Russell S. Session 10: Step Series at Life Is Good Group - 11/20/2025

Russell S. Session 10 at the Life Is Good Group, Boca Raton 11/20/2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name is Russell Spats. I'm an alcoholic. It's gonna
be here with you guys. So I'm gonna I'm gonna, uh,
what am I gonna do? I'm gonna do something. We'll
see how this works out. I'm gonna be honest with you.
I try to really be honest and open at each meeting,
whatever media I do. And I'm gonna be honest with you.
And the reason I want to be honest is not

(00:20):
because I'm an honest guy, but because I have no
idea what I'm gonna say. So whenever I have no
idea what I'm gonna say, and I'm fishing around for
an idea what I'm gonna say, I all of a
sudden hear this voice. Is why She's just be honest
with these people. So I'm just gonna be honest. I
don't teach these things. This isn't a teaching. It may
sound like I'm teaching or I'm telling you what to do,

(00:41):
That's not my intention. I once I asked the Attorney
General of the United States from many years ago. I
was at a place where he was at and he
was a Christian guy. I'm a Christian guy, and and
I was befuddled by how a guy who you know,
follows the Lord or what stuff, how he could live
in Washington, d C. And be, you know, involved in politics.

(01:04):
And he says, he said, you know, Russ, my religion
forbids me, inhibbits me from trying to push my faith
on anybody. I said, I don't do that. I'm not
here to impose my faith on anybody but I but
I'm here to expose my faith. And that sort of
lines up with alcoholics anonymous. It says, I'm not here

(01:25):
to tell you you got to be this, and you've
got to be that, and you've got to be another thing,
because there's a million different voices in AA that'll tell
you many different things. Then we have people in AY.
Even though the Big Book says, if you're an atheist
or agnostic, these things have to be pushed aside, they've
got to be abandoned. Even though he says that you
can stand up in a meeting and say I'm an atheist.
It works just fine. You don't have to believe in God,

(01:46):
even though it's completely the opposite of what the Big
Book says. So what I do is it says in
the Big Book it says every alcohol like it when
he's at a meaning in his own language and from
his own point of view, expresses how he came to
believe and grew his relationship with God. And so that's
all I do. That's my deal. May not be, you
may not like it. You don't have to like it.

(02:07):
I mean, we're all alcoholics. You permititate anybody you want,
and Tira resem, you can walk out of here. And
I've had people walk out of me, and that's fine too.
It's okay, But I'm gonna be honest with you, and
it's not for me. Look, I came in when I
was thirty one years old. At seventy six. Now I'm
in my forty fifth year of sobriety, and and I'm

(02:30):
not it's it's worked, as worked. All I can tell
you is, unfortunately for you guys, AA has worked. In
other words, fear of people is gone for the most part.
And not things ever perfect, but it's pretty much gone
in AA. I don't when I speak at conventions, I
don't worry about what they're gonna think of. I'm not

(02:51):
here for a personality. What is it, personality contest or popular?
I'm not here to be popular, you know what I mean,
I absolutely believe me. I realize. Some guy called me
I was doing something at the convention a few weeks ago.
He said, you know, Russell's an acquired taste. Everybody sort
of chuckled. I said, well, you're laughing now, but you

(03:13):
haven't heard me yet. You know, you'll find out what
that's all about. I mean, I'm an acquire I'm going
to talk about what I'm going to talk about. It's
going to piss some people off. That's okay, you know,
as a matter of fact. When it pisses people off.
I know I'm I know I'm getting somewhere. I'm probably
telling them the truth, you know, because alcoholics need to
be confronted. You know. It's you know, I sponsored. I
don't even know how many people. They didn't tell me.

(03:34):
If somebody asked me how many people did sponsor, I said,
you know, I was supposed to count them in the
last you know, thirty five years, hundreds and uh. And
I love them all and I try to help them all,
and I get phone calls. They try to help people,
and the bottom butt but the bottom line is is
that this is a drastic program and people are going
to die, and and the truth of the matter is,

(03:54):
I never I never let slide when it's appropriate, the
opportunity to hurt somebody's feelings when they need because that's
really that's I mean. If you haven't had your feelings
hurt prior to come to AA and been crushed prior
to coming to AA, you have a different You have
a different disease than I have. So better to have
your your feelings crushed or being spanked by a sponsor

(04:15):
who loves you, then have it spanked by being arrested
for a hick on homicide which just stopped into a
guy I know, and he's facing twenty five years in
jail now, So you really want it. You want to
be confronted in here and not because the world is
the funny way of confronting you outside in public. So
I never shot away from saying things. And I know
they're gonna people are going to disagree, but that's okay.

(04:36):
You know, I kind of kill you to disagree with somebody.
All I can tell you is that that I've lost,
I'm for the most partly lost fear of being myself.
Even somebody doesn't like what I have to say that
one one that's fine, It's okay. You know, my sponsor
ones told me, one of my sponsors told me, when
you throw a rock into a pocket dogs, the one
that yells alloudess is the one that gets hit. So

(04:58):
you know, and we have a spiritual actually, whenever you deserve,
no matter what causes something wrong with you. So what
I try to do is disturb as many people as possible.
It's so like because that separates out the people who
are actually emotionally sober from the people who are still childish.
You understand what I'm saying, because the only thing that
tells me when you get upset, the only thing that

(05:19):
tells me when you get upset by something I said,
is that you're not sober. It's as simple as that. See,
just it's not. That's a tough thing, right, it's a
crummy thing. Don't you say that's a crummy thing. I
think it's a mean thing to say. You know, a
guy comes up to you ask for help and you
tell him something. They get upset. I said, you're not
I don't consider you sober. You know it's mean, isn't it.

(05:41):
It's pretty cruel that that's the only thing that they'll
remember for the next five years, because that's what alcoholics do.
They remember shit like that, They remember, they remember people
through you know how we get a new perspective by
repeated humiliations and the final question of our self sufficiency.

(06:05):
You know that's not only because of alcohol, because alcohol
is but a symptom. That has something to do also
with spending money. You don't have to buy shit. You
don't need to impress people you don't like. That also
has something to do with with having a total lack
of integrity and being a liar and being a cheater

(06:26):
and lie to yourself and lying to other That has
a lot to do, you know. And you find something
in your life that's only look you in the eye
and lose your friendship by telling you the truth and
pissing you off. You want you want to hang on
to that sort of stuff, you know, because the last
thing you want to do. One thing that the Lord
has done for me is he's never allowed me to
get too comfortable. He's allowed me to get comfortable. Maybe

(06:51):
sometimes he's even allowed me to get too comfortable. But again,
now you don't You don't want to go for a
long period of time without being brought up by the
short hairs and being spanked a little bit, having something
to come into your life that really sort of scares
you or upsets you. You know, that's God's way of saying,
you know, don't get too proud of yourself, don't get

(07:13):
so so happy, because the truth is, it's the humiliations,
it's the problems, it's the things that we've gone through
that sort of keeps us from becoming what's that thing
that causes us to rest on our laurels and we're
heading for trouble if we do. You know, I'll tell
you so, I'm gonna say some things that are going

(07:34):
to bother people. And all I can tell you is this,
I'm gonna say some shit that's gonna bother people. They're
gonna say this guy should never be allowed to speak
at an AA meeting. But understand something. I'm a product
of working these steps assiduously for thirty five years. I'm
a product of sponsoring anything that moves for thirty five years,

(07:57):
and do is I'm gonna sponsor. I'm a product of
going to three meetings a day forever, you know what
I mean, and doing this thing and reading the book
and all that is other books. So so don't blame
me because I was on's a guy who hated all
this stuff, you know what I mean. I'm a product
of alcoholics anonymous and working in this program, so I
may be full of shit, you know what I mean,

(08:19):
But it's not my fault. It's the Big Book's fault.
It's the twelve and Twelve's fault. And it's talk about
I'm a good old timer. It's a bob, it's there
for that's It's God's fault, you know. So I mean,
just blame him, don't blame me. You know, I'm just
not really like this. If you should see me the
way I'm really life, you know, like my former wife
saw me when I told you to have faced my wife,

(08:40):
my beautiful wife and mother and my child, my child
when we were at marriage counsel and I and he said,
what do you want to change about your wife? And
I said, I just want to date other women. So
that's who I really am, That's who I really am.
I'm gonna cruel asshole that doesn't give a shit about
anybody except myself. That's who I really am. So so
trust me, I'm I'm really not this I'm the other deal,

(09:03):
you know. So I'm just going to talk about what
what with this whole thing about the eleven steps? So
what it means to me now? Now obviously, you know
when you're seventy six years old and you've been doing
this thing for like thirty five years, you know, I
to squeeze this into like thirty minutes, you know, try
to explain to what's going on. But you know, but
I'm going to try to do the best I can. Now,

(09:23):
I go to a meeting every morning at seven a m.
Of the meeting. It's a zoom meeting. It's called SERENDI Now,
I'll tell anybody about it if they want to come.
It's great meeting. We get forty or fifty people from
all over the world, and at that meaning you're only
allowed to speak under a minute a minute or less.
I think that's wonderful, you know. I mean, I get
to do this stuff like you speak for an hour

(09:43):
and do it all the time. But and I used
to I used to hate crap when I used to
hate when they'd like time you and they cut you
off a mid sentence. They used to. But now I
love it because what happens is you sit there and
you have to discipline yourself, and you have to say,
what am I going to say that may be helpful
to somebody else that's honest and not shit, You're not bullshit,

(10:08):
And you've got to think about rather than just drowning
on or complain. Is there something I can bring that's
constructive to this deal? And oddly enough, you know, if
I focus on God, I always come up with like
a thirty second deal I can do. I can say
what I have to say, which may be helpful and
truthful in thirty seconds, you know what I mean. That's
not necessarily going to happen tonight, you know, because I

(10:29):
got a fill in the time, you know, it probably
could happen tonight. So I'm just gonna tell a little
bit about And I cannot do this without giving you opinions,
and you may discreet my opinions. My opinions are got
out there. They're all in violation of the traditions. I
guarantee you they're all in violation and traditions. I'm not

(10:49):
a big fan of the traditions, not because they're not good.
I'm not saying they're not good. There's a reason why,
you know, because I think it's the traditions are good
good how people interpret the traditions as keeping you in
a box. See the way there's some people that interpret
the traditions, and I guess I used to do that
is that is that you can't do anything unless it's

(11:11):
conference approved. In other words, Bill Wilson at fifteen years
brought together a group of alcoholics all had less than
fifteen years, at a business meeting somewhere, and they came
up with these traditions. Nothing bad about traditions. I like traditions.
They're okay, they're harmless. And then down the road it
morphed into people telling other people, well, that's a violation

(11:35):
that you read the Bible. That's a violation of traditions.
You're talking about this, that's a violation's editions. That book's
not conference approved. When all they used for the first
four years in AA, we have a book that says,
really haven't seen in Prince Field who's thoroughly followed our path.
And the only thing they used in AA was the
Holy Bible. Doctor Bob says. The books we found absolutely
essential were One Corinthian's thirteen Sermon on the Mount and

(11:57):
the Book of James. The book says, rarely haven't seen
fail who's failed? Who has thoroughly followed our path? And
their path was read the Holy Bible. If you ask
doctor Bob what's this thing all about, he'd say, why
don't you read the Bible? You'll find out we're all about.
If you ask him what's first things first, he'd say,
seek first the Kingdom of God. It is righteousness, and
all things will be given to you. So somehow, hey,

(12:19):
hey has turned so here. How about this one? Bill
Wilson said in Alcoholicsnomous number three, when Bill Dotson was
trying to figure out why you had this release, he said,
he said, listen, the Lord has been so wonderful to me,
curing me of Who do you think he was talking about?
He used the word lord, He didn't say has been
so wonderful to me. Right after he came out of

(12:41):
the hospital where he had that white light experience, you
know what I mean, he says, so this is the
God of the prophets. What do you think he was
talking about? Right after that, he says, the Lord has
been so wonderful to me, curing me of this terrible disease.
I got to keep talking about it and telling other people.
I had to keep talking about it and telling everybody
what the Lord has done for me. And that's and

(13:02):
it's called the Golden Text. And Bill Dotson said, he said,
that changed my life. That was the answer. Bill was very,
very just so grateful for what the Lord had done
from him. He had to tell he gave him all credit.
He had to tell other people. And that turned into
after the traditions that the guy didn't that more than
fifteen years, three years before he started taking LSD. You

(13:25):
know that that came into you can't talk about don't
talk about God because you're killing people. Doctor Bob went
up to Clarence to Brewmaster in the hospital in nineteen
thirty seven. It's in our literature, a comfort literature. First
thing he said to him, he says, do you believe
in God? Young fellow? Clarence says, what does that have
to do with it? Doctor Bob says everything. There was

(13:49):
nobody there to tell him he's not supposed to do
that because it violates their traditions. He says, well, I
guess I do. Guess nothing. I'm just using his words.
Guess nothing. It's in the book doctor about I guess nothing.
You either believe or you don't believe. There is no
middle of the road solution. I believe good, get out
of the bed, get down on the knees. You're going
to give your life to God. And you know what

(14:11):
Clarence said, he said, he said, I did what I
was ordered to do. There were no suggestions. So what
am I supposed to do when everything they did was
about the Lord, about God, about reading the book. And
now I going to meetings and I can go to
a meeting for an hour and people talking about their problems,
not one person mentions God. And if the guys mentions God,
you know somebody comes up to them, some guy with

(14:31):
thirteen years or fifteen years, and tells them how he's
violating the traditions. So to me, what the traditions do,
how some people use them is they keep you in
a box in a coffin, you know where you're not
allowed to step out of that coffin. AA to a
certain extent, is if you use it a certain way,

(14:52):
it's more religious than any sanctimonious religion on the planet.
Me an, a guy that says you can't do that,
you can't say that, you can't talk about that. You know,
don't put down religions. This place could become more strictly
religious in telling people what they can't do. And I'm
gonna tell you something. You know what it does. It

(15:12):
kills people because they never get to be rocketed in
the fourth dimension of existence. Because in order to do that,
you got to get involved with the great factor, the
great factors. This is nothing less, nothing less than this.
God has to become the central fact of your life,
which has something to do with the eleventh step. And
you've got to be convinced, not say well, probably or likely, well,
I sort of, none of that, none of that, any

(15:35):
of that agnostic bullshit, you know what I mean. You've
got to be convinced that God is living in your
heart in a miraculous way, allowing you to do things
that you wouldn't be able to do by yourself. Now,
that's the big book. God is everything or he's nothing.
God is everything or he's nothing. If you don't think

(15:58):
God is everything and the most important thing in your life,
then don't tell anybody you believe in God because it's bullshit.
It's alky bullshit, it's not really Listen, you either understand
the English language and the sentences, or you don't. You're
either a liging, delusional alcoholic who can't separate the truth

(16:19):
from the false, whose alcohol thinking is the only way. Somehow,
everything is a fucking loophole, a way you can slide out. Well,
you got your program. I got no, there's only one program.
God is. Either there is or he isn't. Well, I'm
an atheist. Why I got news for you? God either
is or he isn't. There are no atheists in AA.
If you're an atheist, then you're a AA. You're not

(16:41):
doing the AA program. You're doing something that you've sort
of made up. I know why because in the Big
Book it says, which is our basic book. We all agree,
you know, it says eighth atheism, agnosticism, these things have
to be abandoned. You got abandon yourself to God. How
do you do the eleventh step? If you haven't abandon yourself,

(17:03):
if you're an athing how do you do that? I
guess you pray to yourself. Yeah, you just sort of
pray to yourself, say thank God, I'm wonderful, thank God.
I'm spiritual, not religious. You know what I mean? Why
do I tell you these things? This is what I believe.
This is my opinion. Stand up, leave the thing. That
guy's so full of shit, It's fine with me. You
can discover what's really going on when you're twenty five

(17:25):
years and you start drinking again, or when you're fifteen
years and you feel like shit and you don't know
why because you're going to a lot of meetings and
they're not working for you anymore. So it's entirely possible.
As full of shit as you think I am, you
may change your opinion ten years down the road. So

(17:45):
the fact so another is when I read the Big Book, now,
this is never the way it used to be, and
I say Bill Wilson talking all about God, all about God,
He's everything or he's nothing. And then two months later
going up to Henrietta Cyreling, I'm getting this all out
of our literature and saying, Henrietta, I think we talk
too much about God and religion. I think we own

(18:07):
to back off of that. Because he got slapped down
for the same reason why you guys don't want to
talk about it, because you're scared somebody's going to slap
you down at a meeting or tell you you're stupid.
And he got slapped down, and Bill Wilson immediately gave
up on God threw him under the bus, the same
guy that is the only And Henrietta said to say, Bill,
the only reason you're sober is because of God. And

(18:29):
if you don't talk about God and give credit to God,
you might as well be the Rotary Club. For God's sakes.
You got to talk about God. And he says, Finally,
Bill agree, And then he writes this book with the
help of other people, and it's all about God. All
it says there is one who has all powers. Anybody

(18:50):
you ever read that. I'm not making this shit up.
This isn't Russell Spatson's making up. There is one who
has all power. That one is God. May you find
him now, because if you read the doc Bobam Good
old timers, the only way you go to an A
meeting back then you had to get down on your
knees in front of everybody in AA. If we were
doing this thing the way they did nineteen thirty five,
every one of you would have already before they got

(19:11):
in here, gone down your knees in front of everybody
else and giving your life to God, or else you
would have got in here. Really haven't seen Princeville, who's
thirly father? Are path They're not even doing this thing
the way they did it. So now I got Doc,
I got Bill. All of a sudden, he's writing this book.
He's been that all this this, and Hank Pod Harris

(19:31):
Hurst or whatever the guy's name comes up to him
Parker's and says, well, you can't do that, say as
you understand him. Everything like that start and Bill because
he's worried about what people think about him, and he's
more interested in getting in the numbers than doing the
doctor Bob thing. You either do or you don't. No,
don't do that. You do it? What about if people
walk out? They may not like us, you know what

(19:53):
I mean? So Bill says, puts this little thing in
it so it allows you to sort of slide in
good bed. I don't even make that judge. Maybe that's
what God wanted. Even the atheists in here, who so
can hear this message? I don't put that down, you
understand I'm saying. So, all of a sudden, he writes
this book and it's all about God. And then he

(20:13):
slips in after saying God, God, God, God God. Last page,
your real reliance must be on God. This is Bill
Wilson's words. He will show you how to create the
fellowship you crave, which I have a feelings in an
atheist fellowship. You know what I mean. See to what

(20:35):
your relationship with Him is right, and great events will
happen for you and countless others, and you'll meet us
in the fellowship of the Spirit. Now listen, I was
born at night, but I wasn't born last night. I
don know what the fuck they're talking about. You understand
what I'm saying. I'm not stupid. If you don't understand
what those words mean, I don't tell you like ALKI stupid?

(20:55):
I don't know. You're just illusional. You just want to
do it your way. You know that's the bottom line. Now,
you see, that's an opinion, but its opinion based upon
honestly reading the book. Not honestly reading the book, but
doing it my way anyway. It's either doing what they
say in the book or saying, well, I want to

(21:16):
do it my way anyway, you know. I mean, really,
it's one or the other. So, I mean, if we're
gonna if I'm gonna start talking about what happened to
me as far as the eleventh step, I have to
be honest with you. You know, even Bill was backing off.
Bob never backed off of that. I used to be
a big bill guy, A big bill guy. Why not.

(21:36):
Bill was a wonderful guy. I mean, I'm not putting
him down. You know he writes in the Big Book
every once in a while a new man used to
be a drinker, says, feel better, look better, having a
better time. We laugh at such sally. Soon we know
he'll try the old game again because he's not happy
with sobriety. He'll know loneliness if you do. And fifteen
years l fifteen or sixteen or seventeen years later, he

(21:58):
was right there and he was used. You know, let's
need to try to experiment, to see where he could
find a better way of doing it besides the god thing.
Because he wasn't like Bob. Bob was different as a
matter that it's kind of in my mind reading everything
that happens, almost like Bob was sponsored. Bob was the
rock that was sponsoring him. You know what I mean.
Bill was from Manhattan. You know, I'm from New York Manhattan.
I get that thing. Bob was from the Midwest. He

(22:20):
was a believer. He was a real deal. He wasn't
here for the fame. He wasn't here for the You know,
you can read about Bob. Read Doctor Bob and the Girl.
For God's sakes, read it. Read about him. The first
meeting was done by doctor Bob. You know what he did,
put his foot on the the rung of a dining
room chair and read Matthew five six and seven, The
Sermon on the Mount. That was AA for Bob Smith,

(22:41):
the Sermon on the Mount. And people, let me tell
you something, Why don't you call it New York and
say say this, ask him, this is the Bible disapproved.
I don't think you'll ever have AA past some sort
of law rules saying the Bible is disapproved, because then
you know people are serious. Leave A. You see a

(23:03):
lot of people leave AA that are solid. You'll see
a lot of people you know what I mean. So
the bottom line is I have opinions, but I'm being
honest with you. I got opinions about stuff. And so
then Bill what he does is, after we put all
this stuff in there about God, God, God, he puts
in appendix too. I'm not a big fan of appendix too.

(23:25):
I gotta be honest with you that I see a
lot of good things that I see stuff in it
makes some sense. But he throws in appendix too, which
sort of says, well, believe in the god thing, but
you do whatever the fuck you want to do. Well,
I understand I use the F word. What the heck

(23:46):
where you got all Alki's here right. You know I'm
not perfect. I've got my problems. You work on your problems.
I'll work on my problems. You know. I'll take this
up with a word. When I see him, he'll say,
you use the F words so much. I said, listen,
these guys love the F word, that's all. They use
the F word all the time, even though they're not
saying that. It's floating around in the brain. You wouldn't
believe what's going on. You wouldn't believe if you distilled

(24:07):
them all. We put them all on a mixer and
we just pushed the button, all that would come out
is fuck shit. All this sort of stuff just come up.
They're just full of shit, you know what I mean.
There's a guy back there saying, I like this guy
he talks to he like, I think you know what
I mean? Talks ALKI he's not trying to put on
airs or anything like that and make himself look bigger.
But you know, I understand the people saying this guy's

(24:27):
a krummy Christian. I am a krummy Christian. When then
when it became a deacon of the church, I said,
I'm an alcohol come crazy. He says, You'll be the
crazy deacon. Anybody who comes to the church that we
think is crazy, we're sending them to you, you know
what I mean. So that's the deal. I'm I'm here
for the crazy people. So you know, I'm not here
to say I'm perfect or anything like that. So that's

(24:47):
that's the deal. So that's where I'm coming from, you understand.
But that's only after many many years. So now that
I said that, I want to read appendix too, and
I want to talk. I'm gonna use that is to
jumping off place to give you an idea of what
this is. What I'm talking about as far as so

(25:10):
I'm gonna read. I'm not gonna read the whole thing,
just a couple of paragraphs, and then we're gonna talk
about your education. We're talking about spirituality. A lot of
people use the words spirituality. Everybody ever say well, I'm
spiritual not religious. You ever say I'm spiritual not religious.

(25:32):
Is there anybody who actually believes that? Don't raise your hands.
I don't want to embarrass you. Does anybody actually believe
that they are now spiritual? I mean they've been in
AA thirty three years or twenty five years or ten years,
and Russell, you can tell this to a newcomer. But
I'm a spiritual person. I'm not religious. I'm just spiritual.

(25:54):
Now good because I'm calling up the RS. I want
to take all the money out of your account. We're
gonna see how you're doing. We're gonna have the doctor
say you got cancer and you got three months to live.
We're gonna see how you're dealing with that. We're gonna
see how spiritual are when things don't go your way,
and a lot of things don't go your way because
I'm not spiritual. I'm a material man and a material

(26:15):
I am the original material girl, even before Madonna. I
am a material girl. I am a man. I know
myself well enough to know you are a material You
know you know why every once in a while I'll
get anxious because I still do every once in a while.
I get anxious. Every once in a while, I get,
you know, a little worried every once in a while.
You know why I never get perfect on this thing,
because I'm still in the flesh. I still feel pain,

(26:40):
i still feel worried. I'm I'm a material man in
a material world. And you want to know something. It
even says in the Big Book when you talk about
step six and seven. We don't want to deprecate material achievement.
But nobody's ever met and made a worse move of
living by if I only had a new carp had
a new woman, if I only had a new job,

(27:01):
or if finally was married, if only this, then us
I was a material man when I walked in here,
I'm the guy who's sitting in a meeting. Turned to
my sponsor. I say, look at the blonde in the
front row. He's saying, you see that blonde in the
front row. I said, yeah, he says, that's for you.
That's a bottle of scotch with legs. You know what
I mean? I am. I spend one hour in a meeting,

(27:24):
Maybe I hold hands and say the Lord's prayer. Maybe
I saved this writing prayer and then I walk out
of the meeting, and then I spend the rest of
my life looking at TV and run around looking at
the girls and cars and everything in the material world.
And it screws me up. It screws me up because

(27:44):
I'm a half assed believer, because I'm not focused on God,
because he's not the central fact in my life. So
let me read you the appendix too. You know everybody
wants to point to Appendix two as being something important,
So let's do that, okay. It says the term spiritual
experience and spiritual awakening are used many times in this book, which,

(28:13):
upon careful reading, shows that the personality change sufficient to
bring about recovery from alcoholism. And you're going to learn
that alcoholism is more than just stopping drinking. We listen,
I sponsored to many people, and I am an alcoholic,
and I'm know one thing. As soon as you put
down the drink, then you really realize how crazy you are.

(28:37):
Before before you stop drinking, you think everybody else is
freaking crazy. You know what I mean, that the world
is crazy. You stop drinking and you realize that you
are fucking nuts. You understand what I'm saying, that you
are crazy okay. The term spiritual experience and spiritual awakening

(28:58):
are used many times in this book, which, upon careful reading,
shows that the personality change sufficient to bring about recovery
from alcoholism from the crazy thinking and the crazy emotions.
Alcoholics are addicted to their feelings. They call me up.
They want to talk about would you believe what happened?
You know that I just got this? Don't you cannot?

(29:19):
You know what? Who does you? They call me up.
They're going seventy eight RPM about their feelings and what's
bothering them and everything like that. Because they love feeling
sorry for themselves. They love hating people, They love thinking
about themselves. They love how life is unfair. They love
their feelings. And here's what happens. They can be brilliant,

(29:40):
but when you miss feelings with brilliants, you know, with
the intellect, you know, the feelings trump theThe like, then
you do stupid shit. You write your boss a letter,
you get fired, You do stupid shit, And you know something.
You're not addicted to alcohol. You're addicted to feelings sorry
for yourself, which is sometimes why I have to say

(30:01):
to an alcohol man, at least you know, I say,
I say, you're forty years old. When are you gonna
fucking grow up? Oh, don't worry, Joe, it's gonna be
a year Offuck. You know something, You're pathetic, pathetic, you know,
call me up? Why I feel like committing suicide? Fine,
why don't you go ahead and do it? I don't

(30:21):
have time for your bullshit. You know why? Because I
because I don't want to be sentenced to allan On.
They're all in allen On. They've been trying to fix
us for a year and they wound up sucking their
thumb and allen On the turn. Spiritual experience and spiritual
awakening are used many times in this book, which, upon
careful reading, shows that the person will change now, change

(30:44):
sufficient to bring about recovery from our craziness has manifest
itself among us in many different forms. Yet it is
true that our first printing gave many readers the impression, well,
why wouldn't say that? Because because that's what it said.
That's why it gave us an impression. But now that

(31:06):
I'm Bill Wilson and I don't want you to not
like me, I'm gonna sort of wipe water everything down.
First printing gave many readers the impression just because I
saw a white light and I changed, and Bob is
and we're talking about reading the you know, the the
the Sermon on the Mountain and all of shad done.
Don't get the wrong impression, now, Okay. Yet it is

(31:29):
true that our first printing gave many readers the impression
that these personality changes or religious experiences that we all
talked about must be in the nature of sudden and
spectacular upheables. Happily, for everyone that conclusion is erroneous. Well, okay, fine,
that's cool. You know, I'm gonna tell you just about

(31:51):
my experience in the first few chapters the number of
I don't have any problem with that. In the first
two chapters, a number of sudden revolutionary were described. Though
it was not our intention to create such an impression. Well,
then you shouldn't have written it down in the big
book in the first place. You know, don't come back

(32:12):
later on after you write down all this incredible stuff
that happens to people, you know, whether you get rocking
and fourth manchon that says, well, it's not I'm cussion
to do that, then you should have written down what
actually happened. Many outcohols have nevertheless concluded that in order
to recover, they must acquire an immediate and overwhelming God consciousness,
followed by at once a vast change in feeling. Now listening,

(32:35):
let me explain something to you. This is important, you understand.
You know when he wrote this, when he had three
and a half four years sobriety. Anybody have more than
four years sobriety in here? I mean I have. You
know I'm in my one of my thirty fifth year,
you're in your thirty third year. Let me tell you something.
You'd be amazed at the changes you have in your
thinking between three and four years and thirty five years.

(32:57):
You understand you'd be amazed. You may find it hard
to believe. You try to find a person who has
forty years who doesn't believe in God. Let me tell
you something. You're gonna find one of these days when
you when you're start looking around the rooms, they have
all these what do they say? They stand up and
sit down at the conventions. You know you're gonna find

(33:18):
that that thinking this way will keep you sober for
five years, or ten years, or fifteen years. You're gonna
find somewhere around twenty years. Everybody drops off like they
drop it off a cliff, and only one half of
one percent stay sober, one in two hundred, and only
maybe one in four hundred stay sober for more than
thirty years. And you're gonna find that even the ones

(33:38):
that make it past twenty years, there are many of
them that are unhappy with their sobriety. I mean, Brent,
one of the things I think he just said, he says,
I was sort of lost and I had like twenty years,
twenty thirty. I get these. I get people all see
the difference between you and me is I get people
that call me up with thirty years. I get people
that call me up with twenty five years and they're suicidal.

(34:00):
Don't get that. You don't see that in meetings. You
see people with three years that have problem. You don't
see people with twenty five years that have problems. And
every single one of them, every single one of them,
their problem is not they don't know how to do
the fourth step, and most of them are still going
to meetings and that's why they're calling me up. Every
single one of them knows how to do the steps.
Every single one of them has tried intensive work with alcoholics,

(34:22):
and it's just a band aid, and now they're lost,
and every one of them don't have a decent relationship
with the Lord. So it's possible I may see things
differently than the way Bill Wilson saw it at three
and a half. For four years, do you understand what
I'm saying? So you read this like it's the Holy Bible.
And I read this saying, well, I'll tell you something.

(34:44):
I've been around for a long time, and I'm thinking
a little bit differently. And then I read about how
Bill Wilson, at twenty five years it's been in nineteen
fifty nine, publishes an essay Emotional Sobriety the Next Frontier,
and he says, I was going nuts at twenty five years.
And he says, but I've run into a few people

(35:06):
that really have their shit together, that the beninted ones.
And he says, perhaps they will be the spear end
of the next major development in AA, a closer relationship
to God. He says, you know, my problem was I
rely too much upon people, places, things, and alcoholics, Anoto
and alcohol. It's anonymous and alcohol. So I walk into

(35:30):
him in a and everybody worships the big book, and
they worship Bill Wilson, they worship everything in there, and
they want to beat up and crucify anybody who says
anything that may throw some shade on this shit. And
I walk in here with experience. I walk in here
with you know, forty five years of experience watching what
happens to people that don't really get what they were

(35:52):
saying in their first depression here don't get it, and
that they die in the vine and they drink again,
and I tell my story and they walk out on me.
They don't want to hear that shit because they don't
want to do it anyway, Because in chapters of the Agnostics,
they said, if a mere co to morals or a
better philosophy of life would have helped us, would be sober.
Long time ago doesn't help us. We had to find
the power by which we could live. And therefore, of
course we have to talk about God, okay, which, of

(36:15):
course Bill Wilson regretted, saying that I guess after he
after he got three months later, that's when you wrote
appendix too. Well, we had to have a god, he says.
Here's where we have problems with we're agnostics. These are
not people that are atheists, and they say, well I
do or I don't. They're namby pamby, they're half measures.
Here's what the problem happens with the agnostics. So when
you see the people walk out and they get pissed

(36:37):
off at what I'm saying, you say, oh, those guys
must be the agnostics. You don't have, you don't have
to try to figure it out. They raise their hands.
They say, wait, that's that's boils your way. They say,
if you understand them, it's you know, those are the agnostics.
So you get to make your decision. You get to

(36:58):
make you so wait, let me keep on reading it.
Among our rapidly growing memberships a thousands of alcoholics, such transformations,
though frequent, are by no means a rule. And then
it says this, It says it talks about they're frequent,
that no means a rule. Most of our experience are

(37:18):
what the psychologist William James calls the educational variety. The
educational variety, I'm a skip a paragraph that says, most
of us think that the awareness of the power greater
than ourselves is Yes, it's some spiritual experience. Are more

(37:39):
religious members call it God consciousness. So I want to
talk about the educational variety and God's consciousness. Wrap this
up in about five minutes. Okay, welcome to What you're
gonna find out is your education. You know what the
educational listen. I had a spiritual experience. I want to
tell you something. I had a spiritual experience. I'm not
gonna tell you about it. Not that I'm ashamed of it,

(37:59):
but I'm not gonna tell you about it because you
may have it, you may not have it. Let me
tell you about the education in alcoholics anonymous. Let me
tell you about the spiritual experience. When you come to
a and you pick up white chip and you want
to stay sober, and things aren't going well, and your
nine days sober. But if you go to a meeting anyway,
even though you have no money in your broke, that's

(38:20):
a spiritual experience. You could be depressed asself, but you
go to meeting anyway. It's a spiritual experience. When you
sponsor your first person, even though you're stupid and you
can't sponsor somebody, but you know you're supposed to sponsor
somebody's spike. God, God says you need to sponsor somebody
or do anything and you end up doing it. When
you don't want to do it, but you end up
doing it. That's a spiritual experience. I don't give a

(38:40):
shit about the feelings. That's a spiritual experience. Okay. When
you feel like you want to blow your brains out,
you know what I mean, and that your life is
going crappy, but instead of picking up a drink, you
pick up the phone or you call your sponsor and
he says, go to meeting. You start going to more meetings,
and you're reading the Big Book and you're doing this
upse that's a spiritual experience, you know. Well, let me

(39:02):
tell you something else. When you have a wife and
four children or three children or two children, whatever it is,
and you're broken. You don't have fifty dollars and you
can't even fill up your car with gas, and you
know where money's coming from, and you're waking up at
three o'clock in the morning. You understand what you're waking
up at three o'clock in the morning, and you have
no idea what's going on. So you pick up the
Big Book and you start reading a couple of things,

(39:23):
and at least you get to a point where you
can go to sleep and then you wake up thinking
about the money, and that happens for days. And you
know something, and you get on your knees and you pray.
That's a spiritual experience, and you don't drink. That's a
spiritual experience. When the doctor tells you you've got cancer
three times and you got to either have an operation
or you know in a second, you've got to go
through radiation and stuff like that, and instead of instead

(39:46):
of wanting or crying about it, you say, okay, I
understand that. And you say, thank you Lord, thank you Lord.
Let me have a doctor, and you're not scared or anything.
You know something, that sounds a fucking spiritual experience. That's
a spiritual experience. You know something, when you go up
to your sponsor and you tell them you want to
divorce your wife, you know what I mean, because she

(40:09):
said something or did something or something like that, and
you're you got ten years sobriety and you're sponsoring everything
inside and you're doing all that sort of stuff. And
he says, you know something, It says, the only reason
you're upset is because you're upsetable. Why don't you grow
the fuck up? You know what I mean, and you
stay married and you do what you're supposed to do,
and you have some integrity. You know what that is.
That's a spiritual experience. That's a spiritual experience. I'm just

(40:32):
telling you that that's what it is, you know. I mean,
there's a lot of things that are gonna happen to
you in your life where you're gonna think they're horrible
and they're terrible and everything like that, and they're all
gonna be spiritual experiences, and every one of them is
gonna change you. But you're not gonna be changed necessarily
because of the good times. Good times you're gonna enjoy,
you're gonna rest, you're gonna put up your feet, You're
gonna say, isn't that great? I'm sober? Everything is wonderful.

(40:54):
You're gonna change. You're gonna change in times that feel
so unspiritual. They're gonna feel like they're horror stories, you
know what I mean. You know, and you're gonna get
through them, and you're not gonna drink and you're gonna
you're gonna do service or you're gonna do something else.
Those are all spiritual experience, you know. I know their
spiritual experiences, because that's what it was for me. And

(41:14):
they're gonna change you. They're gonna change your stupid thinking.
They're gonna change your materialistics thinking thinking. You're gonna lose
people are gonna die on you, you're gonna lose money,
You're gonna have also's health problem. I mean, crap is
going to happen. It's gonna be a spiritual experience. And
with every experience you have where your legs are cut
off from under you and you realize how unspiritually you are,

(41:36):
and you realize how worried you are, and you got
so much pride, false pride. You can't tell anybody about it.
You can't even talk to your A group because you're
wried a what they're gonna think about you, and it's
killing you. And then finally you talk to somebody and
you go up to them and you tell them at
eleven years or twelve years, I don't know what to do.
And the guy says, you know, you need to start
going to Bible study and get serious about this stuff
and serious about God. And you look at him and say,

(41:57):
what are you stupid? Let me tell you something. I'm
an AA for twelve years. I'm spiritual, not religious, you
know what I mean. And you wind up in a
Bible study on Thursday morning at all colored Presbyterian chor
church and you don't even know why you're there. Let
me tell you something. That's a fucking spiritual experience. And
you fall in love with all the forty men there

(42:19):
that are talking about God and talking about their life
and talk about everything we're talking about in the year.
But the only difference is every single one of them,
even though they're going through cancer, they're in uh stage
four cancer, they're dying stuff, every one of them ends
up talking about the Lord and what God has done
from which you never hear in AA and nobody says

(42:39):
you're stupid, you know. And when they hold up a
picture of a squirrel and they say what is this,
then you know it's a squirrel. But you know the
answer is Jesus. You know what I mean, because it's
always Jesus. You know what I mean. That's a spiritually experience,

(43:00):
you know what I mean. And you know the only
difference is all those people are men. And I mean, amen,
I'm not talking about babies. I'm not talking about children.
I'm not talking about thumbsucking cry babies. They got their
shit together, they raise kids, they take their life serious,
they don't whine and cry, and they take the lumps

(43:21):
and they get through it. That's the spiritual experience. And
then you get to walk into Alcoholics Anonymous and listen
to what's going on. I'm gonna tell you something. If
you don't think you get different opinions based upon growing
sober INAA and out of AA and watching what's going

(43:41):
on in here. You may think I'm crazy. You may
think I'm sacrilegious. Okay, stay sober for thirty years, forty years,
Let's see what you think. Let's see what you think.
You know, Yeah, we all are very proud of ourselves,
and we love each other and we hand out stuff
and that's all well and good. I'm not putting it down.

(44:02):
I'm just telling you. Bill Wilson wrote this big book
when he had three and a half years, got twenty
three years. He was saying, I screwed the whole thing up,
and he was totally read it. Read what he says.
I was totally wrong. Bob Smith's last words that Bill
Wilson was, let's not screw this thing up. Keep it simple. Bill.
He saw it, he knew what was going on. So
you know, listen, this is not about worshiping the Big

(44:24):
Book of Alcoholics and imus worshiping Bill Wilson or even
doctor Bob or even me whoever. It's not about what.
It's about understanding that they were right the first time. Well,
they were right the first thing time. Your real reliance
has to be on God. May you find him now.
That's what this is all about. And what the By
the way, by the way, the eleventh step says, improve

(44:47):
your conscious contact with God. Let me tell you what
that means. That means exactly what it says, improve your
conscious You know, conscious contact means you're consciously thinking about God.
You wake up in the morning thinking about God, you
go to sleep night thinking about God. All during the day,
you're thinking about God. You're driving up here, you're playing music.
It's all about God. That's a conscious contact. You're consciously

(45:08):
thinking about God. And when you're doing that, eighty percent
of the time, you know what you're supposed to do.
You're supposed to improve that when you do it, nineties
at a time, you suppose you know you're supposed to
improve that. You know why you're supposed to improve that
that God consciousness, because that's one of the steps that
you guys think you're doing thoroughly as you walk out

(45:30):
of the meetings where somebody's talking about God, and you
know what happens when you're consciously always thinking about God.
All of a sudden, you stop thinking about getting laid.
All of a sudden, you stop thinking looking at the
women in the room. All of a sudden, the women
stop looking at the men in the room. All of
a sudden, you stop thinking about why you don't have
a new car. All of a sudden, you stop thinking
about all the things in the world. And what you
do is think about God, and then you don't do

(45:52):
stupid shit, so you don't have to make a lot
of amends, and you've changed into a different type of
human being is totally out of the question. Not because
it's not because because you haven't conformed to AA. You've
been transformed by God and you become a whole different
person who could talk this crazy shit at meetings and

(46:16):
say stuff like this and be like this. Not because
you're good because you're a whack job, because he's good,
because God is good. Because that's what God does to
you when you focus on them, and that's really what
the Big books is all about. And when you understand
what the Big Book's all about, all of a sudden,
all these sentences that I took right out of the

(46:37):
Big Book makes sense because what happens. If you look
at the sentences, you'll understand what this thing is all about.
But if you look at the paragraphs what happens, you
can always find the loophole. You'll find something because you're
an alcoholic saying, yeah, but that applies to you, but
it doesn't apply to me. It doesn't apply to me.

(46:59):
But the good news is this, and then I'm gonna
end with this. The good news is this. I don't
want you to worry about because AA, it's like a
giant's self cleaning oven. Every two years, the alcohol comes through,
the craziness comes through and wipes out all the bullshit,
you understand, and cleans us up. Because if that didn't happen,

(47:20):
they'd be all sorts of fights and shit going on
in here. And you so on cleaning out all the bullshit.
And what's left over is you know what's left over
is what's left over? You understand what I'm saying. So
You don't have to worry whether you believe me, or
you like me, or you don't like me. You think
I'm a little rough. I used the money, curse words,
whatever the hell it is, whatever the hell it is

(47:41):
that I've said that you don't like, which permits you
to ignore everything I said. You go with that, You
know what I mean. I ain't worried at all because
I know there's a great world out there, filled the
material stuff, just looking to beat the shit out of you.
You understand what I'm saying. It's just out there, and
if you haven't figured that out, you just haven't been

(48:03):
sober long enough. God bless you. Thank you very much.