Bob D. at the Red Stick Roundup in Baton Rouge, LA – January 29. 2005

(0:00 – 0:42)
My name is Bob Darrow and I am alcoholic. Through God’s grace, that I’ve accessed and
maintained in my life through the principles of the 12 steps process that I found in the
big book, good sponsorship, a lot of commitments, and bushels of newcomers, I haven’t
had a drink or any mind or emotion altering substances since Halloween 1978. I want to
thank Ray and the members of the committee for the privilege of coming down here,
participating in Alcoholics Anonymous.
(0:43 – 1:00)
This is the fluff, the icing on the cake. If you want to really find out what I do, where the
meat and potatoes are in Alcoholics Anonymous, for me, come to Las Vegas. Mondays at
noon, I’ll take you with me into a rescue mission.
(1:01 – 1:09)
Monday night, I’ll take you to a step workshop. Tuesday at noon, I’ll take you into a Skid
Row detox. Tuesday night, I’ll take you to another step workshop.
(1:10 – 1:20)
Wednesday at noon, I’ll take you back into the rescue mission. Wednesday night, if I
could get you cleared, I’ll take you into the county jail. Thursday at noon, I’ll take you
back into the detox.
(1:20 – 1:29)
Thursday night, I’ll take you to my home group. The main meeting, all these other
meetings are satellites. That’s really the meat and potatoes for me.
(1:30 – 1:55)
It’s going to these hospital institution meetings and sitting with guys and helping them
go through the steps and going through that book and listening to the fifth steps. The
privilege of encouraging scared people to make amends that are frightening and
watching guys get their kids back and watch the lights go on as they start to sponsor
people. That’s really the meat and potatoes.
(1:55 – 1:59)
This is the icing on the cake here. This is great. That’s what keeps me alive.
(2:00 – 2:08)
I wouldn’t stay sober. I don’t think we have a right to do this unless we’re doing that
other stuff, really. I have a sponsor.
(2:08 – 2:14)
I sponsor guys. I step up to the plate. I live in a city.
(2:15 – 2:32)
We joke and we call it the hitting bottom capital of the world, Las Vegas, Nevada. But I’ll
tell you something. On the square, if you get it that your primary purpose, that your
whole life has brought you to this point so you can be useful to guys who are sick like
you’re sick, Las Vegas is a gold mine.
(2:33 – 2:39)
I’m telling you, it’s a gold mine. I love living there for that purpose. There’s an endless
supply of 12-step work to do.
(2:39 – 2:52)
It keeps even the most self-centered people like me out of myself on a regular basis. I
want to thank Len for picking me up at the airport. We had a nice talk on the way over
here.
(2:53 – 3:29)
And I know that he’s a really tremendous member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and he’s
helped an awful lot of people here. And AA really is the backbone of Alcoholics
Anonymous here, and the people in AA really don’t appreciate it very well. I may need a
ride to the airport now.
(3:29 – 3:32)
Okay. You got me covered. Good.
(3:33 – 3:40)
This has been a great week. I tell you, I loved Gary’s talk last night. I’m a big book
fundamentalist.
(3:41 – 3:49)
I’m an activist. I didn’t mean to be when I got here, and I didn’t want to be. It’s a process
of elimination.
(3:50 – 3:58)
Everything else hurts too much. Everything else doesn’t work. I’ve become the guy that I
used to judge so harshly when I was in and out of the rooms.
(3:59 – 4:07)
I’ve become that guy, and I didn’t mean to. It’s just nothing else works. I know there’s a
lot of new people here.
(4:08 – 4:13)
I really want to welcome you. I’m real glad you’re here. I want you to know that I came to
Alcoholics Anonymous.
(4:14 – 4:27)
I’ve been coming to meetings since I was a young kid in 1970 through an institution. I
didn’t get sober until 1978. If you’re sitting here and you’ve been a relapser for a number
of years, I’m your guy.
(4:28 – 4:46)
There’s only two guys here that I really care about that I have anything to say to, and it’s
the guy who can’t get a foothold in Alcoholics Anonymous. You suspect that something’s
wrong with you that’s not wrong with the rest of the people because when you stop
drinking, you’re not like them. I’m talking to you because you are me.
(4:47 – 5:06)
And I’m also talking to another guy, the guy that’s leaving Alcoholics Anonymous, and he
doesn’t even know he’s leaving, and he’s doing it one judgment at a time. And I’m
talking to you because I am you also, and I’ve been in danger of that in my sobriety. I
came to meetings, and I’ve come to meetings.
(5:06 – 5:22)
I’ve gone to thousands and thousands of meetings with Alcoholics Anonymous, and I’ve
got to tell you the truth, most of the time I don’t get it why I’m here. I came for years
because I had to get things signed for the courts. I came for a period of time because I
was in places that made me go to meetings.
(5:23 – 5:34)
I came in this period of this last 26, a little over 26 years. I’ve come at times to see my
friends. I’ve come at other times to meet newcomers.
(5:34 – 5:41)
I’ve come at other times because my sponsor told me to. I’ve come at other times
because I had a commitment. I didn’t want to miss it and look bad.
(5:41 – 6:08)
I’ve come at other times because I’ve been afraid or I’ve had resentments or financial
problems or relationship problems, and I’ve been wrong every time. And sometimes I
don’t really get it why I’m here until I’m in the middle of the meeting and I realize that
I’m here for alcoholism, that I have a bad case, and it’s never gone away. And sometimes
it looks like God brings me here and brings me to this place for all these other reasons,
but the real reason I’m here is I have alcoholism.
(6:08 – 6:36)
And this is the only place I’ve ever come in my whole life that works for me. And it’s not
just the meetings, it’s the reminder in here of this way of life that I have to live in order
to be okay with me. So if you’re sitting here and you’re new, or maybe you’re not so new
and you’re here for a lot of other reasons, maybe you’re like this guy who goes up to
Alaska and he goes up there to hunt bear.
(6:37 – 6:52)
And he’s searching around, hunting in the woods, and he finally spots this little brown
bear and he gets a bead on this bear and he shoots it dead. Goes over to Skinning, tap
on his shoulder, he turns around and there’s this huge black bear. The black bear said,
you killed my cousin by right so I ought to kill you.
(6:53 – 7:02)
But I’m not going to kill you, but I’m going to have my way with you. And man, he does,
and it’s bad too. This guy’s in a hospital for a week, can’t walk, it’s really bad.
(7:03 – 7:18)
He gets a resentment and he says, I’m going to get that black bear. He goes back up to
Alaska and he searches, takes him a week and a half, finds that black bear, gets a bead
on him, shoots him dead. About ready to Skinning, there’s a tap on his shoulder, he turns
around, there’s a huge, huge grizzly bear.
(7:19 – 7:34)
The grizzly bear says, you killed my cousin by right so I ought to kill you, but I’m not
going to have my way with you, and it’s going to be real bad. And oh man, it was bad.
This guy was in the hospital three weeks, couldn’t walk for almost a month, raised his
voice an octave, it was bad, I’m telling you.
(7:36 – 7:54)
He gets out of the hospital, he’s got a resentment, he says, I’m going to get that grizzly
bear. He goes back to Alaska, takes him three weeks, stops that bear, gets a bead on
him, shoots him dead, he’s ready to skin him, there’s a tap on his shoulder, he turns
around, there’s the hugest polar bear he’s ever seen. Polar bear says, you’re not here for
the hunting, are you? Yeah.
(7:58 – 8:19)
Maybe you’re not here while you think you’re here. And maybe sometime in this
weekend you will hear something that will connect you here with a purpose you never
knew you had. And we sometimes, I think, I treat my alcoholism as I claim my primary
purpose.
(8:21 – 8:47)
Bill Wilson said something in his story, Bill was a tremendous visionary. He said that
unless the alcoholic will enlarge his spiritual life by self-sacrifice and continual work with
other alcoholics, he will never survive the certain, meaning they’re coming, certain trials
and low spots ahead. And I was given a purpose, and my purpose is to serve an ethic
higher than myself.
(8:47 – 9:13)
I’m the guy who served myself and my needs, my wants, my gratification all my life. And
I came here broken, and you gave me an ethic and a service, and a thing to serve that
was greater than me. In 1977, I was in a halfway house, and I’d been a chronic relapser
by this time since 1970, actually.
(9:14 – 9:28)
And this was the first few years I was in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous. I was kind of,
AA was like a foxhole for me, and I would just, I didn’t really, I don’t think I really wanted
to get sober. I wanted to get the heat off, and I was in trouble in my life.
(9:28 – 9:41)
I’m the guy that I go on a run, and I can’t shut it down when you’re supposed to, and I
always burn my life to the ground, always, always burn it to the ground. And I come back
into Alcoholics Anonymous to recoup. But the last couple years wasn’t like that.
(9:41 – 9:52)
The last couple years, man, I’m just at the end of my rope. And I’m trying not to drink,
because I just destroy myself. And I’ve wrung all the fun out of it.
(9:53 – 10:12)
And it’s brutal now. And I’m in this halfway house, and I’m sober about 10, maybe 11
months, which, with untreated alcoholism, for an alcoholic of my type, that is a
tremendously long time. Because when I stop drinking, I get a feeling like I’m doing time.
(10:13 – 10:34)
And I stop drinking, and I become progressively more restless, this inability to be settled
anywhere, where I just, I just, I don’t know where I’m supposed to be, but it’s not here.
And I’m irritable, because life, and people especially, just rub me the wrong way. I’m the
guy, when I quit drinking, I just become acutely aware of what’s wrong with everybody.
(10:34 – 10:45)
You know what I mean? And I get this sense of urgency to tell them. And if you’re like
that, sobriety’s a lonely business for a guy like that. And I’m chronically malcontent.
(10:45 – 10:59)
I go, there’s something wrong with me, that I just, the shine of things wears off so
quickly for me. And nothing really rings my bell very long. I’m the guy that can see
something, oh, this is it.
(11:00 – 11:03)
That ain’t it. Oh, this is it. Oh, that ain’t it either.
(11:03 – 11:10)
And I just go through life like that. Just excitement and disillusionment, excitement and
disillusionment. And so I drink.
(11:11 – 11:37)
And I drink because these emotions and my relationship to the rest of the world, and the
loneliness and the feelings of anxious apartness that I get, as a result of being the
judgmental guy that walls himself off from everybody else, eventually backs me into a
corner. And I’m in this halfway house and I’m sober, I don’t know, 10 months, maybe 11.
A long time for me, being restless, irritable, and discontent.
(11:37 – 11:48)
A long time with these low-level depressions. A long time with a feeling of uselessness. A
long time with a feeling like abstinence is about, it feels like I’m doing time.
(11:49 – 12:00)
And I tough it out. I’m a short-fuse alcoholic. I think every one of us, every one of us,
without exception, the minute we put down the last drink, with untreated alcoholism, it’s
like light diffuse.
(12:01 – 12:15)
And some, I have a guy that I sponsored. He went dry with untreated alcoholism for 23
years before I took him through the steps. And to say he was a little brisk was beyond, I
mean, that’s an overstatement.
(12:15 – 12:26)
This guy, not only didn’t he have any friends left, he didn’t even have any acquaintances.
I mean, he was, oh. But he has a long fuse.
(12:26 – 12:31)
He’s an ex-Navy chief. He’s a tough guy. I’m a short-fuse kind of guy.
(12:33 – 12:53)
And some people are situated with finances and stuff, that they can throw a lot of stuff
at the vacancy. And I used to imagine that if I was properly financed, maybe I could still
stay sober long-term. If I could arrange my life with a non-stop series of self-gratification
events.
(12:53 – 13:00)
You know what I mean? Like a new $80,000 car every third day. A new Harley every fifth
day. A new girlfriend every seventh day.
(13:01 – 13:17)
A new house and a new trip. Could I just keep that stuff there? Maybe I wouldn’t have to
get to that point where there’s no longer anything I could put between me and me. But I
always get to that point, and I get to it quickly, where I can’t put anything between me
and me, and then it’s just me.
(13:18 – 13:28)
And I’ve never liked that much. And my big secret is I ain’t real happy about me, and I
ain’t really happy about sober. And I’m a chronic malcontent.
(13:29 – 13:37)
So I’m in this place, and I’m sober 10, maybe 11 months, and I can’t take it anymore.
And I don’t want to burn my life to the ground. I don’t want to get in trouble.
(13:37 – 13:43)
I don’t want to lose my place to live. But I’ve got to do something here. I’ve got to.
(13:44 – 13:54)
And so I called up a guy I’d been in the detox with, and he was back to drinking, and I
suspected he was. And he lives a couple of towns over. He lives in this little trailer, and
he’s telling me, he says, Man, you ought to come down here.
(13:54 – 14:05)
He says, I found this rock and roll bar with great bands. He says, I got some Thai stick,
and there’s some good-looking girls there. You know, I’ve been sober a long time now,
10 or 11 months.
(14:05 – 14:11)
I’ve had about as much fun and sobriety as I can stand. And I’m ready. I’m over ready.
(14:11 – 14:15)
So he’s telling me about this. I’m drooling on the phone. Oh, man, this is going to be
great.
(14:15 – 14:30)
And I’ve got a weekend pass out of there, and I’ve got a plan. I’ve got a plan because I’m
still a victim of an illusion. The illusion that I, under the right set of circumstances, if I
really get behind it, I’ll be able to control and enjoy my drinking.
(14:30 – 14:43)
And what that means is that I’ll be able to jumpstart the party and get back to the good
old days. You know, when it was magic. And I’ll be able to control it enough to keep the
damage down to something I can live with.
(14:43 – 14:49)
That’s the illusion. I think I have that much control. I never was so deluded to think that I
wouldn’t pay some kind of price.
(14:49 – 15:05)
I just think I have enough control to keep it down. And I meet the guy, and I’ll tell you the
best part of that run, as it was the last three years I drank, probably was a couple hours
before it started. You know, the anticipation, it’s going to be great.
(15:06 – 15:29)
And I meet with that guy, and we shoot down to this bar he’d been telling me about, and
I’m drinking double shots of 100 proof Southern Comfort beer back, because when
you’ve only got a weekend, you’ve got to get downtown now. You need that 100 proof,
right? So I want to get downtown now. And so I’m throwing those shots back, waiting for
the magic to happen, waiting for it like it was when I was 20 years old.
(15:29 – 15:42)
You know, when it’s working, it’s just marvelous. Remember the good old days when,
man, you’d get that glow on. A guy, I could walk into a dance or a party or somewhere,
and I don’t fit anywhere.
(15:42 – 15:50)
And man, three or four or five drinks, I could come out and play. I could talk to people.
About seven drinks, I loved everybody.
(15:51 – 16:00)
I love you, man. You remember that? I remember moments with the gang of guys I hung
around with where I just feel so connected to them. I almost bring tears to my eyes.
(16:01 – 16:09)
I could be funny, and I could shoot pool better than I could shoot pool. Play the guitar
and sing better than I could play the guitar. I could dance, and I can’t dance.
(16:11 – 16:27)
I could be deep. Remember 3 o’clock in the morning and deep? Cracking the secrets of
the universe, right? I could say things that would just blow my mind. And then I sober up,
and I’m always back to being me again.
(16:28 – 16:46)
And I’ll tell you, a couple years after I lost the ability to recapture that, I chased it under
an illusion I’m going to recapture it again. Some of us die because we believe. You know
what delusion is? It’s psychotic, wishful thinking.
(16:46 – 17:08)
It’s all the evidence is, the party’s over, but I don’t want it to be over, and I don’t want it
to be over so bad that I start to imagine it’s not going to be over this time until the point
where I believe it. And I went on that last drunk, and I’m trying to throw down those
double shots, trying to jumpstart that deal because I want to have some fun. I’m just
dying of loneliness and abstinence.
(17:08 – 17:12)
I don’t fit very good. I’m depressed. I’m half depressed all the time.
(17:12 – 17:20)
I don’t do too good. And I can’t jumpstart. And yet the phenomenon of craving always
has waited for me when I start to take a drink.
(17:21 – 17:39)
And because the phenomenon of craving is on me as a result of the effect of alcohol,
that’s the only that’s left in the bottle for me now is this phenomenon of craving. And so
I’m hammering down those drinks, trying to frantically get some relief, and all I get
anymore, and all I got was the last three years was oblivion. There’s no more party.
(17:40 – 18:08)
And as I’m sinking, I remember sitting in that bar, and I’m depressed, and I’m almost like
so depressed that I’m feeling sorry for myself. And I’m looking at the people in the bar
that are laughing and dancing with the girls and the guys over here that are shooting
pool and all that stuff and the fun that’s going on, and I’m really sinking into this abyss of
depression and self-pity because I could remember when I was all of that. And I ain’t that
no more.
(18:09 – 18:16)
And I can’t get that back. And I knew something within me that I did not want to know. I
knew that the deal was up.
(18:17 – 18:25)
I can drink myself to death. I can drink myself into oblivion, but I will never recapture
that again. And I knew that because I’d been trying for three years.
(18:28 – 18:40)
And I got some amphetamines because I was starting to sink into oblivion, and if you
only got a weekend, you don’t want to miss nothing. And I got some amphetamines. I
drank all that night, all the next day.
(18:41 – 19:00)
Late, late Saturday night. And the last thing I remember is we went back to this guy’s
trailer, and he goes and passes out, and I’m supposed to crash on his couch, but I’m still
awake. And I’m the kind of alcoholic, if I’m awake, I ain’t done drinking.
(19:00 – 19:11)
You know what I mean? I don’t, I just, I’m not. But I’m out of money. And he left his wallet
on the kitchen counter in his car keys, so I’m not a thief, but I do know when a loan’s
appropriate.
(19:11 – 19:40)
I took a little money out of his wallet, and I got his car keys, and I’m going out to finish
the deal. Here’s what, I’m going to go, I’m going to go down to this bar, it’s just about
ready to close, I’m going to go down there, I’m going to load up with a couple, like a
series of double shots real quick, I’m going to buy a six-pack of beer, maybe malt liquor,
16-ounce, to bring back to the trailer, so I can put myself to sleep, because I’ve got to
put myself to sleep, because I don’t do it any other way, I can’t just sleep. Not when the
phenomenon of craving is on me.
(19:40 – 19:51)
I can’t. I have to pass out. And the next, I must have went to that bar, and started those
double shots, and that’s the last thing I remember, vaguely going in there, and the next
thing I know, I’m coming to an accounting jail.
(19:53 – 20:15)
Not an unusual thing for me, I’ve come to a lot of times in accounting jails, and not
remember being arrested. And I’m in there, and I find out I’m in there for a hit and run
DUI, in a stolen car, I’m facing a couple years in a state penitentiary, I kind of missed the
mark, of keeping it down to reasonable damage in my life here. And they gave me my
phone call.
(20:18 – 20:30)
And I’ll never forget this, it was a horrible, depressing, awful, awful feeling. There’s not a
person on the face of the earth to call. There’s nobody left.
(20:31 – 20:49)
And I had parents, that were non-alcoholic, I had parents that adored me, that loved me.
And what I did to my parents, is I gave them such an emotional battering over the years,
that they were forced to cut me out of their life. And it didn’t sit well with them, because
I loved me so much.
(20:49 – 21:10)
It was so bad that my mother, who was a non-alcoholic, was on tranquilizers, and seeing
a therapist, and my father slept 15, 16 hours a day. Because he couldn’t live with what
was happening to their son, that they had to push out of their life, that they loved so
much. And I often tried to tell other people, how I didn’t hurt anybody except me.
(21:12 – 21:28)
There was no women to call. I mean, it’s not that I wouldn’t have liked a relationship, it’s
just hard to get one going on when you’re homeless. I mean, it’s really… I mean, what do
you say to somebody? Sweetheart, you want to come back to the TV room, in the
halfway house, and watch a movie? I mean, you know, it’s not a lot of panache in that.
(21:28 – 21:55)
I didn’t have any more running partners anymore, because I got to the point, where as
the disease progressed, and I’m losing my ability to get the effect, and the ease and
comfort, I drank more frantically. And so I’m the guy, if we get a jug of Thunderbird, or
Richard’s Wild Irish Rose, and I’m sharing it with you, or a couple of guys, I drink so… I’m
so driven in my drinking, you’re not going to get your share. And I don’t even like people
like that, and I’m that guy.
(21:56 – 22:09)
I’m the guy that’s selfish, when it comes to drinking, because I’m trying to keep the
madness at bay. So there’s no one to call, so I call, so I’m calling bail bondsmen, but you
know, they want you to have like a job, and an address, and stuff. I don’t have any of
that stuff.
(22:11 – 22:32)
So I went to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, in that county jail, and I didn’t go, for
recovery. I’ll tell you, I’d given up on Alcoholics Anonymous, and I’d been up to this time,
I’d probably been in maybe 200, 300 meetings, I guess. And I didn’t even want to go
anymore, but I went to this meeting, for two reasons.
(22:32 – 23:11)
I went there, because I didn’t have any cigarettes, all I had was a little pouch of Bull
Durham, and some bugler papers, that the county had given me, and I hate that stuff.
And also, I went in there, because I knew from being around AA, that people in
Alcoholics, there are some people in AA, that have a lot of money, there are people in
AA, that have influence, and I’m always trying to run an angle, maybe I’ll find somebody,
maybe I’ll find somebody, that will go to a judge, or put my bail up, or something, I don’t
know. So I’m sitting in this meeting, in this place, in this kind of classroom kind of deal,
waiting for the do-gooders from AA to come in, you know, they’re always coming in
places.
(23:12 – 23:28)
It’s not that I’m, and I’m not like them, and I’m not like them, because I have experiential
evidence, that I’m not like them, and it primarily comes down to this. They quit drinking,
and look at them. They’re everything I’m not.
(23:29 – 23:52)
They quit drinking, and they’re happy about everything, they’re grateful, they have great
success stories, they’re just, they’re happy and sober. I know happy, I know sober, I don’t
know happy and sober. And I, I’m just, I don’t think I have alcoholism, I don’t know what I
have, but whatever I have, it’s not the same thing, that’s wrong with these people in AA.
(23:52 – 24:08)
Because I quit drinking, and I go to your meetings, and I’m not anything like you, in here.
So I’m sitting in there, and here comes the do-gooders from AA, and leading the pack is a
guy named Woody, and I knew Woody, I didn’t want to see Woody. Woody used to bring
the meetings into the detox I was in.
(24:09 – 24:19)
Woody used to bring meetings into the halfway house I was in. Woody was one of those
guys in AA, that I just, I tell you, I couldn’t stand him. Woody’s the kind of guy that’d sit
in the back of the room and judge really harshly.
(24:19 – 24:59)
Woody’s that kind of guy that talks about the steps, and God, and he’s grateful for
everything, and he just, everything’s funny to him, and there’s nothing funny about
nothing, you know. And here he comes, and on a good day, when things aren’t really
that bad in my life, I can kind of handle a guy, being around a guy like Woody, but this is
not a good day. And here he comes, and so I go up, and I shake his hand, I said, you
know, I went into some little spiel, I don’t know what I said to him, you know, something
along the lines of, you know, I’m sorry I let you and the guys in AA down, like I imagined
everybody in AA went into mourning because I drank or something.
(25:01 – 25:50)
You know, I remember apologizing to him, and I started telling him I had these plans, and
I started telling him about the plans, about getting out of there, and I asked him if he’d
help me, do you know anybody that can help me get out on bail, and I’m going to beat
this, and I’m going to get into a good halfway house, and I started telling him, not like
that one I was in, I started telling him what was wrong with the one I was in, and I was
going to get some, they used to have money for alcoholism then, for voc rehab money,
that would pay for you to go to school from the government, and I was telling him about
my plan to do that, and maybe I’ll be a doctor, or a lawyer, or something, you know, and
what he’s, he’s just shaking his head looking at me, and what he says to me, he says,
kid, who are you kidding? He said, you’re not going to stay sober. He said, who are you
trying to fool here? You haven’t hit a bottom. You haven’t surrendered.
(25:50 – 26:02)
Kid, you’re not going to make it. And I didn’t say anything to him because I don’t do
confrontation well sober. He’d give me a pint of whiskey, I’d have been all over him, but
sober, I’m this guy.
(26:03 – 26:26)
I’m the guy who withdraws, and I’ll think at you. And I sat in that meeting, and I thought
at him, I thought at him deeply, and I went back to my cell that night, and I ran those
scenarios through my head about, you know, what an idiot that guy is, what is he saying
that to me for, you know, I don’t need this negativity. I need positive reinforcement here.
(26:26 – 26:36)
I don’t need this negative stuff. You know, and I’m thinking, you know, what’s he, hit a
bottom, what’s he talking, he doesn’t know anything about me. He doesn’t know, I’ve
lost everything.
(26:36 – 26:46)
What does he mean, hit a bottom? Him with his Cadillac and his big home and his good
job and his wife and kids. He don’t know nothing about me. Surrender, surrender what?
There’s nothing left of me.
(26:47 – 26:57)
A couple years ago, I had some stuff, but that’s all gone now. I don’t know what he’s
talking about, surrender. I know exactly what he’s talking about today.
(26:58 – 27:13)
What he saw, looked at me the way I’ve looked at probably over a thousand guys and
institutions that I’ve been involved in nonstop for a little over 26 years. I’ve never gone
to less than two H&I meetings a week. And I see myself in those guys every single week.
(27:14 – 27:41)
And what he saw, is he saw a guy that was dying of alcoholism, that had repeatedly and
continually burnt his life to the ground and yet was insisting on being at the helm of his
own ship in spite of what was happening to him. And I couldn’t see that. And I didn’t
know when Woody said surrender, surrender what? Surrender what? There’s only one
thing.
(27:42 – 27:48)
I have to give up. And I believe this with everything in me. One thing.
(27:49 – 28:05)
It’s the hardest thing a guy like me will ever surrender and give up. And it’s not the
house, it’s not the job, it’s not the relationships, it’s not the family. I’ve seen guys
surrender, give the thing up and they’re still making six figures a year and have big
homes and never went to jail or nothing.
(28:06 – 28:23)
And they can surrender that one thing. And then there are other guys that can’t. And
they’ll go all the way down past where I went and they’ll be the guys that I’ve known
over the years that drank themselves into oblivion in some cheap hotel somewhere and
then they threw up while they were passed out and they drowned in their own vomit.
(28:23 – 28:39)
Or the guys that hang themselves or overdose on drugs or get shot in robberies that get
out of control. Nice guys that would never hurt anybody. And they go in there and they
pull a gun at the wrong time and shoot somebody and then they get shot.
(28:39 – 28:50)
And it just gets away from them. Because they can’t give up the one thing. And I didn’t
know what that one thing was until I heard a guy named Chuck, Chuck Chamberlain talk
in early sobriety.
(28:50 – 29:01)
When I heard him talk I realized that this one thing it had been surrendered within me
coming off my last drunk and I didn’t do it. It was really surrender. I was surrendered by
the bottle.
(29:02 – 29:16)
And what that thing was was my judgment. In step three, when it says we made a
decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God. I didn’t know I didn’t know
what they were talking about.
(29:17 – 29:40)
I know what I try and I’m the guy who tries to turn my life over to God and I think my will
is with it but I don’t know what my will is so I’m retaining my will. And it wasn’t until I
heard an attorney say this he said, you know he’s talking about wills and he said you
know what your will your last will is, don’t you? It’s your last judgment. You judge these
people to be idiots they don’t get nothing these people you judge to be good they get
something.
(29:41 – 30:01)
And what I’m doing is I come into Alcoholics Anonymous and I tried some of the stuff you
suggest I’m trying to turn my life over to God but I’m retaining my will and if you do that
it’s like God, here’s my life and there’s a list coming of how it better go. Because I still
I’m the great I am. I’m the guy who knows.
(30:05 – 31:08)
And I I didn’t stay sober and after I got out of that county jail a kind kind judge sentenced
me to two years in a state penitentiary and then stayed the commitment he said that if
you get good PO reports good UAs make the restitution do everything you’re supposed
to do you come back in front of me in a year and if you’ve done all that we’ll reduce this
down to a misdemeanor and you’ll be alright and if not you’re going to go to the two
years. And I’m in this place called the Ark House which is it’s not even a treatment center
really it’s a homeless shelter run by a member of Alcoholics Anonymous on the north
side of Pittsburgh a guy named Chuck K. And I’m in this place I’m not drinking day in and
day out and week in and week out and month in and month out and I’m just getting it up
to here. See I’m the guy that when I stop drinking for all practical purposes that is when I
begin to suffer from alcoholism.
(31:09 – 32:05)
But it’s such a subtle suffering that it doesn’t make any sense and I spent a lot of time in
therapy with some great psychiatrists but it never touched my alcoholism. I took all the
medications that were available at the day and it never did anything except eventually
gave me just enough relief to hunger for more and eventually set off the phenomenon of
craving or at least the obsession for more of an effect. I tried all that stuff and I don’t
know what’s wrong with me but when I stop drinking this restless irritable and discontent
thing the problem with that for me is it’s not big restless big irritable big discontent it’s
subtle it goes right below the horizon and it’s just a slow emptiness in here that just
gnaws away at my resolve not to drink.
(32:06 – 1:12:29)
And you know what it’s like I saw this movie one time about this guy who was an
American spy and he got captured by I think it was the Chinese and they’re trying to
torture secret some kind of information out of this guy and they’ve beaten this guy with
rubber hoses for days and this is a tough guy he won’t tell them nothing and then finally
this little doctor this little Chinese doctor comes into the room and he says he says I give
you Chinese water torture you tell me everything and this big macho spy says water
torture what are you going to do doctor I ain’t telling you nothing he says I drop a drop of
water on your forehead every few seconds and you tell me everything the guy says doc
doc you hit me with rubber hoses for a week now didn’t give you a drop of water hit me
with a fire hose hit me with buckets of water go do your best he says no no one drop and
he hits him with that first drop as he’s strapped in that chair he laps it on hit me with
another another nothing there after a week he’ll tell them anything and that’s the way
my alcoholism is it doesn’t make any sense to me this malady of my spirit that this thing
that comes over me when I stop drinking no matter how tremendous my resolve is to not
drink anymore no matter how much I get it that it is a bad idea that I will burn my life to
the ground because I know I have the phenomenon of craving I know I have the allergy
but the knowledge of having the allergy and the phenomenon of craving never has
helped me I’ve drank knowing all about that because I got a malady of my spirit that
always drives me back to drinking the book says there comes a time when I have no
effective mental defense against the first drink the memory of the suffering the
humiliation of that last run have no effect on me at all it just goes into some kind of blind
spot where I can’t see it anymore and all I can see is the illusion the illusion of maybe
there’ll be some ease and comfort in it again like there was when I was 20 years old and
so I’m in this place and I’m not drinking for as long as I can take it and I went on my last
run I went on the last run because I didn’t know what else to do I thought I’m dying here
and I feel like that sitting in the middle of the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous going to
meetings and I’m dying here I used to get this sick, sick, lonely feeling in AA like it was
all of you and then there’s me and all I can do is pretend here and I know I’m the phony
guy I try to talk about being happy and being everything that you are and I know I’m the
phony guy here because nothing has really changed within me and I can’t take it
anymore and I go on my last run and now I’m facing two years in a state penitentiary
and I have no place to live and I’m living in this park and I don’t want to do this anymore
I got to a place that it talks about in a vision for you where you can’t imagine life with it
anymore because I can’t jumpstart the party and yet I can’t imagine life without it either
because abstinence is just it’s such a depressing, lonely place for me and I feel like I’m
stuck and so I went to a bridge where the bottle of Richard’s Wild Irish Rose to take my
life and I’m not a suicidal guy but if drinking sucks and not drinking sucks suicide can
start to look like a good idea to me because it doesn’t look like there’s door number
three and I don’t get that AA is door number three I don’t get that because I’ve been to
AA meetings and I don’t think that you have an answer for me I remember one time in a
halfway house I was just so depressed and bored and I just feel awful saying to this old
timer what do you do for fun here? he says oh we go to a lot of meetings I said anything
else? he says well about twice a year we have an AA dance you ever been to an AA
dance with untreated alcoholism? I remember doing that one time they took me in a van
from a halfway house into an AA dance and I’m standing plastered against the wall
remembering why I used to drink a pint of whiskey this would have been a good dance
this is not a good dance this is torture I can’t imagine life without alcohol and I can’t
imagine life without it if AA to me had good news and bad news the good news is that
maybe if I went to thousands of these stupid meetings I’ll stay sober the rest of my life
and the bad news I’m going to live a long time so I went to this bridge and I’m just done I
just want this to stop I just want it to stop no more but I’m a coward and I’ve always been
a coward I can talk a good game and I can act tough in the jail cell in the cell blocks on
the streets but I’ve always been a coward really and I’m afraid I’m afraid it will hurt or
something I don’t know what I’m afraid of the very last moment I can’t jump and I break
my hand on this piece of metal on that bridge and I started sobbing uncontrollably
cursing myself for being a coward little did I know that that was my last run it would
have never occurred to me little did I know that as it talks about as Bill talked about I
was about to be rocketed into the fourth dimension of existence I didn’t know what that
was I was sponsoring this bright guy who’s a professor taught astronomy and
biochemistry and physics and science teacher and I said to Rob I said Rob what’s this
fourth dimension? that sounds kind of science fiction what’s that about? and he said to
me he says well a lot of physicists recent this century started coming up with the theory
that there was four dimensions he says actually now we think there’s even more than
that Einstein and some of those guys said there were four dimensions he said in the
beginning they used to think that there was three dimensions the dimension of width the
dimension of height and the dimension of depth and he said Einstein said the fourth
dimension was time so being a self-centered alcoholic I thought well yeah yeah yeah
what’s that have to do with me? really and Rob said well maybe you’ve spent your whole
life worrying about the past or anguishing over the future maybe if you were to enter the
fourth dimension you’d hear this loud pop as your head came out of your butt and you’d
just show up into your life all of a sudden and that’s why the old timers when I was new
in sobriety in this struggling to put the steps in place in my life which is a very painful
process for a guy like me and it’s a very painful process this staying sober before you
turn the corner it’s a hard deal and the new guy I’d go to my first sponsor and I’d be
crazy I’d be nuts and I’d just be spewing out all these things I’m afraid of and it’s gonna
happen and then by next week and then I’m probably gonna go to prison and he’d say to
me he’d say but right this second this moment is everything alright? well yeah yeah but
by next weekend no no he said no this second is everything alright? well yeah but I’m
gonna be out of a house I don’t have a place to live no no this second is everything well
yeah he said good okay when it’s no longer good this second we’ve got something to
deal with here and I didn’t really realize what I didn’t realize is he is trying to center me
in the only place that I will find God it talks about it in chapter 5 there’s one who has all
power that one is God may you find him in a place that most of us never visit now right
and as I’m saying that there’s some of you aren’t even here you’re thinking about who
you’re gonna tell that to you’re thinking you’re thinking you’re thinking about right you’re
not even here now right and I’m not most of the time I just fantasy I’ll go to heaven and
St. Pete will meet me at the gate and say well Bob you’re on earth 80 some years we
think you’re actually present three months the rest of the time you were thinking if I got
three months I got that in Alcoholics Anonymous and I got that I got that sponsoring the
guys and really being present listening to their fifth steps the power of being other
centered by my how I feel about you um so I can’t I can’t kill myself and I I ended up I
was hitchhiking cross country running from the law because I know I’m doing two years
and now I’m starting to cross state lines and I end up in Las Vegas and I’m I’m in this
detox and I’m really sick and after they dried me out a little bit they let me go to the AA
meetings in there and something had happened to me in that hospital and I’ll tell you I
don’t talk about this too much because I’m not I’m suspect of the experience but one of
the one of the counselors in there asked me I was scared to death because I really was
done I don’t want to drink no more but I also I’m painfully aware that I’m going to drink
again I’m getting it I’m getting it of this I’m getting powerlessness on a level I never
suspected it’s bad enough to be powerless over alcohol once you start drinking I got that
years ago now what’s horrifying to me is I get it that I’m the guy even when I make up
my mind really this time I’m never going to touch that stuff that it’s not that it’s just a
matter of time I always go back to it alcoholics of my type with untreated alcoholism the
question is never if I will drink again the question is when and some of us it’s 10, 15, 20
years but the question is when with untreated alcoholism I just it’s a process of throwing
stuff between me and the drink but the drink’s coming for a guy like me unless I have a
spiritual awakening and stay awake which is a hard thing to do I’m a sleepy kind of guy I
get just me I get me right on here so I’m in this place and I go into the meetings of
alcoholics and I’m sitting there you gotta understand I’ve been going to meetings for
seven and a half years but I’m sitting in these meetings and for the first time in my life
I’m sitting there and you know I have this judgment thing this thing in my head I can’t
shut off I couldn’t hear anything in the meetings because I can’t I can’t stop running a
dialogue over top of what the people are saying I’m really listening to my thoughts more
than I’m listening to them and when you’re doing that and you’re picking them apart
trying to find fault with them it’s hard to connect with anything here but this time I ain’t
doing that this time I’m just sitting there and I’m just so demoralized I am open and I
found myself sitting there and nodding my head as I’m listening to them and thinking
secretly to myself my god I’m like that I’m like those people I drank like that I failed like
that I hurt like that and yet I looked at these people and they weren’t like me anymore
they were those guys that were happy and sober and this counselor said to me she said
so how you doing I said oh I’m doing great I was doing terrible I said I’m doing great she
said well what’s different you’ve been in and out of treatment centers and places like
this for all these years what’s different now and I didn’t know what to say to her so I said
to her I just pulled it out of the air I said well I just took the third step I don’t know what
the third step is but it’s an AA sounding kind of thing to say and it was good I mean it
was a good thing she’s writing up she said really oh that’s great she said did you say the
prayer on page 63 in the big book and I almost said yes but I was afraid she was going to
ask me what the prayer said and I’d be caught and I said no no I just kind of did it my
way then she gave me this look like I wanted to see if I’d spilled something on myself
you know this look and I didn’t think nothing of it moved on and I’m sitting on my bed
one day and they’re getting ready to discharge me and I am terrified because I know I’m
going to drink again it may not be the day I get out maybe I’ll put it off maybe if I’m
lucky I can put it off a couple months but I know the truth I don’t have what it takes no
matter how much I make up my mind this whole thing about just don’t drink no matter
what man if I could do that I wouldn’t be here now really but I am not that guy and I start
I’m just so demoralized I remember for some reason she said page 63 I open the big
book to page 63 in the middle of the page is this prayer and it’s it’s not it’s a funny kind
of prayer it’s got those old ancient words like thee and thou and all that stuff and I start
reading I don’t get it and then there’s a line in the middle of the prayer it says relieve me
of the bondage of self and when I read that line something happened to me and I can’t
even put it into words and I threw that book across that hospital room and I started
sobbing and I guess on some level that I wasn’t even conscious of I guess I must have
known that when I said relieve me of the bondage of self I started I guess I knew that the
reason I will drink again and the reason I will probably take my own life and the reason I
burnt my life to the ground and I continue to do that is because of me and I can’t get
away from me and I can’t change me and not from a lack of trying but I can’t and I’ve
been to the best psychiatrist I’ve tried the medications I’ve tried religion I’ve tried
churches I’ve tried I’ve tried those weekend seminars that just change your life for about
two weeks and I started sobbing and I fell down onto my knees and from the bottom of
my heart to a God I don’t even I suspect I don’t even know if it’s there or not I begged
something to happen I begged this God for help something happened to me and I don’t
know I don’t know what it was I suspected the experience it may have been it may be a
combination of extreme repressed emotions and DTs I don’t know or maybe I had some
kind of spiritual deal I don’t know but I’ll tell you what came out of the experience was a
knowledge that if I could throw myself into alcohol it’s synonymous as obsessively as I
threw myself into drinking and trying to arrange life to suit myself that maybe I would be
alright maybe I could survive this thing and I got out of that hospital and I started going
to I went to 15 meetings a week and I went to 15 and when I’m not in a meeting I’m in a
coffee shop with somebody talking about alcohol it’s synonymous and I’m doing that
because I can’t be by myself right because I’m with myself I’m in the presence of
somebody that ain’t real big on me I got this mind that just won’t leave me alone it just
starts crazy and my thinking is not you can’t even tell anybody about it because it’s so
childish and pathetic and stupid but it never lets up you know I can walk into a meeting
I’ve never had this happen walk into a meeting big meeting don’t know anybody there
just like everybody’s looking at me where am I going to sit I’ll sit over there no don’t sit
over there they’ll think you like them don’t sit over there no sit over there now they saw
you looking over there now if you don’t sit over there now they saw me looking too okay
I’ll sit there I end up in the back of the room spinning in my head until I eventually can’t
stay in the meeting because I know everybody’s thinking stuff about me right just crazy
stuff I I used to get this will sound ridiculous I’ll tell you my first year of sobriety I was
dying of cancer seven, eight hundred times I’m not I just don’t accept every time I get an
I don’t get headaches I get brain tumors you know I just I can’t tell you how many just
just deep dramatic deathbed speeches I’ve made up in my head as the people from A.A.
come into the hospital oh it just does oh and they’re good they’re just to bring a tear to
your eye they’re just great so I’m not so I gotta go to a lot of meetings and I’m trying to
put these steps into place and I got sober at a time that I think of as the dark ages and I
knew I’d heard some I went to conventions I’d heard speakers talk about the twelve step
process in this book and yet I lived in a community where everybody’s trying to work the
steps out of the twelve by twelve and I tried my first couple years and what kept me
physically sober for my first few years is I went on a lot of twelve step work and I went
on a lot of twelve step work and I got real involved in the fellowship and I’ll tell you
something you work with enough other alcoholics it may not get you it may not do what
you need to have done but it can keep you physically sober for a long time and I had an
experience I’m trying to I’m the guy that when I I’m prone to deep, deep depressions I
had a psychiatrist one time I actually had two psychiatrists tell me I probably have to
have some kind of medication all my life and I stand before you and I have taken nothing
nothing in all these years but but that I’ll tell you that requires a high level of
involvement in three things in trusting God in cleaning house and in helping others
especially in order to be relieved of the bondage of self which is when these doctors see
when I get into these depressions it looks like clinical depression and it looks like I’m the
guy with some kind of chemical thing but it ain’t it’s the depression of the superly, overly
self involved I just get my life and my emotions kind of on me like this like that creature
in Alien that attaches itself to your face right? and what happens is my spirit starts to
wither and die because I’m suffocating myself with myself and my own feelings and me
and I can’t and when you’re like that it’s horrible because there’s a loneliness that comes
with that because it looks like the world is so far away and I didn’t realize that self
centered people like me don’t never feel like we fit out here because the truth is I ain’t
out here I’m up here I’m looking in the wrong direction and I’m sober a year and a half
one night and I’m sinking into a deep depression and I’ve been to two meetings that day
and I don’t know what to do and it’s about 10 almost 10 o’clock at night and I asked God
I said God please help me and I don’t know and I look at the clock and I’m so ever been
so depressed that you feel like you weigh a thousand pounds? I can’t get off the sofa I’m
disabled by my emotions and I look at the clock and it’s almost 10 o’clock and there’s a
meeting at 10.15 not too far from my apartment so I don’t know if it was God’s grace or
a combination of God’s grace and an extreme effort of will I muscled myself off that sofa
I shuffled out to my car like a mope I got in that car I drove to that meeting I’m sitting in
the back of the meeting and I don’t hear nothing because I’m thinking about my life I’m
still a victim of a delusion that I can wrest happiness and satisfaction out of this world by
managing well which means I will think myself to some level of betterness right? if you
ever try to think yourself out of a depression it’s like trying to dig yourself out of a hole
you just go deeper and the more I ponder my life the bleaker it is the more you know to
get into that everything looks just terrible and the job I got is never going anywhere I’ll
always be alone and I’ll never get laid and I’ll never have anything and nobody will ever
love me and I don’t know what it is about me that when I’m depressed like that and
really self-centered I want this compulsion to draw conclusions about my life and they’re
depressing conclusions and when you’re like that it seems like you’ve always been that
way I had one time in an earlier bout of that I called my sponsor and I was feeling awful
and he says well how long have you felt this way? well I’ve always felt this way he said
no you were great the other night at the meeting you were fine well I was probably in
denial but it looks that way when you’re like that it looks like it’s always going to be and
it’s hard and I get I go I sit in the back of the meeting and I can’t hear nothing right?
because I’m the big shows on the inside right? I’m in here pouring in my life across the
room there’s a guy who’s coming off a drunk and he’s in bad shape he’s sitting there and
he’s grabbing himself and he’s rocking back and forth like he wants to jump out of his
skin and then he can’t sit and then he gets back he gets up and he’s pacing like a caged
animal behind me back and forth and then he goes into the bathroom which is right near
where I’m sitting and you can hear him dry heaving in there and I’ll tell you this guy is
annoying the crap out of me I’ll tell you I got problems here I’m just I’m trying to figure
out my life I have this illusion I’m about to figure it out I’m about to come to some kind of
deal and this guy’s just distracting me and the meeting’s over I’ve heard nothing in the
meeting and this guy Charlie P. is the secretary and I stay after because I’ve been trying
to do service and I stay after and I’m trying to set the chairs up with Charlie and him and
I are the last two guys to leave Duffy’s and we’re standing on the front front porch and
he’s locking up and Charlie’s on his way to work because he’s got to work the graveyard
shift and I’m looking over and this guy who’s coming off the drunk is laying on the
ground in front of my car I will have to step over him to get in my car and go home and
finish thinking right which I would have done except Charlie’s there and Charlie’s going
what about this guy you know and Charlie’s got a big mouth if I step over this guy and go
home he’s going to tell everybody in AA what a lousy member I am so I go over to him
and he’s a mess he’s peed his pants and he smells and he’s pitiful and he doesn’t have
any insurance or money there’s no at this time in Las Vegas they hadn’t opened the west
care detox yet and there was a period of a little maybe a couple years where if you
didn’t have insurance or money man you were in trouble because there was no there
was a care unit but they only had to have big time money and stuff to go in there there
was no place to take these guys except there was one alternative there’s two
alternatives you either had to sit with them 24 hours a day for a couple days give them a
shot of whiskey about every hour which I wasn’t in a position to do I had to go to work in
the morning and there’s nobody I could get for backup or you could take them to the
county hospital but it was tedious because you’d go down to that county hospital as I’ve
been on many occasions with these drunks and you’d sit there and they’d make you sit
in that waiting room for five, six hours sometimes because they don’t want to deal with
these guys now they have to because they get some government money but they don’t
want to because they know it’s a waste of time there’s people that are really dying here
these guys are probably going to be back in two weeks anyway they treat you like a redheaded stepchild so I’ve got this guy in my car and he smells and I’m driving down to the
hospital and I’m thinking to myself Jesus Christ isn’t it enough that my life is crap I’ve got
to do this stuff doesn’t anybody else step up to the plate here in AA except me you know
I’ve been doing this I’m not going to get any sleep I’ll go to work in the morning I’ll have
a bad attitude I’ll probably get fired but it’s a crappy job anyway but I ain’t saying that
I’m just thinking and I get down there and we’re sitting there and he’s talking to me and
I’m giving him cigarettes and I’m getting him orange juice and putting sugar in it and
giving it to him because there wasn’t any honey and he starts to tell me about himself
and he starts to tell me about the shame that he can’t drink away anymore from what he
did to his mom and dad who really loved him and he tells me about how much he’s
thought about committing suicide but he’s such a coward and he can’t do it and how
much he hates himself and then he says something to me that really gets me he says I
don’t even know why you’re wasting time with me he says I’m not like you people in AA
you see I always drink again and he’s telling me about me and I sat there in summertime
in the wee hours of the morning I fell in love with this guy I don’t even know why really
there’s nothing he could ever do for me I mean he has nothing he could ever give me
this guy is probably not even going to stay sober a year and give me some kind of credit
for something I mean this guy has got nothing he could do for me except that he
suffered from alcoholism exactly like I suffered from alcoholism and I I finally checked
him in and I’m driving home in the wee hours of the morning and the sun’s coming up
and I’m crying I’m sobbing and I’m sobbing because I’ve never felt more complete more
whole more right about myself and about my life as I did in that moment and I finally got
it I finally got why why the old timers from day one had been pushing me into 12 step
work and pushing me into doing this stuff and I would do it reluctantly because they
knew one day if I did it long enough I would turn the corner and I would claim my
purpose here and in that light the rest of the steps started to fall into place because I
was I was just I had just scratched the surface really I’m real big on the steps out of the
big book especially step I’ll tell you nothing I don’t think there’s anything I’ve ever done
next to 12 step work and alcoholics on them I don’t think that’s changed my life more
than the four step in the book and when I was it took me a couple years to do it out of
the book and the part that changed my life the most is a part that it doesn’t seem like
two parts that people don’t talk about that much you know in the resentment section it
spends a whole page it gives you seven death threats on page 66 I mean it’s just they’re
hammering you with this stuff it’s gonna kill you it’s poison I mean it’s infinitely great and
then after they tell you you gotta get rid of this stuff it’s gonna kill you and then it says
and by the way you can’t so you can’t wish you were any more in alcohol what the hell
did you tell me for and then here’s what it says it says only this is it this is the one thing
this is the course it says this was our course we realized how the people who had
harmed us were were spiritually sick and I got that part oh yeah they’re sick and they’re
idiots too you know what I mean but it says more than that and then it says it goes on to
say that even though we didn’t like their symptoms and the way they affected us that
they and then this is the part that got me they like ourselves were sick too in other
words they’re asking me to get something to connect the dots inside me I gotta make
something real I gotta get it that I am this guy I am this guy I am like this guy I have to
get off my high horse of judgment stop playing God and really put myself in their shoes
and understand if I was afraid like they were afraid if I was raised like they were raised if
I had everything going on inside of me that’s going on inside of them and at times I do
how I easily easily could have done to another human being what they did to me and
then all of a sudden all of a sudden all of a sudden and the separation starts to go away
because of what I’m looking at is I’m looking at me maybe me on a bad day but I’m
looking at me and I start to see how this person is like me and when I did that with all
those resentments what happened is I started to dismantle the judgment machine that
was inside of me the thing that kept me from allowing God to have my life see in the
section between step 3 and step 4 it talks about step 3 can have little permanent effect
unless at once followed by a strenuous effort to be rid of the things that have been
blocking me see I am blocked from turning my will and my life over to the care of God
until I dismantle the judgment machine the thing that has me with a death grip on my
own life that’s keeping me like this from you right until I dismantled that I’m the guy
that’s constantly giving my life to God and think I’m taking it back I ain’t taking it back I
never gave it to him I still got it I’m still playing God and when I’m when I tell you
something this that nothing this amazed me because I all of a sudden I started to the
exact nature of my wrongs was really how wrong I had been about my mother and father
I blamed them for a lot of stuff and they never did anything out of line they loved me all
the women in my life that I judged so harshly and the bosses and the police and the
people I had worked with and I built cases against all these people and when I stood in
their shoes and I looked at it from an other centered rather than a self centered
perspective and I saw it through their eyes man the world changed for me and I’ve never
been the same since and then the last part it says disregard it says disregarding the
other person involved entirely I had to push I am a master at finding something wrong
with you and hiding my behavior behind it that’s one of the most dangerous things we
say in alcoholics in my view and I said this for years and didn’t realize and I started
feeling bad about it when we say looking for my part no because if you’re looking for
your part this is a whole this is a part there’s another part so if I’m looking for my part
I’m still in the back of my mind holding on to the idea they got a part too and I didn’t get
why I was out of line with that until I’m dealing with a guy sponsored who tried to make
amends to someone he’s talking well I cleaned up my side of the street and he wanted
he was pissed because they didn’t make amends to him because he still hung on to his
part it was his part and their part the book says doesn’t say anything about part
disregarding the other person involved entirely we resolutely look for our own mistakes
we don’t even consider them and for the first time in my life I had to look at my own
behavior not in the light of what wrongs they’ve done but let’s imagine the book says we
were prepared to look at it from an entirely different angle am I really willing to do that
am I really looking willing to look at what kind of a son I was on its own light and not hide
behind the indiscretions of my parents and their imperfections see I was the kind of guy
if I worked for a guy and I caught him doing something wrong that was justification to
steal from him if I was in a relationship I could find something wrong with you or maybe
if I caught you cheating on me or even if I caught you looking like you were cheating that
was a pass to go cheat on you about 10 times and then I could feel justified and the book
is asking me to look at my own behavior in its own light and I can’t hide behind the
wrong doings of others and for the first time in my life I started to take the responsibility
for who I was and I started to clear away the things in me that had been blocking me I
didn’t know from God it looked like I was only clearing away the things that blocked me
from you but I tell you a funny thing happened as I cleared away the separation between
me and you God showed up he showed up there was an old poem in the grapevine it was
kind of a corny poem it said I sought myself and could not see I sought my God he
eluded me I sought my brother I found all three and a funny thing happens is as I got
closer to you and I reduced the separation between me and you is that I started to find
God in my heart as I started to forgive you and understand you and love you as is I
started to feel God’s presence and I didn’t try to directly access his presence it came as
a result of getting my self-centered will and judgment out of the way God showed up and
I am like just like Bill Wilson I am constantly haunted by worldly clamors that keep
coming back in here and fears I just went through a thing I was crazy for about a day and
a half this week I made a decision based on self and got into this one stock in the stock
market for a lot of oh my God and I went upside down a lot of money in a couple days I
made a lot of money but you know the truth is I’m alright the truth is that stuff doesn’t
make you whole I mean if money and material possessions were a treatment for
alcoholism then rich people wouldn’t be blowing their brains out in mansions from
alcoholism but the truth is the demographic of people of alcoholics that commit suicide
that’s the the highest are the ones that are very wealthy there’s only one thing that
keeps me centered here and that’s a God in my life that I trust and I basically come to
the table with that because I get it I can’t trust me I clear away the stuff between me and
you and I claim my purpose which is to go out and help people just like me I’ll tell you I
get I don’t know what it is about me I attract a lot of people that come and ask me to
sponsor them that are sober a long time over 20 years and their life is like really upside
down and some of these people make a lot of money like over 100 grand a year and the
more money they make the broker they get right and they see the trappings and they
think I’m going to teach them how to manage money or make more money or some crap
that’s why they ask me and then we start getting into the steps it’s always the same
thing we always without exception uncover unmade financial amends that they think
they got away with and I’m telling you it’s to the point where I just go right there now
with guys like that because I can get it that’s the deal and in inevitability there’s
something that they haven’t done I have a guy now that’s a guy that’s a guy that’s a guy
that’s a guy that’s a that’s a guy that’s a guy that’s a guy that’s a a that’s a guy that’s a
guy that’s a guy that’s a guy that’s a that’s a guy that’s a guy that’s a a guy that’s a guy
I’m an alcoholic like Bill Wilson. Bill Wilson had a conversation with Father Ed Dowling
after he’d been sober a lot of years, and he told Ed, he said, Ed, I don’t know what’s
wrong with me. My life’s good now.
It’s better than it’s been in a while. I’m kind of through those depressions and stuff, and
yet I’m not satisfied. I have this, it’s not enough.
Nothing seems to really be enough. And Ed said to Bill, he said, Bill, he laughed, he said,
you have what we in the clergy think of as God’s greatest blessing, divine dissatisfaction.
Because it pushes you, drags you, and shoves you, sometimes screaming into being
more than what you are.
And it is this divine dissatisfaction that almost chilled me in my hands. And when I got to
Alcoholics Anonymous, and when I came to you and I came to this process that started
to clear away enough of me to bring a God into my life, and I have a sponsor, and I have
commitments, and I’m tethered to AA. I look today just as serious about Alcoholics
Anonymous as I looked when I was new.
You can watch my feet today, and you can watch my feet 20 years ago, and you’ll see
the same guy. And you’ll see the same guy through times of abundance and through
times of fear, and I never change the plan. I show up among you.
(1:12:30 – 1:13:40)
I’m active in all three legacies, unity, service, and recovery, because it’s a whole
package here. It’s like a three-legged stool. I take away one of those legs, and I’m doing
a balancing act on two legs.
I do it all here, because it’s my life. I’m not the guy that’s okay when he stops drinking.
I’m the guy that needs Alcoholics Anonymous with everything in me, with everything in
me.
If you’re new here, I want to welcome you to AA. I don’t know if you’ve suffered from
alcoholism or suffer from alcoholism as I do. I know that not everybody relates to me, but
I’ll tell you, if you have suffered from alcoholism the way I do, and you can find yourself
as I did in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and you will get with someone in your
group or area that knows about that book and can take you through that process, I will
promise you that there will come a time as you turn the corner and start to give it away
to others, where you will look around you, and you will not see a person on the face of
the earth that you would rather be than you.
Thank you for my life.