say because I don't want to go back you know I got no desire to be here I don' t like any of you god damn people the fucking meetings are boring me to tears but it's better than that so I'm staying so like the first couple of years was just like this little flamethrower in our butt just blowing us right on through here we do things we don't want to do talk to people we don' t like go to meetings we hate work steps we don''t believe in pray to a God we know is waiting to just nail us the first chance we get so that's the first couple of years I guess I'll let you do something to change the pattern so I know for years I didn't behave as if sobriety was the beginning of anything it was just like you know A is where you came between drinking and dying you know that's it and I heard a guy one time a respected you know boisterous member of one of the clubs in Los Angeles long sober and this will tell you why we got turned off the god damn road where somewhere I think we took the wrong fork right because unfortunately Bill and Dr. Bob didn't stay around forever to keep bopping it down the right path right so this guy says at a meeting he looks out he's speaking at a young people's meeting at a big AA clubhouse in Southern California 25 years sober at the time he gives this talk and he says to the young people in the audience of which I was one at that time he says I feel really sorry for you guys. You're here so young that none of you will be able to stay sober until you die. Does that tell you anything about his program? That it's so painful being sober that it's not that it is so difficult that hanging in there that not changing resisting change and trying to keep the status quo was so hard. He figured if you're going to stay sober for 40 years, you have to drink first. You could never make it. Now where we got off on all these ideas, I'll never know. I mean, if you read at all about Bill and Dr. Bob, you may have met it. If anything, these two cats were not picked by mistake. You know? I mean God did not choose these two guys because he just picked the first two alcoholics he could find. He found two real, honest-to-God seekers. People who were seekers. Bill, God knows, had been trying everything on the planet and trying to get sober for years, right? He gets sober, he went on to try acid, right, LSD, and on to niacin, legal and spiritual experiments. You know, experiments. Don't think he was out there buying street corn and stuff. It was long before it was popular. That's what I mean. He was out here, you know, doing it, right. looking for more, looking for another way to help the alcoholic on the path. And they used to have seances at Dr. Bob's house for Christ's sake. Talk to mediums. Try and communicate with the dead. These are good guys. These are guys who were looking for something. And somewhere it seems we got to a place where we quit looking for something I don't know why. Is it because we don't think we're going to get it? see that's my trick you know that's what I do everything in my life you give me something really nice and I have sort of a blase attitude about it you know inside part of me said oh god isn't that great yeah there's another part saying nah it's not that big a fucking deal you know it's okay but it's probably going to get destroyed when the house burns down next week so let's not get too attached to it, you know. I mean, I do that with everything in my life and I know a lot of people that do that. It's like somebody said once, you know, I think, yeah, I can't remember expressions, something to do with ice cream. Oh well, doesn't it. Anyhow, having reached a point of sobriety where I began to perceive that sobrietry was the beginning and not the end forces you to look at your life. Now, if you go home tonight and you write down at the top of a piece of paper, sobriery is the beginning. The beginning. and then evaluate your life you may find there's a few things you want to change most of them if you're honest will be your own behavior and most of it will be your own attitude if you are honest if you are into everybody else's behavior and attitudes try it again next week or try it the next day I change you know personality changes from day to day hour to hour minute to minute what did you say I don't know so once I began to look at sobriety as a beginning I thought Jesus if I'm going to be around a while it wouldn't hurt to take care of myself you have some reasonable health here I'm a firm believer in the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow I don' t know if anybody else is but I've looked for that sucker forever right I always know it's going to be there and when I'm in financial trouble I always go to the mailbox for days I'll go in a row looking for the letter telling me that dear Aunt Harriet died and has left me a god damn fortune right now I don't have a dear Aunt Juliet but I always hope that they find one somewhere and she'll kick the bucket I believe in that philosophy to such a point where here a few months ago I had a very depressing heart-to-heart talk with the business manager that handles my money and he put me in touch with reality and it was very bleak and I left his office more than a little depressed the mind was keeping me from doing any momentary praying it was preparing its speeches for bankruptcy court you know driving down the street. And I looked in my rear view mirror and behind me was a really old Cadillac limousine, right? Nice condition, but old. A 50s Cad limo. And there was an old guy driving it and an even older lady in the back seat, right, in the limo." Now, I knew, I swear to God, you've got to remember, this is 22 years clean and sober driving downthe street, right?" I knew there was a moment there that I knew that they were going to honk their horn and flash their lights in that limo and had me pull over and this old broad was going to get out and lay a million dollars on me. I would drop to my knees in the street in tears of gratitude and she would know that she had given it to the right person. Unfortunately, I turned left and they kept going straight on down the street. Right? But, I believe in that. You know, there's a part of me that always says there's that pot of gold. Well, here about six months ago or eight months ago The first part of last year, up in Canada, this guy won the Canadian lottery, the big smasher, right? $14 million. In Canada, lotteries are tax-free. You get every penny, right?" Now, I'd say he hit it. You know what I mean? I don't know that it's enough for me, but it's goddamn close, okay? so he's got 14 million dollars the pot of gold now he can go do all those things he dreamed about he can do all the things he hoped by be frivolous if he wants he can doing anything he wants he can do anything anything he want six weeks later he died he wasn't in good health he hadn't taken care of himself that's it six weeks later he's dead I remember when that happened and I thought you know I may not be going to be hitting that sucker for another twenty years but when I hit it I god damn don't want six weeks left do you know what I mean I want another 20 years left, right? Like, I'm 49 headed for 59. I'm in reasonably good shape for my age. As the national average goes, I'm sure I'm way the hell above it. And as AA goes, I know I'm away above it, right. But this is just the beginning. I plan on being in better shape when I'm 50 and I plan on being even in better shape yet when I am 51 and there is no reason in the world that I can't achieve all these things I just started a little late it took me a long time I have to be very patient with this whole process of taking care of myself because when you haven't done it for 40 some years the body doesn't respond like it's 17 and as we have a tendency the alcoholic to be into instant gratification God knows we've stuck enough large needles in our arms you know that's not what you call patient you know I want it now it took me probably eight months of little tiny sit-ups getting the back maybe this far off the floor right to get to the point where I could even begin to do what they call the baby sit up for a bad back which is about this far off the floor right took eight months eight solid months to achieve that so it's like if you're listening to some of this and you're starting to get plugged into the idea that sobriety is not the end but might perhaps to be the beginning then some of this is going to appeal to you and it's going to trigger in you a desire to do it my caution would be it seems to work best for most of us although some people can give everything up at once walk away from it all and just like walking into another room and survive I've had to like do it piecemeal I mean I started becoming conscious that there were just things that were not good for me about 12 years ago 12 years ago and that's when I gave up red meat I knew that one was no good because I they'd been living my wife was dying of cancer and everyone we took her to were only the people involved in the non-toxic treatment of cancer in other words the treatment would not kill you and that was like the first thing they all automatically immediately eliminated from the diet was red meat so a while after she had died and we had both you know voracious meat eaters and so a while after she passed away a little light bulb went on and said this is not a necessary substance here you know they lived for tens of thousands of years on this planet before anybody had ever seen a god damn cow so I suppose we can go on a few years you know without it so that one was easy you know then it was followed by pork which was not as easy because I loved bacon the bacon was a little hard to give up it was like the last ditch stand you know and a few years later came cigarettes now for me strange talk well what the hell Wes is responsible you know drive by his house and give him shit if uh you know and for me and a lot of people I know that seems to be the really first big step of standing up and saying I'm worth taking care of I deserve to take care of my to be taken care of and it's almost as if that act of giving up the cigarette begins to change for me it began to change everything after a few months of not smoking I'm now confronted with another problem I eat sugar by the shovel full I'm hypoglycemic and don't care because now it works like a narcotic you know once you're hypoglycemic and you keep eating sugar it's great just put your eyes to sleep have a late night Sunday and you don't have to deal with anything wake up on the couch in the morning with a stiff neck it's wonderful like a drug so now I'm weighing 40 pounds more than I was when I quit smoking and I'm shoveling in sugar so we have to now deal with the weight and we have to deal with the sugar so that becomes a process for anybody thinking about giving up sugar I highly suggest Washington Red Delicious Apples by a case so I ain't got me off of it I don't think I ever got out of sugar without apples don't know I've ever made it without the apples to something you know we are compulsively obsessive but I am a compulsively obsessive personality anyway and it's like once the sugar was gone and the cigarettes were gone I was like and the coffee too I hadn't drank it in years I gave it up at the same time I gave red meat up my body gave it up my body just said you drank your lifetime supply no more you know you can't drink anymore my throat closed one morning I was trying to drink a cup of coffee and my throat just closed it doesn't take a lot for me to get a message but I got the message so after that after the cigarettes and sugar began a process it just seems natural you just start wanting to feel better now unless you've been living in a cave for about a hundred years the proof is in that nutrition and mental health are linked like this they have just done three major studies that I know of on us and they have come up with the number one cause of the sober alcoholic returning to drinking you gotta love it nutrition nutrition number one cause of the sober alcoholic going back to drinking. Why? Well, it seems to be for the most part that if you eat crap, you feel like crap. That's general rule. Now, if you're like I am, you've been doing it so successfully for so long, you don't know you feel bad. You know you don'T feel great, but you DON'T know you FEEL bad. I mean, I was talking tonight about those low-grade depressions, right? Which you DONT know you had it until you're out of it. And then you're like, God, I feel really good. Boy, I felt really bad last week. I didn't know I felt that bad last year. But the same thing was we were so hooked in or I was so hooked into feeling the way I was feeling from eating all the crap that I was eating and I was just kind of going along in this low-grade depression. And I can understand that. I can believe that. If you continue to feel bad long enough and you are an alcoholic or an addict you will seek relief. You will seek release. Now, it's like, isn't this a fun talk? Now you know why these other guys tell their goddamn story. Because they don't like, you know, 150 people looking at them like they want to like tar and feather them and run them the hell out of town. See, but I know down inside of you there's a little guy or a little gal saying, listen, listen to what he's saying. Because I was living with that person for the first 10 years trying to ignore it in sobriety. and I'd meet a really healthy person. You know? A really... Someone into health and exercise and spirituality and I hated them. But there was a part of me that was drawn to them. I would still slide over and say, Hi. How are you? You know. I'm great, thanks. How about yourself? Not bad. I'm alright you know it's like and now today in AA we're getting the new breed and I love them they're great there's a younger generation coming in here in their twenties blowing me away because they come walking into AA and they have been vegetarian for ten years right they don't smoke they don' t drink coffee they've been in the Himalayas to talk to the high llamas they've be in India and sat by the stream sides with the gurus you know, and the yogas. I mean, they have been seeking like crazy. Like mad. And they've come into AA because heroin was interfering with their spiritual consciousness, right? Well, they hang around here for a little while. A few months. You know, get rid of the heroin. Get most of it out of the system. and now they're like oh, they know they have found the path and they look at us and they're raising more havoc in AA than in Southern California than anybody I know because they'll be in their little home group and they'll look around the table and all these guys smoking their cigarettes one after another and shoveling in the cookies and pouring in the coffee and they have this moment of clarity and they take a look at their group and their sponsor you know and they say what the fuck are you doing? And then they're immediately attacked. Why are you sober longer than you understand? So then they ask a great question, understand what? Never mind. And they'll look at the response and say, I heard a kid say this, but I don't want to understand that self-destruction is okay. Response, we walk down. him. Left the meeting. Just walked out. He had no response. He'd been nailed. Nailed by this goddamn newcomer. Who was delighted to be here with big eyes. Because he understood that sobriety was the beginning. He understood he could have anything he wanted to have. He understood he could be anything he wanted to be. Any risk he was willing to take, any price he was will to pay, he could have out of this sobriety and out of Alcoholics Anonymous anything he want. That's a pretty good deal. No wonder he was happier than his peers. He thought this was great here. He thought sobrietry was wonderful. I didn't think it was too terrific when I was beginning. Better than dying, but that was about it, you know. But not something I came to get, you know. I came here to stop something. I didn't come to get anything. And I think that's part of the problem. We arrive with this attitude that we're stopping something, not coming to get something. And the mind, of course, loves all those word games, you know. Oh, this is the end of the road here. We've sunk to the goddamn bottom this time, boy. What are you going to do for an encore? Kill yourself? You know, and so if you begin with that attitude, you're not going to put any energy or effort into this program or into the steps or into any aspect of it. You're not gonna have anything to do with any of it You're gonna just plod along like I plodded along. You're going to do only what's absolutely necessary to do to keep you from drinking or blowing your brains out. The thought of really standing up, you know getting loose and going for a piece of life would scare you to death because the mind will leap in there and go don't expect too much you won't be very disappointed take it easy don't rush it you can give up smoking next year you're going to have a lot of stress this year you're gonna need your cigarettes the mind is always there to project nothing but positiveness for us in our life quit smoking in 86 85 is going to be a son of a bitch you know you barely got through 84 85 is gonna tear your ass off you know what I mean so at least allow yourself cigarettes a little coffee and a few hot fudge sundaes that's the only battle you're gonna fight here is with your mind the mind which has been so geared and so triggered and so schooled and has so much misinformation in it thanks to the original dynamic duo right who had gotten bad information from their mother that your battle is with that it's not with anybody else but yourself the only reason you're not taking care of yourself if you're not I mean who are we going to blame why are you not granted a lot of us didn't have a great role model. I've been trying to change my mother's diet now for ten years. Forget it. There's a consciousness and if you can't break the consciousness, there's nothing you can do about it. I take running shoes down and say, come on man, take a walk. People don't want to walk. They don't know what to do. So that's a lot of why we have a problem is that we have no role models. One of the things that I'm delighted about that's changing in AA is people are becoming conscious of this stuff in AA. There's a whole gang of them in Oregon getting ready now to start an Alano club in San Diego. About 30 runners are starting an Alano club. There won't be any smoking in the Alano club at all. They're not even sure if they'll serve coffee. Probably not. Mostly juices and fruits and things like that. No sugar will be served under any circumstances. They get birthday cakes made, they'll get them made sugarless. See if they're made with fructose or barley malt or rice malt. On top of the regular 12-step meetings, they will have outside lecturers come in to talk about nutrition, to talk about spiritual matters, to talked about exercise, to instruct, to talk yoga. I figure probably 31 people will go, the guys that are starting it and some one poor god damn newcomer they grabbed but the thing I like about it is they're smart enough to do it in a lano club which is not AA and has nothing to do with AA so you know the old war horses are just going to have to sit and keep quiet if they understand your own tradition right I love them anyway you know that's not the way we did it back in 25, you know. Thank God for that. The big book of Alcoholics Anonymous has an interesting line in it. I love it. It says, God will constantly disclose more to you and ask him each day of your morning meditation. God will always be there for you. God will continually disclose more. There's a lot of new information in now, guys. a whole lot of new information has come out of our society since the book was written originally I guarantee you that if Dr. Bob and Bill were to find AA today brand new let's say AA didn't exist and those two guys found it today right now March 1st, 1985 I assure you I've staked my life on it therapy, nutrition and exercise would be integral parts of the program. They wouldn't have left one of them out because they grabbed everything that was available to them at the time the program was put together. They reached for all the information that was out and kept looking for more. I mean, Bill was the one that got so far off into the niacin trip. Hey, hold on a minute. Hey, hey, hey. never mind see I love that stuff that stuff gets me excited you know I'm overjoyed that Bill and Dr. Bob were seekers that it wasn't enough that they wanted more where's more information how can I feel better how can i get healthier what can trigger something what can I do you know I mean that excites me it came to me tonight and said you're going to get to spend a weekend with one or two guys Bob. Over here we have Bill. Bill drove to Malibu at 5 o'clock this morning to participate in a sunrise trampoline meditation service on the beach. For over here we have Charlie. Charlie, 35 years sober, lives in the Alano Club and can recite the book word for word. I want to spend the weekend with Bill, man. I wanna see what he found out at sunrise bouncing up and down on his goddamn trampoline on the beach, you know. I want to see what happened. What happened? What'd you learn, you now? What went on? You know, I don't know. I know what this guy knows. I can pick up a goddamn book. I don' t need somebody wall-bound to a chair. I want the people who are out there reaching for more because they're not afraid because they believe God loves them because they think that sobriety is a beginning. Sobriety is a start. And I've got to tell you, if that's one little attitude that you can change if you should not have that attitude, it'll do wonders for your life. You'll find you may need extra tools. You'll found you may want more help. You may want to spend time with a minister to get some better idea about God. You may wanna read different books written by different mystics and prophets and yogas and whoever the hell you want. Feel free to read it all. It says in the book, make use of all the outside tools you like. They're only a little age to help on the path. I'm grateful for every tool that's been forced on me. I'm so grateful for the last five years of therapy that I had to go through. I'm thankful for it. Thankful for it! It was a tool I needed before I had to die, because I had to find out why I couldn't do these things. I had find out why I was coming apart 17 years sober. Why I still didn't feel like I deserved anything really good in my life. Why I knew all those things that were good in my life were going to be taken away from me and I had to live in that fear I had go get help to find out why because if you're still doing that and you're 17 years over you know I don't want somebody to come up and say write another inventory you know what I mean seriously jeopardize our relationship because by the time I was 17 years old I'd written 32 god damn inventories you know I just didn't understand that I had missed one point of view a crucial point of view I forgot to write one about what was done to me I spent 17 years writing all the inventories about what I'd done I forget to write that critical one about what was done to me why I felt the way I felt what happened when I was so small and being formulated that I couldn't grow up with a zest for life that I could not grow up knowing I counted that I was important that I grew up with no god damn personality at all you know a need to plead an inability to function in a social world how come you know why you know once I start to find out why I begin to understand things you know once I begin to understand things I understand responsibility always comes back to me always comes back to me I mean I can't tell you what a relief it was to find out that a lot of the behavior it was just great to realize that what transpired when I was a child was wrong I wasn't wrong what went on was wrong I was raised with behavior that is criminally punishable by law people can be put in fucking jail and I was walking around thinking there was something wrong with me nothing's wrong with me I'm okay I'm okay now I gotta take care of me well that's a double edged sword right It's like, oh, okay. I get to take care of me. I don't know how! What do I do now? Shit! Nobody taught me! You know, that's where the fun begins. Thank God we have sobriety as an operating table or a foundation stone to take off of, to start from. This is not exactly the talk I had in mind. I didn't eat a lot of it, but I did it. You know I cooked burgers. I could never spend a day alone I could ever do any of those things this last Christmas I spent with my best friend who's sober about as long as I am been in therapy long period of time like I have his girlfriend who is not on the program and who is a therapist two friends of theirs who's a Jungian psychiatrist and his wife who's also a therapist and we were just laughing and talking and carrying on having this big Christmas dinner and having the best time at one point during the video it dawned on me quietly inside I thought God isn't this interesting here are five people sitting at this table all of whom I consider to be in basically good mental health none of them are with their family for Christmas I mean Christmas is with my family or a killer I don't know about yours but Jesus I mean it's the same old dynamics nothing changes everybody sits in the same chairs drinks the same booze tells the same jokes the same uncles who are still fucking drunk that broke my train 43 years ago. You know? I don't want to play anymore. I'm through, you know? I'll come down after Christmas and say hi, you know, to the family. I wish I had time for that one. I'd take some family Christmas anyway. There's a story I love to tell which I probably may have told here a hundred times and maybe not but I enjoy it because it kind of points up a lie that we tell ourselves. And that is, oh yeah, with the exercise too. If you're starting this stuff, don't be afraid to start all out. Which you'll stop shortly and won't do it again for a while. Or little bits and pieces at a time. See, I used to try this stuff. Haven't you tried this stuff? I mean, I was sober. I didn't roll in the goddamn gym. I'd go Monday, Wednesday, Friday. I'd last maybe six weeks, eight weeks. I'd miss one day. Goodbye. I'd never go back. I've got more lifetime memberships and more goddamn gyms in Oakland. You know, and they're all out of business and I never got there. You know? That used to bother me. I'd think, why can't I continue on? Why don't I have any self-esteem? If you don't have any self-esteem, you can't take care of yourself. You must be there. You must have a high regard for yourself in order to be able to take care of yourself. Geez, now I give up two hours every morning. An hour and a half, two hours. I give it two hours of prayer, meditation, yoga stretches, free weights, and some exercises. And that doesn't count running on the days that I run. If I have to go somewhere, if I have To Be Someplace Early in the Morning, I just get up earlier or however many hours it takes so I can have that time in advance. I take Sundays off. Okay? and if I don't feel 100% on a given day I don' t do all the exercise I give myself a little break my diet is very rigid I won't even go into it but I'm very flexible with it too I mean every now and then I will go out to a Chinese restaurant and I order my three favorite dishes and I don''t even mention monosodium glutamate to them fuck it bring it on you know it's like my big slip you know my junk for the month okay let's tell the story and ease off I've enjoyed this I really have because you know the reason I've enjoyed it is I haven't shared anything with you that I don't know to be the truth based on my experience and on the experience of people that I'm close to in AA who hold the same beliefs see I know this is true I know exercise is critical I know nutrition is critical I know prayer meditation is critical I know not smoking is critical. I know all these things are really important and I know it by experience and it's the only reason I come here and spend all this time risking your disapproval knowing I'm just grinding at the things that you don't want to look at. And the only way I'm grinding at it is because there's something in me that drives me to say wake up. Wake up. You know? They got us to sleep it's time to wake up I'm a pain in the ass now that I take care of myself You know, I don't take shit from nobody anymore. You know? I don' t care if it's the Bank of America or if it' s the President of the United States or... I don'' t care who it is. I will not sit still anymore and let anybody fuck over me. I will now stand up and say, Hey! Excuse me, sir. That' s wrong. You know ? I have records here. Let me show you what' s right. You know. I' m terrible. No wonder they want us to eat all that crap. It keeps us peaceful. You know what ? I don't make no trouble when I'm full of junk. Oh, you're going to deny me my thing? Oh, okay. I mean, I went through the worst fiscal year I've ever had in my life last year. Absolutely bottomed out, right? And I mean it got bad to the point where I had to sit down and cut up the credit cards and send them back with nice letters saying, you know, sorry, but we did the best we could and it's not enough, I know, in your eyes, but here it is you know this isn't a violation of trust it's just victims of circumstances and I was going through all this and there were three or four major lines of credit that I wanted to save and I Was in so much trouble that these kind of banks run periodic TRW checks on you to see how you are so they could make sure that all that unsecured credit is okay well they saw mine and went nuts right and immediately said you're cancelled the only three cards I was trying to keep And I got on the phone and said, No, I'm not canceled. You can't cancel me. I've been a customer of this bank for 12 goddamn years. I have never not paid on time. Twelve years of a perfect relationship has got to count for something. You can'T throw it aside. Now, I want you to understand that you and I can resolve this or you and i may not resolve this. But I will assure you that if it is not resolved, in my opinion, the way I want it resolved then I will write a letter to the god damn chairman of the board of First Interstate Bank and arrange a meeting to tell him how you treat an old I mean I just went for the jugger right everybody relented everybody said well Mr. Earl in view of your long standing maybe we could extend the line of credit a little longer I said thank you I hung up and I walked away I felt good I stood up for me I've been waiting for somebody to stand up for me For 48 years I didn't know it had to be me I kept marrying people Hoping they would stand up For me You know I went everywhere I could Looking for somebody To stand up For me You know Suddenly Gotta be me I gotta think enough about me To stand Up for me That's it But that's See I'm trying to share with you Sobriety is the beginning This is all stuff I couldn't do Man I used to eat food That I didn'y order In restaurants You know I ate cold food Jesus I couldn'y send anything back I didn't want to cause a disturbance, you know. I was raised by people who would not cause a public disturbance. At home they'd fucking kill anything, you Know. Publicly they, you Now. Oh, that's okay. Eat your meal. Be quiet. You Know. But Daddy, I did nothing. Shh, shh, shhh. You Know, eat your meal, huh? Yeah. Okay, anyway. I feel good. One of the biggest excuses you will use to not do any of this stuff is you will tell yourself that it's too late. it's too late the mind will tell you that you're too old it's to late forget it you know it's a waste of god damn time you're going to die in a few years anyway why why fuck up those few years with exercise and good nutrition you know I mean the mind is great if you ever really listen to it I don't mean listen to like we listen to but if you really listen to you'll realize what kind of trouble you've got here. It's not a logical piece of machinery at all. Anyway, a couple of years ago I was watching television and I was watchin' a sporting event and before the event began they were interviewing this guy and this guy was tellin', the guy was telling the interviewer he was sayin', well you know he was sayin', when I was 65 years old my son came into my room one morning at the house and said Dad we're gonna have to put you in a home and he said I said no I don't want to go to a home I'll do anything but don't put me in a home and his son said to him look you're not doing anything man you're sitting here dying you're doing nothing you smoke you eat shit and you just sit and you're dying it's not good for me it's no good it's good for my wife and it's that good for the kids to see this and the father said I will do anything in the world to not go to a home his son said alright get up tomorrow morning come run with me the next morning the old man got up with his kid and went out to run and the old guy lasted a quarter of a block one fourth of a black he could not breathe and his legs were trembling they were so weak they were ready to give in and his son says ok dad never mind just go home we'll talk about it later We'll figure something out. Forget it. The old man got up the next morning and went out and tried again and only got a quarter of a block. Now, three months he got up every morning and finally at the end of three months he got to the point where he could barely get a mile. He could just barely run a mile at the beginning of three weeks. And at that point, a light bulb went on in his head. And this is a tough one. and this is one that a lot of us have to accept here, he realized that if he was in that bad condition, his whole life must have been wrong. Must have been right. And so he gave up eating shit. He gave up the cigarettes. He started to read books on God and positive thinking and a positive outlook towards life. When I was watching the interview, he was 83 years old and he was there in New York City to run his 14th New York Marathon. And he said he felt better than he felt when he was 40. They didn't have to put him in a home. I guess it's not too late. God bless you. Thank you.