Why the Allergic Reaction to Alcohol Is the Only Litmus Test – Bob L.

There's a lot of questions here, which I'm delighted about. I'm going to just kind of go through a few of them real quickly. And you may not get an answer. If I don't have any experience with it, you may just get a dumb look. I'll try to resist my temptation to make crap up. This is a good question. It said you mentioned there are only a couple places in the big book where it says if you don't do this, you might not be able to continue not drinking. One place, step five, where are some other places? Well, in the sex inventory is one. And it says that if your behavior continues to harm others, we're quite sure to drink. Another place is in your amends. If there are people you owe that you don't overcome your fear to face them, you're probably not going to stay sober. There's other places where it talks about if you don't have a spiritual experience. There's quite a few places, but specifically in step five and step four and step nine, it comes right out and talks about specific actions. There's some stuff earlier in the book, but it's more of a generalized thing, talking about your spiritual condition. And step 10, there's an implication that you only have a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance. Not contingent on your spiritual conditioning because that's unrealistic, but contingent on the maintenence of your spiritual conditions. So that's one. I'm comforted by the idea of God, but I am a Buddhist. How can I fully surrender and have faith if I don't believe in an external God? Well, there's nowhere in the book that says you have to believe in a external God As a matter of fact, it tells you, it sort of implies internal. Page 55, the great reality, you'll find it only deep down within you. I don't think you have to believe in anything as if you can just get your life out of the hands of the idiot. I think if you just stop it's a funny thing I didn't believe in God when I came here and yet I started acting like a surrendered guy I started acting like something other than me than this this head, this ego this self thing was in charge and something seemed to show up in my life I don't think I've been to meetings in countries where the predominant religion is Buddhism or Muslim, Islam. And members of Alcoholics Anonymous find a way to go there. You don't have to believe anything. You just have to take the actions, surrendered actions. Did your depression go away by working the steps? Well, it's a combination of things. It was a combination of the steps. I really got a significant deal out of step four through nine and we'll talk about nine. Nine's a big deal. We don't talk enough about nine I think sometimes but the real freedom from the depression was within the same actions that Bill Wilson took. I was just talking to somebody about this before if you go to page 14 and 15 of the book and there's actually, Bill talks about this same thing many places in the book but well, this is where he comes right in his own story and talks about his own deal with this he says the bottom of page 14. It says, Faith without works is dead, he said, and how appallingly true for the alcoholic. For if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through two things, and it's not prayer and meditation, if you fail to enlarge and perfect your spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others, you will not survive the certain. Certain means they're coming. They're coming, they're common. Certain trials and low spots ahead. If he did not work, he would surely drink and if he had to drink, he'd die. Then he goes on to talk about we abandon ourselves to enthusiasm helping others. It was fortunate for my old business association to remain skeptical for a year and a half during which time I found little work. I was not too well at the time. I was plagued by waves of self-pity and resentment. Waves. I know what that feels like. And I know what waves of depression feel like, self-pity. There's just no hope anywhere. There's a hopelessness. And what's Bill do? He said, sometimes this nearly drove me back to drink, but I soon found that when all other measures failed, what did he do? Work with another alcoholic would save the day many times, and I've done this, and it's really, really and truly saved me. Many times I've gone to my old hospital in despair. When talking to a man there, I would be amazingly lifted up and set on my feet. It's a design for living that works in rough going. Depression is such a narcissistic, self-pity is such an narcissistic state. It is really, I don't think you could ever be more self-centered and more self-obsessed than when you're depressed. It's to the point, I've been suicidally depressed and it's such an obsessive focus and staring obsessively at my own emotions and thoughts and the bleakness of it. And it is a consciousness perception changing condition. There are drugs you can take that will, like LSD that will change your consciousness. Depression changes your consciousness, it changes your perception only in a very bleak way. There's a hopelessness that settles in in your perception. I remember one time in early sobriety I was sinking into this abyss and it was horrible and I'd been in it for a little while and I called my sponsor up and I just felt horrible and I was telling him I said I just feel this is awful It's awful. I don't think I can take it. I don' t think I stay sober. This is just terrible. And he said, how long have you felt like this? I said, you know, Dick, I've always felt like this. He said, You were at the home group Friday night laughing and carrying on with the guys you were hitting on some girl. He said you were lit up Friday night. And here's how it changes your head screws with your own mind. You know what I said to him? I said, well, I must have been in denial. My head tells me as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be world without end. Amen. Like as if I'm always depressed, I'm also going to be depressed. And that's not true. But when you're, isn't it odd when you feel depressed, everything looks depressing. It's like it changes your very view. It creates a false perception. And I've been free. I had to clear out some stuff that was just blocking me in a major, major house cleaning between four and five years sober. And I'd been free of that continually except for one little episode when I was 19. And I do it because every day on the guy, It says our very lives, page 20, our very lives as ex-problem drinkers depend upon our constant thought of others, their needs and how we can work for the constant. Now I by nature am a person that's constantly thinking of myself. And so I have to take contrary actions in a contrary stance. And that's why for 30 some years I've had two hospital and institution commitments per week a lot of weeks i do three my phone rings all the time i sponsor a lot people why because they're alcoholic no because i am because i it is it is the vehicle by which god relieves me of the bondage of self and it has worked now tell you a sad thing that happened to me and i didn't know what was happening to me when And I was, it started, I think it started slowly when I was about 15 years sober. 14, maybe even a little before that. And I didn't even realize it. And I started building a life based on self. And one of the things that has happened is I became very materially successful. and I was buying a lot of stuff and I had a lot of toys and I did and I got a lot of money and I would have a big house up on the hill that looked over the city of Las Vegas and I had it's pathetic I had everything you could buy I had a brand new supercharged Jaguar I had the biggest BMW made the 12 cylinder a brand new Corvette Z Corvette with a chip and all that stuff in it Two Harley Davidsons, one of them was in a magazine. It was a beautiful bike, show bike. I had enough money in my checking account that I never had to work again the rest of my life. I'd run out of things to buy. I ran out of thing to buy, I'm telling you. I had cash flow that was close to seven figures a year. It was unbelievable, plus all kinds of other stuff that was coming in. And I got the lowest point of my sobriety, which made no sense to me. I had everything I wanted and I felt horrible. I was frighteningly depressed. I got frighteningly oppressed. And I couldn't attach it to it. I didn't know why. I mean, for God's sakes, I had every thing. Why would I feel this way now? Why would they be sinking into this? And I could not shake it. This is not just for a day. this went on for a period of time I talked to my sponsor he said I can't hear him he says well you've got to change your attitude he's always turning the volume up on AA well I understand intellectually but it's like I'm too wrapped up in me I don't get it I went to a meeting tell you how God works through people if you keep showing up in AA even if you feel bad I've had, I get guys I sponsor they don't want to go to meetings because they feel bad I said go to the meeting, feel bad in the meeting feel bad in the meet and I went to this meeting I didn't want it, I felt bad I went into this meeting and a guy that I know I told him, I said I feel, I've been having this fighting this depression, it's really bad first time in years that it's bothered me you know what he said to me, this is unbelievable this guy was so, I think God spoke through him He said to me, he said, well, he said, you know, you've got a lot of success in your life. He said, you sponsor all these guys and you go around the country and speak a lot, run your mouth a lot in AA and you want to enjoy this reputation as a great AA member. He said something I don't think your primary purpose is helping other alcoholics. He said I think your primary purpose is you. And when he said that, I'll tell you, it cut me to the quick. You know, they say the truth will set you free. It'll ruin your day first. I'm telling you. Because he was right. He was right and I don't know how and just a few years before that, my primary, I was on fire. All I cared about was helping drunks. I put that before my business. I put it before my everything and somehow without me even realizing incrementally was an inundation and self-interest and self concern it just happened so subtly small little bits and pieces until I was the center again and I went through the motions of looking like a good AA member but my heart wasn't in it I went right in the middle of that I was a terrible sponsor it's so pathetic I was the sponsor that if you called me up and you could really be in the middle of a crisis in a really tough time or relationship breakup or all kinds of stuff and I was calling him just like yeah, yeah, just get it over with because I want to get back to the important stuff me and I wasn't sure what to do I was short with the guys I was impatient with them I was just like come on and because I was self-consumed again and self-focused and my primary purpose had become me. And that guy told me that it snapped me. And within the next day, I got new guys in my car again, like I always did, taking them to meetings and I'm talking AA in the car and we're going out to coffee and I've been finding new guys that are broke and taking them out for a hamburger after a meeting and talking AA and I went back to doing what I did that lit me up. Bill Wilson went through the same thing. And, you know, I've really read everything I can read about Bill Wilson's depression being that I'm basically that has that have that inclination. And when, you Know, Bill Wilson got sober, he did exactly what he says in the story. And he found amazing freedom from that in Calvary Chapel, in Towns Hospital, in the early aid groups. and then a couple things happened to Bill one is you know he didn't work through that he just threw himself into helping others and it freed him but as a consequence of that they lost Lois' in-laws house that they were given on Clinton Street was repossessed and they went through a period of quite a while where they were sleeping on people's couches in AA they were sleepin' in spare bedrooms of members of AA and Bill felt terrible I mean he felt guilty Lois had been working at Macy's, supporting him. Here's a debutante working as a cashier in a retail store to support her husband who doesn't work. I'll tell you, that would wear on a guy. And all of a sudden something happened. Lois referred to it as her god house. They were given an opportunity to have this amazing house in a way that they could afford it. It was just made an offer they couldn't refuse. But the house, especially in the 40s, was quite removed from New York City. It was quite remote from Calvary Chapel and Towns Hospital. Now instead of Bill being able to, he couldn't say no, and they moved into Bedford Hills back in those days without the freeways they have now. It was quiet a trek into New York. wasn't it just like down the street to the place it was a big deal and he by this time he also became the figurehead of Alcoholics Anonymous now he's not in the trenches as much helping alcoholics he's become the guy that puts out the fires he becomes the problem solver for the fellowship he's working with problems with groups problems with the office the book he's starting to eventually put together the traditions in the long form because of the problems in AA I sat in Whitsand which was his office it was a little side building outside in the yard where they lived and I sat there and I got it I knew exactly what had happened. I pictured myself leaving the atmosphere of helping hands-on, helping drunks every single day and moving up to a position where now people come to see an AA like they come to See the Pope, where you're the figurehead and you're not in the trenches. And when he goes into New York City instead, he doesn't have time to go to Towns Hospital anymore. He's got to go into the office. He's going to go in the hospital. He's gotta put out fires. He's gonna do this. He's got to do that. And I could picture myself sinking into a self-obsession and a depression, just as Bill did. It was brutal. It was brute. Those were some of the bleak years. There are letters in our archives where Bill suffered from it so much that people that were close to him were afraid he'd take his own life. There were letters in Our Archives where Bill was supposed to submit to Tom Powers more pieces of the book, The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, and he couldn't submit them because he was sitting at his desk in tears. He was so depressed. Isn't it odd that Bill Wilson came up with a solution to his problem and then he stopped doing it? You want to see a guy like me who's been active all these years? Watch what happens to me when I stop trying to help others and just start being me with me for a while. It ain't pretty. It ain' t pretty. I believe what Bill says, our very lives as ex-problem drinkers depend upon our constant thought of others, their needs and how we can work for them. And if you're really self-centered, isn't that whole concept is almost intellectually offensive, isn't it? Do you consider yourself a trauma survivor? No. All my problems are my own making. I don't blame nothing for this. I know. You want to see all the problems in my life? Look closely. You'll see my fingerprints on all of them. Hi, Bob. Thanks for the message. Don't you think that referencing to the Ten Commandments can be a little too risky given the newcomer can be very resistant to Christian concepts? Well, I don't know. First of all, the Ten commandments aren't Christian concepts. They're Hebrew concepts. They're Jewish actually. So I think if you want to be offended by something, And you've got to pick your spot. Which is it? Are you going to be offended by Hebrew or are you going to be defended by Christian? I mean, pick one. Or you could be offended by both. It's fine with me. I may mention Buddhist stuff before the week's over too. Isn't it? I love the idea that you could be dying of alcoholism and offended by things. This is a hospital. I would bet that they have a terminal cancer ward here. Go up there and see how offended people are with stuff. I don't think you'll find they're offended by much that you would say because there's a priority sort. But it's a matter of life or death. And what in us is offended? It's not our spirit. Our spirit can't be offended. It's only my ego. It can be offended. Can you talk more about singleness of purpose? People get very angry about drug, food, sex, addicts, and aid. What does it all mean in your view? What issues do you think are significant and important to respect along? This is very good. I had a guy come up to me a couple years ago, a guy who's been a relapser in another program, Narcotics Anonymous, and he knows a little bit about my story. And he came up to be and he said to me, He said, why don't you introduce yourself in meetings as an alcoholic and an addict? He says, I know some of your story. You were on methadone one time. You stuck needles in your arm for a couple years. He said I know you ended up the last few years drinking cheap wine. He said but you strung out a gun. You did stimulants, strung it out, shot speed, strUNG out coke for a little bit. You did a lot of pills. You're one of the founders of Narcotics Anonymous, the first Narcotic Anonymous meeting in Nevada started in your apartment. You were the first delegate, co-delegate from Nevada to the first general world service conference in Narcótics Anonymous. You were one of guys that got the manuscript. You were involved in the writing of the book. Why don't you introduce yourself as a drug addict or an addict and an alcoholic? And I said, you know, I used to. When I was new and I really didn't get step one and I couldn't see past the symptoms, it appeared that I had these two different things. And I don't. I don'T have two different thingS. I have one sickness. And it's more than addiction to drugs and it'smore than really a drinking problem. And I know that it is alcoholism because now I understand alcoholism and I know that it's alcoholism. I think I did drugs for the same reason that Dr. Bob did high-powered sedatives, according to his story, every day of his life for 17 years. If you wanted to track his frequency of use, Dr. Bob did not drink every day. He was a periodic. He did drugs every day, he did drugs a lot more than he ever did. would drink. So why would he say he was an alcoholic? Why would a guy like me say I'm an alcoholic because alcoholism doesn't come in bags and bottles. It comes in people. What's the litmus test? I know I'm an alcoholic, because something is true inside of me that is only true in people with a disease called alcoholism. It's not true in people whose problem is addiction to heroin or cocaine. As a matter of fact, getting strung out on heroin, getting physically addicted to heroin is not even an abnormal reaction to heroin. It's an addictive drug. Getting psychologically addicted to smoking crack cocaine is not an abnormal action to cocaine. It is very psychologically addictive. But My reaction to alcohol is an abnormal reaction. It only occurs in people with alcoholism, regardless of my drug of choice. I take a drink of alcohol and something happens to me that doesn't happen to non-alcoholics. I break out in irresistible yearning. And I'll tell you why it's important to find your alcoholism and catch your alcoholismo. Because if you don't have that, here's the danger. And I've seen this probably eight times or nine times in 33 years. That means, that means that you have the ability that if you really needed to kind of shake it off a little bit, you have The Ability to go out and have two or three drinks to take the edge off. You have The Able, and you don't react in an allergic reaction. You're not compelled to bang on a guy's door and buy cocaine or get a bottle of whiskey. If you can have two or three drinks without the allergic reaction to alcohol, we don't want you. And I'll tell you why. Because we don'T want you coming in here and sponsoring five or ten people and then they get to see their sponsor drink successfully. That is horrific. And I've seen guys do that. There's a guy right now who's been drinking successfully for about four years. He was sober in Alcoholics Anonymous and active in our fellowship for five years. In those five years, he sponsored four guys. Every one of those guys that went to their sponsor's wedding and watched him drink some Dom Perignon, and he's a big shot at one of the casinos with all these movie stars, they all relapsed, and you know none of them would have been able to get back. None of them, not one of them. I just did a halfway house meeting with this one poor guy, and he's still pissed off. He says, AA is my sponsor. You even mention his sponsor's name, he goes on a rant. That'll probably kill him. So if you don't have alcoholism, we don't care about your drug of choice. We don't know what it is. We don't care if you have an eating disorder. We don'T care if YOU'RE ADDICTED TO HEROIN. WE DON'T CARE IF YOU CHOKED LITTLE BABY CHICKEN'S NECKS. You have to have alcoholism here. If you want to read a great pamphlet written by Bill Wilson, it's called PROBLEMS OTHER THAN ALCOHOL. And it welcomes... This is not exclusive. We're not trying to keep people with other problems out of AA. Not at all. But you've got to have alcoholicism here! What would happen to us if 30 years from now we had a fellowship with all kinds of problems and some people in the fellowship could drink successfully? Can you imagine that? How does a drunk come in and get help there, right? You can't get help. We have to keep – and not only that, I'll tell you something else I've seen. There was a gal, Johan, back in the early 80s. She came to Alcoholics Anonymous and almost relapsed herself to death. And she never relapses on alcohol. As a matter of fact, she could take a drink or leave it alone. She didn't have the allergy, but we were stupid enough to want to include her. And we reached out to her. We always, oh, come on. Well, you're sort of an addict. Your alcohol was heroin. that she could drink, and she relapsed herself almost to death in Alcoholics Anonymous. She went to Narcotics Anonymous and now has 20-some years and is a guru in NA because she never did fit here. She loved the people. She loved The Fellowship. She loved all of that. But she didn't bloom and blossom until she went to Sarcotics Enormous. And in our selfishness, because we liked her, we did. We liked her. She was a great gal. We almost killed her. We almost killed her I've heard many stories of people that are alcoholic come into Al-Anon which Al-Anon gives an alcoholic a lot of hope because maybe he could work the steps and drink, I mean that's not a bad deal and they almost died in Al- Anon you have to play the card, I think it's very important and we don't, you know one of the things we don't do anymore. And this is when, if you read Working With Others, when Alcoholics Anonymous probably was the most focused. And I'll tell you, AA is very much like a laser. Do you know singleness of purpose focuses us? And if you focus a laser, you can cut steel with it. If you diffuse it over a wide area, you get to the point where you can't even read a newspaper by it. and our power is in our focus and our singleness of purpose. It's what sustains us. You have to have alcoholism here. I know there's a big sentiment, and this is what destroyed, if you read about the Washingtonians, this is What Destroyed the Washingtonian is that they, you know, if you guys don't know about the Washingtonians, man, you should know about The Washingtonians. The Washingtonian's a couple hopeless alcoholics met in a bar in Baltimore. They had been, they'd been churched, they've been doctored, they'd be threatened, they had been jailed, and they could not stay sober. And they were sitting there one day and they're talking and they say, you know nobody, these people, they all try to help us. Nobody understands us. And they go, yeah, nobody knows what it's like to have you just have to have a drink. And the one guy said, you know, we know what it is like. And the guy said maybe we could help each other stay sober. And they made a pact that they would help each others stay sober and they did. And they started going out and helping other alcoholics to stay sober and an amazing thing happened in less than a decade. Now, you've got to remember, in less than a decade, Alcoholics Anonymous was barely 1,000 people. In less than the decade, the Washingtonians grew to low estimates of over 100,000, and there's some estimates that are close, that are over a quarter million people, in a very short time without telephones, without the mass transit we have. And they did what would make perfect sense to people that have found a new way of life, that are now trying to be less selfish, now tryingto help others. They realized that there was all kindsof people they could help. There was... They could help the temperance movement. We'd outlaw alcohol. They could helpthe abolition of slavery. It seemed like a worthy spiritual cause. The war in Mexico. There was a lot of peoplewho had other problems. There were peoplethat had gambling problems. There werepeople that were addicted to laudanum, which is a type of opium. And they wanted to help all, and they took their laser and they spread it over a wide area. And eight years later, the Washingtonians didn't exist. They never made one full decade and it was like the biggest flash in the pan. And there was a guy wrote a thing years later who was one of the survivors of the Washingtonian's and he wrote, he says, I don't know what happened. He said, we were doing so good. He said, all my friends out of there have drank themselves to death now. He said they don't even exist. That could happen to us. We can diffuse our light over a big enough area that it has no power. Anyway, you got me on a rant. I like rants. How important is it to stay out of a relationship one year? It doesn't say that in the book. In fact, there's an old-timer in Vegas. He says, yeah, you're brand new. Get in a relationship. We'll see how serious you are about AA. I don't know. Relationships don't make people drunk. Work doesn't make people drunk What makes people drunk is untreated alcoholism. The only danger in a relationship or a job or a business or anything is if you let it divert you from your primary purpose. I sponsor guys that get in relationships less than a year. I say, okay, you want to do that? I don't want you missing a meeting. You don't miss one of your commitments for this. And I tell them, I said, because if this goes south on you, you're going to be in a lot of trouble. You're goingto need a whole lot of AA in your life. And the guys that do AA and they work the steps and they help others, they survive it. Even if it's a horrific relationship, They survive it. And the people that get in a relationship and drink again, watch how it bleeds them away from what they should be doing here. I think you could add it to the list of the fifth tradition. Things that divert us from our primary purpose. Property, money, authority, sex, prestige. This just says fear. And it's written with a shaky pen. No, it isn't. Yeah. We spend a lot of time on fear, so I don't know what to say. If you have a medical condition that requires treatment that affects your mood behaviors such as inner fear or on how to better counteract symptoms. I don'T know. I'm not a doctor. I sponsored guys that have had to take interferon and you know, I sponsored about four or five guys on interferon and one of the guys they wanted to put him on antidepressants because of the interferon and he took them for a little while and then he stopped taking them he said it didn't make any difference he says, with the interferone, I'm miserable with the antidepresant, I am miserable anyway and he said didn't even make a difference. I know it makes you irritable and cranky. I've been with guys and spent a lot of time with them that are on it. It's a tough deal. I don't know. I don' t know. It's just it's a tough deal Would you please share your current conception of God? Well He's absolutely crazy about me and obviously has no taste at all. How to seek out newbies, what to say. That's a good way to put it, seek them out. You know, it's our job to seek them out. This attitude will let them come to us. That's never been present in alcoholics. You know Dr. Bob did not ask Bill Wilson for help. His son was a very good friend of mine. His son drove him to the first meeting with Bill Wilson. His son sat in my living room, stayed at my house for a week and told him. We used to have all these things. All the guys I sponsored come over. He told us all. He told his stories about how his dad didn't want to go, resisted. I don't know. Wow, man, he didn't wanna go. He was dragging his feet, but he was guilty because he screwed up Mother's Day. And Smitty said, my mom was a strong woman. I bet you she was. Did you ever see pictures of her? Ooh. Did you see pictures, Ann? Oh, man. Yes, ma'am. She looked like she'd be, whoo, she'd be a strong woman. That's why Bill Wilson didn't go to see, or Dr. Bob didn't goes to see Bill Wilson because he wanted help for his alcoholism. He didn't want help. He went because of his wife. She didn't literally pull him by the ear, but I think emotionally she did. We seek out new people. And I'll tell you something real simple. If you're not sponsoring anybody, you know, you can ask them. Do you know AA was started by the old timer asking and trying to reach out to the new people? And if you don't have anybody sponsored, I'd say maybe you're fishing in the wrong ponds. You know, I go to detox twice a week. You know why I go into detox? I go in detox for the same reason that Willie Sutton said he robbed banks because that's where the money is. I go to detox that's where the money is that's where the guys that have just burnt their life to the ground are county jail detox these are the guys that they don't have a spot they're just they're dying I go down there fishing for those guys we get a lot of guys out of there as an old timer needed And I don't know what that says. I don' t know what it says. I can' t read it. Mitigation? As an old-timer needed medication? No, it's not D. It's mitigation. Oh, meditation. As an Old-Timer Needed Meditation Helping New People. I don't know what that says. Motivation is no... Oh, yeah, you know, that could be motivation. As an old-timer needed motivation helping new people. I don' t know. I tell you, the greatest motivation I've had to do something in AA is to not do it as long as I can stand it. Really? Isn't AA... It's a funny place, isn't it? I mean, sometimes we grow from the things that we do wrong more than we grow for the things we do right. I work with a lot of newcomers because I resisted at one time doing anything except for myself. Do that for a while. If you're like me, you won't want to do that anymore. You mentioned that you wrote songs. No, it's an outside issue. can you talk a little more about the set aside prayer yeah the set side prayer is an extrapolation of a prayer that I got from a very dear friend of mine who was very close to a guy named Don Prince Don Don's version of it was very simple, mine is a little more complex. Don simply asked one of his sponsees back in about 1980 80 or 81 to just, he told him, he said, you just need to ask God to set aside everything you think you know for a new experience. And I fleshed it out a little bit. And I fleshed it out to everything I think I know about the four things that I think I knows stuff about God, myself, other people in my own recovery so that I can have a new experience in those four things. I don't know. I think Dawn's version was good. It was more generalized. Mine's a little more specific. I don't know that one's better than the other. I've heard around the country various versions of it. I heard I was in one place where they had a version that just went on and on. I thought, God, they mention everything except McDonald's. I mean, let me set aside my feelings about McDonald's for... I mean it was just like one thing after another and it was like, whoa! Made me feel like mine was simple. I don' t know. What are your thoughts about going to another fellowship if you start using another substance or behavior compulsively, such as OA or food? I don't know. If it helps, I guess. I've been very fortunate. And I've found abstinence and freedom consistently for over 33 years from sugar. I've had abstinENCE from gambling for about 25 years. I've been abstinent from cigarettes for about 28 years. And I found that all, and let me tell you something, I had no power for any of that. I really and truly did not. I tried and failed to, and those cigarettes, I eventually, before I applied the spirit, surrendered to apply the spiritual principles, I had tried to quit smoking seriously in my early sobriety three times. And all I ever did was make myself and everybody around me so miserable and go back to smoking. I had people in AA want to buy me cigarettes when I quit, the one time I quit. And what I did is I quit quitting. I gave up. I just thought, I don't care. I'll have to lose a lung. I quit. And then I started doing something that worked for me. I started asking God for the desire. The word desire is an interesting word. It comes from two words meaning of the Father. I asked God for the desire not to smoke without the intention of quitting. Matter of fact, I'd flaunt it. I'd be asking Him as I'm lighting up a cigarette. And I did that for months with no avail. And then one morning I got up and something had shifted in me over the night. I don't know, I knew it too. I knew something was different. And I gotup and I was afraid to believe that something had changed. I was, because I get overconfident, I screw stuff up. I was scared to believe it. And I just remember thinking, I'm not going to like that first one just right now. I ain't quitting. I told God, I said, I ain'T quitting, but thanks. I had this desire not to smoke, thanks. And I haven't had a cigarette since. And it was really effortless. And I beat my head against the wall trying to quit three times and failed. I don't know. If another fellowship helps you. I went to GA for about three months when I hit the suicidal bottom with gambling. I went for identification, and then I'll tell you what I discovered. This is weird, especially in Las Vegas. There's more long-term abstinence from gambling in AA than there is in GA. There's some more long term abstinences from drugs in AA than there isn't in GA from people who have both problems that are alcoholic. And so I found freedom from all of that just by applying it's the same 12 steps. But I don't know. I think sometimes just to make that very important identification, I don' t know. If you were someone I sponsored and you wasn' t working in AA, I would probably suggest you go. What are the qualities of a good sponsor? A sense of humor. Oh, man. I tell you, if you' re serious, those newcomers are going to wear your ass out. Oh, I'm telling you. They'll just drain the life out of you. and you have to enjoy them and you might as well just have some fun at their expense. I mean, that's what they're for. I mean really, you know what I mean? I mean just goof on them because if you goof, you know my sponsor goofed on me until I started to goof on myself because I think that's a very important thing and to really trance and to spend the time, the most valuable thing I can give a guy and I'll tell you the longer I'm sober the harder this is, is to give them the time. I travel a lot. I sponsor a lot of guys. My sponsorship has changed. It's almost in a tribal manner now. If I sponsor you, you're going to be hooked up with a bunch of guys because there's going to be times when I might be out of the country, I might be gone and you need somebody who works the steps the way that You know, when they say this was our course, you know what they're talking about because you've gone through the book like they've gone through the books. So I hook up a whole bunch of guys and we run in a pack. Some of us we get together. I sponsor a lot of guys from other countries all over the world. I don't sponsor anybody long distance unless they're sober a long time. And they're doers and if I sponsor you, you're doing 12-step work. It's not negotiable. it's not negotiable you're going to find a hospital or an institution every week and you're gonna take a meeting in there and youre gonna fish for newcomers its not negotible if I sponsor you your gonna start doing page 86 and 87 once you've especially once youve gotten through steps 4 through 9 and were gonna were gonna be serious about your 8th and 9th step and were gonna see how serious you are were gonna se if youre really willing to go to any lengths I'll tell you I don't like going to funerals so if I'm sponsoring you, if you want me to sponsor you, you're going to do this deal or I don'T WANT TO BOTHER. My sponsor has a great line. He says if you DON'T WANT to do it he says what do you need me for? To witness your own demise? You DON'T NEED ME TO WITNESS YOUR LIFE ON SELF-WILL either do this and I'LL TELL YOU what I do and my sponsor is very good at this. I don't run your life but I'll run your recovery and there's no compromise here. I will encourage you and I tell the guys I sponsor, I'm not going to ask you to do anything first of all that I don' t do and secondly that you can't justify actions in this book. And we're going to trust God, we're gonna clean house and we're gunna help others and we' re gunna make it a way of life. And if that's too much for you I love you like a rainbow. but I'm not going to be part of anything that would be a facade, right? So I'm a little dumb. You know, I used to be a lot more lenient, but I get tired of watching. I get tire of tolerating people being self-directed and then have to go to their funeral and realize that I was a part of that. By my inaction and not speaking up and allowing them to believe they had a sponsor when they were actually sponsoring it themselves, I was contributing to that out of inaction. I'll tell you something. You go to a few funerals here, it'll change you. It'll change it. Please explain why it is okay to introduce yourself using your last name. Thanks so much. Well, that's a good thing. You know, I didn't used to. You know, when I got sober, I got sober in a group that you only gave your first name. And you never gave your last name. I remember some old timer came to the meeting. This was one of the clubs, mostly new people. Some old timer sober about 20 years came to The Meeting and gave their last name! I remember thinking, oh my God, we're going to be stormed by the Tradition Police! I mean, it was... He gave his last name, it's like, oh, I couldn't believe it! Then when I was about a little over a year sober, I got railroaded into being a co-GSR for a group. Two weeks after, three weeks after I was a co GSR, the GSR quit and I ended up being a GSR. I wasn't even sober long enough for it. I was supposed to be two years and I end up being a CSR for 80% of 90% of a term. And then I did another one because I didn't do full, a full one in two terms. and I started going to these general service conferences where I would listen to these old-timers, these trustees and these delegates and these people that had been involved in general service and they would do panels on anonymity. And I remember sitting there once and they all gave their last names. And then I heard this one guy, he quoted, there's a book, there's an article on anonymism and a pamphlet called Understanding Anonymity and then there's the book called Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers And this one trustee who was sober forever was using their last name. And he says, I'll tell you why. And he opens the book and he reads this passage where Dr. Bob said that he believed that the level of anonymity was set exactly at the public level. And he read in there, he said that it was, He believed it was just as much a breach of the tradition to proclaim myself public as an AA member as it was to hide myself in Alcoholics Anonymous. And he used the term, he said, we are not a secret society within an anonymous organization, that we should not hide ourselves from each other but be very, very diligent about ourselves at the public level. And I've been very, I started giving my last name. It was hard because you get in the habit. You don't do it. And I felt like, ooh, that feels weird to give my last name, and I just started doing it. And I'll tell you something, it's perfect. My last name is Daryl, and, and. I am in the phone book. If you call information in Las Vegas, if I say something this weekend that a month or a year from now, you're in a bad, bad spot. And maybe you heard me talking about my wife sleeping with my best friend or you heard me talk about the depression or something I went through and you think to yourself my God, I need to talk to that guy. You can call directory assistance and you will have my last name and my numbers listed in there and you can get a hold of me. I don't want to hide myself from you. But at the same time, I am very diligent publicly You know, I had a very successful business in Las Vegas. I had company. I ran a chain of stores. And at one time, one of the things we sold was wine. And at One Time, we were the number one wine purveyors in the whole state of Nevada. Well, some knucklehead in AA went to somebody in the media and told him, they said, hey, this guy was a homeless skid row wino and now he owns the largest wine-pervading company in the state. Wouldn't that be a good story? And they came to me, and they said, oh, man, we really want to do an article. We want to Do Thing on TV. We want all this stuff. I said, no. They said, well, it'll be really good for business. My God, your company will be getting – there'll be a priceless amount of free advertising. Absolutely not. That I would, from my own self-grandizement, I would put myself ahead and before you, that I would pull myself out of the herd as a special celebrity member of Alcoholics Anonymous. That'd kill me. I'll tell you something else. I think doing this is frightening. I have a whole network of guys sober longer than I am that do a lot of this, and they've been able to maintain right size. And I couldn't do this if I wasn't in the trenches and wasn't doing everything else and didn't have the sponsor. I couldn'T survive this. This would feed something in me that should be starved and probably eventually, as it's done for others I've watched who drank again that were speakers around the country and would force me to starve something that should BE fed. This is a very dangerous thing. But you know what I do twice a week? Three times a week, actually. I'll go to meetings. I go to this one meeting twice a year I'm not a speaker. They don't care how long I'm sober. They don' t care any... You know what I am? I'm the guy that just interfered with their nap. That made them, they had to come into the room and listen to these stupid people. And that's the guy I am. They could care less about it. I'm no... I'm oppressing nobody. And I have a message for these guys. And it's based on my legitimate experience. and I get people out of there that I sponsor and they don't know I speak around the country. They don't Know some of them for a while don't even know how long I'm sober. They don' t even know the car I drive. They don''t know that I drive that fancy. They don ''t know that I Drive that car because they don'' t see it. They are in a locked down place and that is real anonymity. That is anonymity in its purest form that we carry a message there is no personality there is nothing. And I tell you, that is my bread and butter. My heart is in that. This I do because I'm asked to do it. I could survive without doing this, but I don't think I could survive withoutdoing that. There are times I've wanted to walk away from this. I have a sponsor who's done it for 54 years and I have an advisor and a spiritual advisor who's been doing it for over 55 and a couple of guys who've done it over 40 years and they encourage me to keep doing it. They said, as long as God asks you to do it, do it. If it's useful, do It. Just say yes. And I was taught to say yes in all college songs. So for now, I continue to do It, but I'll tell you, it scares me sometimes. You know, people say nice things, tell you good stuff about yourself. What if I started believing it all? Ooh. Do you go to church? How do you cultivate your relationship with God? I have, we're going to get into that in step 11. We're going really get into some depth, a lot. Are AWOLs effective? I have no idea. I don't even know what an AWOL is except I think it's when you've went on a pass in the Army and you don't come back on time. I think. I don' t know. oh is it an a is it an a all oh so you've left a on a pass and you haven't come back right away is that what it is no I don't know I don' t know what an AOL is you don't have that I don''t have them where I live I matter of fact I travel all around the country this is the only place I've ever heard about those and I don ''t know what they are I have heard that they exist and there's something to do with recovery and that's all I know I have no more information I wish I did because I'd like to have an opinion I love having opinions about things but I don't thanks thank you for the weekend and let's take let's come back at 10 after it's a good time to break