AA - Alcoholics Anonymous
April 28, 2024
(0:08 – 0:52)
My name is Scott Redman, I’m an alcoholic, and thanks to God, good sponsorship, the 12
Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, I haven’t had a drink since April 22nd, 1985. And I want
to thank Brian and Dave for coming and getting me, and I was a little nervous until I got
them both a couple of 40-ounce bottles of beer and it leveled off his driving and stuff like
that, because all the crack they had smoked before they picked me up was really, he
was all over the road for a while, and it really, really made me nervous. And we had a
great time, I had a great time, I don’t know if they had a great time, but there you go.
(0:54 – 1:08)
When I don’t know anybody, somebody’s first name and I can’t hold on to the
information, I call him pal, so I called him pal for a long time this afternoon. But I realized
his name when he got out of the car and Brian said, God damn it, Dave, get back in the
car. I remembered his name.
(1:11 – 1:26)
Are there members of Al-Anon here? Any members of Al-Anon? Great, I’m really glad
you’re here. Great. No, you got two? You got two? I’m really glad you’re here, I’m going
to be talking about Al-Anon some this weekend.
(1:26 – 1:52)
I want to thank you so, so much for inviting me out and allowing me to participate in
your weekend. I want to thank Joe for getting me out, and my friend Gary is here, who I
just adore, and some of you I met on my last trip out to Salina, which was very exciting. I
got to drive out with Joe, who drove as if he had been fired from a cannon, actually.
(1:53 – 2:10)
And I want to ask you a couple of favors this weekend. I’m going to ask them now. I’m an
alcoholic, so I’ll start with the favors, and then I have two favors for you.
(2:10 – 2:25)
One is, I’m going to talk about the 12 steps, I’m going to work my way through the 12
steps, I’m going to finish off on Sunday. One of the things I’m going to finish off with is,
I’m going to discuss some of the stuff that Emmett Fox has written in a book called
Sermon on the Mount. I don’t know if all of you are familiar with it.
(2:25 – 2:37)
It’s a wonderful, wonderful book. If you don’t have it, I would urge you to get it. For no
other reason than it’s one of the pieces of material that the framers of the big book were
looking at when they framed the big book.
(2:40 – 3:03)
One of the things that’s been tremendously meaningful and helpful to me is the section
in the back of the book, which is the section on the Lord’s Prayer, where he takes the
Lord’s Prayer sentence by sentence and he pulls it apart and he writes a chapter on each
sentence. The chapter on forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass
against us has changed my life, literally changed my life. I’m going to be talking about
that to some extent on Sunday.
(3:04 – 3:19)
The thing that I want to ask you first is to know this. Please don’t take anything that I say
about the 12 steps or the program of Alcoholics Anonymous as an indictment of what
you’re doing or what you believe in AA. I’m telling you, I come here convinced of one
thing.
(3:19 – 3:25)
I have no idea how you should do this. I really don’t. I have no idea how you should do
this.
(3:25 – 3:50)
I don’t know how it should be done. I just know how I’ve been doing it. The only reason
that I would imagine that I get asked to do these things, and I get to ask to do them a
bunch, the only reason that I think I get to do them is not because This time, we were
talking about before, I have one of the guys in my home group, when certain guys get
sort of an attitude about, they start suffering from a certain kind of blowhardism,
although I judge no man.
(3:52 – 4:04)
My friend Dennis always says, oh, he’s over sober. Man, I love that. I love that.
(4:04 – 4:28)
And boy, I’ve gotten over sober on more than one occasion. No question about it. But if I
have one qualification at all, it’s that I have, for over 15 years, since I’m 10 months
sober, I have actively worked with other alcoholics and Alcoholics Anonymous, and to the
best of my ability, I haven’t played God with them.
(4:28 – 4:40)
I’ve worked the 12 steps with them. I’ve walked closer to a power greater than ourselves
so that we can have a personality change that will bring about sobriety one day at a
time. That’s the only thing I know that I have done.
(4:41 – 4:53)
Sometimes people say the only step I’ve ever done perfectly is step one. Well, not for
me. I’ve probably worked step one because some people, I guess, think that step one is
the not drinking step.
(4:53 – 5:15)
Step 12 is actually the not drinking step. Step one is I’m a moron and I’m screwed step.
And I would estimate, considering the wreckage that I’ve caused in sobriety at times, I
know that comes as a shock, but that I’ve probably worked step one less perfectly than
any other step.
(5:16 – 5:40)
That most of the discomfort and unpleasantness that I’ve generated in AA, since I’ve
been a member of AA, has come from my inability to accept unmanageability in certain
parts of my life. You know, I like my wife, but she doesn’t mind. I’ve got to tell you, this is
just one of the guys I sponsored the other day.
(5:41 – 5:56)
We had a great thing together. We deal with the defective character of fear of
confrontation a lot. And what I mean by fear of confrontation is I have no fear of… I can
scream at you.
(5:57 – 5:59)
That’s fine. That’s not confrontation. That’s bullying.
(6:00 – 6:03)
I’m fine with that. I can scream and yell and loom. I’m a good loomer.
(6:03 – 6:08)
I like to loom. And I like to repress. I’m good at that.
(6:08 – 6:23)
I’ll just jam it back down and then snub and glower and pout, snub, glower, and pout. But
to stand up and tell you what I need without telling you what to do, that’s a whole other
bag of beans. That’s the way I’d like to live.
(6:23 – 6:29)
I’d like to live that way. To give no crap and take none. Wow, what a design for living.
(6:31 – 6:36)
It’s true. It’s really quite amazing. And we were talking about pushing back.
(6:36 – 6:49)
In other words, confronting somebody in a way, telling them what I need, and pushing
back. Not striking back. Not screaming until they shut up, and not repressing until I, you
know, stab them in their sleep with dull scissors.
(6:51 – 7:12)
Not that I would ever think of such a thing, but I picked that up in my reading. And I was
talking about how I learned to push back in AA. How because I’d been in sponsorial
relationships where I’m not scared of my sponsor, where I’m not being bullied and
beaten up, that I’d been able to practice pushing back a little bit.
(7:12 – 7:17)
Because it’s safe. Because I don’t do that with sponsees. They kind of push back a little
with me.
(7:18 – 7:29)
And mostly I’ve found it with, my wife is a committed member of Al-Anon for 16 years.
She works in an incredible program. And we’ve learned how to fight good a couple years
ago.
(7:29 – 7:33)
More than a couple, because my sons are grown men now, they’re 23 and 20. They’re
baked. They’re done.
(7:35 – 7:43)
They just won’t move out. So they don’t think they’re done, I guess. But I’m not going to,
I won’t start.
(7:45 – 7:51)
Maybe if I move in, don’t give them a forwarding address. I like, I love my kids. It won’t
work.
(7:52 – 8:21)
It doesn’t work. Got the boy, always, someone’s always gone through it in the program,
you know. And my wife said, will you take the boys to the dentist? And now, she had
taken the boys to the dentist the previous 70 times, okay? But I get like huffy and I said,
oh, and what will you be doing while I’m at the dentist with the boys? And she said, what
will I be doing? I’ll be dancing around the house naked, screaming, I’m not at the dentist,
I’m not at the dentist.
(8:24 – 8:42)
So it was a really good example of pushing back. I thought that was really, really well
done. But what I’d like to ask you to do is to just know that I really have no idea what the
right or wrong way is to do this.
(8:42 – 8:56)
Please don’t take anything I say, if you’re doing the complete opposite of what I’m doing
or something vastly different, I have no problem with that. I did not come out here to
piss anyone off. I swear to God.
(8:56 – 9:10)
I didn’t wake up this morning and say, boy, I’m going to come out to Kansas, I’m really
going to piss some people off. It’s absolutely not my intention. So I just ask you to not
take anything I say as an indictment of what you’re doing, number one.
(9:10 – 9:24)
Number two, I might, I might, but I don’t think I will. I don’t think that in the process of
talking for hours and hours this weekend that I’m going to have some sort of God
experience. It could happen.
(9:24 – 9:44)
I’m not saying that it’s not going to happen, but I am more apt to have a God experience
with you. I am more apt to have the experience that I crave in these weekends, talking
to you, hanging out with you before the meeting, sitting and talking with some drunks.
Please let me be a member of your group this weekend.
(9:44 – 9:50)
Don’t make me the speaker. I don’t want to be the speaker. I don’t want to, I’ll become a
circuit drinker eventually.
(9:50 – 10:09)
If this podium becomes a fence between me and Alcoholics Anonymous instead of a
bridge to me and Alcoholics Anonymous, the results will be disaster because I’ll get so
over-sober. It’s ugly. I’m sure you’ve heard it.
(10:09 – 10:24)
It’s not a pretty thing to be around. So please let me, I’m just asking you a favor and
some of you won’t want to because you just don’t like me. But those of you who might
like me, just let me be part of the group this weekend.
(10:24 – 10:45)
Let me hang out with you and let me be part of the deal. That would be a great, great
favor to me. And during the course of the weekend, if there’s anything that you’d like me
to discuss or any questions that you have for me and you’d rather not raise your hand or
just would like me to get to that stuff, please write me a little note and put it up here.
(10:45 – 11:02)
Just put it under the microphone as the weekend goes by. If there’s an area that you’re
having a particularly difficult time with that you want discussed in an open and honest
way or want to talk about, maybe asking how I would apply the 12 steps to it, please feel
free to do that. I got a lot of problems.
(11:03 – 11:07)
I got a lot of problems. I had a lot of problems when I came into Alcoholics Anonymous.
Got a lot less problems now.
(11:07 – 11:12)
Got a lot of problems though. Sponsor a lot of guys. They got a lot of problems.
(11:12 – 11:23)
They’re married to people who have a lot of problems. Everybody’s got a lot of problems.
The difference between my life today and my life before is my life, the centerpiece is not
the problems.
(11:24 – 11:42)
I live happy, joyous, and free the vast majority of the time. I have a quality of life I never
even dreamed of. The people that I have gravitated to in Alcoholics Anonymous are the
people who have talked about their problems in an open and honest way and talked
about the solution that they have for the problems.
(11:42 – 11:50)
To me, the definition of dumping is expressing a problem without seeking a solution.
That to me is dumping. That’s something that I can’t afford to do.
(11:51 – 12:14)
You hear it from new people, what a shock, because they don’t have any solution. What
are they going to share? Our book does say that we meet often so that new people will
have a place to bring their problems to. I don’t come from the school of shut up, you’re a
moron, sit down.
(12:14 – 12:28)
It sounds just like home to me. I wouldn’t have ever had to leave the house for shut up,
you’re a moron, sit down. I also don’t ask people two months to be the main speaker at a
meeting, but that’s a whole other thing.
(12:29 – 12:37)
Those are the two favors I’d like to ask you. I’m going to give a little talk tonight. I’m
going to tell some of my story and talk about some of the stuff that I’m going to be
discussing this weekend.
(12:37 – 12:56)
Tomorrow we have two sessions. I should pretty much try to get through 10 into 11 by
the end of the second session tomorrow and then Sunday morning I’m going to get into
12 and we’re going to talk about the forgiveness thing that I discussed. Tomorrow night
what I’d like to do is have an AA meeting.
(12:57 – 13:16)
What I’d like to do tomorrow night is have an AA meeting with everybody and give
everybody a chance to share, anybody who wants to. If you don’t want to, you certainly
don’t have to, but I certainly would like to have an arena where everybody would get to
share, so we’ll do that tomorrow night. I was brought up in the Bronx in New York City 49
years ago.
(13:16 – 13:37)
I know I don’t look it, but it was 49 years ago and I was brought up in an insane family.
My wife never believed me about my family until she met them and they’re nuts, they’re
still nuts. A couple of years ago my mother called me and said, honey, I’ve got bad news
for you.
(13:37 – 13:53)
And I said, oh no, what happened? And she said, your Aunt Lena died. And I said, oh no,
Mom, when? A year and a half ago. And I said, what? She said, yeah, she passed away a
year and a half ago.
(13:53 – 14:13)
I said, what are you talking about? She said, well, you know, your Aunt Phyllis is in the
mental institution again and she calls me and harasses me, so I haven’t been picking up
the phone. But Phyllis died a couple of weeks ago, so I’ve been taking calls again and
they finally reached me to tell me that Lena died. So these are the kind of
communication skills that I was brought up with.
(14:13 – 14:28)
It was real dicey and they’re psycho. And I was brought up Jewish and Jews don’t drink.
You know, because it might dull the pain.
(14:28 – 14:38)
I love saying that. And so I couldn’t have possibly been an alcoholic. And I had an uncle
who was one of the top ten welterweights of the world.
(14:38 – 14:47)
He was owned by the Purple Gang out of Brooklyn. They worked him up to number three
in the world and he laid down and made their money for them. They bought him a bar in
Brooklyn and he gambled it away that afternoon, I believe.
(14:49 – 15:16)
And in 1939, he was boxing down in Atlanta, Georgia and he was concerned about antiSemitism. So his name was Izzy Redman and he was concerned about the anti-Semitism,
so he had his name changed to Izzy Goldberg so that no one would know he was Jewish.
And I wish I was lying about this.
(15:17 – 15:37)
I mean, you know, this is not the kind of stuff, you don’t go to the bar and brag, you
know, to the bartender, I’m a moron, I come from a long line of morons. And it was bad. I
mean, it was bad.
(15:37 – 15:56)
There was chronic institutionalization and suicide attempts and mental and physical
abuse. And none of it, not a single one of it made me an alcoholic. It made me crazier
than shit, just nuts.
(15:56 – 16:10)
I mean, I was put in psychotherapy at the age of 14 and I stayed for 18 years. I was
going to be dead, but I was going to understand it. And I’m not putting therapy down.
(16:10 – 16:22)
Therapy is great stuff. I’ve used therapy more than a couple of times in sobriety. My
colossal mistake was I was trying to treat my alcoholism with psychotherapy, which was
a terrible, terrible mistake.
(16:22 – 16:30)
It’s like showing up at a gunfight with a knife. It’s just an awful thing. It’s just, you know,
and doing really good work in therapy.
(16:30 – 16:50)
But you know, here’s the deal. Therapy, the conservative, the popular conceit of therapy,
one of them is, is that you will go to a therapist. You will free associate in a therapeutic
situation and you will uncover things and you will examine them until they unravel.
(16:51 – 17:10)
Let’s say that you’re neurotic. Let’s say for the purposes of what we’re doing tonight that
we diagnose, we define neuroses. Neuroses, and this will be anybody who is an alcoholic
or has lived with alcoholism will understand this, is an undesirable resolution for anxiety.
(17:10 – 17:18)
Let’s say that it is. In other words, the way we know it is, my solutions are worse than my
problems. Something any alcoholic is going to understand.
(17:19 – 17:32)
I’ve got a problem. I come up with a boneheaded idea to resolve this problem that is so
much worse than the problem. It’s like when I’m telling people, their eyes get watery,
their jaws drop.
(17:32 – 17:52)
They just can’t believe that I’ve come up with this idea to resolve, you know, you know.
So, the idea of therapy, one of the ideas of therapy is that I would go there and I would
free associate and I would come up with a resolution for this anxiety. That would be
better than the anxiety.
(17:52 – 18:09)
And that I would examine, uncover, discover, uncover, discover, uncover, discover, and it
weakens and unravels and I understand it and it gets aired out and I therapeutically
resolve this problem. People do it all the time in therapy. But here’s the deal.
(18:09 – 18:22)
I’ve got alcoholism. I have an anxiety producing machine that therapy cannot keep up
with. I can generate anxiety at such an unbelievable rate and so productively and
efficiently.
(18:23 – 18:30)
There’s no, a battery of therapists. Carl Jung couldn’t keep up with it in Roland Hazard.
You can’t, I’m better than you.
(18:31 – 18:53)
You can’t, therapy can’t keep up, can’t keep up with the alcoholism. And that’s, that’s a
very hard thing to explain to people who don’t understand alcoholism, who don’t
understand the power of it. Who think that you can take potential and stack potential up
in the face of alcoholism.
(18:53 – 19:07)
I can’t even say the word potential without laughing. And you know because all of you
have a lot of potential. I’ve never seen so much potential in one room in my entire life.
(19:08 – 19:14)
Oh, didn’t it just used to make your heart sink? Because I’d go, yeah, I do. I know. I know.
(19:14 – 19:27)
Why am I such a schmuck? Why? I don’t know. I don’t know. I love, one of my favorite
phrases in our book is when it says if you confront an alcoholic with why they’ve taken
the first drink.
(19:27 – 19:39)
Despite the attendant misery and suffering that happens every single time. And if you
pursue them, you know the section I’m talking about, it’s so beautiful. Odds are if the
drunk stays engaged with you and doesn’t blow you off.
(19:40 – 19:55)
Odds are the drunk has no more of an idea than you do. If they’re honest and they stick
with it, they’re going to go, I don’t know. If you find out, could you get back to me on this
because I really have no idea.
(19:56 – 20:03)
One of my favorite, and some of you might have heard this. For some of you who
haven’t, I’ll repeat it. It’s just one of my favorite newcomer stories I heard.
(20:03 – 20:13)
I was real new in Alcoholics Anonymous. And this guy was explaining alcoholism to me.
And he said, look, if a normal person, an alcoholic and a psychotic all walk through a
door.
(20:13 – 20:25)
And they all get smashed right in the face with a two by four. The normal person will
never walk through that door again. The psychotic will walk through a couple of times,
get whacked in the head again and stop.
(20:26 – 20:37)
The alcoholic will walk through every morning, get smashed in the face. And if one
morning he walks through and he doesn’t get whacked, he’ll go, I can wait. I can wait.
(20:37 – 20:46)
The guy probably had to get coffee. He’ll come back, he’ll whack me, and then I’ll go on
with the business of life. And you can’t tell that story at the Lions Club.
(20:48 – 20:56)
You get cows watching a passing train. But you tell that story in a room full of alcoholics
and people going, yeah, yeah. Because we all have that version.
(20:56 – 21:08)
And our members of Al-Anon have it too. If you take a look at the material written in the
second and third chapters of the Big Book of A.A., there’s a couple of lists. There’s a list
of things that people say about us.
(21:09 – 21:21)
Why can’t he stop drinking for her? The doctor said he’d die if he drank again. And there
he is, all lit up again. Why can’t he lay off the hard stuff? And then there’s a list of things
we say about ourselves.
(21:23 – 21:47)
I’ll stop after the sixth. How did it happen again? And my personal favorite, what’s the
use anyway? And each list, the list of stuff people say about us, is as uninformed as the
things that we say about ourselves. Neither one of those lists is predicated on any
understanding, real understanding of alcoholism.
(21:48 – 22:25)
And the extraordinary thing, if I take a look at the mindset of my children, in the second
chapter it talks about the blameless, the warped lives of blameless wives and children.
But if I take a look at the mindset of my wife who became so sick from alcoholism, my
children who became so sick from alcoholism, you take that basic thinking pattern that I
just described in those two lists and install it in the non-drinking person, it’s blow for
blow. What’s the use anyway? I’ll stop after I try this action for the sixth time.
(22:26 – 23:33)
How did it happen again? You know, they’d say if I, tell me to leave them, why can’t I
leave them? You know, I mean, it’s an incredible thing how the basic principles of
alcoholism, the basic disease, the strange mental twist that proceeds in us in the first
drink and in members of Al-Anon, members and family and friends of alcoholics, the
same action, the same terrible action that depletes them, that depletes their resources
and diminishes the quality of their life. My, I’m 16 years sober. For the first 10 years of
my sobriety I had a sponsor, one sponsor who taught me the mechanics of Alcoholics
Anonymous and for the next five years I had a sponsor named Dr. Paul until a year ago
when he passed away, 13 months ago when he passed away, and several weeks ago his
wife passed away, Maxine, and she carried her light into another room, and I say that
just because it would be nice to, just to let you guys know that if you can say a prayer
that would be great.
(23:34 – 23:57)
You know, she was an extraordinary person, an extraordinary member of Al-Anon for
over 33 years, remarkable woman, and I miss her. And she gave me one Al-Anon
approved joke, which I will share with you in her honor tonight. It was her, it was her
story about release, which she loved to tell, and I’ll share it with you for Max.
(23:57 – 24:26)
She used to love to tell this story about this Al-Anon woman was at a performance of
Phantom of the Opera, and she’s sitting next to a normal woman, and she had an empty
seat next to her, and the normal woman said to the Al-Anon woman who’s sitting in that
seat, and the Al-Anon woman said, oh, it was for my husband, but he passed away. And
the normal woman said, well, you know, this is a hard ticket to get. Couldn’t you have
given it to a member of your family or a friend? And the Al-Anon woman said, they’re all
at his funeral.
(24:28 – 24:50)
And it was her favorite story about release, and I really like that story a lot. I really like
that a lot. So I was brought up in this nutty family, and I had alcoholism.
(24:50 – 25:03)
I couldn’t tell you why, but I did. I started drinking really young at the age of around 12. I
was in the seventh grade, and I was packing my suitcase with beer, like all the other 12-
year-olds, to go on babysitting jobs.
(25:05 – 25:20)
Yikes. And when you needed a church key, and I just had alcoholism from day one, and I
started screwing up in school real young. I was real smart.
(25:20 – 25:30)
I’ve been real smart my whole life. I have great potential. And I didn’t want to be a
drunk.
(25:30 – 25:41)
My father was a bartender for 35 years. I thought my father was a real loser. My brother
and I never missed a meal and never went to school with ripped clothes, and I thought
my father was a loser.
(25:41 – 25:51)
He never made more than $10,000 a year. My last year out there, I made a lot of dough.
I made over $80,000, 16 years ago when $80,000 actually was $80,000.
(25:51 – 26:04)
And my sons went to school with ripped clothes all the time and missed meals all the
time. In my mind, my father was a loser. Now, how do you look at those two men and
come up with him being a loser and me not? Simple.
(26:05 – 26:12)
All you need is alcoholism. All you need is alcoholism. All you need to do is rearrange
your life to accommodate the walk to the drink.
(26:12 – 26:30)
That’s all you have to do. That’s all you have to do, and you can come up with just about
anything. But I didn’t want to be a drunk, and it was the 60s, and I went and applied to
become a hippie, and they accepted me immediately.
(26:31 – 26:38)
There was no paperwork. There wasn’t any screening process at all. I understand later
on they developed some, but not when I applied.
(26:38 – 26:44)
And I loved the 60s. I had a great time. I had a great time.
(26:44 – 27:01)
I saw great music in small clubs. I mean, if any of you guys know Van Morrison, the
Moondance album, I saw Van Morrison premiere the Moondance album in a tiny
nightclub with 10 other people. I mean, I got to do some great stuff, and I was cooked for
all of it.
(27:02 – 27:23)
I was cooked for all of it. And I had a great time, and I was going to live forever. And I
smoked pot until I didn’t want to be a pothead, and I overcame my marijuana problem
with pills, and I was victorious over pills with cocaine, and I kicked that cocaine with
heroin.
(27:24 – 27:38)
Heroin is a very dark, complicated, artistic drug, and then you cross a line and become a
vomiting pig. It’s just a little hop, skip, and a jump. And then I drank until I didn’t want to
be a drunk, and alcohol was on the table every day.
(27:38 – 27:50)
And I don’t mean to, again, I don’t mean to offend anybody. I’ve been asked to come and
tell my story. Joe asked me, so if I really piss you off, complain to him.
(27:52 – 28:07)
Because he knows my story. But I know that some people have a hard time hearing
about drugs in AA meetings, and I really believe in the unity of Alcoholics Anonymous. I
use drugs and use them to not catch alcoholism, because I wasn’t an alcoholic when I
got here.
(28:07 – 28:34)
One time I was talking up in northern California. I finished my talk, and this guy walks up
to me afterwards, and my friend Cliff Roach had said to me, if old-timers really get mad
at you for talking about drugs, probably some of them are taking them. And this guy,
yikes, this guy walked up to me, and he said, why do you hate AA? And I thought, I don’t
hate AA.
(28:34 – 28:46)
I hate you. I’m okay with AA. You’re kind of pissing me off, but I’m really okay with
Alcoholics Anonymous.
(28:47 – 28:55)
And this guy’s eyes were, like, glazed. He had, like, 20 years to survive. I don’t know
what he had in him, but he was feeling absolutely no pain at all.
(28:55 – 29:01)
But I judge no man. You’ll hear me say that a lot, and maybe some of you will believe it. I
even mentioned that to Brian on the way up.
(29:07 – 29:17)
And I was in my early 20s, and I was using heroin at that particular time. I was working
up in the Bronx, living in Manhattan. I shot some dope.
(29:18 – 29:34)
And I got on a West Side Highway to hitchhike back down to Manhattan, and my aunt
and uncle pulled up in a car, said, your father had a massive stroke, put me in the back
of the car, was cooked, and took me to the hospital. And I couldn’t be there for my father
the night that he died. It wasn’t by design.
(29:34 – 29:44)
I was loaded because I was awake. And probably a couple of times in a kid’s life you
ought to be there for his old man. This was one of them, and I could not answer the bell.
(29:44 – 29:54)
I couldn’t show. I mean, I was there, but that didn’t really mean much. The curtain was
down, and the sound of the heart machine couldn’t even get through.
(29:55 – 30:11)
And that night when he died, you know, he was laying in that bed. I couldn’t even go in
and hold him and give him a kiss, you know, and give him a kiss and tell him I love him
and send him on his way. I couldn’t because I was so horrified by my behavior, so
ashamed.
(30:13 – 30:22)
And my father was lost to me. I didn’t realize it at that moment, in that moment. All I
knew was, you know, I wasn’t thinking of my mother or my brother or my father.
(30:22 – 30:39)
Maybe I was a little bit, but mostly I was consumed by my own agony. There are two
descriptions of alcoholism that are incredibly accurate to me. One of them is in a Kurt
Vonnegut book, and it’s a description, unfortunately, of the Nazi mind.
(30:41 – 31:08)
And he’s explaining the Nazi mind, how the Nazis could have pulled off what they pulled
off. And he says something that just resonated for alcoholism so quick it blew me away.
He says, don’t you understand the Nazi mind is like a perfectly tuned clock that keeps
the most precise time in the universe for one minute and then skips a century, that when
it works, it’s beautiful, it’s rhapsodic, and when it doesn’t, it leaves gaps large enough to
move an entire culture through.
(31:08 – 31:32)
I thought, what an incredible description. How many times in many forms does our book
say that we have this strange mental blank spot, but in other areas we seem to exercise
very good judgment, but in certain areas we have absolutely no judgment at all. How
many times have I exercised good judgment, my brain has functioned really well, but in
the business of alcoholism I go right down this rabbit hole.
(31:32 – 31:53)
I mean, that’s certainly not where I wanted to hear a good description of my disease, but
it really rang true. The other one was unfortunately at Ted Bundy’s trial. It doesn’t get
any better, does it? And Ted Bundy, for those of you who don’t recall, was a monster
serial murderer.
(31:53 – 32:05)
I mean, a guy who just did terrible stuff to a lot of people. And he was very charming,
very handsome, and very smart. And he was a law student.
(32:06 – 32:30)
So he also, during many of his trials, would represent himself. So these shrinks and these
lawyers and law enforcement guys are sitting in a circle, and they’re talking about this
trial that’s going on, and these guys know what this guy has done. They know what this
guy has done in gruesome detail, and yet some of them are sitting going, I really like
him.
(32:31 – 32:40)
They’re sitting when he would represent himself. He was so charming and so smart. And
they’re hating themselves for liking the guy.
(32:41 – 32:59)
And one of them said, how? How does he do it? And one of the shrinks just nailed it. He
said, don’t you understand that when he is in that courtroom, the only thing that is real
for him is his own agony. And I just rocked back in my chair because it resonated so
many times.
(32:59 – 33:25)
So many times and places I created so much wreckage and discomfort for people, but
managed to just experience my own self-pity. My own self-pity, experience my own
resentments, not experience really be in the moment and admit and appreciate what I
had done rather than think of what had been done to me and how much I was suffering.
The only thing that was real and palpable to Bundy in those moments was his own
agony.
(33:26 – 33:33)
So I identify with Nazis and Ted Bundy. It’s not a good thing. And you know, it’s a funny
thing.
(33:33 – 33:57)
If you take a look, if you read the histories, if you read Pass It On, Bill Wilson had a very
interesting correspondence with a guy named Carol Chessman, who was vilified. I mean,
this guy was like, he was finally put to death, but he was vilified as this terrible
murderer. And Bill was clearheaded enough to identify with the guy on some kind of
level.
(33:57 – 34:09)
They had an interesting sort of correspondence that went on for a period of time. So I
don’t shut that stuff off. I got a lot out of those two descriptions.
(34:12 – 34:26)
Shortly after my dad died, and when I say that he was lost to me, what I mean by that is
I couldn’t talk about him. I didn’t like to think about him. I couldn’t think of that night.
(34:26 – 34:37)
It was really unpleasant for me to look at pictures of him. When that stuff came up, I
would just cringe. It would feel like I just got whacked in the side of the head.
(34:39 – 34:56)
And I don’t know what that thing is for you or has been for you. I know that every man
that I’ve had the honor of working with has had some area of their life which has been
their black hole, their that thing. Maybe sometimes it’s more than one.
(34:57 – 35:16)
But something that just is not, you know, I believe in AA, I’m glad that I’m doing this, but
I really doubt that this is going to get taken care of. Which is basically saying to God, I
know that you can keep Saturn on its axis, but I don’t really think you’re going to be able
to take care of this. But we’ll talk about that when we discuss step three.
(35:20 – 35:34)
Shortly after that, I suffered from chronic success my whole life. I failed upwards my
whole life. I got to do some incredible stuff.
(35:34 – 35:45)
I wanted to be in show business my whole life, and I just got to do some remarkable
stuff. By the time I got to AA, I actually had a book on the bestseller list. I acted in a
Broadway play.
(35:46 – 35:52)
I directed a TV show. I directed a film. I had my own theater in Manhattan.
(35:53 – 36:12)
I got to do all these things a ton. I never got to do any of them more than once because
when I’d leave, they’d move the business so I couldn’t find it again. And the reason why
was I didn’t really get it until I took the alcoholic test.
(36:12 – 36:16)
We have a test. It’s called an inventory. It’s pass-pass.
(36:16 – 36:18)
If you do it, you’ll pass. I guarantee you. All you have to do is do it.
(36:21 – 36:48)
And it’s a funny thing because sometimes a guy will start working, and it’s a really funny
thing. This guy in my home group, a new guy, the other day was talking about that he’s
a couple weeks sober, and he went to a party last night where they were smoking and
doing drugs, but he felt comfortable. And I said to him, it’s illegal.
(36:49 – 37:01)
I mean, they forget it’s illegal. I mean, are you going to tell the cops, I’m comfortable?
I’m comfortable because I’m in AA. When Jonah got out of the belly of the whale, he did
not go back in to get his hat.
(37:01 – 37:20)
He just stayed out there. We’re wacky. But sometimes a guy will start writing, and he’ll
call me and he’ll say, gee, can I just read you what I’ve got? And I encourage him.
(37:20 – 37:38)
The book does not say write a little, read a little, write a little, read a little. It says if you
can write the whole thing, if you can take the picture of your alcoholism, if you can sit
down with someone and read the whole thing, I’m resentful at me. I’m resentful at him.
(37:39 – 37:48)
I’m resentful at me for resenting him. I’m resentful at him for watching me resent him.
And I’ve had sex with all of them.
(37:50 – 37:58)
And I’m scared of all of them. But apparently I like balding men with glasses, so I don’t
know what the hell it is. You see, more will be revealed.
(37:58 – 38:09)
I said that a God thing wouldn’t happen to me, and it has happened to me. Now I can’t
go home. I hope you guys are happy about that.
(38:11 – 38:35)
But if you do the whole thing and you really get a picture of your alcoholism, if you read
the whole thing, when I read the whole thing, when I took the alcoholic test, I saw that
early on people were talking behind my back. And then a little later on they started
doing things behind my back. And in the last few horrible years, they started thinking
behind my back, which is horrible.
(38:36 – 38:47)
It’s hard to catch them. But you know you can. You have to accuse them of it all the
time, all the time.
(38:47 – 39:18)
As a matter of fact, there’s something in Paul’s story that I just love, and it’s about mindreading skills. And I’ll just read it real quick, but I don’t know about you guys, but I think
alcoholics are, as a group, the most pathetic mind-readers who ever lived. And yet, I
mean, if I take a look at my resentments, and I take a look at causes and conditions of
my resentments, mind-reader is on at least 30% to 40% of it.
(39:20 – 39:41)
But he says, It started out as a good marriage, but it deteriorated over the years as she
progressed through various stages of qualifying for Al-Anon. At first she would say, You
don’t love me. Why don’t you admit it? Later she would say, You don’t like me.
Why don’t you admit it? As her disease was reaching the terminal stages, she was
screaming, You hate me. You hate me. Why don’t you admit it? So I admitted it.
(39:42 – 40:03)
And the reason why I read it is, I will eventually get them to think behind my back. I’ll
eventually get them to think, If he accuses me of this one more time, I’m going to set the
bed on fire. I mean, you know, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
(40:03 – 40:17)
So I was rarely asked back to work for people who I had worked for once. That was what I
was getting at. I was in my early 20s.
(40:17 – 40:27)
This was right after my dad died. I got cast in a Broadway show. It was really incredible
for me.
(40:27 – 40:42)
As a little kid, I grew up in New York and got to see Broadway shows a couple of times.
You know, it was like a great dream of mine. I got to do it.
I got to do it. And there was a new usherette with long brown hair who walked into the
theater. I never had met her before.
(40:43 – 40:59)
I didn’t talk to her. I took one look at her and I went back into the dressing room and I
got up on a chair and I said to the male members of this cast, If anybody talks to the new
usherette with long brown hair, I’ll break all the bones in your hands and feet. And I
hadn’t said boo to her.
(41:01 – 41:14)
And we just celebrated 25 years of marriage a couple of weeks ago. And we fell in love
with each other the first time we looked at each other. There’s just no question in my
mind.
(41:14 – 41:20)
And we had a great time. I mean, we had a great time. We were living in New York.
(41:20 – 41:27)
I was acting on Broadway. We were in our early 20s. And we didn’t know we had
alcoholism.
(41:28 – 41:40)
We had no idea. I seemed to get happy too much. And Nancy got very sick from
prolonged exposure to me.
(41:40 – 42:00)
She became very troubled. But, again, one of the most misquoted lines in the big book of
AA for me is sometimes people say, My worst day in here was better than my best day
out there. No.
(42:01 – 42:04)
No. No. Not for me.
(42:04 – 42:17)
I had some really good times out there. What the book actually says is, it talks about a
guy who says, I wouldn’t trade my worst day in here for my best day out there because I
won’t trade this way of life. I won’t settle for a nickel today when I could have a quarter
tomorrow.
(42:17 – 42:20)
I won’t do it. That’s really what he’s saying. That I understand.
(42:21 – 42:29)
But there’s a lot of stuff I hear in AA that doesn’t work for me. None of it is in the big
book of Alcoholics Anonymous. I hear sometimes that drunks don’t like change.
(42:30 – 42:37)
I just don’t like change I don’t like. But I love change that I like. Change I like, I’m nuts
about it.
(42:37 – 42:43)
Change I don’t like pisses me off and gets me scared. But I don’t just dislike all change. I
know some people don’t.
(42:43 – 42:54)
But I heard people say that alcoholics are perfectionists. No, I’m not. I want you to be a
perfectionist if you’re one of my caregivers.
(42:55 – 43:02)
I want my wife to be a perfectionist. But I get slack like nobody’s business. I’m a pig.
(43:02 – 43:19)
And I’m resentful at her for me being a pig. And my favorite, my personal favorite, is I’ve
heard people say that alcoholics are above average intelligence. I have only heard this at
Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
(43:19 – 43:26)
I have never, ever heard it anywhere. I’ve never heard it at an Al-Anon meeting. I will tell
you that.
(43:27 – 43:52)
Ever. And I’ve certainly, you know, in our literature, I think they talk about it specifically
in A, it comes of age, and in the 12 and 12. We, apparently Alcoholics Anonymous got a
survey, got this independent group to survey alcoholics to find out the traits that we
most shared.
(43:52 – 44:03)
And we were expecting, you know, I don’t know, intelligence. They were very intelligent
or have a certain, you know, a lot of stuff. Well, what came back was not, was very
upsetting.
(44:03 – 44:20)
It was mostly immaturity. That was like, I think the top one was immaturity, which, at
any rate, Nancy and I started our life together. And we had a really great time.
(44:21 – 44:35)
And Nancy started becoming very ill, very troubled. And I, we had these 32 ounce iced
tea tumblers in the house. And I came home one day, and I popped a cork on a bottle of
wine, and I put the entire bottle of wine into this glass.
(44:35 – 45:07)
And I turned around, and Nancy was looking at me like this. And I said, what? And she
said, what are you doing? And I looked at her in the eye, and I said, I’m having a glass of
wine. Can’t a man have a glass of wine in his own home? Aren’t we civilized? We became
very, very troubled, very ill.
(45:08 – 45:30)
A story some of you know that is, a guy lent us his car, and we sold his car. I will never
forget this guy’s voice on the phone as long as I live. He said, you sold my car? That’s
like house sitting for someone, and they come home, and you’re an escrow.
(45:31 – 45:39)
And our book says the alcoholic life becomes the only normal one. And what had
happened at that time was we didn’t have money for rent. No, no, really.
(45:40 – 45:49)
Our kids were being thrown out of the house. They were in a very pricey, very fancy
preschool, because that would make me okay if they were in the preschool. They were
being asked to leave every week for nonpayment of tuition.
(45:50 – 46:10)
It was constantly humiliating, scary to drop them off, because we knew that our mindreading skills meant that they’d be glowering at us. It was just a nightmare, an absolute
nightmare. So this guy lent us his car like a year-old Camaro, and I looked at my wife’s
eyes, and I said to her, listen to me.
(46:10 – 46:24)
I am so sick of being irresponsible. I have had it. We’re not going to be punk,
irresponsible, immature kids.
(46:24 – 46:33)
We’re going to stand on our own two feet for once. Let’s sell the car. And she looked at
me.
(46:33 – 46:49)
Now, I mean, what better way could you describe this than by saying that the only thing
that was real was her own agony? Really, I mean, it’s the best way to describe it. We’re
like weeping for each other that we’ve decided to sacrifice and perform Grand Theft
Auto. But we’re weeping.
(46:50 – 47:01)
My wife looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, yes, yes, honey, I’m willing to
make that sacrifice. Let’s do, let’s do. And we sold this guy’s car.
(47:04 – 47:19)
Now, I understand that kind of thinking. A couple of years ago, I had a trigger finger,
which is this condition where you have no freedom with the ligament. You’ve got to kind
of unbend your own finger.
(47:19 – 47:29)
And the only way to resolve it is to go in there and open up the cartilage. You’ve got to
release it. So my doctor says, Mr. Redman, this is, I’m 14 years sober.
(47:29 – 47:33)
It’s two years ago. You’re going to require surgery. We’re going to have to give you
general anesthetic.
(47:33 – 47:41)
I said, oh, general anesthetic. Oh, man. Normal people don’t get excited about general
anesthetic.
(47:42 – 47:52)
No normal person goes, ooh, general anesthetic. And I’ll tell you why. You’re asleep for
general anesthetic.
(47:52 – 48:04)
You’re generally anesthetized. But I know something about general anesthetic that a lot
of people know, that when they give it to you, they hit you with it, and they say count
backwards from 100. And you say, 100, 99, boom.
(48:05 – 48:13)
I love 99. I really do. I love 99 just before you fall and are unconscious.
(48:14 – 48:32)
The difference for me is I won’t trade my life in for 99 anymore. And before I came to AA,
I chased 99 every day, every day. And it was the same reason that I was able to sell the
car.
(48:33 – 48:39)
See, I go from let’s do the right thing to pay the rent. I leave out Grand Theft Auto. I
leave out the whole middle.
(48:39 – 48:51)
I go from you’re going to need general anesthetic to 99. I leave out the surgery. I leave
out the sutures, the blood, the agony, the recovery.
(48:51 – 49:01)
I leave out the whole middle. And in Alcoholics Anonymous, I have found that the people
who I gravitate with and hang out with are obsessed with the middle. They’re really big
on the middle.
(49:02 – 49:12)
I think that’s one of the things we’re always trying to talk to newcomers about is putting
the brakes on and experiencing the middle. You know, it’s a tough thing. It’s tedious.
(49:13 – 49:33)
The beginning and the end are a lot more fun than the middle, usually, usually. And we
had our oldest son, Micah, was born, and he was really welcomed into our world, into our
community. We were surrounded by friends and family.
(49:33 – 49:41)
We got a ton of phone calls. There were a lot of flowers at the hospital. It was a great
birth, really great, robust, wonderful experience.
(49:41 – 49:50)
And two years and nine months later, when our son Jesse was born, it was done. There
was nobody around. There were no phone calls, no flowers, no friends.
(49:50 – 50:06)
We were completely isolated by the disease of alcoholism in just two years and nine
months. And you guys, I mean, if you’ve been, you know, if you’ve experienced it, for me
there’s only one good way to go to a hospital, and that’s to go to the maternity ward to
see a baby. I mean, that’s just for me.
(50:06 – 50:33)
That’s the only way I like to go to a hospital. It’s a great experience, you know. And when
you’re froze out of your community, when the ice around your heart is so thick that it’s
repelled everybody around you, even though they love you, but it hurts too much to be
with you because you’ve pressed yourself upon them like a thumb upon a bruise, over
and over and over again, when you’re that isolated, there’s few worse places to be than
a hospital maternity ward.
(50:33 – 50:41)
And my wife was all alone, kid, Jesse got sick. He had a heart thing. He had to go up and
have him in an incubator.
(50:41 – 50:54)
Nancy’s down with Nary a balloon or a flower. She’s all alone, no phone calls, nobody’s at
the hospital. And a doctor called me that night and said, you know, Mr. Redman, your
wife’s in a lot of psychological duress.
(50:54 – 51:07)
The baby’s sick. We need you down here. And I said to this doctor who I had never met
before, you know what? I’d really love to do that, but the fact is, is I can’t find anybody to
watch my 2-year-old son.
(51:07 – 51:18)
I can’t come down. And this doctor who I had never met before said to me, you know
what? I’ll tell you what. Why don’t I give you my address and phone number? This is a
doctor.
(51:19 – 51:25)
My husband’s home. You can take your son to my house, and he’ll watch him so you can
come down here and be with your family. I mean, that’s really remarkable.
(51:26 – 51:38)
And I said no. I said no because I had no equipment to accept her generosity. And it’s a
funny thing, and I’m curious of your experience with this.
(51:38 – 51:52)
I know what my experience of it has been. We talk to newcomers about helping them,
about allowing us to help them. It’s been my experience that newcomers or people in AA
who don’t allow people to help them are loathe to help other people.
(51:52 – 52:12)
It’s very, very difficult to help other people when you’re not allowing yourself to be
helped. And if you are helping other people, it’s done many times in maybe not the best
spirit it could be done in. Allowing somebody to help you in Alcoholics Anonymous is a
gigantic thing.
(52:13 – 52:26)
How many times have we heard people get up to podiums in AA and say, I never asked
for help, never let anybody help me. I let people help me like Attila the Hun. I would
come, raise your village, and say, help me.
(52:26 – 52:43)
Help me carry away your family. There was no way I could accept this woman’s help.
Boy, that was a terrible night.
(52:43 – 52:52)
It was a terrible night. It resonated for me much like the night that my father died. It’s a
funny thing.
(52:52 – 53:13)
If you take a look at Bill Wilson’s story, it’s an extraordinary thing. The way the big book
is engineered, it really is amazing that Bill put his 16-page story at the beginning of the
book. It’s probably one of the most glaring acts of egoism in all the literature.
(53:14 – 53:20)
It really is. I’m always amazed that it’s still there. Anytime I open the book.
(53:20 – 53:32)
By all rights, anybody else in the world would have started with Chapter 2. There is a
solution, more about alcoholism, let’s go, but the bedtime story is up front. That’s what
they called it. That’s what he called it.
(53:32 – 53:57)
It was the bedtime story because he told it so many times. At any rate, as I’ve grown
older in sobriety and I continue to use the book, the story has been a tremendous help to
me, especially his description of how he worked the steps. Also, for me, he describes in
the center of his story a life that I’m sure the vast majority of you have your version of, if
not all of you.
(53:58 – 54:14)
He talks about when his life got this big. He had to drag his mattress down from the
upper floor of the house because he was scared he’d pitch himself out the window. He’d
stare in front of an open medicine cabinet, cursing himself for not having the guts to
poison himself.
(54:15 – 54:30)
He was an unwelcomed hanger-on at places where he used to work. He’d hunt new
places that would give him a little credit, delis in the area that would give him credit for
a few bottles of ale. Then at the end of it, he ends it with the most humiliating thing.
(54:30 – 54:52)
He’d wait until his hardworking wife would come home, and she’d be out of the room so
he could sneak in and steal a few bucks from her purse. At the end, this is a pathetic,
disgusting, humiliating existence. Then at the end of this description of this tiny, pathetic
little life, there’s this line that just always shakes me up when I read it.
(54:52 – 55:08)
He says, Little were we to know that this was to continue for three more years. I’m sure
that all of us have our version of when our life got that small. Sometimes it was
predicated on how miserable it got economically.
(55:08 – 55:32)
For some of us, it didn’t get miserable economically at all. We wound up in such an
oppressive, spiritually sick, awful, humiliating situation that it was our version of it. In
terms of staying there for three more years, I could tell you the guys in my home group,
the chronic slippers in my home group, I’m sure you guys all have your version of it.
(55:32 – 55:49)
Some of you might have experienced it yourself, of people who have not felt the touch of
the master’s hand and continue to suffer. That’s what Bill experienced. He had a good
friend in Dr. Silkworth who really cared for him, who was really fighting for him.
(55:49 – 55:58)
He had a family that loved him. He was a successful guy, respected by a lot of people in
his industry. There were a lot of people rooting for him, but he had a lot of potential.
(56:00 – 56:35)
One of the reasons that I love that section of the book is that from this horrible night that
my son Jesse was born and that I couldn’t even go down to the hospital and be with him
and his mom, that we were totally isolated from our fellows, from our family, that we
were broke and my dreams had just run out between my fingers like a handful of water
over and over and over again, that little were we to know that it was to continue for
three more years. It wasn’t until three more years that I was to come to Alcoholics
Anonymous. So it’s a very poignant, very meaningful section of the book for me.
(56:35 – 56:57)
In that three years, it just got worse, and our children got sicker and sicker, and Nancy
got nuttier and nuttier. By the time I got to AA on April 22, 1985, Micah was six and Jesse
was three. Micah was making involuntary clicking noises with his throat that he couldn’t
stop making.
(56:58 – 57:07)
He could barely read or write. He tested in excess of like 150 IQ, brilliant, and could
barely function. He was cut off from the society of other children.
(57:08 – 57:13)
He was a weird kid. There was something way off. He had alcoholism.
(57:14 – 57:28)
He had been deeply, deeply affected by alcoholism. He was diagnosed as functionally
retarded because his small motor skills were all screwed up. He couldn’t really even
properly use scissors, and there was nothing organically wrong with him.
(57:30 – 57:36)
He was scared. He was scared all the time, and he was so scared. What does our book
say? Fear would be classless feeling.
(57:36 – 57:50)
It seems to cause more trouble. The fabric of our lives is shot through with it. The conceit
there was that he was so scared all the time, and he was so distracted from what he was
doing, he couldn’t focus on stuff.
(57:50 – 58:05)
There was no carryover. You see, if you get between me and the drink, and you’re my
wife, my lover, my buddy, my bride, my children, my dreams, if you get in between me
and the drink, you will, believe me, you will disappear. You will disappear because I’m
going to get to the drink.
(58:05 – 58:10)
I’m going to get to the drink. I might wait. Odds are I won’t, but I might, but I’m going to
get to the drink.
(58:10 – 58:21)
And if you’re my child, you’re either going to vanish, or you’re going to become
something less than real. You’re going to become something less than human. You’re
going to become made out of papier-mâché because I’m going to get to my objective.
(58:22 – 58:26)
I might even wait a day. I might not walk through you. I might walk around you.
(58:26 – 58:34)
And then I’ve got to walk bigger and bigger circles around you because I’ve got to avoid
these promises I’ve made. I can’t look at you. It hurts too much to look at you.
(58:34 – 58:41)
So my whole life becomes this big, circuitous walk to the drink. You’re in the middle of it.
You’re disappearing, or you’re something less than human.
(58:42 – 59:04)
And how much disappearing can a baby bear before they believe what they’re being
taught, which is that they don’t exist? So the children in our alcoholic home became
pretty much left with two alternatives. To either become pointlessly aggressive en route
to a goal that they could not achieve because things would just change like that. Things
never wound up.
(59:05 – 59:14)
What I said here just didn’t wind up the same over here. Or what’s the use anyway? They
just throw in the towel. They just give up.
(59:15 – 59:31)
So that’s how injured, terribly injured, our children were by the time I got to AA on April
22, 1985. I will tell you this. If I really got how injured my wife and my children had been
by the time I got here, I don’t know that I could have stayed.
(59:31 – 59:36)
I don’t know. I don’t know that I could have born. I used to use this phrase with my wife.
(59:36 – 59:42)
I used to say, I can’t fit the pain in my head. I can’t fit it in my head. I can’t take it.
(59:43 – 59:54)
I can’t hear it. Don’t tell me this. And that’s why I was so glad that the guys that I came
to when I came to AA said, just clean up.
(59:55 – 1:00:05)
Just go to Central. My first commitment in Alcoholics Anonymous was the guy had me
come to Central office and watch him answer the phone. That was my first commitment
in AA.
(1:00:06 – 1:00:24)
And you know what? When I got a year of sobriety, I was all ready to hop on the phones
with guys. At any rate, that’s how terribly injured and terribly ill our family was. And the
night that my father died, I knew what was wrong.
(1:00:24 – 1:00:29)
I knew what the problem was, and I knew how to solve it. The problem was heroin and
needles. That’s what had screwed me up there.
(1:00:30 – 1:00:40)
And I knew what I had to do to not be the guy who was loaded the night that his father
died. All I had to do was not to put a needle in my arm. As long as I didn’t put a needle in
my arm, I’d be okay.
(1:00:40 – 1:00:52)
And I didn’t, not for 13 years. Not until April 22, 1985, when I crossed the line that I
swore I would never cross again. Why did I cross it? Why not? It was time.
(1:00:52 – 1:01:15)
You know, sometimes when a newcomer will say, I feel like drinking, you know,
sometimes a newcomer will say to me, drinking is the furthest thing from my mind. To
which I usually reply, no, your mind is the furthest thing from your mind. And what I
mean by that is, the entire big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, to the best of my
knowledge, is engineered to try to drive home one simple notion.
(1:01:15 – 1:01:26)
That you have a strange mental twist that because of your spiritual illness will lead you
to take a drink that you can’t stop taking. That your drinking will sink below the horizon.
It will not present itself as a real problem.
(1:01:27 – 1:01:32)
It will sink below the horizon, and you’re drunk. And you’re drunk. You don’t have it on
your mind.
(1:01:32 – 1:01:37)
You’re not thinking about it. Well, let’s see. I thought about it.
I saw it. It was a little tiny drink. It was on the horizon.
(1:01:37 – 1:01:40)
The next day I thought about it a little more. It was a little bigger drink. Incoming,
incoming.
(1:01:40 – 1:01:46)
Then it was like a big, big drink, and I was thinking about it all the time, and then I drank.
No, it doesn’t say that. It says I put whiskey in my milk.
(1:01:46 – 1:02:03)
Boom! I was drunk. I drove by a liquor store, my mouth filled with saliva, my brain got
too big for my skull, the room spun, and I was drunk. It says I crossed the threshold of
the hotel, and I thought, you know what? A couple of cocktails would be great with
dinner, and I was drunk.
(1:02:03 – 1:02:25)
It doesn’t say drinking is on your mind, off your mind. It just says, in this situation, you
have no mind. At any rate, I knew that I… I mean, why did I put a needle in my arm
again? Because it was time.
(1:02:25 – 1:02:36)
I had no mental defense against it. I had no more mental defense against it than I had
against the first drink. I called my therapist of record that morning, my first Jungian
therapist.
(1:02:36 – 1:02:51)
It was my 18th year of psychotherapy, and that therapist said to me that morning the
exact same thing that Carl Jung said to the man who 12-stepped the man who 12-
stepped Bill Wilson. I didn’t know that. I had no idea that.
(1:02:51 – 1:03:00)
I hadn’t read our literature. But once I read our literature and found out that Carl Jung
had said the same thing, it really got me. I mean, it really got my attention.
(1:03:01 – 1:03:10)
He said to me that morning, there’s absolutely nothing that can be done for you. I can’t
help you. I said, what? He said, there’s nothing.
(1:03:11 – 1:03:26)
You’re beyond human help. The only thing I can suggest is you attend a meeting of
Narcotics Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous, or we have you institutionalized. Now, on
most other mornings, I would have gone to the institution.
(1:03:27 – 1:03:41)
You know what I mean? I mean, that’s a chance to be with my people, colorful and
adventurous people, and it’s an uninterrupted source of narcotics for a period of time,
which I always liked. I used to get excited when I was told that I needed dental surgery.
Dental surgery.
(1:03:42 – 1:03:54)
Normal people don’t get excited about dental surgery. But that’s triple script time. I once
got a month and a half of Percodent prescriptions from getting x-rays.
(1:03:55 – 1:04:09)
That was my personal best. My personal best. I heard this story about this old woman
drunk.
(1:04:09 – 1:04:22)
I love this woman. She’d hide her pills in her rollers, so when she walked, her head shook
like a maraca. And I love when we think we’ve fooled the people.
(1:04:22 – 1:04:40)
You know, it’s just… You know, I’d go to the dentist, I’d come home looking like I had
been in an opium den for a week. You know, my wife would just go, oh, great, good,
more dental problems. And I don’t know why I went to the… I really don’t.
(1:04:40 – 1:04:48)
I don’t know why I chose to go to the AA meeting instead of the mental institution. I just
couldn’t tell you. But I did.
(1:04:49 – 1:05:04)
That morning I woke up, it’s at 5 o’clock in the morning, I’ve got my best clothes on, I’ve
got a bad check to write you, and I went down to write your check and pee in a cup and
get on the mailing list. I thought I was going to do that. No one did let me pee in their
cup at that particular meeting.
(1:05:04 – 1:05:26)
I understand at some meetings they would have actually let me pee in their cup, but I
didn’t hit any of those. And I walked into that room and I took one look around and I said,
oh, my God, how did I wind up in Alcoholics Anonymous? It was just… That room looked
like it was the product of about 300 years of inbreeding. It was just unbelievable.
(1:05:26 – 1:05:36)
They were like identical twins carving their initials on each other’s feet in that room. It
was just… I couldn’t believe it. Absolutely couldn’t believe it.
(1:05:36 – 1:05:51)
And I thought, do I bring them… Well, at any rate, I also figured there would be a Jew
hunt, you know, eventually. Say, here, strap on these antlers, Jaime. I always wanted to
run a big buck Jew.
(1:05:53 – 1:06:02)
Let’s knock his beanie off and poke him with a stick. And I hated Alcoholics Anonymous. I
hated everything about it.
(1:06:02 – 1:06:15)
You know, the funny thing is, it is always so good for me to remember this. If I walked
into that meeting today, that meeting, it was absolutely insane. You put a buck in the
basket and ate a cookie.
(1:06:15 – 1:06:19)
It was dinner and a show. I mean, there were fights in there. People were throwing
chairs.
(1:06:20 – 1:06:34)
There was just… At one cycle after another, I don’t think anybody ever… I don’t think
they had a… I don’t think there was a big buck in the place. I don’t think it would have
taken an archaeologist to find a big buck in that place. And these people saved my life.
(1:06:35 – 1:06:44)
I mean, this is the kind of thing I’d walk in now and go, well, this isn’t even AA. These
people should be… The central office should shut this place down. No one should even
be allowed in here.
(1:06:44 – 1:06:49)
I’m serious. I would walk in and say that. I was there every morning at 6 o’clock.
(1:06:49 – 1:06:55)
7 o’clock. It was 7 a.m. I was there in my chair at a quarter to 7. I loved it. I felt safe
there.
(1:06:55 – 1:07:04)
I loved it. And at that time, there was a lot of controversy in my area about talking about
drugs. At certain meetings, if you started talking about it, you were asked to not.
(1:07:05 – 1:07:14)
So I thought that when they heard my story, they were going to throw me out. And there
was a guy there who I just love. I still see him once in a while.
(1:07:14 – 1:07:28)
He was an old junkie who used to like talking about drugs just to drive the old-timers
nuts. He would do it every morning, and he’d just have them going like this. And the
reason why they really hated him is he had a lot of time.
(1:07:28 – 1:07:36)
He had 10 years. And in that place, 10 years was like… And every morning, he’d work on
these guys. And I loved it.
(1:07:36 – 1:07:42)
I’d sit next to him. So one morning, he shares… I have to excuse my language. You don’t
have to.
(1:07:42 – 1:07:52)
I’m asking you to. He raised his hand and he shared. He said, you know, after Urban
Cowboy was released, everybody ran out and bought cowboy boots.
(1:07:53 – 1:08:21)
And I, like a good junkie, ran out and bought $500 green anaconda skin cowboy boots
and wore them once, took a look in the mirror, and never wore them again. He said,
every morning when I wake up and I open my closet, those boots look at me and they
say, hello, asshole. And I thought, yeah, everything’s talking to me.
(1:08:21 – 1:08:28)
Everything’s talking to me. I walk down the street, Scott Redding’s a moron, moron,
moron, moron. And I went, oh, my God.
(1:08:29 – 1:08:36)
It freaked me out. And, you know, any time I passed him, it reminded me of some
wreckage. Everything was talking.
(1:08:37 – 1:09:00)
Things wouldn’t… Have you ever seen the movie Scanners? Have you ever seen that
movie? This guy could hear… The guy from Scanners would walk into the room and he
could hear everything everyone’s thinking. And he has to take this drug to stop the
voices. I wonder who wrote this movie, right? But he… He would walk into the room and
hear this blazing sound.
(1:09:00 – 1:09:23)
And that’s, I swear, that is more what I felt like as a newcomer than anything else. All
those voices, all at the same time, you know. But it is so important for me to remember
what helped me early on in AA, and as I get a little over sober sometimes, and start
making pronouncements about what should be allowed in AA.
(1:09:24 – 1:09:43)
I mean, we all have a choice of what meetings to go to. You know, I just think it
sometimes that the AA police need to be out there, you know, taking their literature and
shutting these places down. And that place was just a brand of insanity, an
exteriorization of whatever was going on.
(1:09:43 – 1:09:53)
And, you know, I lived in a psychological theme park at that time. I mean, that’s what my
life was like, you know. And I made a beginning.
(1:09:55 – 1:10:14)
And I stuck around Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn’t do much except, as I said before, if I
really was able to appreciate the seriousness of my situation, the scope of it, I don’t
know that I could have borne that. I don’t know that I could have stood it.
(1:10:14 – 1:10:23)
But I didn’t get it, so I’m, you know. But I got whatever I got. I got enough to be deflated
enough to stick around.
(1:10:23 – 1:10:40)
My wife reached out to the Al-Anon family groups. And one of the most confusing and
hurtful things to me as a young member of Alcoholics Anonymous when I got here is I
would go to certain meetings and I would hear at times people tell jokes about Al-Anon.
I’m not talking about good-natured jokes.
(1:10:41 – 1:11:09)
God knows we tell enough good-natured jokes about alcoholics. I’m talking about hurtful
jokes. And until I stuck around long enough to find out that these were just ignorant,
hurtful people, although I judge no man, but that they were just ignorant, hurtful people
that had really no functioning knowledge of the work done in Al-Anon, it was very
confusing and very hurtful and embarrassing to me because I was so proud of my wife
and really so glad that she had done this.
(1:11:09 – 1:11:13)
Because I didn’t see it in me. I saw it in her. I saw it in what was happening to her.
(1:11:14 – 1:11:18)
I didn’t know it at the time, but I saw grace in her. I didn’t see it in me. She says she saw
it in me.
(1:11:19 – 1:11:35)
I saw it in her. And she had and has this incredible sponsor. And we had a lot of rules in
our house, as you would well imagine, because when you can’t control the big thing, you
try to control everything else.
(1:11:35 – 1:11:50)
Our sons were not only allowed to eat health food, and they couldn’t curse and couldn’t
watch TV. But then she put them in the car with me, Dr. Death, and say, Hope you live.
Had your granola? Hope you live.
(1:11:51 – 1:11:58)
It was just psycho. But that’s what happens when there’s an elephant in the living room.
You try to dress it up.
(1:11:58 – 1:12:09)
So Nancy’s sponsor, Ruby, would have the boys over. She had one refrigerator just full of
crap, just sugar, just crap. And she’d open it up and say, Boys, eat anything you want.
(1:12:09 – 1:12:19)
She’d sit them down in front of the TV and turn on the love boat. I said, Nancy, would
you like this? And Ruby would say, Stop helping them. You’re killing them.
(1:12:20 – 1:12:37)
Stop helping your children. And we really started making a beginning. Ruby’s husband at
the time, Milton, now, has close to 40 years.
(1:12:37 – 1:12:45)
At the time, he had 20. And he called my sons over. I’m going to ask for you to excuse
Milton’s language now.
(1:12:45 – 1:12:50)
And he called the boys over. They were little tiny boys. We were in our first year.
(1:12:50 – 1:13:03)
And he called them over and he said, Boys, your parents don’t know shit. And the kids
went, Oh, we suspected, but now it’s been confirmed. Oh, thank God.
(1:13:04 – 1:13:10)
And they went nuts. I mean, first of all, he cursed. I’m OD’ing, keeling over, and they’re
taking me away in an ambulance.
(1:13:11 – 1:13:20)
But I never cursed. Because you can’t curse in our house, but you can die. He cursed.
(1:13:20 – 1:13:28)
And he confirms they knew that. But now someone else knew it. And they love.
(1:13:28 – 1:13:39)
To this day, my sons are 20 and 23. And Ruby gives them five bucks on their birthday
every year. And she loves them, and they love her very, very much.
(1:13:41 – 1:14:04)
We started our journey into sobriety. And during the course of the weekend, I’m going to
start with a brief description of the history of the steps tomorrow. But pretty brief,
because I really want to talk about, specifically, how I’ve worked the steps, how they’ve
become part of my life, and how I’ve gotten relief from the stuff that I’ve talked about
tonight.
(1:14:07 – 1:14:11)
How that’s happened for me. How we’ve made a marriage. How my children have grown
up.
(1:14:12 – 1:14:24)
How my father came back into my life. And we’ll talk about other stuff on the way
through. And, again, if there’s some stuff that you’re going through that you’d like me to
bat around a little bit, I’d really appreciate it if you put it on a little slip of paper and put
it up here.
(1:14:26 – 1:14:41)
And that’s pretty much what I wanted to cover tonight. I wanted to get you up to my
entry into Alcoholics Anonymous, and tomorrow we’ll talk specifically about the steps. I
want to warn you that you’ll be bored for some portion of the weekend.
(1:14:42 – 1:14:53)
Hopefully a small portion. In some of your cases, a large portion. But I do want to close
with my favorite story, because I’m just telling you, you will experience boredom at some
point, if you haven’t already.
(1:14:55 – 1:15:24)
And I want to just close with my favorite story about being bored in AA, so maybe you
can remember this. Oh, also, if my sharing really makes you nauseous at any point in the
weekend, early on my sponsor gave me this great thing, and you can use it this
weekend. You know when someone shares and you just want to throw a noose over it?
You know, you want to kill yourself? I’m not a suicide guy.
(1:15:24 – 1:15:28)
I’m a homicide guy. I always have been. I vastly prefer your death to mine.
(1:15:28 – 1:15:33)
I always have. And I’m not knocking the suicide people. I’m really not.
(1:15:34 – 1:15:51)
It’s sort of the flip side of the same coin. But for me, you go first. But you know when
someone’s talking and your skin’s falling off your head? Your DNA is unraveling? My
sponsor said three things to me.
(1:15:51 – 1:16:23)
He said, is there anybody here who you’d be willing to take the following chance with
your life? Is there anybody here you’d be willing to get up to the podium, tap them on
the shoulder, and say, why don’t you shut the hell up and sit down because I’m going to
talk now? And then he said, remember that everything in an AA meeting that’s said
needs to be said. Someone out there needs to say, how many times have I taken a
newcomer to the worst meeting that ever existed? The newcomer walks out and goes,
wow, man, that was great. And you’re going, what alternate universe are you in? I mean,
it’s happened to me a hundred times.
(1:16:24 – 1:16:28)
Or guys, I sponsor. I walk out of a meeting going, that’s it. AA’s over.
(1:16:28 – 1:16:40)
It’s done, right? And the guy I sponsor is going, oh, man, that’s exactly what it is. But my
sponsor said, everything that’s said in an AA meeting needs to be said. You just might
not be on the list of people who need to hear it that particular night.
(1:16:40 – 1:16:49)
And then he said the best thing to me. He said, remember, they’re going to stop. It’s
going to end.
(1:16:50 – 1:16:54)
It’s going to end. And, I mean, that’s been my mantra some nights. It’s going to end.
(1:16:55 – 1:17:02)
They’re going to stop. Unfortunately, this weekend, it’s not going to end for a while. But I
thought that was a good tool.
(1:17:03 – 1:17:29)
But if and when you do get bored, my favorite story about being bored in AA, this guy at
my old home group named Jeff D. was brand new, and he was at our old home group,
and he was shifting around in his seat, and his sponsor said, what’s the matter? And he
said, I’m bored. And his sponsor said, well, you know why you’re bored, don’t you? And
he said, no. His sponsor said, you’re bored because you’re boring.
(1:17:29 – 1:17:34)
That’s why you’re bored. And it was like an acid moment for him. He went, wow, wow.
(1:17:35 – 1:17:43)
It just blew him away. It freaked him out, you know. And he thought, what a cool thing to
say to a newcomer.
(1:17:48 – 1:18:02)
We are really amazing, aren’t we? You can hardly wait until a newcomer told him that
they were bored. Thirteen years later, no newcomer has told him that they’re bored. He’s
at a meeting in our old home group, the North Hollywood group.
(1:18:03 – 1:18:23)
He’s sitting next to this young lady who is new, and she’s shifting around in her seat, and
he said, what’s the matter? She said, I’m bored. He said, well, you know why you’re
bored, right? She said, yeah, because I’m with you. I can get cold in it.
(1:18:26 – 1:18:33)
So thanks again. Thank you so, so much for having me, guys. And I’m done, and we’ll get
back together in the morning and stamp out alcoholism.
(1:18:33 – 1:18:34)
Thank you. Thank you very much.
“His Story”
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