Russell S. Session 1: Step Series at Simply The Steps Group - 12/14/2025

Russell S. Step Series at Simply The Steps Group, Sober Today Club, Hollywood, FL Started December 14, 2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name is Russell Spats.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
I'm an alcoholic, and I'm a member of the South
Dixie Virtual Group. And it's good to be here with
you guys. And this was like a short one. This
is like only an hour from where I come from,
but just doing Boca for twelve weeks, like two hours.
Whoa and I literally fall asleep on the way up
here doing nine and I have that, you know. One

(00:25):
of the first things I remember, my second one of
my mentors used to say to me.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
I'd go up to him.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
I'd be, you know, doing what young alcoholics do, talking
seventy eight RPM.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
You know these days is one of.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
The problems with growing old, because because I say seventy
eight RPM and you know what that means. But most
of these guys don't know what I mean. They've never
seen an LP record.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
You know.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
And you know, they come up to me and they're
going seventy eight RPM about something that happened to them
in their life or whatever it is. And and well
I was doing that, and he'd say, Russell, and he
quote the Bible. He said, be still and know that
be still and know that I am God.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
He's still.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
And then later on I got a little bit older,
and you know, he'd say, Russell, be still, and I'd
say and then finally, after a while, he would just say,
just be you know what I mean. And now you
see what happens is if you don't drink and you
go to meetings, you get to a point where where

(01:28):
be still. I mean, that's that's my that's where I'm at,
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
I mean, you just be still. You don't have to
do anything.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
You just don't want to move. And this guy one
day went up to me. We were doing the meeting.
Where were we We're doing something boka and I was
on stage just before the meeting.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
I was, I was, I was.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
In deep meditation. I was taking a nap for the meeting.
And he came up.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
To me and he says, can I ask you a question?
I said sure? What is it?

Speaker 2 (01:59):
He said, is you ever meditate? I said, yeah, I meditate,
I said. He said, he said, when do you meditate?
I said, when I'm not talking to you. And you
know that's a true story. So if I fall, if
it looks like I'm napping anytime during the meeting, it's
not napping. It's deep meditation, gram meditated. I'm just meditating

(02:24):
the deepest form of meditation. And so I haven't found
necessary to take a drink. I'm in my forty fifth year.
I have found the necessary to take a drink. And
you can tell by looking at me. I've been I've
been somewhere for forty five years. I mean, I seventy
six years of age and haven't found necessarily to take
a drink since January twenty fifth, nineteen eighty one. Right,

(02:50):
so it's good to be here. So we'll talk a
little bit about something. I think I'm gonna have a
first step in there somewhere. You know, Bill Wilson wrote
The Big Book in nineteen thirty nine. It was published
in nineteen. He had like three and a half years sobriety.
You know, before he wrote the Big Book, all they

(03:10):
did was read the Bible. If you read Doctor Bob,
the Good Old Timers, which I encourage you to read
so you can find out what A is really about.
You need to find out about founders AA. You know
what happens is when you get old, you get opinionated. Well,
when you're younger opinionated, and so there's nothing wrong with
being opinionated. You just have a bunch of bullshit opinions,

(03:32):
you know, but hopefully if you get old, you've been
around here for forty five years, you have opinions, but
it's usually based on watching people drink or kill themselves
or stuff like that, or just going through life and
going through hard times.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
You get that change your perspective right the way?

Speaker 2 (03:47):
How do we get a change your perspective by repeated
humiliations in the final final crushing of ourselves. So the
only thing that forty five years means is that I've
been I've been crushed a little bit more than somebody
with twenty years, You know what I mean? You know,
the crushing is what changes you. You're sort of walking around,
You're you're what do they say when you're when you're gliding,

(04:10):
You're you're resting on your laurels, and you're headed for trouble,
as you do, but you don't think you're heading for trouble.
And then and then somebody takes away all your money,
or your wife leaves you, or you get cancer, something happens,
and all of a sudden, all of a sudden, you
thought you had it all together, and you you know,
you go to shit and and you then you're down,

(04:30):
and then you're not such a big shot, and then
you're worried and you're a thumbsucking cry baby, and you
got ten years and all of a sudden, you got
to do a game changer. You either drink or you
change your game, and you probably run into somebody.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
Tell you to go to church, or they tell you
to do something you don't want to do, but you're
so scared.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
You got no place else to go because don't drink
and go to meetings doesn't work because you're not drinking
to go to meetings, and you want to blow your
brains out. So you end up doing what they're told
to do, and your whole life changes, and then you're
wonderful again until you start coasting and resting our laurels
and playing god, and then all of a sudden, you know,
the cancer comes back, or the irs you know what it'shew, or.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
Something happens and you go crazy.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
And so the only thing that forty five years means
is that I've had forty five years of repeated humiliations
and crushing on my self sufficiency. That sort of like
fine tunes, you you know it, fine tunes.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
You you know where to and what happens.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
You get fine tuned enough, you start dealing with the
real problem because you don't even know what the real
problem is.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
You really don't know what the real That's okay, it's standard.
You know, you're not. Your brains all be fuddled. You
don't know what the ruth.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
So I can tell you this. I'm not gonna tell
you anything. None of this may apply to you. I
got some really I gotta tell you, I got some
weird shit. I'm going to hand out some shit you're
not gonna hear in some other places.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
But but uh, you know that.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
Thing that they say in the Big Book where they
say you lose fear of people and economic and security, Yeah,
you know that thing where you.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
You worry about what other people think.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
You'll worry about what other people think about you. You know,
you can always see alcoholics worry about what people think
about them. I know that because I'm an alcoholic and
I've worked with a lot of alcoholics, and you know,
like we have we speak, we don't we don't tell people.
We worry about what other people think about it. We
live a life in bondage to fear of what people

(06:23):
are going to think about us. We don't know where
like that, because when you've been like that all your life,
you don't know you're like that because you're just like
that and you hang around people that are like that,
So you don't know about it until you mess up
and you go crazy and you get some sponsor that
you respect and he's sort of like somehow.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
Through well if it's if one of my sponsor.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
Through sarcasm, you know, lets you know, like like you know,
they say, well, you're gonna do in the meeting tonight, Russell.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
I says, uh, you say, uh.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
I'm not really ready to do that. I said, oh,
you're scared. I didn't say that, and I said I'm
just not ready. I said, no, no, say this same.
I'm scared to do the meeting because I'm gonna screw
up and people are gonna laugh at me. Why don't
you tell the truth? You see, that's how you learn
about it. You learn about shit like that. Like guy
will come in your office. I will come in your

(07:17):
office and he'll talk about how he's worried about this,
and he's worried about that, and he doesn't know what's
gonna happen to his job, and he doesn't know what's
got his wife. And he'll just talk for fifteen minutes
about about how worried he is. And I'll say, oh, yeah,
I understand, you probably can fix that.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
He says.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
Yeah. He says, oh yeah, you're just you're just scared,
You're afraid, you have fear. He says, No, I didn't
say that. I'm just worried, you know, he said. He says,
I said, that's another word for fear. You see, that's
how bright we are. You see, we don't even understand
half the time what we're talking about. It's all about
fear at the corrosive thread. So he Bill Wilson wrote

(07:53):
this book called The Big You know, the books that
they read were first the books that they found, the
old timers found. I call him the founders because that's
what I did with these days, something called Founder's sobriety.
So I read all that confers approved stuff you don't
conft approve. You know, there's no conference disapproved. Did you
know that people use that to try to keep you

(08:14):
in an AA box. They try to keep you in
a box so you don't grow up and do six
step and become an adult. They keep you in a box. Well,
that's not confidence approved. Well, fella, I don't know how
to explain this to you. But back in the good
old days, when they were really doing this thing, all
they read was conference not you know, CONFT approved means
it means A publishes it, so they make money off

(08:35):
of it. There's nothing conference disapproved, but they use it
these days to keep people sick. But you know, that's
just my opinion. You don't have to believe me.

Speaker 1 (08:46):
I want you to.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
Discover this shit on your own the way I discovered it.
You'll discover it when you get to be about ten
or fifteen or twenty years sober, and you'll discover when
you keep on drinking and keep on drinking, you don't
know what's going on because you're going on. You'll discover
when you're about twenty you're sober and you got cancer
and you got no place to go, and whenever you
go to a meeting, all they're talking about is not
drinking and going to meetings, and you're not drinking, and

(09:08):
you're going to meetings and you're scared shitless and you
wake up at three o'clock in the morning and you're
worried about losing your.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
House and you're worried about a child dying or something.

Speaker 2 (09:16):
You'll discover you'll discover them and you'll start saying, well,
where am I going to go now?

Speaker 1 (09:20):
And maybe you'll go to a psychiatrist.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
They'll give you some xanax or something that shoe on
or something like that to fix you up, and then
you'll end up drinking again, and you'll say, what's the answer,
and you'll you'll remember that what docor Young, one of
the greatest psychiatrists in the world, said, they're Roland has it?

Speaker 1 (09:36):
He said, The answer is God. It's not hidden. It's
just it's not hidden. It's just that alcoholics I want
to do don't want to do that.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
You just learn this stuff. You just learn if you
get Bill Wilson writes this book. So the books that
Bob said were absolutely essential were First Corinthians thirteen, Sermon
on the Mount.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
In the Book of James.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
So that's the Bible. He said, you want to he said,
he said, what's this?

Speaker 1 (09:58):
First things? First, that's something doctor Bob quoted.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
Then he said, doctor Bobbers said that means seek you
first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all
things will be added unto you. They said, well, what's
this program about. It says, read the Bible. That's doctor Bob.
If you don't believe that, you got to read Doctor
Bob in the good old times. That's what he said,
you know. But we'll get in more of that lady later.
But in any event, so he writes this book called

(10:25):
The Big Book Alcoholics. And as he's got three and
a half years, you know, now, listen, I believe the
Big Book was divided and inspired.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
I don't put down the Big Book.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
I got sober on the Big Book from the twelve
and twelve and all that sort of stuff.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
So don't don't make this sound.

Speaker 2 (10:39):
Don't mistake what I'm saying for somebody's saying it's no good.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
Or anything like that. All that stuff is good. It's good.
But what you find out is a's like a giant funnel.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
Everybody comes in, crazy people, psychos, you know, atheist agnostis.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
But you, guys, ever seen a funnel.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
You see what happens is it gets an hour and
an arrow, and then all of a sudden it becomes
a narrow way. And you go to these I get
to go to these conventions, speak at some of these
convention things and they do these things called countdowns. You guys,
have ever seen a countdown where they start they start saying,
who's the oldest guy there, and who's the youngest, you know,

(11:22):
and they go, how many people have one year or
two years, five years? And you got fifty thousand people
or a thousand people or three thousand people, and everybody's sober.
Everybody's sober. You know, how many people a five years?
One hundred people stand up? How many people got six years?

Speaker 1 (11:39):
Seven?

Speaker 2 (11:39):
One hundred and two hundred, three hundred people? And then
they they say, okay, they get around twenty years, twenty
five years, how many people? And three people stand up,
twenty six, two people stand up, twenty seven nobody, twenty
eight nobody, twenty nine, one guy, thirty nobody, thirty one, nobody,
thirty two, nobody.

Speaker 1 (11:59):
They're thirty three before one person another person, you know
what I mean. And they say, then there's one guy
who sayings up, he's got like forty five or fifty years,
you know what I mean? He says, where are they?
They all died of heart attacks, And you.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
Realize you start then you start realizing that all every
time you hear somebody in the room say, uh, I've
been around a for thirty years, or they say this,
he says, well, I had three years, and then I
had six years, and then I had five years. Where
you see somebody with what you my term is long

(12:33):
term sobriety with ten years.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
Pick up a white chip or twenty years pick up.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
But you start realizing that you never really keep counting
those people. You only look at the people that are
staying sober. And then you start realizing that all this
stuff you've been seeing over the time, with people picking
up again and picking up again or maybe committing suit
or stuff like that, it counts. And then you start
realizing that reaches a point in alcoholics anonymous, where where

(13:00):
if it's just about don't drink and going to meetings
and just about doing the steps and just about intensive
work with other alcoholics, that that has a half life
because you start realizing you start reading the sentences in
the Big Book. How's this for a sentence? There is
one that has all power, that one is God, May

(13:22):
you find him? Now that's a sentence? Is that a sentence?
What do you think they meant by that? There is
one who has all powered, that one is God. May
you find him. Now here's a sentence for you. If
a better philosophy of life would have solved our problems,
would be sober a long time ago.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
But they didn't solve our problems. You had to find
the power.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
By which we could live, and therefore we had to
talk about God. Of course, and he says, here's the
problem with alcoholics, atheists and agnostics, because alcoholics have a
problem with God. And when they say that thing about
there is one who has all powered, that one is God.
You know what they do after that? They talk about,
here's to hell and why of it? Not only do

(14:04):
we have to stop playing God making decisions for ourselves
and not following God or trying to do what the
sixth Steps says, you know what six steps says, grow
in the image and likeness of God. We have to
actually do that stuff unless you want to remain in
the spiritual kindergarten. You got to do that. That means
you've got to do what they say in the you
know what they say? You know what he said in

(14:24):
the last page of The Big Way. He says, we
know but a little.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
You have three and a half years, No, not but little.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
It's Bill Wilson he says, God will reveal to you
see who your relationship with him is. Right then, it
says on the last page, it says, he says.

Speaker 1 (14:37):
But what we want to know you? Bill, we won't
know you or Bob. What are we gonna do? He say?
He says that's not important.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
That he says, God will determine that your rear reliance
must be on him.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
He'll show you how to create the Fellowship Ukraine.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
Probably a god and fellowship, and then you'll get to
join something called the Fellowship of the Spirit. I mean,
you may think that's a fello shu ay, it's not
the Fellowship of a.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
There saying I don't know how to explain this to you.
This ain't well. People is anonymous.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
If you haven't figured that out, you haven't been to
enough meetings, you haven't sponsored enough people. You know, there's
another fellowship somewhere around here. It's actually out there too.
It's called the Fellowship of the Spirit.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
Spirit.

Speaker 2 (15:13):
Now you have to believe any of this. I'm not
trying to sell you anything. I'm just telling you my
experience is what you learn a lot. Between you, you
learn a lot. If you've been around a while, you
know it's like that guy in that farmer's commercial.

Speaker 1 (15:25):
We know a lot because we've seen a lot.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
You hear old the bullshit, you know, like Bill Wilson said, Hey,
Bill Wilson said in the Big Book, he said, you
know what he said.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
That's right there. You can look at it, he says.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
He says, here and there once in a while, a
former drinker, a former drinker, he said, come say he says,
feel better, look better, having a better time.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
He says.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
We laugh at that shit. We laugh at that cell,
and we know he's gonna try the old game again.

Speaker 1 (15:53):
Oh he's not.

Speaker 2 (15:54):
I never understood that guy comes to AA, he stops stringing,
since I feel better, I look better. And why would
you say we laugh at that stuff? You know, I
didn't understand. That sounds like a good thing, doesn't it.
And then I started sponsoring people who came for about
three weeks or a month or two months, saying how
great they're doing, how wonderful they're doing. And then they'd
come back and they'd miss meetings and they'd be drinking,

(16:17):
and you start realizing that that's what they saw. They
saw people that would get sober, and then they drink
again and they would say how great they're feeling.

Speaker 1 (16:25):
They drink again.

Speaker 2 (16:25):
And the guys that were doing terrible, who were come
to you because they said I needed to meet him
doing terrible, they were doing okay. You know, so he
says in the body he says, he says, he says,
what does he say? He says, feel better, look better,
We're having a better time. We laugh at such sally.
We know he will try. We know he will try
the old game again because he's not happy with his sobriety.

(16:50):
Soon he'll know loneliness as few do. He'll wish for
the end would be at the jumping off place. That's
what Bill will since he had three and a half years,
and that's what he prophesied in three and a half years.
Twenty years later, when he was twenty three years sober,

(17:11):
he was going down the tubes. The conference met when
he had fifteen years. The oldest guy at the conference
was Bill Wilson. He had fifteen years. Everybody else had
less than fifteen years. You guys, ever been to a
business meeting.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
Imagine a business meeting where nobody else more.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
Than fifteen years. Bill Wilson in fifteen years. I ain't
putting him down, but I'm just telling you truth. Two
years later, he was sucking on a list state he
went to a doctor just to experiment whether that would
help him. Hey, listen, I've been around long enough for
some of my best friends. Then I feel in good.
Say just go to our famous psychiatrists. And he says, well,
I know what your problem is. It's not a narcotic.

(17:47):
Don't worry it won't they try some of this xanax
shit or whatever.

Speaker 1 (17:51):
The heck.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
I don't even know what are they pushing these days.
I don't know what they're pushing these they're pushing something.
They got some sort of build that'll help. Yet Rowland
has went to doctor Young when the greatest psychiatrists in
the world at that time, Roland has it. He drank
again after going and he says, he says, I can't
help you. This is what the greatest psychiatrist. We don't
have many too, We don't have too many doctor Young's around.

(18:14):
Doctor Young said, hey, you can check on this and
senter our book. It's just the sentence. You've got to
just read it, he says.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
He says, I can't help you.

Speaker 2 (18:21):
You have the mind of a chronic alcohol I have
never been able to help somebody with that state of
minds exists. And he said, well, what do I do?
He says, you have to have God's help. And he says, well,
when he says listen, is there no hope? He says,
here and there once in a while, these things we
call him phenomena. That's a scientific atific word for miracle.

(18:42):
We call him miracles phenomena. But that's what you have
to do. And that's what he did, and to work
for him, and it worked for me. We're always looking
for the easy wrote out.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
And then so.

Speaker 2 (18:52):
Bill Wilson got past the LSD thing. He never drank again,
you know. And what I give him credit for is
about three or four years later, you start going down
to the tubes with depression and it was going nuts
and everything. He writes about it in a in a
volume that essay that most people do not read. It's
called The Next Frontier Emotional. Sobriety, you ought to.

Speaker 1 (19:14):
Read that thing. See what he has to say.

Speaker 2 (19:17):
You know what he says, He says, I've noticed that,
and he had about twenty one years at the time.
He says, I've noticed that many of our old timers.
He calls them ulsters who have successfully managed the booze,
but the booze cure for youngsters booz is another name

(19:37):
for alcohol. Others they got through the boos cure. They're sober,
they're picking up those medallions. You know, twenty one years
and have medallions, still lack emotional sobriety. Otherwise at three
and a half years, without knowing it, he was saying,
I noticed, he said that we'll come a time in
alcoholic's life, but he'll have no defense against first drink

(19:58):
has to come from God. And he said, and he
says he the way he said is he says, you'll
find an alcohol will find that he will get to
the point where he won't be happy with his sobriety.
And you know, you can get really heavy about this thing.
When you got three years or five years, ten years.

Speaker 1 (20:19):
You're not drinking.

Speaker 2 (20:19):
You're going all these conventions and you're helping all these
people and it's all a good thing, because that's what
happened to me, mister AA.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
You know, traveling around and everything. But I'll tell you something.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
You get about twenty years and twenty one years and
life starts hitting you.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
And you know, because I'll tell you something. He is great.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
You know, some life never stops. The hits never stop coming.
I don't care how long you're sober. You've been forty five,
you know something. There's always something to end that goes
twenty four to seven, you know, I mean.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
Twenty four to seven. It comes at you. And there's
only so many.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
Any meetings you can go to, and as so many
people you can sponsor. Before one day you know you're
not paying attention, you're looking someplace else, and all of
a sudden, here comes the.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
IRS, and there goes your bank account, and here.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
Comes I like it when they come in threes, you know,
the IRS, your bank account, your wife leaves you, and
you forgot your fucking password, you know what I mean.
And that's it. Con crup drink, you know what I mean?
And going nuts, you know, And.

Speaker 1 (21:24):
Yeah, you're laughing now, you don't know what it's like.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
You'll see a few years now, when you're sucking on
the moszle of a gun, you'll say, I used to
laugh at that idiot Russell, you know, And now I
know what it's all about.

Speaker 1 (21:36):
What's the deal is? And you learn about what this
alcoholism is all about? You learn about this deal, you know,
And so.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
Bill Wilson actually started experiencing it twenty one years that
which he wrote when he had three and a half years.
And you know what he said, He said, we got
these old timers, we got me and everything, and I'm
going nuts. And I wrote the book. And don't you
think I know how to do a force step and
a fifth step? Don't you look at how don't you
think I wrote the book and I can't figure it out?

(22:04):
You got to read that thing. You know what he says.
He says, I got it all wrong. He said I
got it all wrong. That's got to make it feel
good after you've been reading this book and worshiping Bill Wilson,
you know, all your life, and then all of a
sudden he writes these things that I got it all wrong.
And what he says is he said I got it
all wrong. Doctor Bob knew that because doctor Bob was

(22:24):
one of these guys. He was into the deal. You
know what the last words doctor Bob said to Bill
Wilson was the last words he said, Bill, because he
used to talk to him all the time. Doctor Bob
saw he said, Bill, let's not screw this thing up,
cheap and simple.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
It's a simple thing. Trust God. There is one who
has all powered that one. It's God. So you can
do this. You can do the twelve you can do
all twelve steps.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
If you don't get the one thing, If you don't
get the one thing, you're going to be out. No,
what does it say? God is the central word. God
is either everything or he's nothing. That's a sentence. You know,
he's everything or he's nothing. There is no middle of
the road solution or any of that stuff. I'm just
gonna point out to you that some of that stuff
is there. You know, if you find yourself you got
five years, you're like six years, you got twenty years,

(23:11):
you got twenty five years, and you're not happy with
yourself and you're still not happy. It's like that old song,
remember the song? Is that all there is? Just don't
drink and go to meetings? Almost sounds like a sentence,
almost like you're a lifer. Don't drink and go to meetings.

(23:31):
Just do all this and you'll do Okay. Other words,
all you have to do is do the work and
everything will work out.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
What if you do all the work and it doesn't
work out? So you learn a lot.

Speaker 2 (23:44):
Let me tell you something you learn around the ten years,
I hit a second bottom and I had to do
you'll learn a lot.

Speaker 1 (23:50):
Bill Wilson, where did you write the he wrote? He wrote.

Speaker 2 (23:55):
The thing about emotional sobriety, which is what I like
talk about the most. You can to hear about that
when he had twenty three years. It was published in
nineteen fifty nine of the Grapevine. So it's conference approved
by the way, you know he already said. He said,
but I see that some people, some people beat this

(24:16):
thing get rocking in the fourth di mession. It works
for them, and he called them you know what, He
called those people the benighted ones. He said, perhaps, say
this is the statement Bill Wilson made, if you liked it.
At three and a half years, he said, perhaps they
will be the spearhead for the next major development in alcoholics. Anonymous,

(24:40):
did you guys read the book on the about the
next major development?

Speaker 1 (24:45):
Yeah, you're gonna have to figure that out on your own.
You gotta figure that out on your own.

Speaker 2 (24:49):
You gotta understand census to figure out what the next
major development in AA. I pray that Bill Wilson got it.
You know hes sure hinted at it, but he didn't
come right on say it. But he said the next one.
I'll tell you what he did say. He said, you
know what my problem was dependency. I depended too much
on people, places, things, and I depended too.

Speaker 1 (25:06):
Much on.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
Alcoholics anonymous. I got so enamored with alcoholics of anonymous.

Speaker 1 (25:15):
You know, did you know?

Speaker 2 (25:16):
You know they say they talk about organized religion. Did
you know that from many people? AA is like religious.
It's like a religion. It's a religion, but not necessarily
one that believes in God. Not a religion that has
a god. It's a religion. You figure out your own deal.

(25:39):
It sort of leaves you there. That's not the way
they did it in the old days. But hell, I
just digress. So let's talk about the first step, shall we.
So listen, you learn a lot between one year and
ten years, don't you.

Speaker 1 (25:54):
I mean, you guys have been around. Some of you
guys have been around for a while.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
You know, if I said, you know, so, so Regina,
how much time you go?

Speaker 1 (26:02):
So you have three years? Do you think you've learned
a lot in the last three years?

Speaker 2 (26:06):
I mean, if I was to look at you and
ask you questions or see your brain.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
At one month? Do you think you've learned a lot?

Speaker 2 (26:16):
You've changed and you see things differently when you had
like six months from one month? What about from six
months to two years? What about from two years to
three years? You think you've learned really like every day?

Speaker 1 (26:33):
Right? Would you want to go back to one month? No,
you don't want to go back there.

Speaker 2 (26:38):
But when you had one month, you were feeling good, right,
But now you've got three years, but you don't want
to go you want to go back.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
How about like you want to go back three months ago? No,
you don't. You want to have it.

Speaker 2 (26:48):
So I wonder what you're going to be like in
three more years? What about ten more years? What about
thirty more years? What about four any more? Use?

Speaker 1 (27:02):
You know? You know you learn, you learn a lot,
You see a lot. You know, things happen to you.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
You know. One of the things you got to in
order to change an alcoholic and out control, you need
two things. Number One, you need an alcoholic. You got
to start off with an alcoholic. That's like the recipe.
Number two, you need the steps, you need the fellowship.
You need all this stuff that we have we surround
the stuff and then you know what you need.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
You need time in the oven. You got to take
that cake, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
You got to put all the ingredients in there, and
you got to throw them in the oven and turn
it up to three hundred and fifty degrees for forty years.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
Now, I know you want, I know what you want
to do.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
You want to throw it in the oven and turn
it up to ten thousand degrees.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
For six seconds, you know, just sort of rush the process.

Speaker 2 (27:46):
But then we just get crispy, you know what I mean.
It's just it doesn't work that way. You got to
put in the time. So that's the deal. So what
is this about?

Speaker 1 (27:55):
So my idea is if you ask me.

Speaker 2 (27:59):
About the first step years ago, years ago, you know,
I would say something like this, because I've heard the
settin meanings. I believe that's true. I believe it's true.
I would say, you know, there comes a time, and
if you're an alcoholic, there comes time with your life
where you pass over an invisible line where you weren't

(28:19):
drinking alcoholically.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
You understand what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (28:22):
You weren't drinking alcoholically, but you pass over this line.
You can't see it as you're passing over it. But
sometimes you're going to look back and you can see
that line, you know what I mean. You can see
that line, and you say, man, that's when I passed
over that line, you know. And you say, and then
I passed over the line from non alcoholic drinking into

(28:46):
alcoholic drinking. You understand what I'm saying. And you see
that line, And that's what I would have told you.
Then a few years later down the road, I would
have said, well, you know, I think I passed over
that line when I took my first drink, And that
would have been.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
True for me.

Speaker 2 (29:00):
I would decided to passed on my line when I
took my first drink. And now I know I passed
over that line when I was born, because my concept
of what alcoholism is is different. It's changed because now
that line in the Big Book where it says drinking
is only a symptom, is only a symptom of the disease.

Speaker 1 (29:26):
The real disease centers in our minds.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
So here's the deal. So my mom, my mom was
an alcoholic. She was horrible, She was a bad alcoholic.
I love my mom, but I also hated my mom.
I swore I was fourteen years old, thirteen years old,
and I swear I would never be like my mom,
drunk all the time, lying not in the front lawn
in the middle of daylight, in her negligee, you know.

(29:50):
And I'd never be like my mom. I was not
going to drink like my mom. I was not going
to drink.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
But what do you what do you do if you're weird?
I know what I did. I had a drink.

Speaker 2 (30:04):
I drink a cold forty five Molet licker and got laid.
That's what happened to me, you know what I mean.
It was off to the races.

Speaker 1 (30:10):
That was me. So here's the here's.

Speaker 2 (30:12):
The deal, Here's here's the deal. Let's let's do it
this way. Let me just tell you the truth.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
You ever, you ever.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
You say, you ever say to yourself, if I only
had this whatever this is a new a new girlfriend,
a new boyfriend, you know, a new toy, a motorcycle, whatever, whatever.
What is going on over here? I mean, really keep going,
keep going, keep on. I feel like I'm in the

(30:45):
Grand Central station there. So you keep hitting the table
and it shows up on the record.

Speaker 1 (30:51):
Also, now it's my fault, aren't you an alcoholic. I
think everything's your fault.

Speaker 2 (30:58):
You ever you ever wake up up in the morning
or say to yourself, if I only had this one thing,
everything would be perfect. And you think about that one
You ever do that?

Speaker 1 (31:13):
You ever do that?

Speaker 2 (31:14):
You know I used to do that. I'll bet I
did that when I was thirteen. Man, If I only
had that bicycle, I'd be okay. If I only got
this for Christmas, I'd be okay. You ever, you ever
feel sorry for yourself? I can't believe this is always
happening to me. This bullshit always happen.

Speaker 1 (31:30):
You ever do that? And I did that when I
was I've done that all my life.

Speaker 2 (31:35):
I'm not sure quite frankly, emotionally. Emotionally, I'm not talking
about intellectually. I got smarter and smarter and smarter school wise, academically,
you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (31:46):
I got more degrees that can possibly match it.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
That proofs that I've been educated far beyond my capacity
to know anything. Okay, but I mean I knew everything,
but that's all I knew. I didn't know how to
keep a marriage together. I didn't know how not to
cheat on my wife. I didn't know how to be
a decent person. I didn't know how to treat everybody
like they have a broken heart, because they probably do.
I didn't know how to love people. I didn't even

(32:09):
know what love was. But you know, I mean you have, Yeah,
you have that thing like, yeah, you feel sorry for
you know you're feeling sorry for you? Why is this
always happening to me? You ever envy anybody else? You
ever jealous of anybody else?

Speaker 1 (32:22):
You ever?

Speaker 2 (32:22):
You ever say and you know you ever you ever
talk to you? You ever tell yourself you're you're so
wonderful and you're so great and nobody, nobody appreciates you.
How about you ever tell yourself you're a piece of
shit and you might as well kill yourself.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
You ever do that? You ever?

Speaker 2 (32:40):
Have you ever find yourself all of a sudden? You
have you ever find yourself like in the car and
all of a sudden you hear this, You hear this voice.
You're such an asshole. You're never gonna understand this. You're
such a jerk, You're such a phony. You ever have
this voice? You know telling you bad things about yourself
and other people? I mean, you could turn on TV

(33:01):
and you could text, you can do all the shit
we do to ignore. But you ever have this constant
voice somehow where you're second guessing yourself.

Speaker 1 (33:09):
The teacher says, does anybody have a question?

Speaker 2 (33:11):
You have a question because you don't understand, but you
don't raise your hand because what if it's a stupid question?

Speaker 1 (33:15):
People laugh at you.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
Anybody have the answer, and you have the answer, but
you don't necessarily raise your hand because what if you're wrong?
You ever worry about what people think about you, or
what they're going to think about you, or what they
did think about you?

Speaker 1 (33:30):
You ever hate? You ever tell?

Speaker 2 (33:31):
You? Ever tell yourself, I don't give a shit what
other buddies found I don't care. I don't care what
they think about I. Don't you ever tell yourself over
home again? You don't care what they think about you?
You ever say it out loud? You ever turn you
they said you know something, I don't give a shit
what they think about me. You ever have a couple
of drinks and say that you know? Listen, let me
tell you what I found out. This is my own line.

(33:53):
People that are constantly telling themselves they don't care what
other people think about them.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
All they do is.

Speaker 2 (33:59):
Think about what them people think about them. That's a
bondage worse than drinking alcohol alcohol whistle abbans, you'll die
or you'll kill somebody else, you'd go to jail. But
live in a life where you're always second guessing yourself.
You're always worried about what other people think about. You're
always trying to conform to other people. You're always trying

(34:22):
to whore yourself out to the world like a whore,
never wanting to be your own man because you're always
looking to see what everybody's looking at and what they want.
Always worried about what you're going to say in AA
because you don't want to mention cardter saying, because you
know somebody's gonna say you're killing newcomers. You know, always
worried about you know that kind of stuff that's not sobriety.

(34:42):
You know what that is. That's bullshit. I've lived that
entire life all my life.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
I didn't come in.

Speaker 2 (34:49):
Here to live that life for two thirds of my life.
I'm seventy six years old. I've lived that way. I
ain't living the last third of my life that way.
This is about being rocked in the for to mention existence,
experiencing much of heaven and knowing peace? How about that deal?
How about knowing peace? How about experiencing much of heaven?

(35:10):
What's that all about? You know what that's all about?
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (35:14):
So let me tell you. So here's the deal.

Speaker 2 (35:17):
All that, all those thoughts and fifty more that I
haven't even said. About the anger, and about the lust,
and about the envy. You know, about the pride, the
false pride, and all the anger, all the stuff you
know that goes through your brain. And you know the
other thing about alcoholic You can't stop thinking, can you.
You ever say to yourself, I gotta stop thinking about

(35:38):
this crap. This thing is driving me. You ever say
to yourself, I gotta stop thinking about this crap.

Speaker 1 (35:43):
You know, maybe it's money. I'm worried about the money.
I'm worried about the money. I'm worried about the money.
I'm wried about me.

Speaker 2 (35:47):
He said, I gotta stop thinking about this stuff. You say,
it's not putting a domonom my. Maay, I gotta stop
thinking about this stuff. And then for two nanoseconds you
stop thinking about it, then you start thinking about it again.
You ever find you can't stop thinking about you? You
ever find that you're always thinking about bad things about
yourself and other people. You ever find yourself populated with people?
You ever cross the street because you see something and

(36:09):
somebody and you hope they don't see you because you
want to You ever, you ever rip up your mail
before you open up the envelope. You ever look at
the phone to see who's calling you because you and
you don't answer it because you don't want to speak
to them.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
You ever do?

Speaker 2 (36:24):
That's just the tip of the freaking ice iceberg. Now
let me tell you what the deal is with that.
I thought those things a decade before I started drinking.

(36:45):
That's my thought process, years before I had my first drink.
You know why I drank because no woman, no car,
no amount of money, non suit of clothes, no haircut,

(37:05):
no boatox, no nothing ever work quite as well and
quite as fast as just a few drinks. Not that
bad other stuff doesn't work. By the way money works,
I spend more money. I don't have buying shit. I
don't need to impress people I don't even like and

(37:29):
make me so that i'd be accepting they think I great.
You know, I spend more time worrying about losing this
or losing that, I spend more time saying if I
have that car, I'd be okay and I'd get the car.
And like a year later, I mean, I have a
scratch in the car and it would cost three hundred
dollars to fix. And I had to fix it because
it was driving me nuts because I'm driving around with
a scratch car and I don't have any money. All

(37:50):
I have is at three hundred dollars, but I'll spend
it on the scratch because I'm worried about what people
think about me with a scratch in my car.

Speaker 1 (37:59):
You know what I mean. That's what alcohol. That's you
know that, you said, here's the deal. So I drank.

Speaker 2 (38:03):
And if alcohol did for me what it did for
me when I had was eighteen, nineteen, twenty twenty one,
twenty five, i'd still be drinking it. But alcohol stopped
working for me and stopped working for me, and the
sad thing about my life is stop working for me.
About ten years before I realized it stopped working for me,

(38:24):
and I heard a lot of people. I heard a
lot of people. I broke a lot of people's hearts
and I hurt myself, but I heard a lot of people,
and so I don't drink it anymore. So I stopped
drinking the alcohol, which is the symptom of my disease.
And then you know what took over the disease, the

(38:48):
thing that was bothering me when I was five years old,
when I was ten years old, when I was thirteen
years old.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
The thinking. The thinking doesn't stop everything, and the.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
Meetings, knowing people get responsors is all about putting a
band aid on and somehow stopping you from committing suicide,
from killing yourself.

Speaker 1 (39:13):
When somebody comes to a meeting, that you ever say, man,
I needed that meeting and mean it?

Speaker 2 (39:19):
You ever run to a meeting because you really need
a meeting. Well, let me ask you this. You're not drinking, right,
Why the hell do.

Speaker 1 (39:27):
You need a meeting?

Speaker 2 (39:30):
Why do you need a meeting? See, people never look
beyond the obvious. They think picking up a chip or
doing this or doing that, and maybe they feel better
for five minutes or something like that. They never ask
themselves why do I need to do this stuff? And

(39:57):
you need to do this shit because you have alcoholism,
and if you stop drinking, it doesn't even come close
to stopping the alcoholism because the centers in your mind,
not your body. And doctor Young was right. He says,
you have the mind of a chronic alcoholic. I've never
been able to solve that problem. That's why you keep
on drinking, not because you you don't drink because you

(40:21):
crave alcohol. You see, the craving is real, The obsession
is real, The craving is real. Once you have that
first drink, you gotta have another one, another one, another one.
But when you took, before you took that first drink,
you ready for this. You weren't drinking. It's not because
you crave alcohol. It's because you're fucking insane. You're crazy, which,

(40:45):
by the way, brings me to another point. Right after
you realize that, then you get into something to call
the second step, and I think it has something to
do with being restored to sanity. Did I get that right?
As I am old and I have dementia. I think
they then start talking about the insanity, and some people

(41:05):
get upset because you tell them.

Speaker 1 (41:09):
They're insane because they don't believe it's that.

Speaker 2 (41:12):
Man, if you're an alcoholic, you're crazy, and you could
you could deal with You can deal with that step.

Speaker 1 (41:20):
You can deal with the step you.

Speaker 2 (41:21):
You only say the one thing you have to do
one d is the first step.

Speaker 1 (41:25):
They tell you stuff like that. I think it works.
I think it helps you know.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
You just makes the importance here he is, So what
do I do when I see a guy with thirty
years pick up a white chip? What do I do
with the guy who started the car room or in
from back the room he walk somebody he picks up
in white chip because they after thirty years he drank.
I say something stupid because I only five years. Oh,
that guy obviously didn't take to do the first step.

(41:51):
Guy with thirty years started the car room did step
to Obviously he didn't do the first man. I wish
that was the truth. I wish the starf that they
tell you was the truth. You're going to learn what
the truth is. I mean, if all was was doing
the first step one hundred percent, you don't even need
a big book. You need a bumper sticker, you know
what I mean. You're gonna find.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
There's a lot more to this disease. You know something.

Speaker 2 (42:15):
It feeds on people who think that they lived on
the first step and that's all they need to do,
or they think they've done a good fourth step and
that's all they need to do. It feeds on people.
This is a twelve step program. You know what the
twelve step program is designed to do. Well, if you
read the book, if you sort of get it, it
says it says there is one that has all power.

(42:42):
That one is God. May you find him now now,
not twenty years from now, that thirty years weapon now.
And then they say this is the how and why
that this is how we do it. We do these steps.
The steps are designed to get you to the point

(43:05):
where God becomes the central fact of your life.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
Not only does it become the central fact, this is
what's called.

Speaker 2 (43:11):
The great fact in any Not only does it become
the central fact of your life, because these are the
two things you have to have the great fact, and
the great fact is this and nothing. It's nothing less
than this, that God is the central factor of your life.
And you are convinced, you're not unsure about this, you
are absolutely convinced that He lives in your heart and

(43:31):
mind in a way that is miraculous, doing for you
what you can't do for yourself.

Speaker 1 (43:36):
And by the way, kids, that isn't my opinion.

Speaker 2 (43:39):
That's the big book of alcoholics anonymous, and so what
is it profit a man? What is it profit a
person if he does all the steps semi perfectly, and
he's got the steps and I did him five times,
if he doesn't believe in God, if his life doesn't
centers on God. When the whole reason you worship the hammer,

(43:59):
I'm you build a house with the hammer and the
nails and the saw, and you build the house, and
then you spend the rest of your life worship being
the hammer. What does it mean? What happens to you
where your life is all? You know what happens to
you when you don't believe in God. You get sober,
and you know what happens. You start making your own
decisions and come to your own decision about yourself. You

(44:22):
don't need any help, You don't need to ask other people.
You certainly don't hang around those God people. You understand,
because every alcohol knows that if you're an alcoholic, they
have this in tipathy about God.

Speaker 1 (44:33):
You hate God.

Speaker 2 (44:34):
That's why in the Big Book, by the way, they
say we lose prejudice even again, all prejudice even against
the organized religion. But we know that's not true in
AA because if you start talking about God like I
talk about God, somebody's gonna come up to you and
sort of palunge you and say, don't be talking about
that crap. You're gonna hurt people, You're gonna kill people.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
You know.

Speaker 2 (44:53):
I don't know if you guys know this, but in
nineteen thirty, thirty five, thirty six, thirty seven, thirty eight,
and thirty nine, you couldn't go to a meeting unless
you got on your knees in front of everybody who's already.

Speaker 1 (45:03):
In AA and gave your life to God. Did you
know that? You know that.

Speaker 2 (45:07):
It wasn't no white chip stuff. It wasn't no well
pick up the white chip. Oh and if you're shy,
we'll put it over here and you can come at three.

Speaker 1 (45:14):
O'clock in the way.

Speaker 2 (45:15):
Well, that was an aa A was you go into
a room and you get on your knees in front
of everybody who's already in AA, and you give your
life to God. And and well you probably saying well,
some people probably didn't go. You're probably right. The meetings
were probably a little different, don't you think You probably
didn't have those guys in the back of the room
and saying, well, if they had told me to do this,

(45:35):
or I would have left. You know what I mean,
you didn't have those guys there. Now, I'm not putting
down A the way it is right now. I'm just
telling you that I was brought into AA the way
it is sort of like now, you know. I mean
when I came to he went forty five years ago,
so it's been around for ninety years, so you know,
it had already been watered down.

Speaker 1 (45:56):
It had already been.

Speaker 2 (45:58):
Pasteurized, homogenized, sterilized, so that nobody would get offended and
nobody get a set like. I like what Clarence the
Brewmaster said when Bob Smith twelfth septem and he said,
the first question was you believe in Godwin, young fellow,
He says, what is? He says, what does that have
to do with it? And doctor Bob said everything he says,

(46:22):
He says, well, I guess, He says, guess nothing. You
either believe in God or you don't. And he says, okay,
I do. He says, great, get down off the hospital bed,
get on your knees.

Speaker 1 (46:32):
And we're going to say a prayer. I don't know
how to prayer. I guess you don't you just do
what I tell you to do. And you know what.

Speaker 2 (46:38):
You know what Clarence said this great line and send
doctor Bob in the good old times. He said, I
did what I was ordered to do. There were no suggestions.
And I'll tell you something. If you can't tell an
alcoholic what to do to his face, you have no

(46:59):
business is sponsoring an alcoholic because all you're doing is
you're going to lead them to disaster. Because I'm gonna
tell something, I'm gonna give a shit what alcoholics say about.
Don't tell me what to do? You know I do.
This is my program, you do. Let me tell you what.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
You know what?

Speaker 2 (47:18):
Alcoholics really need direction? You know they come here for direction.
If you can't give somebody direction, you know what that
means about you. It means you may think you're helping them.
What it means is you're scared to give them direction
because you don't want them not to like you.

Speaker 1 (47:36):
It's all about you. You're scared to walk.

Speaker 2 (47:39):
Out the door, tell somebody and say, you know that
guy Rock saying she's stupid, that guy russells she's stupid.
It means that you're so worried about what other people
think about you that you don't want to be tough
on people when they need to be tough. You love
them when they need to be loved. But some people
need to hear. Some guys with twenty thirty years when
they come up to you and start whinting about whatever
the hell they're wanting about, you need to tell them,

(48:02):
you know how much? How old are you? Forty years
forty years old? Let me ask you something, Bob, when
the fuck are you going to grow up? Some men
need to hear about growing the hell up. Some women
who come in to see you and say, well, at
least I'm a good mother, need to hear you say

(48:23):
you know something. You're a shitty mother. Is that what
you tell yourself to make yourself feel good? My mother
was an alcoholic. You choose booze over your kids. You're
a crappy mother. Is that what you tell yourself to
make yourself feel good so you somehow feel good? Well,
let me tell you something. I had a mother like you. You
don't give a crap about your kids. That's the stuff

(48:43):
you tell yourself to make yourself. Some people need to
hear the truth sometimes, and the fact that you can't
tell them the truth has not though, when even though
you know that's the truth, but you can't say it
is because you are more worried about yourself and whether
somebody will like you you than saving somebody's life. Because

(49:03):
I'm going to say something, the chief characteristic of every
alcohol coiner is defiance. And sometimes I don't know when
you ever know this, but if you sponsor a few
hundreds thousand people, if you sponsor people, you realize every
once in a while, as you're talking to them that
they're not listening to you. Now, I trust me, you
can talk to an alcoholic say the same thing five times,

(49:24):
and at the end of talking to me, says and
you'll say, did you hear anything I said? You said, yeah,
I heard anything. So what was the last thing I
said to you? I said, I don't know, I can't remember.
They're not listening to you. As you're talking. They're already
thinking you're full of shared or what they're going to say,
or something like. Many times, and when you they come
to you they say, look, they act like they're asking

(49:44):
you a question, right, You actually think they care about
what you have to say. They don't want to get well,
they just want attention, and you start talking, and before
you finish your sentence they interrupted.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
You say, well, no you don't understand.

Speaker 2 (49:57):
They I've been told, I mean, and how can I
go for this long time and never understand anything.

Speaker 1 (50:03):
I've been told so many times.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
I don't understand by people that are telling me their
problem because they don't understand it, and they come to
me seemingly because they want to know what their problem is.
And before I even finished the first line of the
first sentence, they said, no you don't understand.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
I said, like, well, why why do you Why are
you talking to me?

Speaker 2 (50:20):
I mean, obviously I don't understand, and obviously you do understand,
So just do what you want to He says, well,
you just fons mean.

Speaker 1 (50:26):
He says, yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
He says, let me tell you what my problem is. Oh,
you're going to tell me what your problem is? He says,
well yeah, blah blah blah blah blah. He says, I
think I got to start the first step and the
second and third step. Well wait a second, didn't you
do the first step? Well he says, yeah, Well didn't
you do the fourth step? And he says, yeah, well
you were sober five years didn't you do all these

(50:49):
these steps.

Speaker 1 (50:50):
He says, yeah, I didn know all. I said, well,
you drank, he said yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
I said, so you just want to do the steps
over again that you are already willing to do. He said,
well yeah, he says, well, why don't we do this,
Why don't we try to figure out the steps that
you didn't do. Maybe it's not what you did, Maybe
mister didn't do to go to Bible study, did you

(51:18):
pray to God? Did you hang around people that believed
in God?

Speaker 1 (51:24):
Well? No, because you know that's not my program.

Speaker 2 (51:26):
I said, well, maybe I'm not the guy for you.
Maybe he just thought, why don't you just keep on
doing what you did when you drank. I'm sure that'll
work for you this time, you get it. I mean,
this may not be making any sense to you. Alcoholics
are very very sick people. You know, they'll they be

(51:48):
they'd love for you to let them just do continue
to do what they've been doing and get sicker and
sicker and sickert and then they can say, it's my
sponsor's fault, it's AA's fault. I went to AA. I
did all that, it didn't work, And they can say
because they're different and they're unique, you know. And so

(52:11):
the bottom line is is that this disease, this idea
of worrying about what other people think about you, being
so self absorbed and everything like that, that you're not
willing to put.

Speaker 1 (52:20):
Yourself and yourself on the line.

Speaker 2 (52:22):
You're not willing to even somebody have somebody reject you.
You know, let me tell you somethow. You know, you
may think this is weird. I told the Goal one
day when she came to see me, that exact same thing.
I said, you're a crappy mother. You're a terrible mother,
and I feel sorry. I don't feel sorry for you,
I feel sorry for your kids. You know.

Speaker 1 (52:42):
She did.

Speaker 2 (52:43):
She got out of my office. She said, I didn't
come here to see her. That hear that shit? You
know what I mean? I don't need that crap from
somebody like you. And she walked out the door. And
then fifteen minutes later, my secondary said that Galla is
on the phone, and I said, yeah, I said, She said,
can I come back? I said sure? And she's sober today.

(53:06):
And she's sober today. I mean, I you know, you
got to understand, you got Once you start understanding alcoholics,
understanding yourself, you start understanding alcoholics. You know you've got
somebody that pisses you off and tells you shit that
let me tell you something. You throw a rock into
a pack of dogs, the one that yelps loud is
the one that gets hit. You find somebody that's telling

(53:29):
you shit that you don't want to hear. Let me
tell you we have spiritual accent. Whenever you're upset, no
matter what, well, no matter what the cause, there's something
wrong with you.

Speaker 1 (53:37):
There's something wrong.

Speaker 2 (53:39):
You try to find people that are saying shit that
upsets you.

Speaker 1 (53:44):
You find because you know something.

Speaker 2 (53:46):
If you don't deal with the stuff that upsets you,
there's nothing that's going to go on in here that
somebod's gonna say to here that's as bad as what
you're going to get out there. If you don't learn
how to be unupsetable by some of the stuff you're
here and there, they're going to kill you out there
because out there they really don't do a shit. You know,

(54:06):
it's going to be much rougher out there. So that's
so to me. That's the first step, the first step,
and once you stop drinking, that's when you deal with
the real first step, realizing you're powerless over your sick
mind and instincts and.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
The way you are and your brain. You know this
idea that now that.

Speaker 2 (54:26):
You're sober and you can use your brain and think,
well and do okay, you know what I mean. As
long as you're not drinking, that's when the disease has
a party going on. That's when the party starts. You know,
you know that's the deal.

Speaker 1 (54:43):
So thank you very much,