Why the Hardest Step Is the Second One and How Meetings Carry You There – Tom W.
About This Speaker Tape
Tom W., a teacher from Oakland with 20 years of sobriety, opens with a sharp and funny riff on the dangers of election season for someone who holds resentments that "cross state lines." He uses the AA Traditions — especially the ones about outside issues and the only requirement for membership — to frame a series of vivid stories: carrying campaign literature to a meeting and having a moment of clarity, visiting Poland under communist rule where a Solidarity activist ended up sponsoring the government official who had thrown him in prison, and staying at a friend's house in New Mexico beneath a photograph of a politician he despised. Each story lands the same point — the program works because it unites people who would otherwise never sit in the same room.
He describes his drinking in three phases borrowed from a sober physician named Dr. Gill: fun, fun plus problems, and just problems. The fun phase was real — drinking made an awkward San Jose high school kid feel smart and graceful — and he insists on telling the truth about that because "if you get hyped, people will die." The problems phase brought mood swings, years of drunk driving he rationalized as hilarious, and a depression so deep he preferred death to the prospect of living sober. He reads aloud from a first-edition Big Book story about a man who drank nine martinis imitating a stranger at a bar, and uses the "dancing with a gorilla" metaphor to describe the loss of control: you think you asked the gorilla out, but you don't get to sit the next dance out.
The heart of the talk is his reflection on Steps One through Three at 20 years sober. He describes Step One as "I am bleeding and on fire," mocks two-steppers who skip from misery straight to carrying the message, and says the hardest move in recovery is getting from Step One to Step Two — from "we're doomed" to "there's hope." He quotes Kafka ("there is infinite hope, but not for us") as his old worldview, then describes being carried to Step Two through meetings, not through self-help willpower. An 18th-century Jesuit theologian gives him his Step Three method: if you can't turn everything over for all time, just turn over now. He closes with H.A.L.T. as a daily survival framework — skipping meals leads to wanting to shoot people in the knees, loneliness hits even when you're the one who moved — and a correction from a woman in Stockholm: "It works if you let it," not "it works if you work it," because the real problem is getting out of your own way so Higher Power can help.
Topics
Timestamps
Full Transcript
I've heard several of his tapes, and he almost needs no introduction in our area.
Please help me welcome Tom W.
My name is Tom, and I am an alcoholic.
And I'm glad to be here on a Saturday night.
I live up in Oakland, and I work most...
Please help me welcome Tom W.
My name is Tom, and I am an alcoholic.
And I'm glad to be here on a Saturday night.
I live up in Oakland, and I work most...
I've heard several of his tapes, and he almost needs no introduction in our area.
Please help me welcome Tom W.
My name is Tom, and I am an alcoholic.
And I'm glad to be here on a Saturday night.
I live up in Oakland, and I work most weekends doing desperate things with alcoholics.
And I'm never around on a Saturday night, so a chance to get to a meeting and hang out
with desperate people in San Jose is a plus.
And it's really nice for me to come and see that there are some people...
people still alive and out of jail, you know, that I have been noticing over the last 15
plus years that I've been connecting, so that feels good.
And for folks that I haven't yet met, I was just reflecting as I was listening to the
first speaker that we've never met before, and so much of his story, the feelings and
the thinking and the craziness is the way I think and feel.
I just...
I just make that connection pretty easily.
My sponsor is a hopeless alcoholic and needs meetings as much as anybody I've ever met in
my whole life.
And he's of the opinion, with 25 years sober, but what does he know?
He's of the opinion that if you go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and are able to identify
with the speaker, you're in a pretty good place.
And if you go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous...
and don't identify with the speaker at all, it means you need another meeting.
So he's been nagging and whining about that towards me over the last 20 years, and I...
you'd think I'd get it more quickly, but I don't.
I need a lot of repetition.
Anyway, what I get to talk about is what it was like and what happened and what it's like now.
This is a dangerous time of the year for me, and again, we have different...
different dangerous times.
I'm personally...
I like the fall, I like autumn a lot, but the slipperiness of this period is that it's election time.
And I don't know about you, but I can get swept up in things, and I have been known
to hold on to resentments which cross state lines.
And it was real important for me, when I began going to meetings, to hear about...
about the traditions that said that outside controversial issues stay outside.
And it was important because I had never been able to do that.
I got sober during the...
You can't really say the late Ford presidency because it was so short, but...
I got sober during the Ford presidency, and I was drunk for the bicentennial celebration in July of 1976.
I...
vaguely remember the great ships coming into the New York Harbor.
I was not there, but I was having a couple of social drinks while watching the television.
And then I kind of come out of the haze somewhere in August of 1976, and there was Mr. Ford,
and he was giving the acceptance speech for being nominated president that year.
And I looked it up later, and I found out that my first day without...
drinking was that Wednesday, August the 18th of 1976.
And by the time November came around, I was a couple of months sober, and I was a total lunatic.
Total lunatic.
Some people get excited about some stuff.
Some people get excited about other stuff.
Political stuff has always made me real nuts.
And I have been right-wing and left-wing and radical middle-of-the-road,
and the one thing that I've consistently held on to is that when I've believed something,
I've really believed it.
And if you disagreed with me, not only were you wrong, you were stupid.
So for my own recovery, I really needed to have a good introduction into how the traditions work,
especially around the only requirement for membership is the desire to...
stop drinking.
It doesn't say the only requirement for membership is the desire to stop drinking and agree with Tom.
That's not in the tradition.
And that tense tradition that says that outside controversial stuff stays outside.
And the tradition makes special mention of politics, sectarian religion, and alcohol reform.
And I think that's really wise because we have a tendency, I mean, we as people, but definitely alcoholics,
to hold strong feelings and break out in fistfights.
I was sober a couple... I stayed away from politics for my first four years sober because I was so nuts.
And then I figured, I'm well enough.
And I was going to meetings in Los Angeles.
I was living down there, that's why I was going to meetings there.
And I was not commuting, you know, to go to meetings.
And I started dabbling with the candidates just a little bit.
And then I got real involved.
And then I started carrying literature around in my car and, you know, signing up voters.
I mean, cans.
And I knew that my higher power wanted me to tell all of you about my candidate.
And I had all this literature in the car.
And thank God I left it in the car.
And I went to the meeting and I had a moment of clarity.
And what I realized there was...
And this was a meeting I loved.
It was at Plummer Park in central LA.
Santa Monica Boulevard.
And truly dangerous, crazy, self-obsessed, whiny alcoholics would come to this meeting.
And I just identified with them and felt right at home.
But the moment of clarity was the realization that there were people in that room
who thought that King George III was our best president.
And there were other people who wanted to start by blowing up the Bank of America.
And, you know, it was a little intense.
And the moment of clarity was this is not the stuff that unites us.
This is the stuff that divides us.
And it's real important, again, to keep that outside.
I was in Poland a few years ago.
I do get to travel.
At the end of my drinking, I never left my room because they were out there.
But sober...
And if you don't know who they are, you might not be ready to get sober yet.
And someone in Berkeley said that paranoia is just total awareness.
And I like that.
That is a keen insight into my way of living.
But about 8 or 10 or 12 years ago, you know, somewhere there,
I got to go to Poland and I was working in Sweden for a while.
And I really do believe in little geographics.
I find they really help.
Leave the country, go somewhere else, work for a while, come home.
I've done that more than once.
So I went to Poland and I went to some meetings in Poland.
And this is when the communist government was still running things.
Things were a little intense, but alcohol is synonymous existed in Poland.
And by some moment of grace, we got connected with sober people in Poland.
And...
The chances of that happening were slim.
But there we were and we were in Warsaw.
And we were staying with a fellow and his wife and their couple of kids.
And he was very, very sober and very in AA and about five years sober.
And he had been a very active member of Solidarity.
And this was the labor union that had helped change the Polish society so much.
In fact, he spent some time in jail because he was an active union member.
And he got sober and he was doing a life.
And somehow an article appeared in one of the papers about getting sober and recovery and alcoholism.
And a phone number was listed and he was on the phone duty and someone called.
The person who called was a high-ranking member of the government who said he couldn't stop drinking.
So this fellow Solidarity member who had spent some time in prison made a 12-step call on this high-ranking member of the military government.
And found out that he was sober.
And he was talking to the man who threw him in prison.
Outside controversial issues stayed outside.
And at the time we visited them, he was that man's sponsor.
If it can happen there, it can happen here.
But there's reasons for it.
So anyway, I just want to mention that.
Because I think it's one of the things that I don't always observe.
And I...
The things we need to do.
Because there are so many things we just don't agree on.
I was in New Mexico a while ago.
And I've happened to fall in love with some people down there.
Because of meetings and program and a few other connections.
And I loved them before I knew how they voted.
And I showed up at this fellow's house.
I was going to spend the weekend there.
I was talking at a conference in Hobbs, New Mexico.
Which they call Hobbs.
America, down there.
And he had a large photograph of a former governor of California.
And I told him that I would have to sleep with one eye open, you know.
And we were able to expand our world, you know.
And it was fine.
And without the program, I simply would not have had a heart or a head big enough
to even have a conversation with this guy.
So, I'm real glad to be sober.
But let me tell you about what it was like and what happened and what it's like now.
What it's like now is it's gotten worse.
For newcomers and visitors, you need to know that they do not ask people
with a lot of mental health to share at meetings.
With the exception of the first speaker.
He was fine.
But what they want to do, the thinking is,
if they get someone who is clearly a barely functioning person to talk,
everyone else will feel better about themselves.
And go home thinking that they're doing just fine.
And that's how it works.
So, I am not here as a role model.
I am here as a warning.
And as long as you understand that,
that will get along fine.
I had someone come up to me and,
oh, they didn't like something I said.
And we were not going to be best friends.
That was real clear.
And she thought that because she was so horrified by something I said,
I would change.
And I told her that not only will I not change,
I will always mention this thing that bothered you so much.
And I won.
I read the book.
She can tell you that,
you know,
that's not a big deal.
She knows what I mean.
I think that's great.
I read the book,
I don't read the book a lot,
but I read the book.
And parts of the book speak to me,
and parts of the book are always a surprise to me.
The copy I got,
doesn't have any pictures in it.
And that bothered me for a long time.
And what I've done with the book,
one of the,
you know,
what tools,
do i use to stay sober i i read some of the book i read several of the pamphlets that i that just
save my butt regularly the jack alexander article i think is brilliant i when i am feeling really
hopeless and my sponsor's machine is not connected i read the jack alexander article i also really
like the pamphlet called um a member's eye view and i very much like the pamphlet that says so
you think you're different those are my three favorite pamphlets and the book so those are
things i use but but i was in new mexico and and i have a a little habit that when i open the book
and start reading it in real um but i was in abecu new mexico i was trying to make some kind
of contact with the higher power one more time i was not being real successful i um was at a
benedictine monastery that was vegetarian
and um miles from the paved road and no telephones and no electricity and
um i was feeling far away from you and i opened the book and it was under the section
written he had to be shown now this is one of the original stories from the first
edition of the big book and here's what it reads when i was 18 at the end of high school
the high school team had a banquet at a well-known roadhouse outside of akron a roadhouse is a place
where you could get a a meal and a drink and it was kind of off the beaten path and
everybody knew where they were but there were no neon signs you know
we boys drove out in somebody's car and went to the bar on the way to the dining room
and i
in an effort to impress the other boys that i was city bred having lived in scranton and cleveland
they don't think that's a funny line in scranton and cleveland
i think it's a real funny line you know
i asked them if they didn't want a drink
they looked at one another
queerly
and finally
one of them allowed
he'd have a beer
and they all followed him each of them saying
he'd have a beer too
i ordered a martini extra dry
i didn't even know
what a martini looked like
but i heard a man down the bar order one
that was my first drink
i mean just
see um at least now
the industry makes things like annie boone springs farm sweet wine so you can start
uh... with something that doesn't taste like gasoline you know
starter alcohol you know
candy with booze inside of it i mean they know what they're doing but
this kid's very adventurous
i kept watching the man down the bar
to see what he did with the contraption like that and he just smelled of his drink
and set it down again
so i did the same
he took a couple of puffs of a cigarette
i took a couple of puffs of my cigarette
he tossed off half of his martini
i tossed off half of mine
i tossed off half of mine
and it nearly blew the top of my head off
i vividly remember my first martini and i was in college being kicked by a mule
it irritated my nostrils i choked i didn't like it there was nothing about that drink
that i liked
but i watched him
and he tossed off the rest of his
so i tossed off half of his
tossed off the rest of mine. He ate his olive, and I ate mine. I didn't even like the olive.
It was repulsive to me from every standpoint. I drank nine martinis in less than an hour.
I can't tell you how I identified with this very square, faceless man from Akron, Ohio
in 1938. This has been my insides. I just danced with martinis for a long time and thought
they were sensational, and they were just deadly. I was listening to a guy up in Oakland
in the past year, and he was at a meeting talking about the disease of alcoholism, and
he said that...
Alcoholism was a lot like dancing with a gorilla. You're not done dancing until the
gorilla is done dancing.
Now it's important to reflect on that for a couple of minutes because the subtlety of
the image might be something you missed, because early in the evening, you think you're in
charge.
You've asked the gorilla out, you think the gorilla's kind of cute, you're getting along
pretty well, and in the back of your head you figure later on you might get lucky, you
know?
You don't know you're in trouble until the moment comes in the evening when you want
to sit the next dance out, and the gorilla doesn't want to.
And you discover you keep dancing.
A little bit later on, the gorilla tells you that you're going to tango, and you explain
that you don't know how to tango, and you find out the gorilla doesn't care.
You tango, and you end up doing unspeakable things, and you're absolutely out of control.
There was a commercial done a few years ago, Samsonite luggage put in the gorilla cage,
you know?
And the gorillas just knock the shit out of these things, and they survive really nicely.
A lot of us don't, you know?
A lot of us don't.
A lot of us get drowned up by the gorilla over and over and over again.
We die of overdoses, we suicide, we do drunk driving accidents.
Casualty rates are real high with this particular dance, you know?
People who love us look inside the cage.
And they see us dancing with the gorilla, and they get real anxious.
And they want to run into the cage and rescue us.
And then they get their arms and their legs yanked off.
And a lot of the Al-Anon program basically says, stay out of the cage.
Stay out of the cage, and then you have to talk about your feelings about staying out
of the cage.
I'm going to take the whole meeting.
If you're clean and sober tonight,
haven't had a drink today,
haven't had to do any chemical stuff today,
that's a real good sign that the gorilla has let go.
If the gorilla has let go,
get out of the cage.
And don't go back into the cage
even when the gorilla starts singing your song
because that happens, you know.
It's so cute and maybe we'll get along
and I took some lessons and I'm sure it'll be fine.
Dr. Gill, who is a sober physician
up in Marin County and still alive,
he got sober in Mr. Eisenhower's last year as president.
I remember things according to who's president.
It has always given me someone to blame
and I just remember who's president, you know.
Who was I blaming for that four-year period?
Dr. Gill says that alcoholism is a disease
that has three distinct phases.
Phase one is the fun phase.
This is when it's real fun.
And that's a large part of my drinking story.
I had a lot of fun.
Well, drinking.
And I mentioned that at a meeting once
and one of the old-timers,
not as old as me,
but nevertheless an old-timer,
said,
you shouldn't mention alcohol and fun.
You'll trigger the newcomer.
And see, I just don't think that's true.
I think it's important to tell the truth
about your drinking.
And if you get hyped, people will die.
And if you had a good time for a while drinking,
it's real important,
to say that.
And the fact is,
if I could still have a good time drinking,
I'd be doing it.
You need to know that.
The fun phase is phase one,
but it's a real phase.
When I drank, I felt smart.
When I drank, I felt graceful.
When I drank, I felt insightful.
I was a high school kid growing up here in San Jose.
I was real awkward.
I was real uncoordinated.
I drank and it was magic.
It was magic.
That's phase one.
Phase two is called fun plus problems.
It's still fun.
But you start to have problems.
Hangovers, tattoos.
I'm personally grateful,
and again, this is an outside controversial opinion,
and you're sure welcome to do it.
I'm personally grateful, and again, this is an outside controversial opinion,
and you're sure welcome to do it.
I know you disagree with me,
and I will not take offense,
but I am personally grateful that I got sober
before it became fashionable to start piercing everything.
before it became fashionable to start piercing everything.
I have met people who have been pierced sober,
and I am glad for them.
and I am glad for them.
You have job trouble.
You have relationships.
you have relationship problems,
you have family problems.
One of the earliest problems I began having
was the mood swings, you know,
we call it Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
I had those a lot.
I was sober just a little bit
and I didn't know if I was sober,
I mean, you know, am I an alcoholic
or am I crazy or do I have a tumor,
you know, the big question.
I was hoping for tumor
because if it was fatal,
I'd be dead in three months
and then it would be over,
but if it was alcohol,
we're at 29.
And I thought,
I'm going to have to live sober
for years and years and years
and I personally at that time
would rather have been dead.
So I preferred death to sobriety.
But I went to a meeting in El Cerrito,
Oakland,
Emeryville,
Oakland,
Albany,
El Cerrito.
That's how you find it in case you're looking.
Berkeley's in there somewhere too,
but you can skip right over Berkeley
until you're five years sober.
Well, it'll make you anxious, trust me.
So I went to this meeting in El Cerrito
to the El Cerrito Fellowship
and I went to an old-timer
and I said,
how do you know you're an alcoholic?
How do you know you're an alcoholic?
And one of the reasons
I've been able to stay in Alcoholics Anonymous
is because of the way he answered my question.
He didn't tell me
how I know I was an alcoholic.
Although I have seen alcoholics
talk to other alcoholics
in that tone of voice
and it's not the tone of voice
to use.
It's the tone of voice
to use to me.
Because you can't scare me
and you can't humiliate me
and you can't embarrass me
and rather than cooperate
with that tone of voice,
I have been known to get drunk.
It just doesn't work.
My parents used it with me
to stop smoking, you know,
and I showed them
I smoked for seven more years.
Oh well.
That's not the point.
The point is
the guy didn't tell me
how I would know.
He told me how he knew he knew.
He didn't tell me
what my experience should be.
He told me what his experience was.
Instead of giving me
an inspiring little talk
or a sermon,
he shared his experience.
And that's real important for me
if I'm going to hang around at meetings.
I need to know
that you share your experience
and I get to share mine.
And there's lots of different ways
of doing this.
And then I can sit in the room
if I can take what I need
and leave the rest.
Then I can stay here, you know.
And here's what he told me,
this crusty old-timer
with maybe nine months or a year.
He said that he knew
he was an alcoholic
because he had no way
of guaranteeing his behavior
after the first drink.
I said, what do you mean?
And he said, well,
there are times that I drank
and nothing happened.
Nothing happened.
Got home, no crises,
no problems.
Other times, I would drink
and anything could happen.
And he said, I never knew
which one it was going to be.
And that's my story.
I started listening
when people began talking about,
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
And by the way,
if you're looking for something to read
that is not program approved,
I might suggest
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
by Robert Louis Stevenson.
It's a terrifying book.
It's a terrifying book.
And there's no recovery
in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Mr. Hyde wins, you know.
And it's all about this stuff
that happens when you drink.
It's pretty scary.
I, not...
I not only had a bad case
of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,
I also had a pretty good dose
of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
And I would drink
and I would become happy
or dopey or sleepy or grumpy.
Occasionally, I'd turn into Snow White.
I had no idea
what was going to happen.
What?
So,
so,
one plus problems.
You know, also,
and I want to mention
this particular kind of problem.
Looking back,
it's the scariest thing I ever did.
But while I was drinking,
it was the thing
I rationalized most easily.
And that was the vast amount
of drunk driving that I did.
I drove drunk for years.
And I thought it was hilarious.
I thought I was...
I was in high school.
High school senior drunk driving.
I remember telling classmates of mine,
I have no trouble driving while drunk.
My trouble is getting to the car.
Ha, ha, ha, you know.
Now, as I'm just edging 50,
you know, I'm looking back
and I see the behavior
was absolutely lethal.
And any,
any day of the week,
I could have been a statistic
or caused...
Any day of the week,
I could have been a statistic
or caused statistics
with the drunk driving.
It's just horrifying to me.
Fun, fun plus problems.
Stage three,
alcoholism,
according to Dr. Paul,
is called problems.
The book says,
the good times were gone.
Never again could we recreate
the great moments of the past.
They were but memories.
And I was in problems
for a real long time.
My biggest thing with my drinking,
I didn't do a lot of jail time
or any jail time
like the first speaker.
I was in jail time.
I was in jail time.
I was in jail time.
I was in jail time.
I was in jail time.
I was in jail time.
I was in jail time.
I was in jail time.
I was in jail time.
I was in jail time.
I did go to San Quentin
for a while,
but I was there
as associate chaplain,
not inmate.
You know,
it's a little different.
My big thing with my drinking
was the depression.
The depression
and the isolation
and the being inability
to function
and then I would work up
to functioning
and I would function
for a while
and then I would just collapse.
I taught for a long time.
I'm a teacher
by teaching.
I started training
and my first teaching job
was at Mission High
in San Francisco
and moved down to L.A.
and where the riots were,
that's where I taught school
for the next seven years
and I loved my classrooms.
I loved my students.
I loved that part of town.
I felt challenged
and alive
and creative
and the drinking
was my medicine.
The drinking is what I used
to deal with anything
that was
difficult or significant
in my life.
Let me jump ahead a little bit.
I was sober a couple of years.
Like maybe four years.
The tools I were using,
the tools I were using,
tools I was using,
never know.
I went to meetings
to deal with
the emotional chaos
of my life
and I wasn't doing anything
to deal with my rage
and I wasn't doing anything
to deal with my fear
which was real up
and my drinking
sedated all that stuff
for a long time.
What I used in the classroom
to deal with my students
was ridicule and sarcasm
and I had a real fast mouth
and I taught kids
who were twice my size
and if they ever counted
the votes in the classroom,
there were 26 of them
in one of me,
so I was just fast on my feet
and fast with my mouth
and brutal.
So I was three, four,
five years sober.
It was time for
student evaluation
and we were doing
an oral evaluation
of the classroom
and one of these kids
who was 17 years old,
18 years old,
serious young man,
he turned to me
and he said,
he used my title,
and he said,
the course material's fine
but you have a way
of making people feel
real small.
And I,
he was absolutely right
on the button.
I had to spend some time
learning how to deal
with emotional problems
and stresses and strains
in other ways
besides sarcasm,
ridicule and humiliation.
When I'm tired
or caught off guard,
that stuff comes right back
and I can have
a real fast mouth
and I have to learn
how to not do that
day at a time.
But that has been part
of my fourth and fifth step
that was a real big part
of making amends to people
because of my big,
fat mouth.
And I would excuse stuff
because I'm funny.
And so I would say,
oh yeah, yeah,
it was a little cruel
but it was mostly funny.
Uh-uh.
It was a little funny
and mostly cruel
and I had a lot of
relationships like that.
So I,
um,
um,
I've had some work to do.
I'm almost done
with tonight's talk
and we can all go home
to our moms.
Um,
I, um,
I want to talk a little bit
about step one
and two and three
because at 20 years sober
I, I had a,
a different understanding
of one and two and three.
Um,
step one asks
a couple of questions.
Step one says
a couple of things.
Step one asks,
are you still having any fun?
Right?
And if the answer is yes
then you're not going
to stay around.
Go get done.
You know,
go get done
and we'll be happy
to talk to you.
This is not a program
for people who need it.
This is a program
for people who want it.
And if your craziness
is anything like mine,
the only thing
that makes me want anything
is pain and discomfort.
So I, you know,
if you're,
if you're still drinking successfully
and dating wonderfully
and having success at work
and making a lot of money
and you're personally grateful,
well, go do it.
Um,
it has been years
since I've danced that dance,
you know,
and, and so I just can't have
much of a conversation
with you on those things.
So I don't argue with people
for whom it's working.
Step one says,
Noah,
it's still raining.
It's still raining.
Step one says,
General Custer,
more are coming.
I don't know of anybody
who has a lot of fun
while doing the first step.
I mean, the first step
is an awful experience.
It basically says,
I am bleeding and on fire
and this has been going on
for some time.
When I got sober,
I would bump into people
who called themselves
two-steppers.
They didn't want to work steps.
They did step one and twelve
is what they said
and that makes no sense to me.
Step one,
I'm miserable.
Step twelve,
join me.
What?
What?
So the thing for me
in recovery,
getting sober,
how on earth do you get
from step one to step two?
Because for me,
the hardest step
is the second step.
Four and five are inconvenient
and making amends
can get a little complicated.
But the really impossible situation
for me was going
from one to two
because one says,
we're doomed
and two says,
there's hope.
Now, I'm a reader.
I read a lot,
did a lot of stuff.
I still read a lot.
When I was in college,
I used to drink a little
and smoke non-habit
performing marijuana
and then read existentialist novelists.
Sartre, Camus.
I remember in English,
if I could have read them in French,
I would have,
but it didn't occur to me.
I wasn't that pretentious
at the time.
But I would read.
One of those fellows,
his name is Franz Kafka.
Kafka's a little moody
and a little unhappy
and Czechoslovakian,
Jewish,
complicated life,
1930s.
And one of Kafka's lines,
and I identified with this
so much for years,
Kafka writes,
there is infinite hope,
but not for us.
Now,
that's what I believe.
I thought,
for you there's hope,
for me there isn't.
You know,
I mean,
I'm doomed.
You're going to get along fine,
but I'm worse than you.
I'm just,
luck of the draw,
it's not going to work out.
So how do you get
from step one to step two?
And here is my current reflection on this.
I do not think
that Alcoholics Anonymous
is a self-help program.
It is an open book.
It is a self-help program.
I think if I could have helped myself,
I never would have had to meet
you dreary people.
You know,
and spend lives in rooms
filled with smoke
and, you know,
people who vote differently than I do.
I didn't get from step one
to step two
by marching and working
all the time.
I didn't get from step one to step two
by working and working.
program. That's not how it works. What happened is that I got carried from step one to step
two. And I got carried from step one to step two by the higher power, as I understand the
higher power, through meetings in rooms like these. I did some footwork. I had to cooperate.
I was in pain. I was bleeding and on fire. I went to an awful lot of these meetings.
I made phone calls. I went out for people. I bought a book. I did a lot of stuff, but
that was just a willingness to participate. I got carried to the second step. And one
night at a meeting in Berkeley, I was sober for a couple of months, six, seven, eight
months, and I woke up and I looked around the room and realized that I had just a little
tiny bit of hope. Not a lot!
And when I find out, I don't need a lot of hope. I don't know if I've ever had 100% hope.
I mean, I think you get stupid around 90% hope. You just stop paying attention, you
know, and get grateful and lose your critical faculties. And I've never had that experience.
But I regularly have enough hope to do left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, go
to a meeting, say hello to a newcomer, talk to an old-timer, make coffee. I have enough
hope for that a lot of times. And sometimes when I don't have very much hope, I just go
back to bed. And there are days like that. This summer, one day, I went back to bed twice.
You need to know this. I just, I couldn't think of what to do next, so I went back to
bed. And I got up, and that night I made a meeting, and I just said, it's been a real
long day, and I just haven't had an awful lot of hope. And I go to meetings, and I find
that your hope is contagious.
And if I...
I associate with people with not too much hope, because I don't trust them, but people
who have enough hope, I suddenly am able to do left foot, right foot, left foot, right
foot, and then I find I'm in a position of being able to trust the higher power. Again,
not 100%, but enough. I just need enough to turn it over. There's an 18th century Jesuit
theologian, which is my spiritual background. My training is in that particular reference.
And this guy was writing a couple hundred years ago about his difficulty with turning
it all over. And I, I mean, I turn it over, take it back, turn it over, take it back,
turn it over, take it back. And I was trying to explain that to my sponsor, using small
words and speaking slowly so he'd get it. And he said, and again, I'm using small words,
I'm unique, I'm the only one doing this. Everyone else at meetings trusts God so much
and has such a good time with the higher power. And the program was wrong with me. And Terry
said, when you find you've taken it back, turn it over. I said, yeah, but what else?
Shouldn't I humiliate myself or cut off a finger or something, or, you know? And he
said, no, just when you find you've taken it back, turn it over. So I, I do that. But
this, this 18th century Jesuit said this, if you have...
If you cannot turn over everything for all time, then just turn over now. And when you're
conscious again, turn over now. And when you're conscious again, just turn over now. And so
that's how I do step three. I regularly turn over the present into God's care. And I find
that gives me enough faith and hope to do left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot,
right foot, and then show up somewhere, you know, like at a meeting in Santa Clara. I
don't know the future. I haven't known the future since I stopped taking drugs. And there's
a Baptist, a Baptist hymn that says, I don't know the melody and I'm going to paraphrase
the words, but the Baptist hymn says, I don't need to know what the future holds because
I know who holds what.
And I just do right foot and left foot and go to meetings where there are women and men
with hope in here. And I learn how to cooperate with people I don't agree with a lot. And
frequently I have a real life. I find recovery is slow business. But it's very real. I think
it's a struggle a lot of times and I need encouragement. I'm one of those people that
does get discouraged and I'm one of those people who has to take real careful attention
for don't get discouraged. I'm one of those people who has to take real careful attention
for don't get too hungry, don't get too angry, don't get too lonely, don't get too tired.
I have two last points to make and I'm done. When I was younger and even more arrogant,
I thought that I could handle hungry just fine. And I could handle hungry and angry.
Hungry, angry, lonely, all operating at the same time, complicated my life. But I didn't
really need to call my sponsor or change my sponsor. I just did what I was told. I don't
have to change my sponsor or change my life. I just did what I was told. That was all I
have to do. I just did what I was told. I don't have to change my sponsor or change my life.
Thank you for watching.
my behavior, unless all four were blowing up at the same time. Then I had to do some
action. Now I find, 20 years sober, 49 and a half years old, any one of them puts me
in a dangerous place. And I find paradoxes, in my life there's a lot of paradoxes, but
in many ways, I'm in real good shape today. And at the exact same moment, I'm a mess.
Equally true. I'm resilient and flexible, and at the exact same time, I'm brittle and
fragile. I find that to be quite interesting. Little bits can throw me way off, and then
a little bit of fine-tuning can bring me back. It's a daily program. So I reach
the hungry. I skip meals. I still do that. I keep thinking that you should eat, but I'm
busy. And then at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and I want to start shooting people, because
they have turned into swine. And it's for their own good, you know. And I won't kill
them, I'll just shoot them in the knees so they'll remember. And I'll call my sponsor
with my...
...
my rage, and he'll listen for a few moments, and then he'll ask in his judgmental tone
of voice, have you eaten? When I'm talking about deep meaning and significance, and he
asks about burritos, you know, give me a break. I don't always notice when I'm angry. I mean,
I don't. I mean, I'm from a half-Irish, half-Swedish background. We don't get angry, we get even.
And I'm from a tradition where we would get you extra cups of coffee hoping you'd choke
on them, you know. That's where I come from. So I don't notice I'm angry, I just suddenly
notice I'm right. And you're wrong, and you must be punished, and this gives me no pleasure.
... scenario. And I call, I lived in L.A. for a long time. Maybe it only seemed like
a long time. I move back up here, and I'm the one that moved, but I felt abandoned.
And I called my sponsor, and I said, I'm feeling so lonely. And he said, yes. And I
said, yes? Fix me! I mean, what do we pay these people for? And he said, Tom, there's
nothing to fix. Sometimes we all get to feel lonely. What should I do? Make some phone
calls, go to a meeting, talk to a newcomer, put up with an old-timer, you know. Dig in
the yard, pet the cat. I mean, it passes. But that comes up. And the tired, I don't
notice I get tired. I notice I get hopeless. You suddenly were doomed, and the sun's burning
out, and, you know, it's never going to get better ever, and you can't get good peanut
butter anymore. And that's when I have to really do some stuff around making sure that
I get emotionally recharged and physically recharged.
So it's real important stuff in my program. And I still clearly have trouble with that.
Last point. I was at a meeting in Stockholm, one of my geographics, and an American woman
came into the meeting. And I've always had a little difficulty around people who are
sober who only have peak experiences now that they're sober. And they're so grateful and
love everybody, and I've never been to a bad meeting. And I tell them they should travel
with me. I mean, I'll show them.
Oh, please.
So I was at this English-speaking meeting in Stockholm. This American woman came in.
I had never seen her before. But I find God has given me the gift of critical insights.
And I do not have to know you at all to take your inventory. And she, by the way, is my
first school friend. She's all my life, and I spend my whole life with her. And she's
a great person.
By the way, she walked.
I knew she needed my advice.
And she sat down and complained and whined and nagged about things.
And I thought I'd straighten her out.
And we don't give advice in AA, but she needed it, you know.
So I made an exception for her and did it, you know, did it.
I did to her the kind of stuff that I hate when it happens to me.
And I ended by the patronizing little, keep coming back, little lady, it gets better, you know.
And one day you'll grow up and be like me.
Well, she looked at me and she said, you know, keep coming back, it gets better.
She said, we don't say that in New York.
And I said, oh, really?
Well, what is it that you say in New York?
And she said, in New York, we say keep coming back.
First, it gets better.
Then it gets worse.
Then it gets real.
Then it gets worse.
Then it gets different.
Then it gets real different.
And this is my experience.
Sober living is real different than any other way of living that I've had before.
And I've had to learn a lot and do a lot of, not just do a lot of change,
I've had to cooperate with a lot of change.
And just a fine point on that, and this might be whiny and naggy,
and if so, I apologize.
I apologize in advance, but we add things on at the end of meetings where I live.
And, you know, please keep coming back, it gets better if you work it,
and so work it and read the book and take your sponsor out to lunch.
I mean, all these things we chant at the end.
And that business, it works if you work it.
It's just never, again, to me that sounds like Rambo spirituality self-help program crap,
you know, and buy Tony Robbins' safe and make him rich.
That's never made sense to me.
And I heard someone at a meeting say this instead.
She said, keep coming back, it works if you let it.
It works if you let it.
And that's consistent with my understanding of it.
I am my biggest enemy.
I am my biggest problem.
Most of my craziness comes out of the fact that I get in my own way all the time.
And what the program does is it gives me tools and a fellowship to help me get out of my way
so that God can help me.
So that God can help me.
So that God can help me.
So that God, as we understand God, can make a difference in my life
and take me to a place of hope and service.
You know, hope and service.
And in my tradition, those always go together.
So I'm just real grateful to be sober tonight and glad to be here.
And it's been an honor to hang out with such a group of desperate women and men.
Thank you.
Please help me welcome Tom W.
My name is Tom, and I am an alcoholic.
And I'm glad to be here on a Saturday night.
I live up in Oakland, and I work most weekends doing desperate things with alcoholics.
And I'm never around on a Saturday night, so a chance to get to a meeting and hang out
with desperate people in San Jose is a plus.
And it's really nice for me to come and see that there are some people...
people still alive and out of jail, you know, that I have been noticing over the last 15
plus years that I've been connecting, so that feels good.
And for folks that I haven't yet met, I was just reflecting as I was listening to the
first speaker that we've never met before, and so much of his story, the feelings and
the thinking and the craziness is the way I think and feel.
I just...
I just make that connection pretty easily.
My sponsor is a hopeless alcoholic and needs meetings as much as anybody I've ever met in
my whole life.
And he's of the opinion, with 25 years sober, but what does he know?
He's of the opinion that if you go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and are able to identify
with the speaker, you're in a pretty good place.
And if you go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous...
and don't identify with the speaker at all, it means you need another meeting.
So he's been nagging and whining about that towards me over the last 20 years, and I...
you'd think I'd get it more quickly, but I don't.
I need a lot of repetition.
Anyway, what I get to talk about is what it was like and what happened and what it's like now.
This is a dangerous time of the year for me, and again, we have different...
different dangerous times.
I'm personally...
I like the fall, I like autumn a lot, but the slipperiness of this period is that it's election time.
And I don't know about you, but I can get swept up in things, and I have been known
to hold on to resentments which cross state lines.
And it was real important for me, when I began going to meetings, to hear about...
about the traditions that said that outside controversial issues stay outside.
And it was important because I had never been able to do that.
I got sober during the...
You can't really say the late Ford presidency because it was so short, but...
I got sober during the Ford presidency, and I was drunk for the bicentennial celebration in July of 1976.
I...
vaguely remember the great ships coming into the New York Harbor.
I was not there, but I was having a couple of social drinks while watching the television.
And then I kind of come out of the haze somewhere in August of 1976, and there was Mr. Ford,
and he was giving the acceptance speech for being nominated president that year.
And I looked it up later, and I found out that my first day without...
drinking was that Wednesday, August the 18th of 1976.
And by the time November came around, I was a couple of months sober, and I was a total lunatic.
Total lunatic.
Some people get excited about some stuff.
Some people get excited about other stuff.
Political stuff has always made me real nuts.
And I have been right-wing and left-wing and radical middle-of-the-road,
and the one thing that I've consistently held on to is that when I've believed something,
I've really believed it.
And if you disagreed with me, not only were you wrong, you were stupid.
So for my own recovery, I really needed to have a good introduction into how the traditions work,
especially around the only requirement for membership is the desire to...
stop drinking.
It doesn't say the only requirement for membership is the desire to stop drinking and agree with Tom.
That's not in the tradition.
And that tense tradition that says that outside controversial stuff stays outside.
And the tradition makes special mention of politics, sectarian religion, and alcohol reform.
And I think that's really wise because we have a tendency, I mean, we as people, but definitely alcoholics,
to hold strong feelings and break out in fistfights.
I was sober a couple... I stayed away from politics for my first four years sober because I was so nuts.
And then I figured, I'm well enough.
And I was going to meetings in Los Angeles.
I was living down there, that's why I was going to meetings there.
And I was not commuting, you know, to go to meetings.
And I started dabbling with the candidates just a little bit.
And then I got real involved.
And then I started carrying literature around in my car and, you know, signing up voters.
I mean, cans.
And I knew that my higher power wanted me to tell all of you about my candidate.
And I had all this literature in the car.
And thank God I left it in the car.
And I went to the meeting and I had a moment of clarity.
And what I realized there was...
And this was a meeting I loved.
It was at Plummer Park in central LA.
Santa Monica Boulevard.
And truly dangerous, crazy, self-obsessed, whiny alcoholics would come to this meeting.
And I just identified with them and felt right at home.
But the moment of clarity was the realization that there were people in that room
who thought that King George III was our best president.
And there were other people who wanted to start by blowing up the Bank of America.
And, you know, it was a little intense.
And the moment of clarity was this is not the stuff that unites us.
This is the stuff that divides us.
And it's real important, again, to keep that outside.
I was in Poland a few years ago.
I do get to travel.
At the end of my drinking, I never left my room because they were out there.
But sober...
And if you don't know who they are, you might not be ready to get sober yet.
And someone in Berkeley said that paranoia is just total awareness.
And I like that.
That is a keen insight into my way of living.
But about 8 or 10 or 12 years ago, you know, somewhere there,
I got to go to Poland and I was working in Sweden for a while.
And I really do believe in little geographics.
I find they really help.
Leave the country, go somewhere else, work for a while, come home.
I've done that more than once.
So I went to Poland and I went to some meetings in Poland.
And this is when the communist government was still running things.
Things were a little intense, but alcohol is synonymous existed in Poland.
And by some moment of grace, we got connected with sober people in Poland.
And...
The chances of that happening were slim.
But there we were and we were in Warsaw.
And we were staying with a fellow and his wife and their couple of kids.
And he was very, very sober and very in AA and about five years sober.
And he had been a very active member of Solidarity.
And this was the labor union that had helped change the Polish society so much.
In fact, he spent some time in jail because he was an active union member.
And he got sober and he was doing a life.
And somehow an article appeared in one of the papers about getting sober and recovery and alcoholism.
And a phone number was listed and he was on the phone duty and someone called.
The person who called was a high-ranking member of the government who said he couldn't stop drinking.
So this fellow Solidarity member who had spent some time in prison made a 12-step call on this high-ranking member of the military government.
And found out that he was sober.
And he was talking to the man who threw him in prison.
Outside controversial issues stayed outside.
And at the time we visited them, he was that man's sponsor.
If it can happen there, it can happen here.
But there's reasons for it.
So anyway, I just want to mention that.
Because I think it's one of the things that I don't always observe.
And I...
The things we need to do.
Because there are so many things we just don't agree on.
I was in New Mexico a while ago.
And I've happened to fall in love with some people down there.
Because of meetings and program and a few other connections.
And I loved them before I knew how they voted.
And I showed up at this fellow's house.
I was going to spend the weekend there.
I was talking at a conference in Hobbs, New Mexico.
Which they call Hobbs.
America, down there.
And he had a large photograph of a former governor of California.
And I told him that I would have to sleep with one eye open, you know.
And we were able to expand our world, you know.
And it was fine.
And without the program, I simply would not have had a heart or a head big enough
to even have a conversation with this guy.
So, I'm real glad to be sober.
But let me tell you about what it was like and what happened and what it's like now.
What it's like now is it's gotten worse.
For newcomers and visitors, you need to know that they do not ask people
with a lot of mental health to share at meetings.
With the exception of the first speaker.
He was fine.
But what they want to do, the thinking is,
if they get someone who is clearly a barely functioning person to talk,
everyone else will feel better about themselves.
And go home thinking that they're doing just fine.
And that's how it works.
So, I am not here as a role model.
I am here as a warning.
And as long as you understand that,
that will get along fine.
I had someone come up to me and,
oh, they didn't like something I said.
And we were not going to be best friends.
That was real clear.
And she thought that because she was so horrified by something I said,
I would change.
And I told her that not only will I not change,
I will always mention this thing that bothered you so much.
And I won.
I read the book.
She can tell you that,
you know,
that's not a big deal.
She knows what I mean.
I think that's great.
I read the book,
I don't read the book a lot,
but I read the book.
And parts of the book speak to me,
and parts of the book are always a surprise to me.
The copy I got,
doesn't have any pictures in it.
And that bothered me for a long time.
And what I've done with the book,
one of the,
you know,
what tools,
do i use to stay sober i i read some of the book i read several of the pamphlets that i that just
save my butt regularly the jack alexander article i think is brilliant i when i am feeling really
hopeless and my sponsor's machine is not connected i read the jack alexander article i also really
like the pamphlet called um a member's eye view and i very much like the pamphlet that says so
you think you're different those are my three favorite pamphlets and the book so those are
things i use but but i was in new mexico and and i have a a little habit that when i open the book
and start reading it in real um but i was in abecu new mexico i was trying to make some kind
of contact with the higher power one more time i was not being real successful i um was at a
benedictine monastery that was vegetarian
and um miles from the paved road and no telephones and no electricity and
um i was feeling far away from you and i opened the book and it was under the section
written he had to be shown now this is one of the original stories from the first
edition of the big book and here's what it reads when i was 18 at the end of high school
the high school team had a banquet at a well-known roadhouse outside of akron a roadhouse is a place
where you could get a a meal and a drink and it was kind of off the beaten path and
everybody knew where they were but there were no neon signs you know
we boys drove out in somebody's car and went to the bar on the way to the dining room
and i
in an effort to impress the other boys that i was city bred having lived in scranton and cleveland
they don't think that's a funny line in scranton and cleveland
i think it's a real funny line you know
i asked them if they didn't want a drink
they looked at one another
queerly
and finally
one of them allowed
he'd have a beer
and they all followed him each of them saying
he'd have a beer too
i ordered a martini extra dry
i didn't even know
what a martini looked like
but i heard a man down the bar order one
that was my first drink
i mean just
see um at least now
the industry makes things like annie boone springs farm sweet wine so you can start
uh... with something that doesn't taste like gasoline you know
starter alcohol you know
candy with booze inside of it i mean they know what they're doing but
this kid's very adventurous
i kept watching the man down the bar
to see what he did with the contraption like that and he just smelled of his drink
and set it down again
so i did the same
he took a couple of puffs of a cigarette
i took a couple of puffs of my cigarette
he tossed off half of his martini
i tossed off half of mine
i tossed off half of mine
and it nearly blew the top of my head off
i vividly remember my first martini and i was in college being kicked by a mule
it irritated my nostrils i choked i didn't like it there was nothing about that drink
that i liked
but i watched him
and he tossed off the rest of his
so i tossed off half of his
tossed off the rest of mine. He ate his olive, and I ate mine. I didn't even like the olive.
It was repulsive to me from every standpoint. I drank nine martinis in less than an hour.
I can't tell you how I identified with this very square, faceless man from Akron, Ohio
in 1938. This has been my insides. I just danced with martinis for a long time and thought
they were sensational, and they were just deadly. I was listening to a guy up in Oakland
in the past year, and he was at a meeting talking about the disease of alcoholism, and
he said that...
Alcoholism was a lot like dancing with a gorilla. You're not done dancing until the
gorilla is done dancing.
Now it's important to reflect on that for a couple of minutes because the subtlety of
the image might be something you missed, because early in the evening, you think you're in
charge.
You've asked the gorilla out, you think the gorilla's kind of cute, you're getting along
pretty well, and in the back of your head you figure later on you might get lucky, you
know?
You don't know you're in trouble until the moment comes in the evening when you want
to sit the next dance out, and the gorilla doesn't want to.
And you discover you keep dancing.
A little bit later on, the gorilla tells you that you're going to tango, and you explain
that you don't know how to tango, and you find out the gorilla doesn't care.
You tango, and you end up doing unspeakable things, and you're absolutely out of control.
There was a commercial done a few years ago, Samsonite luggage put in the gorilla cage,
you know?
And the gorillas just knock the shit out of these things, and they survive really nicely.
A lot of us don't, you know?
A lot of us don't.
A lot of us get drowned up by the gorilla over and over and over again.
We die of overdoses, we suicide, we do drunk driving accidents.
Casualty rates are real high with this particular dance, you know?
People who love us look inside the cage.
And they see us dancing with the gorilla, and they get real anxious.
And they want to run into the cage and rescue us.
And then they get their arms and their legs yanked off.
And a lot of the Al-Anon program basically says, stay out of the cage.
Stay out of the cage, and then you have to talk about your feelings about staying out
of the cage.
I'm going to take the whole meeting.
If you're clean and sober tonight,
haven't had a drink today,
haven't had to do any chemical stuff today,
that's a real good sign that the gorilla has let go.
If the gorilla has let go,
get out of the cage.
And don't go back into the cage
even when the gorilla starts singing your song
because that happens, you know.
It's so cute and maybe we'll get along
and I took some lessons and I'm sure it'll be fine.
Dr. Gill, who is a sober physician
up in Marin County and still alive,
he got sober in Mr. Eisenhower's last year as president.
I remember things according to who's president.
It has always given me someone to blame
and I just remember who's president, you know.
Who was I blaming for that four-year period?
Dr. Gill says that alcoholism is a disease
that has three distinct phases.
Phase one is the fun phase.
This is when it's real fun.
And that's a large part of my drinking story.
I had a lot of fun.
Well, drinking.
And I mentioned that at a meeting once
and one of the old-timers,
not as old as me,
but nevertheless an old-timer,
said,
you shouldn't mention alcohol and fun.
You'll trigger the newcomer.
And see, I just don't think that's true.
I think it's important to tell the truth
about your drinking.
And if you get hyped, people will die.
And if you had a good time for a while drinking,
it's real important,
to say that.
And the fact is,
if I could still have a good time drinking,
I'd be doing it.
You need to know that.
The fun phase is phase one,
but it's a real phase.
When I drank, I felt smart.
When I drank, I felt graceful.
When I drank, I felt insightful.
I was a high school kid growing up here in San Jose.
I was real awkward.
I was real uncoordinated.
I drank and it was magic.
It was magic.
That's phase one.
Phase two is called fun plus problems.
It's still fun.
But you start to have problems.
Hangovers, tattoos.
I'm personally grateful,
and again, this is an outside controversial opinion,
and you're sure welcome to do it.
I'm personally grateful, and again, this is an outside controversial opinion,
and you're sure welcome to do it.
I know you disagree with me,
and I will not take offense,
but I am personally grateful that I got sober
before it became fashionable to start piercing everything.
before it became fashionable to start piercing everything.
I have met people who have been pierced sober,
and I am glad for them.
and I am glad for them.
You have job trouble.
You have relationships.
you have relationship problems,
you have family problems.
One of the earliest problems I began having
was the mood swings, you know,
we call it Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
I had those a lot.
I was sober just a little bit
and I didn't know if I was sober,
I mean, you know, am I an alcoholic
or am I crazy or do I have a tumor,
you know, the big question.
I was hoping for tumor
because if it was fatal,
I'd be dead in three months
and then it would be over,
but if it was alcohol,
we're at 29.
And I thought,
I'm going to have to live sober
for years and years and years
and I personally at that time
would rather have been dead.
So I preferred death to sobriety.
But I went to a meeting in El Cerrito,
Oakland,
Emeryville,
Oakland,
Albany,
El Cerrito.
That's how you find it in case you're looking.
Berkeley's in there somewhere too,
but you can skip right over Berkeley
until you're five years sober.
Well, it'll make you anxious, trust me.
So I went to this meeting in El Cerrito
to the El Cerrito Fellowship
and I went to an old-timer
and I said,
how do you know you're an alcoholic?
How do you know you're an alcoholic?
And one of the reasons
I've been able to stay in Alcoholics Anonymous
is because of the way he answered my question.
He didn't tell me
how I know I was an alcoholic.
Although I have seen alcoholics
talk to other alcoholics
in that tone of voice
and it's not the tone of voice
to use.
It's the tone of voice
to use to me.
Because you can't scare me
and you can't humiliate me
and you can't embarrass me
and rather than cooperate
with that tone of voice,
I have been known to get drunk.
It just doesn't work.
My parents used it with me
to stop smoking, you know,
and I showed them
I smoked for seven more years.
Oh well.
That's not the point.
The point is
the guy didn't tell me
how I would know.
He told me how he knew he knew.
He didn't tell me
what my experience should be.
He told me what his experience was.
Instead of giving me
an inspiring little talk
or a sermon,
he shared his experience.
And that's real important for me
if I'm going to hang around at meetings.
I need to know
that you share your experience
and I get to share mine.
And there's lots of different ways
of doing this.
And then I can sit in the room
if I can take what I need
and leave the rest.
Then I can stay here, you know.
And here's what he told me,
this crusty old-timer
with maybe nine months or a year.
He said that he knew
he was an alcoholic
because he had no way
of guaranteeing his behavior
after the first drink.
I said, what do you mean?
And he said, well,
there are times that I drank
and nothing happened.
Nothing happened.
Got home, no crises,
no problems.
Other times, I would drink
and anything could happen.
And he said, I never knew
which one it was going to be.
And that's my story.
I started listening
when people began talking about,
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
And by the way,
if you're looking for something to read
that is not program approved,
I might suggest
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
by Robert Louis Stevenson.
It's a terrifying book.
It's a terrifying book.
And there's no recovery
in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Mr. Hyde wins, you know.
And it's all about this stuff
that happens when you drink.
It's pretty scary.
I, not...
I not only had a bad case
of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,
I also had a pretty good dose
of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
And I would drink
and I would become happy
or dopey or sleepy or grumpy.
Occasionally, I'd turn into Snow White.
I had no idea
what was going to happen.
What?
So,
so,
one plus problems.
You know, also,
and I want to mention
this particular kind of problem.
Looking back,
it's the scariest thing I ever did.
But while I was drinking,
it was the thing
I rationalized most easily.
And that was the vast amount
of drunk driving that I did.
I drove drunk for years.
And I thought it was hilarious.
I thought I was...
I was in high school.
High school senior drunk driving.
I remember telling classmates of mine,
I have no trouble driving while drunk.
My trouble is getting to the car.
Ha, ha, ha, you know.
Now, as I'm just edging 50,
you know, I'm looking back
and I see the behavior
was absolutely lethal.
And any,
any day of the week,
I could have been a statistic
or caused...
Any day of the week,
I could have been a statistic
or caused statistics
with the drunk driving.
It's just horrifying to me.
Fun, fun plus problems.
Stage three,
alcoholism,
according to Dr. Paul,
is called problems.
The book says,
the good times were gone.
Never again could we recreate
the great moments of the past.
They were but memories.
And I was in problems
for a real long time.
My biggest thing with my drinking,
I didn't do a lot of jail time
or any jail time
like the first speaker.
I was in jail time.
I was in jail time.
I was in jail time.
I was in jail time.
I was in jail time.
I was in jail time.
I was in jail time.
I was in jail time.
I was in jail time.
I was in jail time.
I did go to San Quentin
for a while,
but I was there
as associate chaplain,
not inmate.
You know,
it's a little different.
My big thing with my drinking
was the depression.
The depression
and the isolation
and the being inability
to function
and then I would work up
to functioning
and I would function
for a while
and then I would just collapse.
I taught for a long time.
I'm a teacher
by teaching.
I started training
and my first teaching job
was at Mission High
in San Francisco
and moved down to L.A.
and where the riots were,
that's where I taught school
for the next seven years
and I loved my classrooms.
I loved my students.
I loved that part of town.
I felt challenged
and alive
and creative
and the drinking
was my medicine.
The drinking is what I used
to deal with anything
that was
difficult or significant
in my life.
Let me jump ahead a little bit.
I was sober a couple of years.
Like maybe four years.
The tools I were using,
the tools I were using,
tools I was using,
never know.
I went to meetings
to deal with
the emotional chaos
of my life
and I wasn't doing anything
to deal with my rage
and I wasn't doing anything
to deal with my fear
which was real up
and my drinking
sedated all that stuff
for a long time.
What I used in the classroom
to deal with my students
was ridicule and sarcasm
and I had a real fast mouth
and I taught kids
who were twice my size
and if they ever counted
the votes in the classroom,
there were 26 of them
in one of me,
so I was just fast on my feet
and fast with my mouth
and brutal.
So I was three, four,
five years sober.
It was time for
student evaluation
and we were doing
an oral evaluation
of the classroom
and one of these kids
who was 17 years old,
18 years old,
serious young man,
he turned to me
and he said,
he used my title,
and he said,
the course material's fine
but you have a way
of making people feel
real small.
And I,
he was absolutely right
on the button.
I had to spend some time
learning how to deal
with emotional problems
and stresses and strains
in other ways
besides sarcasm,
ridicule and humiliation.
When I'm tired
or caught off guard,
that stuff comes right back
and I can have
a real fast mouth
and I have to learn
how to not do that
day at a time.
But that has been part
of my fourth and fifth step
that was a real big part
of making amends to people
because of my big,
fat mouth.
And I would excuse stuff
because I'm funny.
And so I would say,
oh yeah, yeah,
it was a little cruel
but it was mostly funny.
Uh-uh.
It was a little funny
and mostly cruel
and I had a lot of
relationships like that.
So I,
um,
um,
I've had some work to do.
I'm almost done
with tonight's talk
and we can all go home
to our moms.
Um,
I, um,
I want to talk a little bit
about step one
and two and three
because at 20 years sober
I, I had a,
a different understanding
of one and two and three.
Um,
step one asks
a couple of questions.
Step one says
a couple of things.
Step one asks,
are you still having any fun?
Right?
And if the answer is yes
then you're not going
to stay around.
Go get done.
You know,
go get done
and we'll be happy
to talk to you.
This is not a program
for people who need it.
This is a program
for people who want it.
And if your craziness
is anything like mine,
the only thing
that makes me want anything
is pain and discomfort.
So I, you know,
if you're,
if you're still drinking successfully
and dating wonderfully
and having success at work
and making a lot of money
and you're personally grateful,
well, go do it.
Um,
it has been years
since I've danced that dance,
you know,
and, and so I just can't have
much of a conversation
with you on those things.
So I don't argue with people
for whom it's working.
Step one says,
Noah,
it's still raining.
It's still raining.
Step one says,
General Custer,
more are coming.
I don't know of anybody
who has a lot of fun
while doing the first step.
I mean, the first step
is an awful experience.
It basically says,
I am bleeding and on fire
and this has been going on
for some time.
When I got sober,
I would bump into people
who called themselves
two-steppers.
They didn't want to work steps.
They did step one and twelve
is what they said
and that makes no sense to me.
Step one,
I'm miserable.
Step twelve,
join me.
What?
What?
So the thing for me
in recovery,
getting sober,
how on earth do you get
from step one to step two?
Because for me,
the hardest step
is the second step.
Four and five are inconvenient
and making amends
can get a little complicated.
But the really impossible situation
for me was going
from one to two
because one says,
we're doomed
and two says,
there's hope.
Now, I'm a reader.
I read a lot,
did a lot of stuff.
I still read a lot.
When I was in college,
I used to drink a little
and smoke non-habit
performing marijuana
and then read existentialist novelists.
Sartre, Camus.
I remember in English,
if I could have read them in French,
I would have,
but it didn't occur to me.
I wasn't that pretentious
at the time.
But I would read.
One of those fellows,
his name is Franz Kafka.
Kafka's a little moody
and a little unhappy
and Czechoslovakian,
Jewish,
complicated life,
1930s.
And one of Kafka's lines,
and I identified with this
so much for years,
Kafka writes,
there is infinite hope,
but not for us.
Now,
that's what I believe.
I thought,
for you there's hope,
for me there isn't.
You know,
I mean,
I'm doomed.
You're going to get along fine,
but I'm worse than you.
I'm just,
luck of the draw,
it's not going to work out.
So how do you get
from step one to step two?
And here is my current reflection on this.
I do not think
that Alcoholics Anonymous
is a self-help program.
It is an open book.
It is a self-help program.
I think if I could have helped myself,
I never would have had to meet
you dreary people.
You know,
and spend lives in rooms
filled with smoke
and, you know,
people who vote differently than I do.
I didn't get from step one
to step two
by marching and working
all the time.
I didn't get from step one to step two
by working and working.
program. That's not how it works. What happened is that I got carried from step one to step
two. And I got carried from step one to step two by the higher power, as I understand the
higher power, through meetings in rooms like these. I did some footwork. I had to cooperate.
I was in pain. I was bleeding and on fire. I went to an awful lot of these meetings.
I made phone calls. I went out for people. I bought a book. I did a lot of stuff, but
that was just a willingness to participate. I got carried to the second step. And one
night at a meeting in Berkeley, I was sober for a couple of months, six, seven, eight
months, and I woke up and I looked around the room and realized that I had just a little
tiny bit of hope. Not a lot!
And when I find out, I don't need a lot of hope. I don't know if I've ever had 100% hope.
I mean, I think you get stupid around 90% hope. You just stop paying attention, you
know, and get grateful and lose your critical faculties. And I've never had that experience.
But I regularly have enough hope to do left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, go
to a meeting, say hello to a newcomer, talk to an old-timer, make coffee. I have enough
hope for that a lot of times. And sometimes when I don't have very much hope, I just go
back to bed. And there are days like that. This summer, one day, I went back to bed twice.
You need to know this. I just, I couldn't think of what to do next, so I went back to
bed. And I got up, and that night I made a meeting, and I just said, it's been a real
long day, and I just haven't had an awful lot of hope. And I go to meetings, and I find
that your hope is contagious.
And if I...
I associate with people with not too much hope, because I don't trust them, but people
who have enough hope, I suddenly am able to do left foot, right foot, left foot, right
foot, and then I find I'm in a position of being able to trust the higher power. Again,
not 100%, but enough. I just need enough to turn it over. There's an 18th century Jesuit
theologian, which is my spiritual background. My training is in that particular reference.
And this guy was writing a couple hundred years ago about his difficulty with turning
it all over. And I, I mean, I turn it over, take it back, turn it over, take it back,
turn it over, take it back. And I was trying to explain that to my sponsor, using small
words and speaking slowly so he'd get it. And he said, and again, I'm using small words,
I'm unique, I'm the only one doing this. Everyone else at meetings trusts God so much
and has such a good time with the higher power. And the program was wrong with me. And Terry
said, when you find you've taken it back, turn it over. I said, yeah, but what else?
Shouldn't I humiliate myself or cut off a finger or something, or, you know? And he
said, no, just when you find you've taken it back, turn it over. So I, I do that. But
this, this 18th century Jesuit said this, if you have...
If you cannot turn over everything for all time, then just turn over now. And when you're
conscious again, turn over now. And when you're conscious again, just turn over now. And so
that's how I do step three. I regularly turn over the present into God's care. And I find
that gives me enough faith and hope to do left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot,
right foot, and then show up somewhere, you know, like at a meeting in Santa Clara. I
don't know the future. I haven't known the future since I stopped taking drugs. And there's
a Baptist, a Baptist hymn that says, I don't know the melody and I'm going to paraphrase
the words, but the Baptist hymn says, I don't need to know what the future holds because
I know who holds what.
And I just do right foot and left foot and go to meetings where there are women and men
with hope in here. And I learn how to cooperate with people I don't agree with a lot. And
frequently I have a real life. I find recovery is slow business. But it's very real. I think
it's a struggle a lot of times and I need encouragement. I'm one of those people that
does get discouraged and I'm one of those people who has to take real careful attention
for don't get discouraged. I'm one of those people who has to take real careful attention
for don't get too hungry, don't get too angry, don't get too lonely, don't get too tired.
I have two last points to make and I'm done. When I was younger and even more arrogant,
I thought that I could handle hungry just fine. And I could handle hungry and angry.
Hungry, angry, lonely, all operating at the same time, complicated my life. But I didn't
really need to call my sponsor or change my sponsor. I just did what I was told. I don't
have to change my sponsor or change my life. I just did what I was told. That was all I
have to do. I just did what I was told. I don't have to change my sponsor or change my life.
Thank you for watching.
my behavior, unless all four were blowing up at the same time. Then I had to do some
action. Now I find, 20 years sober, 49 and a half years old, any one of them puts me
in a dangerous place. And I find paradoxes, in my life there's a lot of paradoxes, but
in many ways, I'm in real good shape today. And at the exact same moment, I'm a mess.
Equally true. I'm resilient and flexible, and at the exact same time, I'm brittle and
fragile. I find that to be quite interesting. Little bits can throw me way off, and then
a little bit of fine-tuning can bring me back. It's a daily program. So I reach
the hungry. I skip meals. I still do that. I keep thinking that you should eat, but I'm
busy. And then at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and I want to start shooting people, because
they have turned into swine. And it's for their own good, you know. And I won't kill
them, I'll just shoot them in the knees so they'll remember. And I'll call my sponsor
with my...
...
my rage, and he'll listen for a few moments, and then he'll ask in his judgmental tone
of voice, have you eaten? When I'm talking about deep meaning and significance, and he
asks about burritos, you know, give me a break. I don't always notice when I'm angry. I mean,
I don't. I mean, I'm from a half-Irish, half-Swedish background. We don't get angry, we get even.
And I'm from a tradition where we would get you extra cups of coffee hoping you'd choke
on them, you know. That's where I come from. So I don't notice I'm angry, I just suddenly
notice I'm right. And you're wrong, and you must be punished, and this gives me no pleasure.
... scenario. And I call, I lived in L.A. for a long time. Maybe it only seemed like
a long time. I move back up here, and I'm the one that moved, but I felt abandoned.
And I called my sponsor, and I said, I'm feeling so lonely. And he said, yes. And I
said, yes? Fix me! I mean, what do we pay these people for? And he said, Tom, there's
nothing to fix. Sometimes we all get to feel lonely. What should I do? Make some phone
calls, go to a meeting, talk to a newcomer, put up with an old-timer, you know. Dig in
the yard, pet the cat. I mean, it passes. But that comes up. And the tired, I don't
notice I get tired. I notice I get hopeless. You suddenly were doomed, and the sun's burning
out, and, you know, it's never going to get better ever, and you can't get good peanut
butter anymore. And that's when I have to really do some stuff around making sure that
I get emotionally recharged and physically recharged.
So it's real important stuff in my program. And I still clearly have trouble with that.
Last point. I was at a meeting in Stockholm, one of my geographics, and an American woman
came into the meeting. And I've always had a little difficulty around people who are
sober who only have peak experiences now that they're sober. And they're so grateful and
love everybody, and I've never been to a bad meeting. And I tell them they should travel
with me. I mean, I'll show them.
Oh, please.
So I was at this English-speaking meeting in Stockholm. This American woman came in.
I had never seen her before. But I find God has given me the gift of critical insights.
And I do not have to know you at all to take your inventory. And she, by the way, is my
first school friend. She's all my life, and I spend my whole life with her. And she's
a great person.
By the way, she walked.
I knew she needed my advice.
And she sat down and complained and whined and nagged about things.
And I thought I'd straighten her out.
And we don't give advice in AA, but she needed it, you know.
So I made an exception for her and did it, you know, did it.
I did to her the kind of stuff that I hate when it happens to me.
And I ended by the patronizing little, keep coming back, little lady, it gets better, you know.
And one day you'll grow up and be like me.
Well, she looked at me and she said, you know, keep coming back, it gets better.
She said, we don't say that in New York.
And I said, oh, really?
Well, what is it that you say in New York?
And she said, in New York, we say keep coming back.
First, it gets better.
Then it gets worse.
Then it gets real.
Then it gets worse.
Then it gets different.
Then it gets real different.
And this is my experience.
Sober living is real different than any other way of living that I've had before.
And I've had to learn a lot and do a lot of, not just do a lot of change,
I've had to cooperate with a lot of change.
And just a fine point on that, and this might be whiny and naggy,
and if so, I apologize.
I apologize in advance, but we add things on at the end of meetings where I live.
And, you know, please keep coming back, it gets better if you work it,
and so work it and read the book and take your sponsor out to lunch.
I mean, all these things we chant at the end.
And that business, it works if you work it.
It's just never, again, to me that sounds like Rambo spirituality self-help program crap,
you know, and buy Tony Robbins' safe and make him rich.
That's never made sense to me.
And I heard someone at a meeting say this instead.
She said, keep coming back, it works if you let it.
It works if you let it.
And that's consistent with my understanding of it.
I am my biggest enemy.
I am my biggest problem.
Most of my craziness comes out of the fact that I get in my own way all the time.
And what the program does is it gives me tools and a fellowship to help me get out of my way
so that God can help me.
So that God can help me.
So that God can help me.
So that God, as we understand God, can make a difference in my life
and take me to a place of hope and service.
You know, hope and service.
And in my tradition, those always go together.
So I'm just real grateful to be sober tonight and glad to be here.
And it's been an honor to hang out with such a group of desperate women and men.
Thank you.
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